On 10/23/2020 at 2:25 PM, Darth Sanguis said:

Yeah I've always thought there should have been a keyword for stopping and starting speeders. I don't hate how wheel mode on Dekkas work. Maybe some derivative of that?

I think FFG is trying to recreate the feeling of the scene in RotJ with crashing speeder bikes, and the T-47 airspeeder as ground attack plane analogues rather than helicopter analogues. Allowing them or other similar vehicles to choose to stop (after pre-measuring determines that a forced move would result in a crash), removes those impressions from the game, making it feel a little less like Star Wars to me.

I think "Hover" is more the keyword for the "feel" of what you are describing, where the vehicle has the option of moving, but doesn't have a minimum combat speed it is trying to maintain for whatever reason.

28 minutes ago, Caimheul1313 said:

I think FFG is trying to recreate the feeling of the scene in RotJ with crashing speeder bikes, and the T-47 airspeeder as ground attack plane analogues rather than helicopter analogues. Allowing them or other similar vehicles to choose to stop (after pre-measuring determines that a forced move would result in a crash), removes those impressions from the game, making it feel a little less like Star Wars to me.

I think "Hover" is more the keyword for the "feel" of what you are describing, where the vehicle has the option of moving, but doesn't have a minimum combat speed it is trying to maintain for whatever reason.

I could see that, just seems like such a strange choice considering how much of the other media involving speeder and swoop bikes allows the pilot to stop and go. Endor was a literal chase scene, seems odd to focus on that.

Yeah the forced speeder move might be the thing that brings down all those models until it gets changed. It's hard to understate how much taking away the choice to be perfectly positioned affects those models. The extra mobility is mostly moot given how fast they generally are.

In a competitive game, this type of "being forced into a bad situation" rule, even if it's just sometimes, will ensure speeders are relegated to the shelf outside of casual games.

I get that Snowspeeders are not supposed to stand still IE they're planes not helicopters, but in the context of this game, it becomes extremely hard to balance.

2 hours ago, OneLastMidnight said:

Yeah the forced speeder move might be the thing that brings down all those models until it gets changed. It's hard to understate how much taking away the choice to be perfectly positioned affects those models. The extra mobility is mostly moot given how fast they generally are.

In a competitive game, this type of "being forced into a bad situation" rule, even if it's just sometimes, will ensure speeders are relegated to the shelf outside of casual games.

I get that Snowspeeders are not supposed to stand still IE they're planes not helicopters, but in the context of this game, it becomes extremely hard to balance.

I get it. Just allowing T-47s to exit and reenter the battlefield like many other games do with aircraft would be helpful in that specific instance. The problem with removing downside(s) to the rule is that with the action economy of the game, a free move can be very useful, especially in some of the objectives, such as Bombing Run.

2 hours ago, Darth Sanguis said:

I could see that, just seems like such a strange choice considering how much of the other media involving speeder and swoop bikes allows the pilot to stop and go. Endor was a literal chase scene, seems odd to focus on that.

Whereas I recall land speeders stopping/changing speeds, and the LAAT (which is more of a transport helicopter analogue than airplane), I don't recall anything in current canon allowing for T-47s specifically to hover (it would have made shooting the neck of the AT-ATs much easier). I also don't recall anything (again in current canon) showing swoops or speeder bikes coming to a dead stop quickly. For speeder bikes, their speed is the only thing keeping them alive really, so I could MAYBE see losing Cover if you don't move, but the time scale of Legion in general doesn't necessarily feel like there is enough time to come to a complete stop and then start again.
Endor is still the film representation of speeder bikes, so it does make some sense to focus on it, much like the E-Web being modeled with Snowtroopers, since the film representation shows them continuously moving. Even in Mandalorian, the speeder bike does not come to a complete stop to pick up The Child while not currently in a chase, despite it being more difficult to pick up something while on the move rather than while stopped.

In the end it just doesn't have to make sense that much in universe. It has to be playable. How much would those models need to be buffed to compensate for their terrible positioning choices and poor time on target? And how fun would that be, with either you're on target and you devastate a unit or you go too fast and woops the crappy secondary shot.

Just like the Jedi are never "out of force" in the movies, but that doesn't mean you should be able to push and choke every turn.

@OneLastMidnight It still has to make enough sense in universe for Disney to approve the design/it to feel "right" to the vision of developers have for the game.

We see Jedi in training reach the limit of their force abilities, and force users who lose their connection with age. We also see Jedi overwhelmed by Sith Force abilities and vice versa. So in a way Jedi do "run out" of Force whenever narratively convenient.

12 hours ago, Caimheul1313 said:

I don't recall anything in current canon allowing for T-47s specifically to hover (it would have made shooting the neck of the AT-ATs much easier).

T-47s can absolutely hover. How do you think they take off and land? all repulsorlift vehicles can hover.

It didnt make sense for them to hover in the battle of hoth because theyd be easy targets

Quote

I also don't recall anything (again in current canon) showing swoops or speeder bikes coming to a dead stop quickly

of course they can stop quickly. why would you design a high speed vehicle without brakes? thats common sense.

Quote

Even in Mandalorian, the speeder bike does not come to a complete stop to pick up The Child while not currently in a chase, despite it being more difficult to pick up something while on the move rather than while stopped.

the speederbike didnt need to come to a complete stop to pick up baby yoda; stopping wouldve taken more time. that doesnt mean it couldnt stop. it just means it didnt stop.

Quote

but the time scale of Legion in general doesn't necessarily feel like there is enough time to come to a complete stop and then start again.

thats not true. because vehicles in legion arnt moving fast at all. a speeder going speed 3 is only moving a little faster than troops walking quickly on foot at speed 2.

if speed 2 is what foot soldiers run at, which is say 10mph, than speed 3 is like 20mph at most after accounting for the larger base size of the airspeeder.

so yes it absolutely should be able to stop.

Vehicles are absurdly slow in legion and arnt getting anywhere close their canon top speeds.

If an airspeeder was actually going its canon top speed it would easily be able to fly across the entire board, circle back, and fly over the entire board again before the turn ends. The thing goes Mach 1 at least and can probably get upto Mach 2 no problem.

The airspeeder is going more like turtle speed in legion. slower than that even. more like a turtle on a glacier in an ocean full of molasses. but for some reason it cant stop. LOL.

by that same logic stormtroopers shouldnt be able to stop either. stormtroopers that double move and go the same distance in a turn as an airspeeder are moving so fast they cant stop. they should have compulsory move too.

OMG 20MPH IS TOO FAST FOR ME TO HANDLE I CANT STOPPPPP *crashes into a tree*

compulsory move is the absolute dumbest rule in legion. it makes absolutely no sense given how slow speeders are going. compulsory move should 100% be removed from the game. compulsory move is certainly not doing the airspeeder any favors either, it mostly just forces the airspeeder to kamikaze itself into the enemy army and commit suicide. And it causes idiocy like people driving their speeder bikes in circles in area terrain so they can stay in cover.

18 hours ago, Caimheul1313 said:

I don't recall anything in current canon allowing for T-47s specifically to hover

During this scene at about 0:25 during the takeoff sequence we see the speeders can handle low speed movements and hover.

18 hours ago, Caimheul1313 said:

I also don't recall anything (again in current canon) showing swoops or speeder bikes coming to a dead stop quickly.

At about 1:00 you see the imp speeder swerve and stop.

This whole scene has a tonne of speeder interactions. They can definitely stop and start on a dime.


Considering that Legion is abstract about time scale. It's super feasible speeders could stop and go sacrificing speeder/cover for stationary/ objective(?).

@Darth Sanguis for the T-47, we only see them hovering incredibly close to the ground (because wheels are too low tech for Star Wars 😛 ). They also are portrayed in as taking off like traditional aircraft, but we don't see them hovering in the air once they have taken off. Nor traveling at slow speeds once airborne. Otherwise, shouldn't Rogue 2 have hovered and/or landed after finding Han and Luke?

Legends video game depictions also favour the T-47 as ground attack aircraft analogue rather than attack helicopter analogue since the ones I can recall have the Airspeeder constantly moving after taking off. I do admit those are not relevant for modern canon, but unfortunately we haven't had a canon RTS released as of yet.

I do appreciate the time to find sources on the speeder bikes. I think the reason they focused instead of the RotJ "feel" for speeder bikes (barely controlled rockets) is because more people recognize the movies vs TV shows. To me the speeder bikes also aren't "stopping on a dime," Ezra skids a fair distance before stopping (perhaps about the distance of a single compulsory move), and Zeb starts breaking well before Kanan detached the cargo. So it would feel fine to me to stop after making the compulsory move (or doing something like clambering to see if you can stop sooner). Actually, I think I kind of like the idea of rolling dice equal to your speed to see if the pilot can mitigate the damage from a collision rather than always crashing face first.

2 hours ago, Caimheul1313 said:

@Darth Sanguis for the T-47, we only see them hovering incredibly close to the ground (because wheels are too low tech for Star Wars 😛 ). They also are portrayed in as taking off like traditional aircraft, but we don't see them hovering in the air once they have taken off. Nor traveling at slow speeds once airborne. Otherwise, shouldn't Rogue 2 have hovered and/or landed after finding Han and Luke?

Legends video game depictions also favour the T-47 as ground attack aircraft analogue rather than attack helicopter analogue since the ones I can recall have the Airspeeder constantly moving after taking off. I do admit those are not relevant for modern canon, but unfortunately we haven't had a canon RTS released as of yet.

I do appreciate the time to find sources on the speeder bikes. I think the reason they focused instead of the RotJ "feel" for speeder bikes (barely controlled rockets) is because more people recognize the movies vs TV shows. To me the speeder bikes also aren't "stopping on a dime," Ezra skids a fair distance before stopping (perhaps about the distance of a single compulsory move), and Zeb starts breaking well before Kanan detached the cargo. So it would feel fine to me to stop after making the compulsory move (or doing something like clambering to see if you can stop sooner). Actually, I think I kind of like the idea of rolling dice equal to your speed to see if the pilot can mitigate the damage from a collision rather than always crashing face first.

Fair enough on the T47 lol

As for the smaller speeders I definitely think that while in "speeder mode" they should keep the compulsory move as is. That said, my only thing is a speeder should be able to "park" the speeder similar to a droidekka changing from wheel to deployed mode. Honestly just give it a stop keyword:

Full Stop : After performing a compulsory move a unit with the Full Stop and Speeder X keywords may decrease its maximum speed to 0. If it does, it loses Speeder X and Cover X and gains the Stationary keyword. While the unit has Stationary it must be treated as a trooper unit for the sake of objective game effects. At the start of its activation a unit with the Stationary and Full Stop keywords may increase its maximum speed to the printed value. If it does the unit gains Speeder X and Cover X values printed on the card, loses Stationary , and may only perform a single move during its activation this round.

@Darth Sanguis Is your intention to allow the speeder to pick up objectives and then next turn run to the back corner of the board with them? Because that's how I read "Full stop," which gives your opponent a single round of shooting to eliminate the speeder. Which is probably decently likely with white defence dice, but I've seen similar rules in historical rulesets cause motorcycles to break "retrieve objective" missions.

The other tricky thing to me is that once the speeder bike stops, the rider is now the target, so why do I still need to destroy the bike itself? The rider should be the target of attacks, and as they aren't racing around should be much easier to hit. Also, shouldn't the pilot of the AT-RT similarly be able to (effectively) dismount in order to interact with objectives?

I don't have a problem with really any other part of the implementation besides being treated as a trooper. The extra wounds could be explained that the pilot is taking cover behind the speeder, and once the speeder takes too much damage, it explodes taking out the pilot.

35 minutes ago, Caimheul1313 said:

@Darth Sanguis Is your intention to allow the speeder to pick up objectives and then next turn run to the back corner of the board with them?

So the way that keyword should work is, after a full compulsory move that unit can stop . It loses all cover benefits and cannot move. It is affected by all objective effects that effect trooper units. So whether that's Hostage Exchange or Intercept the Transmissions (or whatever else), that speeder could interact with the objectives. However, once stationary, the only way to remove the stationary status is at the start of it's activation , and when it does, it cannot move more than once that activation . Essentially forcing a speeder (which naturally could have 6 moves over 2 turns) to have a maximum of 2 moves over 2 turns in exchange for the ability to interact with objectives.

I think it makes a lot of sense. It sacrifices 2/3s of the speed and maneuverability to act as a semi-swift but fragile objective taker.

35 minutes ago, Caimheul1313 said:

The other tricky thing to me is that once the speeder bike stops, the rider is now the target, so why do I still need to destroy the bike itself? The rider should be the target of attacks, and as they aren't racing around should be much easier to hit.

Well, because of how abstract the rules are that could just be interpreted as the driver being behind the bike or moving around the bike (or still seated but pressed flush to the bike). The bike loses the cover value it usually gains from speeding, so it is easier to hit. It's an abstraction for sure, but it's hardly the worst one in the game lol

35 minutes ago, Caimheul1313 said:

lso, shouldn't the pilot of the AT-RT similarly be able to (effectively) dismount in order to interact with objectives?

Maybe. The ATRT is a one seater Armor platform. We never see it stacked with people or carrying supplies/crates/gear. It also has the armor keyword and none of the speeder/cover mechanics. You could come up with a similar keyword that slows and weakens the unit to access objectives, but the AT-RT doesn't really fulfill a similar role. The Land Speeder on the other hand, would have 100% access to the full stop keyword in my opinion, as it would definitely be able to do this like a speeder bike. BARC and STAPs would have it too. (gives a little incentive even bring a BARC lol)

@Darth Sanguis I understand that in your design the speeder only gets two moves over two turns, but that is all that is really necessary depending on board layout.

So one turn it takes the compulsory move, stops, takes the pivot action, interacts with the objective, finishing up with a Dodge action or a Refresh if it is using uplink for activation control, which would allow it to go last and then first without being in order range of your commander. Next turn the speeder jumps back to where it was before, presumably behind terrain, at the very least outside of range 3 of most units. In Bolt Action specifically, I've seen motorcycle troops do something very similar with objectives, and it is very hard to counter since you have a small window to stop them from taking the objective somewhere your units can't effectively interact with them.

13 minutes ago, Caimheul1313 said:

So one turn it takes the compulsory move, stops, takes the pivot action , interacts with the objective, finishing up with a Dodge action or a Refresh if it is using uplink for activation control, which would could allow it to go last and then first without being in order range of your commander. Next turn the speeder jumps back to where it was before, presumably behind terrain, at the very least outside of range 3 of most units.

So there's a LOT of variable in this statement. A pivot only gives you 90º. So the speeder isn't going 180º and interacting with an objective that requires actions (intercept the transmissions would be the one where they can gain the effect at no action cost and little reward for destruction of unit after scoring, but there's no guarantee they'll get it. ). Dodges and refreshes are also only so helpful, especially if they can't get that unit in last or duck it to safety at range 3 within a round. What you say here could happen in theory but I feel like the difficulty of keeping that speeder safe over two rounds not being able to go straight back would be really tough.


All that said, if it became an issue changing it to:

Full Stop : After performing a compulsory move a unit with the Full Stop and Speeder X keywords may decrease its maximum speed to 0. If it does, it loses Speeder X and Cover X and gains the Stationary keyword. While the unit has Stationary it must be treated as a trooper unit for the sake of objective game effects. At the start of its activation a unit with the Stationary and Full Stop keywords may increase its maximum speed to the printed value. If it does the unit gains Speeder X and Cover X values printed on the card, loses Stationary , and may only perform a single speed 1 move during its activation this round.

could massage that to be less effective.

@Darth Sanguis For some reason I forgot how pivot works, been awhile since I've used it. No idea why I thought it was 180° >_<. Still, using an order to get then to move last on one turn then uplink to make them move first really mitigates the disadvantage.

To me, regaining Speeder at the beginning of the activation would also cause the compulsory movement to kick in, so the fix would be to treat the speed as a lower value for the reactivation turn, and limiting them to the compulsory movement again.

Also, since the players get to pick where the objective is placed for recover the supplies, it is fairly easy to put them in the perfect spot for Speeders to pick up turn one and then play a fairly effective game of keep away. I think it might also make them very powerful for Moisture evaporators, but it's hard to say without actually trying it.

46 minutes ago, Caimheul1313 said:

@Darth Sanguis For some reason I forgot how pivot works, been awhile since I've used it. No idea why I thought it was 180° >_<. Still, using an order to get then to move last on one turn then uplink to make them move first really mitigates the disadvantage.

I mean, last firsts are cute when people can get them off, but the pip card system can work against that. Even if they do last first, the terrain would have to be heavily in their favor to really mitigate it. On a center objective, it could be quite difficult.

46 minutes ago, Caimheul1313 said:

To me, regaining Speeder at the beginning of the activation would also cause the compulsory movement to kick in, so the fix would be to treat the speed as a lower value for the reactivation turn, and limiting them to the compulsory movement again.

I would argue that because the timing window on the compulsory move is " When a unit that has the speeder x keyword activates " and the Full Stop keyword window is, " At the start of its activation ", the Full Stop effect would trigger after the window for compulsory moves thus negating the effect. Timing windows are kind of tricky in this. I'm still used to Armada but in essence:

When you activate the speeder, the window for the speeder triggers immediately. Since the unit no longer has Speeder X at this window, the window passes, the Full Stop keyword window now triggers, and the unit gains Speeder X. Since the window for compulsory move has passed, it does not make a compulsory move.

The issue with giving them a compulsory move when they speed back up is they could compulsory move and then trigger full stop again to become stationary all in one activation. I feel like being able to speed up and stop in 1 activation is too much.

46 minutes ago, Caimheul1313 said:

Also, since the players get to pick where the objective is placed for recover the supplies, it is fairly easy to put them in the perfect spot for Speeders to pick up turn one and then play a fairly effective game of keep away. I think it might also make them very powerful for Moisture evaporators, but it's hard to say without actually trying it.

Maybe? But considering how many units can perform scout moves and or have some other form of moment shenanigans early game, I don't think this is particularly breaking especially since unlike troopers who grab those objectives naturally, the speeder would be exposing themselves to do so. Capture the supplies has a center placement too, considering the compulsory move is the only move the speeder gets before triggering the stationary, I imagine it would have to be the end of round 2 before they could capture that objective, and even then, the deploy would have to be perfectly aligned and spaced as to not crash during the compulsory and still be touching the token.

I would presume that some maps might have some jank, but realistically, cutting 2/3s of the speeder's movement even with perfect first/last shenanigans and perfect cover/LoS blocking terrain, it would still expose it. Let's not forget that trooper units may not be as fast, but there are a lot of option out there. Let's also not forget that most speeders struggle to survive even love taps from most power units.


Ultimately I think this comes down to:

"Are people willing to try shaking up the trooper-centric meta the objectives cater to or do we want to see a shift where speeders are actually worth something more than glass canon/padding/flanker position they currently fill?"

@Darth Sanguis Well, that and does FFG want to add additional game states to track for speeder bikes, or do they have some other "fix" in mind.
Edit: Also, even if the unit is only the last of your activations and the first of your activations (as opposed to strictly first and last), that's still not a very big window to attack while the speeder is vulnerable.

Its very simple. You guys are overcomplicating it. You dont need goofy full stop rules.

1) Speederbikes should be able to capture objectives. So should other small vehicles like Droidekas and AT-RTs. But not large vehicles like the airspeeder.

2) There should be no compulsory move for speeders. Instead when you activate a speeder unit you decide whether to go into speeder mode or not. If you go into speeder mode you have to make a speed 3 move and gain cover 1 but lose the ability to capture objectives that turn. it should work the same with wheel mode for droidekas, if theyre in wheel mode they cant capture objectives that turn.

That is very streamlined, intuitive, and works similarly to wheelmode which already exists for droidekas.

Those changes would also allow the rebel airspeeder to hover in place like it should be able to. However by not going into speeder mode it gives up the free speed 3 move and cover 1 that turn. A small price to pay for not having to kamikaze into the enemy.

All speeders should also get outmaneuver and a free dodge token each turn. It should be built into the speeder keyword.

Speeders have been shown to have great nimbleness when it comes to maneuvers and stopping in the clone wars. Sure they have momentum, but nothing worse than a motorcycle or something similar. Ex:

https://youtu.be/fS-eQShgArM?t=66

https://youtu.be/T-aX-vFKcC8?t=21

https://youtu.be/Td5pM8sUOe4?t=27

i would like if all Speeders would gain „Immune: Sharpshooter“.

sharpshooter (and blast) should definitely work on speeders. however speeders should get a rule that says their cover can never be reduced below cover 1.

so if a speeder is in terrain and has heavy cover, weapons with sharpshooter 2 or blast can still reduce that heavy cover to light cover. But speeders would always get at least light cover.

that makes sense because the cover 1 of speeders comes from their speed and not terrain and they should always get that.