If you were to move into another ship when executing your movement, you are supposed to move your ship back along the ruler until you just touch the other ship that is in your path.

My question is: are you supposed to position your ship at 45deg or 90deg (depending on your bank/turn movement), or are you supposed to do it exactly like the videos and end up with all sorts of weird angles? I mean like I have games where after a collision, Backstabber could do backstabs from the front (LOL front backstab, how does that work?), there's no way to do fanciful formation flying anymore, and you have absolutely no way to re-orientate yourself back to the octogonal directions, short of doing another collision and praying it will magically realign itself, and it IS VERY VERY ANNOYING, although gameplay could still proceed as per normal. Except you now have a front backstabber.

Also, just a quick check, if you Ion cannon something with shields, say a TIE advanced, and the TIE takes the damage by discarding a shield token, does it still get ionized? ie. does the shield block ionization?

Duraham said:

You are supposed to have weird angles.

ShadowJak said:

thing is it doesn't make much sense within the confines of the game, especially since your turns are made at multiples of 45deg, and there is no legit way to do turns at any other angles outside this 8 directions if you were flying alone

Duraham said:

This is true and I hope they change it so that all the directions are multiples of 45, but currently we are supposed to use weird angles.

I don't see what the problem is here. There is nothing that says you have to set up your ships facing your opponent with a 90 degree angle from the edge of the mat. As long as you're within range 1 of your side of the table, you can start out with your ship angled at 22 degrees if you want. I know that the templates are designed for 45 banks and 90 degree turns, but why should the ship facing angles be limited like that?

Roy

I disagree….I like the weird angles and the fact that the geometry of the game is only predictable to a point.

And a backstab from the front requires that you come in close enough to hug someone and then pull out the knife behind their back. It's a particularly wicked form of betrayal.

drkjedi35 said:

I forgot i was going to make the same point. Your initial setup already can include weird angles. I do that all the time.

I can see where this would be annoying if you wanted to keep up the formation flying. I usually expect that all formations will end after the first pass. It's just the way this game plays. If you have no asteroids you can probably keep your formation tight for most of the game, though whether you'd want to is another story.

Just curious, why do you want to fly in formation so much? What faction do you use, and is there a strategy you use that benefits from formations (like swarming those annoying R2-D2-equipped X-wings)?

First, shields do not stop ion effects (you can read more in another thread on this subforum).

The problem with collisions, drkjedi35, is not that you are facing at an odd angle with respect to the playing field, but that it knocks your fighters out of formation. Whereas they began in a position where they can all take the same maneuver without collision, now one of them cannot stay with the pack or else it will collide and cause problems. Having had my formations disrupted, I agree with the OP that it is a real frustration.

However, I think it's just something to live with. I just adjust and try to do my best to keep my strategy working. On one occasion, a collision occurred so I just split Luke, Biggs, and Wedge up, sending them in scattered directions. This totally surprised my opponent, who expected me to keep in formation. I ended up winning that game, and I can't help wonder if it's because I let myself adapt to a new situation instead of begrudging my disrupted formation.

Budgernaut said:

I understand that overlaps (i hate saying collisions) ruin formations, but thats just part of the game. I haven't played one game where a formation lasted from beginning to end. Thats why I plan my formations just for the first 2 or 3 rounds. After that, your strategy should change to something resembling an organized chaos. Keep your opponent guessing, while still reeking havoc!! LOL

Roy

drkjedi35 said:

Good call on "collisions." I really need to break the habit of using that term.

Parakitor said:

formation flying for mainly the 1st 3-4 rounds or so, before it dissolves into the rabid melee dogfighting. Using a suitable formation, you can get things done fairly easily,

eg. L shaped formation with a Y-wing taking point allows you to quickly force the Y-wing into the center of the map or whever you want to plant it, then a Biggs at the center of the L will absorb hits at range 3 that was meant for the Y-wing in front of him. The X-wing to the side is free to engage any enemies or fulfill any objectives, whilst still abusing a range 3 Biggs defense from hits from your right side, which is the most open. Left side is protected by your Y-wing and Biggs himself, so no worries there.

eg. ^ shaped formation, with a Academy pilot at the tip, with 2 TIE adv to either side, and other ships to either sides. The lead pilot will be taking a lot of hits and probably die in the 1st pass, so you'd want something expendable, and 2 TIE adv at a slightly further range behind to use their lock-ons and taking hits from range 2. The point academy TIE would help physically block any enemies that come too close, maintaining the range 2 distance. If he is ignored, good, make him do a U-turn and you have a rather maneuverable element chasing down enemies from the rear while your TIEadv would probably be now engaged in range1 exchanges or trying to reposition themselves to chase enemies down. the outermost 2 elements can swing out at any time to give chase or replaced down fighters previously in attacking positions (ie. in the middle of the formation), of if you made them stagger behind a bit, are now able to catch the enemies that flew past the attackers, discouraging them from doing their U-turn 4 or risk getting chased from behind for the next 2 turns minimum, by 2 TIEs no less. You can use the same formation with a rebel 4 ship swarm, with maybe Luke in the center to take most of the heat in place of an expendable pilot, while guarding a Y-wing in the center, and 2 rookie X-wings to the left and right of the formation free to engage enemies trying to flank you

eg. initial setup with rebels that turn in towards the middle pilot to form a single-line file to help punch through those multiple TIE swarms. Chances are they will be doing a --------- or ======formation, so by going in single file towards the middle, their attacks are considerably weakened, especially since nearly half the squad is not aiming at anything, and the middle TIEs will get punched relatively hard, depending on your squad. A Y-wing positioned in the middle of the single file formation will then be positioned nicely in the middle of the firefight where you want him, while the other 2 ships are now comfortably spaced far apart from each other, forcing the enemy to either chase down 1 with all fighters (which is not what he wants to do, as you can pick off his stragglers one by one with your other ship), or split into 2 or more squads (which is not what he wants to do either, as firepower is considerably weakened)

eg. 2 ship doing a thach weave, although it has reduced effects in-game compared to whatever the WWII stuff claim it does IRL, it's still annoying to deal with, especially if the 2 ships are X-wings like Luke and another guy with R2-F2

I'm using both sides interchangably, and have no real preference for either side, although I'm most comfortable with using vanilla mooks without any upgrades or secondary weapons whatsoever, Y-wings included, so I tend to do quite a bit of formation flying. Granted, it started off as a "wanna see something cool?", but over time when I realized some formations actually seem to do better than others, and when you sit down and review the battle, you start to see things.

Granted, formations only last the first 3-4 turns max, but they do help a lot. After that, getting back into formation is more of fanciful flying than anything else. But the weird angles have more irritating results, eg. trying to chase down an enemy very near the edge of the table, and instead of doing straight 4, i find myself having to keep correcting with 3rd gear banks to the left and right often, when if i was angled in the multiples of 45deg, i would not have such problems and could just straight 4. Not so much a problem for imperials due to barrel roll, but for the rebels, if your opponent does a barrel roll he can oh-so-easily get out of your firing arc by that 22.5deg or so deviation and there's nothing you can do about it, and the most irritating part is that if you were aiming straight ahead instead, there's no way he could barrel roll out of your arc.

that, and front backstabs are retarded, although really really funny and quite cool to see it pulled off.

Duraham said:

What do you mean by front backstab?

ShadowJak said:

I think hes talking about Backstabber's special ability that kicks in when hes attacking someone while he is outside of their firing arc. There is a way to do it when Backstabber is technically on the front side of the defender without being in the defenders firing arc.

Roy

That's what I'm having a hard time visualizing. It doesn't seem to be possible at all.

ShadowJak said:

Backstabber is technically on Wedge's front side, but not in his firing arc.

Roy

Thanks for the image. I wouldn't exactly call that a front stab, but I see where people are coming from. It's mostly a side stab and a collision isn't even required to get that angle because it is 45 degrees.

ShadowJak said:

keep backstabber in that exact same spot, but rotate him a little bit downwards, about half-45deg (or rather, rotate him until wedge just touches the edge of his firing arc but is still entirely within it). Notice that backstabber is now more orientated facing wedge, but is still outside his firing arc? The 45deg. version shown here is rather difficult to pull off because you must be positioned at a specific distance , but when the angle is a bit off as i mentioned, it becomes a lot easier to do so, especially with the aid of a barrel roll, as there are more possible positions for this to happen. For eg, if there were side by side, due to the extra bit of turning, it is possible for wedge to be caught in backstabber's arc of fire, while backstabber is outside his, when if both were oriented properly this would only result in either both missing each other or both being able to fire at each other.

More like this?

spot on. very nice

While I agree that having your formation blown by fighter overlap is just part of the game and to be dealt with, I think they could do a bit to ease the pain. Yes, it is accurate and portrays well a frenetic dogfight. However, in a real dogfight wingmen would still meet back up and cover each other as quickly and as best they could. The squad might break down, but wingmen stick together. I just think it would be nice if there was a provision in the rules called 'Form Up' or some such that provided a way to realign one fighter with another's angle. Perhaps something along the lines of 'During the activation phase, after the optional action, a pilot may choose to realign his base with an ally within Range 1 whose firing arc overlaps with this pilot.' I can think of a number of times it has gotten down to, say, Garven and Rookie Pilot vs. Vader and this would have been a nice option to have available.