The ISD is speed 3 and not 2. The MC80 is, the Starhawk is, even the Victory is.
Never understood why...
Well, one variant of the mc80 is.
But the short answer - if it was speed 2 it would be garbage which would be pretty sad for the center piece of the entire game!
25 minutes ago, DarthRulesLawyer said:The ISD is speed 3 and not 2. The MC80 is, the Starhawk is, even the Victory is.
In order:
It's not a converted exploration ship/building.
It's not cobbled together from other stuff.
It's not 20 years old.
Being able to chase down smaller craft (like a certain CR90) is important because the entire point is to have a versatile, extensively used terror weapon suitable for suppressing insurrections. Being outrun by the Toyota Camry of the Star Wars universe is bad optics. 🙂
Also bragging about outrunning ISDs wouldn't be such a big deal if they weren't fast ships.
1 hour ago, DarthRulesLawyer said:The ISD is speed 3 and not 2. The MC80 is, the Starhawk is, even the Victory is.
The ISD was designed to assert control over the Empire's territory and chase down pirates, criminals, and rebels that used small, fast ships, so the ISD was designed to be fast. That was one of the ISD's improvements over the Victory SD. An ISD could even keep up with the Millennium Falcon at sublight, so we know from canon sources that the ISD is relatively fast.
So I understand why the ISD is speed 3 and not 2.
The MC80 Liberty, MC75, and Onager are also speed 3, so the ISD isn't the only speed 3 large ship in Armada.
Because it's fast.
6 hours ago, DarthRulesLawyer said:The ISD is speed 3 and not 2. The MC80 is, the Starhawk is, even the Victory is.
Because the ISD (and also Venator for that matter) were specifically seen on screen/mentioned in canon of being capable of chasing down blockade runners.
5 hours ago, The Jabbawookie said:In order:
It's not a converted exploration ship/building.
It's not cobbled together from other stuff.
It's not 20 years old.
Being able to chase down smaller craft (like a certain CR90) is important because the entire point is to have a versatile, extensively used terror weapon suitable for suppressing insurrections. Being outrun by the Toyota Camry of the Star Wars universe is bad optics. 🙂
As a proud former Camry owner you wound me sir.
Honda Accord and Honda Fit owner, too, before your slanderous comments continue
What I don't understand is why the vsd 2 isn't speed 3, that is like half of the reason it was created was to make it faster then the vsd 1...
16 minutes ago, clontroper5 said:What I don't understand is why the vsd 2 isn't speed 3, that is like half of the reason it was created was to make it faster then the vsd 1...
Exactly - in the WEG RPGs, the VSD-II was the exact same speed as the ISD-I and ISD-II. (And the VSD-I was 2/3 of that speed, which...checks out)
Edited by xanderfWell, the simple answer is because ISDs are supposed to be fast. Everything from the original films to the various tie-in materials support this.
3 hours ago, clontroper5 said:What I don't understand is why the vsd 2 isn't speed 3, that is like half of the reason it was created was to make it faster then the vsd 1...
I agree. It would've been thematic if FFG had made the Vic-2 speed 3 and more maneuverable -- which also would've justified the 12 point price jump from the Vic-1. If they did that, they could also change the Harrow title to be Vic-1 only.
If AMG follows through on FFG's hint of releasing a Ship Card Collection in the future, it would be great if they revised the Vic-2 to reflect its Legends source material and show the progression of Republic Clone Wars warships into the Imperial era.
22 hours ago, DarthRulesLawyer said:The ISD is speed 3 and not 2. The MC80 is, the Starhawk is, even the Victory is.
So Lucas pulled a lot from WWII naval combat. In general, cruisers (MC80s, MC75s) were slower ships. Destroyers (ISDs) were faster.
Difference is that destroyers were smaller than cruisers but who's comparing sizes?...
And if you have a speed 3 ISD with the Tractor Beams upgrade, it might be able to keep a speed 4 capable ship like a CR90 in weapon range.
20 hours ago, Rune Taq said:So Lucas pulled a lot from WWII naval combat. In general, cruisers (MC80s, MC75s) were slower ships. Destroyers (ISDs) were faster.
Difference is that destroyers were smaller than cruisers but who's comparing sizes?...
Beware - down this path madness lies...
Why wouldn't it be speed 2 with the ability to engine techs though? Would require a higher level of skill and represent the coordination that such a large ship would require. Base Speed 3 makes it nearly impossible to block and chase down, leading to so many frustrating games where an ISD limps away as you watch helplessly, because you literally cannot kill them fast enough before they get away.
17 minutes ago, DarthRulesLawyer said:Why wouldn't it be speed 2 with the ability to engine techs though? Would require a higher level of skill and represent the coordination that such a large ship would require. Base Speed 3 makes it nearly impossible to block and chase down, leading to so many frustrating games where an ISD limps away as you watch helplessly, because you literally cannot kill them fast enough before they get away.
Enter the Starhawk, heavy bomber lists, and literally just focus-firing the ISD. Even if there's more than one in a list, losing one is almost always a match-loss for the owner, so really if your list can't either focus-fire enough to kill one or sidestep one, you might need to go back to the drawing board. Harsh truth, I know, but for literally the second ship ever pictured in Star Wars history, I'd say it's better to strategize around it rather than hope it gets nerfed
I can at least understand where
@DarthRulesLawyer
is coming from. In the past two months, I've (digitally) played ISD Lists at least seven times against a variety of (quality) opponents and (quality) lists. I won all seven games without losing a single ISD.
It does feel a little "unfair" to cut through an opponent's fleet with speed-demon ISDs, kill a few squishier targets, and win despite having a pile of damage cards on a 140+ pt ship... for which effort my opponent scores zero points.
What makes playing against ISD lists frustrating (or any large ship, really) is that you have to either entirely ignore the ship with your offensive output
OR
have a dedicated plan to pour everything into it ... but if you come up even one damage card short on that gambit you score
nothing
for all your troubles. This is exactly why large ships utterly ruin Rebellion in the Rim and get house-ruled out ... because if you can't kill them you can't beat them, no matter how much damage you pour on. So large ships are real points-lockboxes, which is a really common tactic in X-Wing (prevent opponent from scoring points by hiding them in very hard-to-kill ships and get threatened ships out of the fight before they bleed points), and it's much harder to keep things alive in X-Wing than Armada and yet even X-Wing awards half points for
any
half-dead ship.
10 minutes ago, EBerling said:I can at least understand where @DarthRulesLawyer is coming from. In the past two months, I've (digitally) played ISD Lists at least seven times against a variety of (quality) opponents and (quality) lists. I won all seven games without losing a single ISD.
It does feel a little "unfair" to cut through an opponent's fleet with speed-demon ISDs, kill a few squishier targets, and win despite having a pile of damage cards on a 140+ pt ship... for which effort my opponent scores zero points.
What makes playing against ISD lists frustrating (or any large ship, really) is that you have to either entirely ignore the ship with your offensive output OR have a dedicated plan to pour everything into it ... but if you come up even one damage card short on that gambit you score nothing for all your troubles. This is exactly why large ships utterly ruin Rebellion in the Rim and get house-ruled out ... because if you can't kill them you can't beat them, no matter how much damage you pour on. So large ships are real points-lockboxes, which is a really common tactic in X-Wing (prevent opponent from scoring points by hiding them in very hard-to-kill ships and get threatened ships out of the fight before they bleed points), and it's much harder to keep things alive in X-Wing than Armada and yet even X-Wing awards half points for any half-dead ship.
Your quality opponents are unable to kill an ISD over 7 games?
Impressive, most impressive.
Jokes aside. This is perhaps more a critique of the all-or-nothing scoring of Armada. And the fact that forward-focused speed 3 ships have a fair chance of disengaging.
(One of the reasons X-wing 2.0 got half-points for everything and SEVERELY limits healing.)
Edited by Green Knight18 minutes ago, EBerling said:In the past two months, I've (digitally) played ISD Lists at least seven times against a variety of (quality) opponents and (quality) lists. I won all seven games without losing a single ISD.
I think that indicates either a statistical anomaly, the opponent or the list not being quality, or a skill disparity.
If you want to watch ISDs die, look for tournaments in the area (not right now, of course.) Or watch Vassal tournaments, or sign up.
They've been out since wave 2, they're very competitive but far from invincible. No world champion has fielded one. In the most recent (but admittedly outdated) Primes data, only the ISD-2 was overrepresented, and this was when 2-ship was cleaning up.
That said, I agree they're a problem in RitR and wouldn't hate a crippling system for them.
1 minute ago, The Jabbawookie said:I think that indicates either a statistical anomaly, the opponent or the list not being quality, or a skill disparity.
If you want to watch ISDs die, look for tournaments in the area (not right now, of course.) Or watch Vassal tournaments, or sign up.
They've been out since wave 2, they're very competitive but far from invincible. No world champion has fielded one. In the most recent (but admittedly outdated) Primes data, only the ISD-2 was overrepresented, and this was when 2-ship was cleaning up.
That said, I agree they're a problem in RitR and wouldn't hate a crippling system for them.
ISDs in RitR is either a sign of poor campaign organization and/or poor manners.
I'll use any excuse to advocate for a new Extra Large base, so let me use this thread to do just that. If ISDs and Starhawks are difficult to kill (particularly in Task Force matches), how hard will the Lucrehulk be to kill? Or an MC85 or Resurgent? An Extra Large base would be a good opportunity to bring half-point rules to non-Huge ships that play more like Huges than Larges. It also eliminates the need to nerf existing ships (admittedly though, Larges might become even more attractive if Extra Large were implemented; that's why I don't design the game!).
I gotta know what the invincible list is...
I would think the ISD has speed 3 because it was keeping up with the Mellenium Falcon in ESB.
Maneuverability is another matter entirely. Apparently they can’t see well enough if those gigantic vehicles are heading in a collision course toward one another until the very last minute. It’s probably because the bridge doesn’t have a commanding view. {I have now reached peak sarcasm.}
😏
😉
But a speed 3 Jerjerrod ISD is insanely maneuverable and nearly impossible to chase down or block. Again a problem solved by speed 2 engine techs.