So we know that our beloved game was influential in the development of Star Wars Squadrons, and with the video game being in a similar vein as X-wing (Dogfighting, Star Wars, Squads, ect...) there is a lot of things that we can see in Squadrons that are in X-wing. My question for you, is are there any upgrades/mechanics that exist in Squadrons that you hope will eventually make their way into X-wing? There is already a thread dedicated to the pilots, so lets focus on the upgrades (load-out) aspect more.

I'd like a "support ship" config specific to the U-Wing and TIE Reaper (and some equivalents for the other 5 factions). This would grant ships with this configuration equipped access to a unique selection of add-ons such as the emergency shields and repair droids. First you lock on a friendly, then roll attack dice (let's say 3). These dice can't be modified. A crit repairs a crit damage, hit repairs regular damage OR spend all hits and crits to reload a single charge on an upgrade charge. You can ONLY use 1 crit and 2 hits. Same set up for the emergency shield, but any hit or crit only adds a single shield charge total. Range 1-2.

Another upgrade could be like the beacon upgrade to grant target lock actions to any friendly ship at range 0-2, but they come off at the end of the round.

The biggest difference between Squadrons and this miniature game is that imperial craft are way sturdier and more dangerous in the videogame than here.
A single TIE Bomber is a serious threat to a cruiser if it gets under the shields. It can knock out an entire system before it is blown up.
But a TIE Bomber shielded and resupplied by a TIE Reaper is almost unstoppable.

Also, ships with only two laser cannons just fire them more often than those with 4, so the TIE Fighter, TIE Bomber, Y-wing, and A-wing don't have really weaker weapons than the X-wing and the TIE Interceptor. In this miniature game, we know that 2 dice weapons are peashooters compared with the 3 dice weapons of the x-wing and TIE Interceptor.

••Rapid Fire Cannon Accumulator
Modification
Requires \/ 2 (Frontal arc 2 dice primary).
After performing a primary attack against a ship in your | arc, you may perform a primary bonus attack against a ship in your | arc. You cannot roll more than 2 attack dice during this attack.

•Tactical Shield Projector
Modification, 2^ charges
Requires U-wing or TIE Reaper
During the Systems phase, you may spend 2 charges to assign a reinforce token to a friendly ship in your \/ at range 0-2.

•Supply Droid Launcher
Modification, 2^ charges
Requires U-wing or TIE Reaper
During the Systems phase, you may spend 2 charges to choose a friendly ship in your \/ at range 0-2. That ship may either recover 2 charges among their (Torpedo), (Missile), or (Device) upgrades, or repair 2 damage cards.

••Heavy-weight Frame
Modification
Requires TIE, Hull 4 or lower.
Adds Hull +2.
When defending, you can't roll more than 2 defense die, and Crit results are cancelled before Hit results.

There is also the power management mechanics that allows ships to boost, fire extra strong lasers, or strengthen their shields, at the expense of weakening the other systems. Unshielded craft are allowed to pass energy from engines to weapons or vice versa.

But I think proposals for that have been already made in the past.

1 hour ago, Azrapse said:

•Tactical Shield Projector
Modification, 2^ charges
Requires U-wing or TIE Reaper
During the Systems phase, you may spend 2 charges to assign a reinforce token to a friendly ship in your \/ at range 0-2.

This is a really cool idea, I much prefer this to something assigning or regenning shield tokens.

Only thing I'd say is maybe instead of limiting it specifically to the U-Wing and Reaper, to make the restriction instead something like Medium Base, Coordinate action. That way future ships can take of advantage of it and you're not limiting it to just two factions. The Xi class shuttle and a LAAT/i with Yoda, Palps or Aayla would get to use it that way as well, which seems fitting as similar small support craft.

1 hour ago, GuacCousteau said:

Only thing I'd say is maybe instead of limiting it specifically to the U-Wing and Reaper, to make the restriction instead something like Medium Base, Coordinate action .

Great idea!

I touched on this idea in the Angled Deflectors thread but the idea I'd like to bring into X-wing from Squadrons would be things to do with energy management and components. I'd be interested to see some system phase modification upgrades or perhaps pilot talents that can be executed in the systems phase that allow taking a penalty to one of your ship's values for giving a buff to one of your ship's values. Take a deplete to turn your maneuver blue, hits go to hull for adding a die to your attack, and so on.

I'm not sure what would be "fair" regarding the buffs and penalties and such but it seems there would be a lot of things that could be designed there. Perhaps the talents could be geared around penalties being stress, strain, and deplete and available to any chassis. While modifications and/or configurations and even illicits or astromechs could be geared around being increases/reductions in values or changing maneuver difficulties or adding actions and be geared to particular chassis.

The "dot mechanic" could come into play here putting limits to the number of one thing in the list. And some things could be called the same thing (and again perhaps dot limited) despite different abilities being granted. There should be lots of room to keep things from getting pushed too far between quantity-in-a-list limiting, chassis limiting, initiative limiting, base-size limiting, and what sort of upgrade it is in the first place.

There would be a lot of room there to freshen up Rebels and Scum and Empire with that sort of thing.

It might also be a bit of an interesting place to add a "sideboard" to the game. You could bring a few of these talents/modifications and be allowed to change one or two out during setup indicating mission specific changes to a ship. Though I suspect that sort of thing would need to include devices or other ordnance and would get messy.

But generally there needs to be more modifications ("I've made a few special modifications myself.") on the table in my opinion. The Rebel and Scum freighters really need a lot more hot-rodding options to me.

Legitimately, I don't expect it to actually bring much.

But I do like the sound of the shield projector or some of the cooler shield/hull concepts from the game. And some of the "mines" could be remotes.

I'd like to see the Seeker Warheads as an anti-missile/torpedo sort of countermeasure. Perhaps it could be dropped as a remote/device that if a friendly ship defends against a missile/torpedo while at range 0-1 there is some sort of effect, perhaps lock cannot be spent. After the attack, if it missed, the remote is destroyed, signifying that it took the hit.

Also, chaff particles could simply brought back as the 1st Edition Countermeasures.

I’ve fallen in love with the Rotary Cannons in Squadrons, and was hoping they might find their way to the TIE Bomber and Y-Wing in XWM. Little tricky because those ships don’t have the Cannon upgrade slot. But here’s how I picture them working...

“If you would make a primary \/ attack during the Engagement phase, instead of attacking, choose a target in your \/. At initiative 0, you must attack that target (if possible), using your \/. During this attack, you must add one red die.”

So basically, you start revving your cannons up when your target appears, but it takes a second before they start blasting, which sometimes means you get “initiative-killed” before you get your shot off, or sometimes someone else gets the kill before you can.

Thematically Squadrons has stepped away from canon in some areas.

A-wings should with blaster cannons should not be out performing the quad laser cannons on the X-wing. This was in order too create ships classes. A-wings and interceptors became glass cannons, while the fighters became alrounders.

The balance does annoy me personally, as it stands my beloved x-wing is 3rd in DPS output for rebels and 2nd from bottom overall, which doesn't feel correct. While the TIE's are far beefier, plus damage is far higher than they should be.

Thematically TIE's were bare minimum fighters that won in numbers, something that is hard to do in a 5v5 game. Which explains the balance choices.

So we have to keep that in mind before referring to some of these balance choices. FFG have already managed attack values and ship numbers appropriately so we shouldn't be looking at upping A-wings outputs just because they are OP in Squadrons.

That said few features that could translate.

Mine Turrets - One mine that you can drop that leaves a portable turret with and arc. Initive 0, you can turn or target lock with it. 3 HP with 0 agility.

Charged Weapons - You get 2 charges, 1 recharge a round. In the system phase you may spend x amount of charges to added that many attack dice to your pool in the engagement phase. If you do you you can only attack targets at range 1 and gain no range bonuses.

25 minutes ago, Tyhar7 said:

Mine Turrets - One mine that you can drop that leaves a portable turret with and arc. Initive 0, you can turn or target lock with it. 3 HP with 0 agility.

Alternatively to having an arc, you could make it omni directional, but only at range 1.

25 minutes ago, Tyhar7 said:

Charged Weapons - You get 2 charges, 1 recharge a round. In the system phase you may spend x amount of charges to added that many attack dice to your pool in the engagement phase. If you do you you can only attack targets at range 1 and gain no range bonuses.

Perhaps it doesn't have recurring charges, but rather you need to take a deplete token during the systems phase to gain a charge. It starts with no active charges, so you need to be doing blue maneuvers from deployment to enter the first engagement with the pumped up offense.

13 minutes ago, 5050Saint said:

Alternatively to having an arc, you could make it omni directional, but only at range 1.

Perhaps it doesn't have recurring charges, but rather you need to take a deplete token during the systems phase to gain a charge. It starts with no active charges, so you need to be doing blue maneuvers from deployment to enter the first engagement with the pumped up

It could be omni at all ranges, but it would only be a 2 dice shot. At ini 0 anything can initive kill it, so threat level isn't huge, just annoying to leave un-attended.

edit: Maybe it can only shoot at things that friendly ships have target locks on but then I'd bump up it initiative to 7...

As for the charge laser, yeah like the idea of depletes. Probably do something like start with 3 charges, at start up flip all charges. Gain a deplete token to flip a charge.

1 hour ago, Tyhar7 said:

While the TIE's are far beefier, plus damage is far higher than they should be.

Thematically TIE's were bare minimum fighters that won in numbers, something that is hard to do in a 5v5 game. Which explains the balance choices.

You're definitely right, and it makes sense for the balance as you said, but to be fair it's actually not that far off from A New Hope. It's something I'm consistently amused about when I look back, having grown up on video games that very heavily established the idea of "Rebels have shields, Empire has numbers", but the original movies did not actually do that. While "deflectors" are mentioned, every fighter (in other words, not the Millennium Falcon ) goes down with only a few hits ( landing a hit is usually the problem), and a single TIE Fighter is treated as more than enough threat for any X-Wing, even the named characters.

As for this thread, I can't think of anything in particular that hasn't already been covered, but it did make me think of another idea.

Imagine representing Fleet Battles by resetting the board.

In other words:

Stage One) Both players set up their teams on the normal 3x3 playing field. After one team gains enough points, clear the field and move to...

Stage Two) Set the field back up with the two cruisers and defending team on one side, attacking team on the other. If the defending team gains enough points, clear the field and replace it with the other team's cruisers. If the attacking team gains enough points, clear the field and move to...

Stage Three) Set the field back up with the capital ship and defending team on one side, attacking team on the other, etc. etc.

You can keep track of the damage on cards off to the side or whatever, but I think this could also be a way to get larger capital ship models in the game without having to worry about them needing to move around the field.

Sorry to get off track, but I gotta know... Do I need to buy this game? TIE Fighter is literally my favorite game all time. It sounds like Squadrons is pretty similar.

I don’t have a system that can play it. I‘m thinking about biting the bullet and getting a PS5 when it comes out for this game. My kids would love it. No sense buying PS4 now with the PS5 on the horizon, right?

2 hours ago, Old Sarge said:

Sorry to get off track, but I gotta know... Do I need to buy this game? TIE Fighter is literally my favorite game all time. It sounds like Squadrons is pretty similar.

I don’t have a system that can play it. I‘m thinking about biting the bullet and getting a PS5 when it comes out for this game. My kids would love it. No sense buying PS4 now with the PS5 on the horizon, right?

It's a fun game that's VERY reminiscent of the old X-Wing/TIE Fighter games. I feel the story mode is decent, but it's mostly an extended tutorial for the multiplayer modes... which are a LOT of fun. I don't play it on console and I can't imagine playing with a controller, but I have friends who do who do VERY well. If you do get a PS5 (seriously, the two Spider-man games are worth it ALONE), I'd look to see if there's still a community playing it. There's only 6 maps and two multiplayer modes with no plans to expand on it (the game itself is only $40) just so you know what you're getting if/when you get it.

4 hours ago, Old Sarge said:

Sorry to get off track, but I gotta know... Do I need to buy this game? TIE Fighter is literally my favorite game all time. It sounds like Squadrons is pretty similar.

I don’t have a system that can play it. I‘m thinking about biting the bullet and getting a PS5 when it comes out for this game. My kids would love it. No sense buying PS4 now with the PS5 on the horizon, right?

If TIE Fighter is your all-time favorite, Squadrons will scratch an itch for you for sure; the gameplay is basically a far more aesthetically pleasing update of the old X-Wing and TIE games, with a few welcome tweaks like drift-boosting and some customization of ordnance, guns, engines, and other ship systems. As @Kehl_Aecea said, it’s not as full-featured a single-player experience as TIE Fighter was, but the multiplayer is a blast. The cross-platform play is pretty seamless, and the cross-platform voice chat doesn’t seem to be plagued with the problems that games like Call of Duty: Warzone have had. It’s also a bargain at $40; most modern games are $60-$80 at launch.

As for whether to buy a system to play it, and which one, that depends on your financial situation. Yes, the PS5/XBOX Whatchamacallit are right around the corner, but that also means that you can find good cut-rate deals on the current consoles, and save probably hundreds (I expect that to pick up a next-generation console and a headset and all will probably stretch into the $600 range, whereas I bet with a little shopping you can probably find a PS4 or XBOX One for $250-$300. A new computer is gonna be more like $1300-$2000+).

I’m currently having a great time with it on XBOX One, and come Cyber Monday or whatever, I’ll probably put together a new computer, because I need one anyway.

I think I’d mainly want to scream a big fat no to about 80% of these ideas. They’re different games with different mechanics. Some features might port over but most won’t.

For myself I might be interested in:

• Seeker Mines as an illicit, a cheap but relatively wimpy bomb-like device to stop a tail.

• The composite-beam cannon as a double-slot weapon with a high cost and short window.

• Ion and Tractor not being seen as “bad for the game.” Just putting that out there.

There's another thread where a few of us had ideas for the pilots, including making the U-Wing and Reaper pilots have similar abilities to some of these in here.

I had the U-Wing giving out a reinforce and the Reaper recovering charges or removing locks.

We might get upgrades, but I think we are more likely to just get the pilots.

Definitely the best part of Squadrons to do in X-Wing is the ability to bring any ship you're flying to a complete stop and just shoot at whatever you want for as long as you wish. Stationary turret tactics are so thematic

🤣 🤣 🤣

In the other threads, there has been lots of discussion. My most fervent hope is, with FFG doing a single play rules, we get a 1-5 player co-op game that has power management. This is of course not going to happen, but would be awesome.

I think it is very likely we will get upgrades and new pilot - again, the other thread has gone over this.

The thing to remember is that x-wing is a different game, and thus anything from Squadrons has to be adapted to THIS games ruleset, but at least get the feel.

I could see the TIE Reaper getting access to the Cannon slot (maybe a sensor slot too) to give flexibility to how its attacks can support the whole squad, since its able to take things like an Ion cannon / Tractor beam in Squadrons.

20 hours ago, That Blasted Samophlange said:

In the other threads, there has been lots of discussion. My most fervent hope is, with FFG doing a single play rules, we get a 1-5 player co-op game that has power management. This is of course not going to happen, but would be awesome.

I think it is very likely we will get upgrades and new pilot - again, the other thread has gone over this.

The thing to remember is that x-wing is a different game, and thus anything from Squadrons has to be adapted to THIS games ruleset, but at least get the feel.

Eh, XWM is not “Flight Simulator.” I really don’t think I’m into a game about power management.

If they wanna throw in a couple “Condition,” or “Stance” cards which represent temporarily boosting shield power, or allow TIEs to Boost if they take a deplete/disarm token, I’m fine with that. But tracking the power settings for five different ships at once sounds like ****. I can barely remember to open and close the S-Foils on my T-65!

2 hours ago, Cpt ObVus said:

Eh, XWM is not “Flight Simulator.” I really don’t think I’m into a game about power management.

If they wanna throw in a couple “Condition,” or “Stance” cards which represent temporarily boosting shield power, or allow TIEs to Boost if they take a deplete/disarm token, I’m fine with that. But tracking the power settings for five different ships at once sounds like ****. I can barely remember to open and close the S-Foils on my T-65!

Everyone is different. I’d like to see less combos and more skillful flying. I'd like to see less ships being flown. But, the most enjoyment I've ever gotten out of x-wing was playing Heroes of the Aturi Cluster.

I'm proselytize for Battlestar Galactica Starship battles A lot; as far as I see it, that game is actually a superior game to x-wing save for one very important factor - the number of ships.
I guess I want to see x-wing be more like that in some regard.
Now I do love x-wing, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't satisfy every itch.

3 hours ago, That Blasted Samophlange said:

Everyone is different. I’d like to see less combos and more skillful flying. I'd like to see less ships being flown. But, the most enjoyment I've ever gotten out of x-wing was playing Heroes of the Aturi Cluster.

I'm proselytize for Battlestar Galactica Starship battles A lot; as far as I see it, that game is actually a superior game to x-wing save for one very important factor - the number of ships.
I guess I want to see x-wing be more like that in some regard.
Now I do love x-wing, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't satisfy every itch.

Totally! Not here to yuck anybody’s yum. I just think given the pacing of X-Wing, the already considerable complexity, and all of that, that a power management system that was at all complex isn’t something I’m personally looking for in X-Wing. Cards like Afterburners already do like, the power to engines thing. There may be a bit of room to expand this, but tracking actual shield and laser power levels and stuff for each ship sounds like more work than fun.

I would not want tracking of energy as a full on new mechanic but as mentioned I do think there is room for upgrades that could give some power management inspired effects.

R4 Astromech style things but on a modification card or talent. A weapon overcharge for an extra die or change to a non-blank. Engine power increase that gives an evade. Between charges and the tokens we already have and chassis restrictions I think something that approximates power management could be added with out an unwieldy increase in bookkeeping. Maybe that is more the components aspect though.

Either way though I would not want an entire energy system added. But I think there is room for effects inspired by the videogame's components and energy system.