Have not seen it mentioned and did neither turn up on a search, but on sep 4th came a new version of FFG's AI:

https://images-cdn.fantasyflightgames.com/filer_public/2d/6d/2d6d1669-5a0d-4a05-b022-5cf09c937655/x-wing-solorules_openalpha-compressed_v2.pdf

"-The attitude of each solo ship is now persistent from round to round, portraying the individual pilot’s perspective on the battle, limiting their maneuver choices to those better suited to their situation, and changing when they inflict damage on their foes or receive it in return.

-Several maneuver results have changed on the approach charts, as have some action priorities, with less common actions like repairing damage cards or reloading ordnance moving to a fourth “Recovery” attitude.

-The introductory scenario has also been updated with starting attitudes for all solo ships.

-Significant changes to the approach charts to improve solo ship maneuver choices.

-Modifications to Approach Roll for stress that factor in the Recovery Attitude shifts.

-Tally Marker for specific objective scenarios.

FEEDBACK When providing feedback on this version, please focus on how the changes to the Attitude system affect the experience of game play".

AI ships near the board edge do not longer get disarms, so that can no longer be gamed to the player's advantage.

Solo ship with target lock choose that ship as tally in most cases (helping he problem that TL did not really matter in v1, making e.g. TIE bombers pretty toothless).

Have not had the time yet to really analyse the changes in depth, neither to put it to test on board.

@Tervlon brought it up in the original thread and I updated that one's op since the only thing that changed in the article was the links, but thank you for reposting this. Hopefully it'll catch the eye of others that missed the changes to the other thread so they can continue to contribute to Solo Play's refinement.

1 hour ago, Hiemfire said:

@Tervlon Hopefully it'll catch the eye of others that missed the changes to the other thread so they can continue to contribute to Solo Play's refinement.

Consider my eye caught. Thanks for posting the topic @Managarmr . I read the article quickly and didn't realize they had made so many tweaks. Time to give it another try!

I've tried one game with v2 so far.
I got used to the attitude changes more quickly than I expected too, though I think I still missed a number of the triggers.
Another game awaits...

Been absent from the game for a while (read covid-lockdown). So I missed any prior theads on this, so apologies if everything I said has been covered already.

First of all, I'm very excited to see official solo play rules.

*Note. I have played a bit of Hotac using V1.0 xwing and V2.0 xwing rules, so my opinions might be biased.

Initial comments after reading (but not yet playing the rules):

1) I absolute hate the "tally" keyword. A tally is a count.... the AI ship is not counting anything its targeting / prioritizing / making decisions based on something.

2) Come on... medium and large ships exist in the game.

3) Obstacles? I looked to me like the AI wont fly off the table (which is good for them), but they will blindly fly into every asteroid out there. I hope I just missed something here.

4) The attitude change seems a bit excessive. Feels like any step in the game makes a potential attitude change.

Right, so now I have played a game.

I made some mistakes on my side which has definitely affected my experience, but here is what I played.

Only 1 game, so more data needed for better feedback. I played scum (2x Starvipers) vs Sepratists (Vultures and Hyenas)
*I made one huge mistake here in taking TUB (Lowest Init) Hyenas instead of Sepratist Bombers (Highest Init).

So comments in general (in no sensible sequence whatsoever)

1) Number the document pages. This makes it easier to give feedback on the correct section.

2) Remove the 1st set of Approach charts. The second set is good.

3) The initial setup is pretty much fixed to the exact same position all the time.
Range 3 from any board edge leaves a "range 3 x range 3" square in the middle of the table. The only way to place 2 hyperspace markers in this square, that are also range 3 from each other is picking two opposing corners and placing the makers in them. (Didn't have hyperspace markers in my Vassal, but you get the point)

3)

4) I assumed the hyperspace marker can be overlapped/moved over without any game effect. Please state this somewhere in the rules.

5) It was not clear to me if both solo ships (deployment, round 4, round 7 same issue each time) had to come out of two separate hyperspace markers, or if they could come out of the same one.
I rolled one attack die first (hits + crits) vs (blanks + eyes) to determine which marker to use. Then I rolled a second attack die to determine the facing. I was lucky enough that I didn't get 2 ships on the same marker and same position, but I would have re-rolled. After the game I assumed this was not 100% correct, and that each ship had to come out at a different marker.

The reason I did it like this was because it didn't feel "fair" if I could choose which solo ship pop up at which marker. I know the rules state random marker, but with no further explanation as to where the first one comes out... make it clear and easy which ship comes out where, and also the sequence so its not up to player choice.

6) Consider making the initial deployed solo ships at least face my board edge. In my game both pointed away from me, going off into opposite corners. So I was "behind" them from the start, making it quite easy to pick them off one by one. (Will need to play more games. Maybe its too hard if they come strait for you from the start and I just got lucky?)

7) Consider forcing a fixed sequence for all the solo ships that has the same initiative. Something simple, like numbering them as they deploy and always activating them in that sequence (obviously this applies to ships within the same initiative step. Different initiatives will still use correct initiative order)

The reason for this is that as it is now its too easy to try and force them to bump deliberately. Take the option to "cheat" away.

8 ) For the approach chart. Put the action/attitude column on the right of the table so it is used from left to right.
Ie I roll, check on the leftmost columns what my roll is, check following column for my maneuver, and then for the next step (attitude change) I check the last column.

9) Consider making the steps in activation phase clear in terms of the normal game phase.
In other words you activate a ship, it goes through the steps 1-5 as listed in these rules, immediately followed by the normal activation phase rules of making the maneuver and taking its action.
This might be obvious, but in my first turn I got confused, setting down dials for each solo ship first, and then started over with their actual activation. Yes, I did it wrong, but because the rules wasn't clear.
This will also make it clear that the solo ship attitude change happens between selecting a maneuver (placing a dial) and taking an action.

10 ) I might have missed something in the rules, but I couldn't see any way for a ship to change its tally. So they deploy, they target the closest ship (based on arc sequence etc) and then they spend chasing that ship until one of them dies, irrespective of where other ships are? The only exception is if it somehow gets to lock a different target.

Because step a) of Identify tally is... "The object with its tally marker". So 99% of the time it will just keep trying to get to one enemy ship.

This feels like an abusable situation where I can pretty much use one ship as bait, and the other as killer knowing my enemy will never stop chasing the carrot.

11) Silly suggestion, but consider swapping the Defense and Offence attitude markers.
Currently its shield (blue) for offence and (red) for defense.
To me the blue (shield up) made more sense to show defense, while red seemed more aggressive, so offense. But I guess its not really important.

12) My Hyena's were never in offensive state. Mostly they toggled between balanced and defense. Which means they never even tried to do the target lock action. Which means they never tried to shoot torpedoes.

13) All in all I enjoyed it. It took quite long to get through the 9 rounds it took to kill all the enemy ships but it didn't feel hard at any point. Just long because I had to keep checking charts and rules every step. So I expect my time will get much shorter. One comment I have is that the AI seemed quite random at times, making obvious "bad" choices. I know it complicates things a lot, but I do feel that range to tally should somehow play into their decision making. Currently its a combination of bearing + attitude + randomness. But it makes no difference whether I'm R1 or R3, they still do the same move.

14) The choice to randomly go towards / away from obstacles on some rolls really didn't make sense.

15) Except for the random rolls mentioned in (14) obstacles played no part in the maneuver choice. Sure they try to avoid them in the action step, but they fly blindly over them in maneuver.

16) Said it before, saying it again. I don't like the keyword "tally". I keep expecting something to be counted.

Obviously, like I said. Only 1 game down, and only read the rules through once. So I probably made many many mistakes which influenced my comments. But wanted to get it out there while it was fresh in my mind.

5 hours ago, Bort said:

10 ) I might have missed something in the rules, but I couldn't see any way for a ship to change its tally. So they deploy, they target the closest ship (based on arc sequence etc) and then they spend chasing that ship until one of them dies, irrespective of where other ships are? The only exception is if it somehow gets to lock a different target.

Because step a) of Identify tally is... "The object with its tally marker". So 99% of the time it will just keep trying to get to one enemy ship.

This feels like an abusable situation where I can pretty much use one ship as bait, and the other as killer knowing my enemy will never stop chasing the carrot.

My understanding was that each ship chooses a new tally each time it activates, and that "tally markers" would be used for scenarios where you wanted the solo ships to attack a particular ship (e.g. a shuttle you're escorting). It's explained in the terms definition near the start:

Quote

Tally: A tally is an object that the pilot of a solo ship has spotted and is concentrating on. When a solo ship activates, it will choose its tally and use the tally’s location to determine what maneuver it selects and reveals. Solo ships will
attempt to fly towards their tally, but will not always succeed in doing so. You do not need to keep track of a solo ship’s tally after it completes its activation.

Tally Marker: A token that indicates a permanent tally for a solo ship, as part of an objective for certain scenarios. Standard solo ships will not track a persistent tally

5 hours ago, Bort said:

11) Silly suggestion, but consider swapping the Defense and Offence attitude markers.
Currently its shield (blue) for offence and (red) for defense.
To me the blue (shield up) made more sense to show defense, while red seemed more aggressive, so offense. But I guess its not really important.

I thought that initially as well. I think the reasoning is that shields down means you want to defend because you've taken damage.

17 hours ago, Bort said:

1) I absolute hate the "tally" keyword. A tally is a count.... the AI ship is not counting anything its targeting / prioritizing / making decisions based on something.

In US and UK military aviation the term "Tally" or "Tally-Ho" means the pilot has spotted a target. Although, once sighted, the target is referred to as a bandit (or bogey, if unidentified), not a tally.

As an aside, I got curious about he origin of this so I looked it up and it appears it's derived from a traditional English fox hunting call when a fox is spotted "Tallio, hoix, hark, forward ", which is derived from a 16th century French hunting call "Thia-hilaud, a qui, forheur" meaning the same.

18 hours ago, Bort said:

1) Number the document pages. This makes it easier to give feedback on the correct section.

2) Remove the 1st set of Approach charts. The second set is good.

These are both sensible suggestions. I hope you made these suggestions on the Google reports form .

18 hours ago, Bort said:

3) The initial setup is pretty much fixed to the exact same position all the time.
Range 3 from any board edge leaves a "range 3 x range 3" square in the middle of the table. The only way to place 2 hyperspace markers in this square, that are also range 3 from each other is picking two opposing corners and placing the makers in them. (Didn't have hyperspace markers in my Vassal, but you get the point)

True, bit keep in mind this is only the introductory scenario. You are free to use standard play or Epic Battles scenarios in solo play, and I fully intend to. The only struggle is that you still must choose deployment of enemy forces if you do standard/scenarios. As you stated above, it's nice to avoid scenarios that you can fudge the enemy movement to your advantage. Still, I'm looking forward to trying these out.

18 hours ago, Bort said:

4) I assumed the hyperspace marker can be overlapped/moved over without any game effect. Please state this somewhere in the rules.

Correct.

18 hours ago, Bort said:

5) It was not clear to me if both solo ships (deployment, round 4, round 7 same issue each time) had to come out of two separate hyperspace markers, or if they could come out of the same one.
I rolled one attack die first (hits + crits) vs (blanks + eyes) to determine which marker to use. Then I rolled a second attack die to determine the facing. I was lucky enough that I didn't get 2 ships on the same marker and same position, but I would have re-rolled. After the game I assumed this was not 100% correct, and that each ship had to come out at a different marker.

The reason I did it like this was because it didn't feel "fair" if I could choose which solo ship pop up at which marker. I know the rules state random marker, but with no further explanation as to where the first one comes out... make it clear and easy which ship comes out where, and also the sequence so its not up to player choice.

Yeah, I flipped a coin to determine marker, than rolled to determine the side of the hyperspace marker it deploys to. If I rolled a space that was already occupied, I started over with the coin flip, then die roll. Because the instructions say "randomly," I assume two solo ships can deploy to the same hyperspace marker.

18 hours ago, Bort said:

6) Consider making the initial deployed solo ships at least face my board edge. In my game both pointed away from me, going off into opposite corners. So I was "behind" them from the start, making it quite easy to pick them off one by one. (Will need to play more games. Maybe its too hard if they come strait for you from the start and I just got lucky?)

This happened once for me in the previous version, but I still haven't won on version 0.2. I've been flying Resistance vs. First Order, and they whoop me every time. Usually one flies straight at me, and the other faces away. This allowed me to destroy both patrol ships before round 4 in my latest attempt, but it still wasn't enough of a lead to seal the deal.

18 hours ago, Bort said:

7) Consider forcing a fixed sequence for all the solo ships that has the same initiative. Something simple, like numbering them as they deploy and always activating them in that sequence (obviously this applies to ships within the same initiative step. Different initiatives will still use correct initiative order)

The reason for this is that as it is now its too easy to try and force them to bump deliberately. Take the option to "cheat" away.

I hadn't really considered this. I have been playing that if on solo ship is in front of another one, that solo ship activates first to get out of the way. Maybe I'm just playing hard mode. I do number all my ships, so I think next time I'll move them in numerical order and see how that changes things.

18 hours ago, Bort said:

8 ) For the approach chart. Put the action/attitude column on the right of the table so it is used from left to right.
Ie I roll, check on the leftmost columns what my roll is, check following column for my maneuver, and then for the next step (attitude change) I check the last column.

I kind of like it here because you shift attitude based off the die roll before you move the solo ship. Since the die roll and current attitude interact to modify the dice sometimes, I think the attitude column needs to be before the maneuver section of the chart.

19 hours ago, Bort said:

9) Consider making the steps in activation phase clear in terms of the normal game phase.
In other words you activate a ship, it goes through the steps 1-5 as listed in these rules, immediately followed by the normal activation phase rules of making the maneuver and taking its action.
This might be obvious, but in my first turn I got confused, setting down dials for each solo ship first, and then started over with their actual activation. Yes, I did it wrong, but because the rules wasn't clear.
This will also make it clear that the solo ship attitude change happens between selecting a maneuver (placing a dial) and taking an action.

Page 7 seems pretty clear to me. Phase 1: Planning Phase says "During the Planning Phase, solo ships are not set maneuvers and are not assigned dials." Maybe I don't understand your question.

19 hours ago, Bort said:

10 ) I might have missed something in the rules, but I couldn't see any way for a ship to change its tally. So they deploy, they target the closest ship (based on arc sequence etc) and then they spend chasing that ship until one of them dies, irrespective of where other ships are? The only exception is if it somehow gets to lock a different target.

Because step a) of Identify tally is... "The object with its tally marker". So 99% of the time it will just keep trying to get to one enemy ship.

This feels like an abusable situation where I can pretty much use one ship as bait, and the other as killer knowing my enemy will never stop chasing the carrot.

As @Ysenhal said, a new tally is chosen each time the ship activates, and standard solo ships do not use tally markers. I actually missed Phase 3-1-b about locks. If a solo ship has a lock on an enemy ship, it treats that ship as its tally. The only way for this to change is if the solo ship is in an offensive attitude, and the locked ship is out of arc when it takes its action. In this case, the solo ship will acquire a lock on an enemy ship in its firing arc.

Although the rules don't expressly say it, if the locked ship is in the solo ships firing arc, I have the solo ship perform a focus action. You can totally say to yourself, "Well, there are two ships in the solo ship's arc, and one doesn't have a lock, so I guess it switches its lock to the other player ship." And according to rules as written, you would be right. But that seems off.

Equally weird is on page 15 about Actions, under Offensive Attitude #2, it doesn't clarify ordnance weapons. They deny the range bonus, so if a solo ship equipped with Concussion Missiles has a lock on a player ship at range 3, and there is another player ship at range 2, the rules indicate that the solo ship would change its lock. I guess you could interpret the instructions at the top of the page as countering this thought process. It says, "If a solo ship does not have access to the listed action, or after measuring it is clear that the action would fail or not have the specified effect , use the next action listed." That's how I play it.

19 hours ago, Bort said:

11) Silly suggestion, but consider swapping the Defense and Offence attitude markers.
Currently its shield (blue) for offence and (red) for defense.
To me the blue (shield up) made more sense to show defense, while red seemed more aggressive, so offense. But I guess its not really important.

I have been playing it this way the whole time. Looks like there is an error in the rules. It says:

• Offensive: Inactive shield charge (blue side)
• Defensive: Active shield charge (red side)

I never read all the way through the parentheses, which are wrong. Inactive shields are red. So that's just a typo that needs to be cleaned up within the parentheses.

19 hours ago, Bort said:

12) My Hyena's were never in offensive state. Mostly they toggled between balanced and defense. Which means they never even tried to do the target lock action. Which means they never tried to shoot torpedoes.

That definitely sounds problematic. My first game I didn't change their attitude based off the die roll, so my TIE/sfs were in Offensive Attitude the whole time. Now that you mention it, in my second game my TIE/sfs only launched a single Concussion Missile, even though I had both of them deployed. I'll keep an eye on this in my next game. That said, I lose so bad that maybe I don't mind that they don't unload with their missiles often, lol.

19 hours ago, Bort said:

13) All in all I enjoyed it. It took quite long to get through the 9 rounds it took to kill all the enemy ships but it didn't feel hard at any point. Just long because I had to keep checking charts and rules every step. So I expect my time will get much shorter. One comment I have is that the AI seemed quite random at times, making obvious "bad" choices. I know it complicates things a lot, but I do feel that range to tally should somehow play into their decision making. Currently its a combination of bearing + attitude + randomness. But it makes no difference whether I'm R1 or R3, they still do the same move.

Yep. I am constantly asking myself if range would improve the experience enough to justify the added complexity. I'm not convinced it would at this point.

19 hours ago, Bort said:

14) The choice to randomly go towards / away from obstacles on some rolls really didn't make sense.

15) Except for the random rolls mentioned in (14) obstacles played no part in the maneuver choice. Sure they try to avoid them in the action step, but they fly blindly over them in maneuver.

A few times the solo ship would execute its fastest turn towards an obstacle and skirt around it just right. I think that's the idea behind that maneuver combo. But you're right - just as many times they would just run right through obstacles. I played with all debris, so that might have increased difficulty because they were less likely to take damage and didn't lose their attack in the engagement phase.

I think this is a large part of why the suggestion for making your own squads has 125-150 points of solo ships for every 100 points of player ships.

--

Thanks for such a detailed analysis, @Bort ! It was great to be able to engage in a dialogue about this new way to play.

8 hours ago, Scrivner said:

In US and UK military aviation the term "Tally" or "Tally-Ho" means the pilot has spotted a target. Although, once sighted, the target is referred to as a bandit (or bogey, if unidentified), not a tally.

Thank you for the explanation. I can now see where they come from, and can accept it and move on, although I still don't like it.

Tally-Ho = Target sighted. Tally != Target.

Just like Star-board = Right side. Star != Right.

But I'm being pedantic.

@Parakitor , and @Ysenhal

Thanks for pointing out that the "tally marker" is mentioned, but not actually used in the intro scenario. I misunderstood this part.

1 hour ago, Parakitor said:

These are both sensible suggestions. I hope you made these suggestions on the Google reports form .

Apparently I missed the most crucial part of the feedback process. I will fill in the google form feedback right now. Thank you for pointing this out.

1 hour ago, Parakitor said:

True, bit keep in mind this is only the introductory scenario. You are free to use standard play or Epic Battles scenarios in solo play, and I fully intend to. The only struggle is that you still must choose deployment of enemy forces if you do standard/scenarios. As you stated above, it's nice to avoid scenarios that you can fudge the enemy movement to your advantage. Still, I'm looking forward to trying these out.

I get it. Was just pointing out that restrictions on the placement didn't leave much room for variance. The randomness of the ship point etc. probably makes it good enough as is.

Tonight I had another Resistance vs. First Order introductory match. We lasted 11 rounds before we were annihilated. This time I tried moving the solo ships in a specific order every time, and it felt better knowing I had fewer decisions to make. Sometimes it worked in the solo ships' favor, and sometimes it worked out in the player's favor.

I'm toying with an idea to deal with the inexplicable K-turns and what not when the solo ship is on approach to the players. What if solo ships don't perform advanced maneuvers when there is no player ship at range 0-3? The downside is that you may have situations where the solo ship is facing away from the battle and should perform an advanced maneuver to get back in the fray, but instead would just continue to fly away. This is something I may test out.

Had another go at it. Flying Sep B22s vs scum Z-95s and Fang fighters.

Think I did more things correct this time, and got shot out of the sky. But did last to turn 8.

I enjoy solo play rules. And this rule set gets the job done. But it did feel a bit like playing against a real weak opponent, and just giving him more and more ships to compensate.

On 9/15/2020 at 5:04 AM, Parakitor said:

I'm toying with an idea to deal with the inexplicable K-turns and what not when the solo ship is on approach to the players.

One time today the ship did a perfect k-turn to face where I would go. But on the other hand another k-turn was done while approaching me head-on from beyond range 3. That seemed a bit dumb.

Did one more.

Scum v Scum.

Kihraxz + Starviper vs. Mining Ties + Y-Wings + M3-A.

This was a grueling game, going for 15 turns before I finally killed all the AI ships. And then I re-read the rules and realised that it actually says Starfighter NOT Starviper.

So I have played 3 games so far, winning 2 of them.... and both of those games I used Starvipers. So clearly with their 3 att + 3 def and awesome maneuverability they outperform the AI.

It was a fun game, but this time I really saw the AIs lack of situational awareness.

In 17 turns the AI hit a rock 7 times. Doesn't sound too bad. And one of them was a very close call on a K-turn, so many human players might have missed that one. But a lot of them were simply bad moves.

And the number of nonsensical Y-Wing k-turns was staggering.

On 9/14/2020 at 4:07 PM, Parakitor said:

Yep. I am constantly asking myself if range would improve the experience enough to justify the added complexity. I'm not convinced it would at this point.

After 3 games I'm now convinced it would.

I had a moment in the game where I was checking which of my ships is the Tally... and I realized that even though one is at R1 and the other at R3 its not going to make ANY difference in what the AI ship does, since they were both on the side aspect.

This means the ship is basically making a blind random move, not trying to engage. Seemed bad for the AI.

That being said.... I really enjoy having rules to play Solo and I do hope they keep working on this.

So take my feedback for what it is.

One more time...yes, i'm turning this thread into a personal Solo flight test log. 😜

Scum v Scum

My fleet: 1x Kihraxz Black sun ace + 1x Starfighter Gand Findsman

Opponents: 2x M3-A Cartel Spacer + 1x M3-A Tansarrii Point Vet + 2x Fang Skull Squadron.

Game started fabulous. Killed both the initial Cartel Spacers in the first 3 turns.

Then everything quickly changed once the Skull Squad ship showed up.

It appears that the AI is much better when doing reactive flying (ie high init) vs predictive flying (low init).

That, or the rolls for the AI was just better.

Either way, both my ships were destroyed by turn 9, and I only managed to get 1 damage on each of the two fangs.

And it makes sense.... 4x Skull Squad is almost a legit tournament list. So 2 of them even flown badly can get quite scary.

Also didn't help that I blanked out on my R1 shot from right behind.

4 minutes ago, Bort said:

One more time...yes, i'm turning this thread into a personal Solo flight test log.

This seems fine.

22 hours ago, Bort said:

That being said.... I really enjoy having rules to play Solo and I do hope they keep working on this.

So take my feedback for what it is.

It sounds like you're really getting some good games out of this! I highly recommend giving feedback using the form linked in the article (if you aren't already)!

38 minutes ago, Joker Two said:

It sounds like you're really getting some good games out of this! I highly recommend giving feedback using the form linked in the article (if you aren't already)!

I did (do one for each game), but the google form is not really good for getting a conversation going and seeing what others feel about it.

I have great respect for this AI that ffg is making. While I think the one for aturi is technically and functionally better - full honesty. The thing that FFG is trying to do is make an AI that uses what comes in the box - no additional dice, no custom charts. This is a hard thing to do.

I've made an Cylon AI for the Battlestar Galactica Starship battles and while I drew heavily on aturi, I wanted to make sure that apart from the ship charts, I only used what was found in the box.
This limitation is a a challenge to be sure. But a worthwhile one. It allows a new player to print off a couple sheets and play the game. Also, the way the ffg x-wing ai works I think it helps to visualize the maneuvers better - referencing the dial.

I haven't tried this yet, but I have taken some idea for my BSG AI.

8 hours ago, That Blasted Samophlange said:

I have great respect for this AI that ffg is making. While I think the one for aturi is technically and functionally better - full honesty. The thing that FFG is trying to do is make an AI that uses what comes in the box - no additional dice, no custom charts. This is a hard thing to do.

The player needs to print 20 pages of Solo AI rules (up from 15 from the previous version of the AI, perhaps we'll end up with 30), or use a tablet to reference them.

At that point, they could have just made printable (or PDF) charts for the movements for each ship type, or add them to the squad-builder app. If they don't do it, it's not because they don't want you to print anything.
The don't do it because they don't want to have to create those charts and keep them updated with each new ship release.

They should, at the very least, give in and implement swerving mechanics for avoiding obstacles, and range measurements for the advanced maneuvers. Otherwise, the AI will keep doing koiograns when they are a mile away from you.

4 hours ago, Azrapse said:

The player needs to print 20 pages of Solo AI rules (up from 15 from the previous version of the AI, perhaps we'll end up with 30), or use a tablet to reference them.

At that point, they could have just made printable (or PDF) charts for the movements for each ship type, or add them to the squad-builder app. If they don't do it, it's not because they don't want you to print anything.
The don't do it because they don't want to have to create those charts and keep them updated with each new ship release.

They should, at the very least, give in and implement swerving mechanics for avoiding obstacles, and range measurements for the advanced maneuvers. Otherwise, the AI will keep doing koiograns when they are a mile away from you.

Okay, a couple things, it is a bit hyperbolic to say you need to print every page. Really, the only thing you REALLY need to print are the charts, in my opinion. Those will be the most referenced.

The rules are also in an alpha state - very early development. They (FFG) will likely do some nice looking charts when it gets closer to completion, but for now, why waste the time formatting? Based on feedback they will likely make more changes - again this is an ALPHA, and will have more revisions.

On 9/18/2020 at 11:00 AM, Bort said:

It appears that the AI is much better when doing reactive flying (ie high init) vs predictive flying (low init).

100% this. In standard X-wing, the points can scale pretty well because you invest more points in higher initiative, usually at the cost of more ships. In Solo play, however, the worth of solo ship leaps as soon as it moves after an opponent. A 40-point ship can end up feeling like a 50- or 60-point ship because it essentially plans it's dial after you activate.

I think I'm going to take this into account when building squads for Solo missions. If player ships are higher initiative than any solo ships, I can bump the solo squad total to 150 points for every 100 I have. But if there are several solo ships with higher initiative, there's no way I'm giving them more than 125 points per 100 points of player squad. Maybe not even that much.

I am curious how this plays out when the player has more than 2 ships to maneuver. I really need to get on that.

On 9/19/2020 at 1:10 AM, That Blasted Samophlange said:

I have great respect for this AI that ffg is making. While I think the one for aturi is technically and functionally better - full honesty. The thing that FFG is trying to do is make an AI that uses what comes in the box - no additional dice, no custom charts. This is a hard thing to do.

Agreed. One big difference between this and Aturi is that in this system all ships use just the 4 charts, while in Aturi each ship has its own chart that covers both movement and actions. Granted, a lot of the charts overlap in certain areas, but still. To come up with just one chart for all ships is no small feat. So I appreciate the effort going into this.