So solo play is doable in this game, now granted i notice the "ai" of the enemy fighters can sometimes be pretty stupid but it also makes for very interesting and unpredictable battles.

So the way i have tried it is as follows.

I build both squads making each as nasty as i can. Then i either choose the sqaud i wanted or randomly choose.

For the planning phase i choose my squads maneuvers, for the enemy ships i do it randomly without looking. then i activate as normal and assign the best most logical actions to each ship, (i tried this random for the enemy but found it more challenging when i choose the best action for them).

Then I rolled each ships combat dice and performed their assigned actions as follows. Then simply repeated those simple steps.

Now sometimes an AI ship would go off the game board, in this case i made a house rule that if they were going to end up off the map they would auto make a koiogran turn, if this wasnt possible they would need to choose a different maneuver. Same goes for if they have a stress token and they try a red maneuver, they would need to randomly choose a new maneuver.

All in all the solo games i tried have been pretty intense, and like i said while sometimes one of the enemy ships decided to go into retard mode and fly off away from the battle i like to think of him as the coward of the group lol. But with the rules adjustments i stated u will still get a chance to hunt them down. But the unpredictability of the game was great, with a human opponent its not nearly so hard to guess where they might head logically, (granted they can surprise you but usually they will try to turn if you are behind them.) With the AI factor i might be thinking they r gonna turn and they continue on straight and a speed of 4 or 5 leaving me turning to the right or left and losing my range on them.

Anyway for those of us who can enjoy solo here my version of the rules for a solo game. Enjoy and feel free to give any recommendations to make the solo experience even more fun and challenging.

oh also if the enemy ai can shoot multiple targets of your ships you can simply roll a die to see which ship they choose to fire upon or have them always target the highest or lowest pilot skill first. Up to you, ive been having them target my highest pilot skill first.

Another rule i found to make it more challenging is, some times when a tie would make a red maneuver they would be stuck with the stress token for several turns, to counter this i started making it to after three turns if they did not perform a green maneuver yet, then i would move the dial to the right from whereever it was until it found the first green maneuver and auto perform that maneuver to rid them of the stress token (unless this would bring them off the board in which case i would move to the next green maneuver.)

I think I will give this a try, but think I will just ignore red manuvers from the AI ships. It's not like they decided it would be worth it to make that manuver, the way a player has to.

There is one other thing. A big part of the game (as I have played it so far) is trying to guess where your opponant will go. I imagine that doesn't really apply to the solo game.

I found it still is, especially when u can chase them to the edge of the board and know they r gonna have to get a bit stuck there or turn, thats where the red maneuver comes into play for them. Playing without the stress token i think would indeed make it challenging though, given that now its kinda like u backed them into a corner and they can be more dangerous so i might try that without using the stress tokens on the ai next time. But i did note while they can be very unpredictable is your playing against a squad of 2 or more ships then just cuz one enemy may make a maneuver that was a bit off the wall and managed to evade you, the lesser pilots usually go first thus you can still react to the maneuvers they have already made. So far in my solos ive tried i have played the rebellion, (mainly cuz it gave the enemy ai more ships as i have 3 ties and 1 tie advanced.) but next time ill try the empire. But i still feel u need to try and strategize where the ai enemy might end up or compensate for the other ships on the board, especially ones that have maneuvered already.

I have also found that the red maneuvers the ai performed during the few solos i did, while some were pointless some were perfectly executed so as to put me right into their firing arc.

Whenever this game turns up in the UK (hopefully before xmas), I'm hoping to try some sort of solo thing, so will definitely be giving this a try, thanks!

I've played WotC's miniatures game (not starship miniatures, the other one) solo by playing both sides and basically trying to beat myself, it can be fun (I've even lost a few times!) so I'm hoping the same can be true with this. I recently bought a black table specifically to play this on…

Yeah ive done solo Star Wars wizminis as well but i like u played to beat myself, with this random maneuver system you never know what the enemy ai is gonna do which means u really have to try and position yourself in good areas to take advantage of where they might go. I have now had tie fighters running from me and also chasing me, i think the force might be working thru the random counter maneuver settings lol

Hi, I'm from the UK too, so I don't have the game yet! But when it finally arrives, I will be trying to play it solo. So this thread is great for me and any tips would be greatly welcome. One thing that I was wondering was, is it worth giving the AI side extra points, 20-25? (a ships worth) As a way to combat any defects in the AI's random strategy. And if the force is strong with the AI, then it would force you to improve your own strategy against a larger force. But if AI ships start to do silly things, then the extra ship will hopefully prevent the battle from being too easy! Just my 2 pennyworth (cents!), but as said, I haven't played it yet so I have no idea if it is any good or not.

Gazery

I've made tables for games which would work well here. In essence, you would select the manoeuvres for your controlled ships as normal, then for each enemy fighter roll on the following table:

1: Break Off - select best course to break away from the action. Reroll next turn and re-engage if 4+

2-3: Evade: best defensive manoeuvre and actions only

4-5: Engage - select a manoeuvre to best engage an enemy unit

6: Aggressive attack - select manoeuvre which will close the closest enemy unit as fast as possible, including red manoeuvres. Offensively based Actions

-1 if an enemy unit is behind the ship.

This way you wont know where the enemy is going and you have to guess before you find out!

Simple, quick & effective

Oh yes, and give the AI forces about 20% more in points value to offset the 'dumb' factor

the last few solo games i have noticed that giving the enemy more points to build with can help offset the dumb AI a bit, i did notice the dumb AI did not do well at all in the astroid field as one of the ships kept flying straight though the astroids, so for the scenarios the AI factor might not work the best but for straight out dog fights it is pretty fun.

Tas, something like that might work really well for me. I'll have to give that a try.

I just tried out the AI version of the solo game. I played 55 points of rebels against 75 points of Imperials. I barely got shot at. The Imperials scattered and didn't even try to engage. (of course their movements were random so I don't think I should have expected more) I was able to focus my attacks one the desperate elements individually and destroy them. Maybe next time I will give my opponant twice my points next time.

Interesting. Sounds like at the very least this will give you a chance to try the different manuvers and practice chasing ships. That can be an important skill.

Good work!

Duncan

Hrathen said:

I think what might help for this kind of thing is to add a time limit… you need to kill all of the Imperial ships within X turns. That way, if they're too stupid and random it doesn't matter… you still have an objective to kill them.

The time limit for solo play is a good idea, im gonna try that maybe tomorrow. It would indeed make the game a bit more interesting and give the dumb ai ships who r moving away more of a reason to do so. good idea and thx

one thing that may make this work a bit diffrently is if the AI was y wings with the possibilitys of going straight or easy turns left or right with the odds of a opposing turn increasing after any turn to keep the ships roughly on a course across the game board.

if the attacking ties do not destroy the Ywings before they cross the board then the imperial player loses.

ooh also to be noted is that the y wings will shoot at the closest enemy fighter with ion cannons or main weaponry when ever possible.

this concept is based on a solo kill the bomber mission from wings of war.

i will think about how to make this work and post results here.

Nice!

I bet there a bunch of WoW scenarios just waiting to be adapted…

Hello all,

I realize this thread is pretty old, but I'm trying to get a feel for what people are doing to play this game solo.

The game is so much more complex than it was in fall of 2012, especially with the addition of the TIE Phantom, so I don't know that the ideas presented in this thread are still valid. One huge failing I see of randomness or very simple AI is that there are so many upgrades a ship can be equipped with, making it very difficult for them all to be taken advantage of well.

I am personally still playing solo and am looking for a way to improve what I do. Anyone else out there in the same boat as me? Also, I'm trying to test out a way to play X Wing long distance, doing 2-3 turns a week using my blog, youtube, and skype...or something like that. Anyone interested in testing out an idea like that?

Cheers!

~Vase

I do a bit of solo play, usually to test out new builds or to better familiarize myself with the game and any new ships/rules, etc... I just build several squad lists for each side and draw a random list for each. Then I set up as normal, putting myself in the role of both players. When it comes to setting dials, I do all of one side's maneuvers first, making logical choices, as I would in a 2-player game. Next, I do the same for the opposing squad. I alternate which force I do first (Turn 1, Rebs... Turn 2, Imps..., etc...), that way any advantage/disadvantage I may have due to prescience is spread out over the whole game. Perfect? No but better than most AIs I've seen. Sure, you don't get the 100% unpredictability of playing against an AI but most human players aren't 100% unpredictable, either- situation tends to dictate what are good and what are poor choices when it comes to choosing maneuvers and I just don't see that in a simple AI.

Overall, it works pretty good. For me, at any rate, 'cuz I always win!

... or do I always lose?

I'll use solo play to test out list ideas, etc.

Generally, I pick maneuvers in ascending PS order (both sides at once), trying to choose the best move possible. It skews things towards elite pilots a bit, but I don't have a problem with that. There's enough random swings with the dice that it seems to even out. I've had a few, out-of-nowhere underdog victories that it seems to work out okay.

The other major change (at least, visually) is that I don't use the ships themselves--just the bases. Saves time, if nothing else.

Having just installed Vassal, I'll probably switch over to that for simulation...

Guys, thanks for the feedback so far.

@Chris Maes: I have never tried swapping sides like that. I agree, not perfect, but WAAAY better than the mindless AI systems floating around out there. I will definitely be trying this out.

@CatPeeler: This is also a cool idea I hadn't yet considered. I'll be trying this one out as well!

Any feedback from anyone about the idea to play X-Wing long distance?

Vassal. That's what you need.

Yeah, you should probably do Vassal if you're starved for people to game with because of logistical problems.

That said, I still find solo play useful. What I do is to take the side with the fewest ships (usually rebels), and to plot out two or three set of different movement options. I write these down. Then I set the dials for the side with the most ships as normal. Then, I move ships as normal until I get to the side with the multiple sets. I then let a dice decide which set of movements is being used.

It really helps with trying to see what all your options are, rather than just going with the straight-forward approach. In a competitive game, your opponent is going to expect certain moves, and it's in your interest not to do the expected. So, it's a good exercise for starting to think in that way (if you aren't already doing so).