Hi all

I'm really excited about the new release but something is bugging me, and I'm surprised this has not come up yet as far as I know.

Every RPG and other source has clarified A-Wings to have a sensor jammer, going back to the late 1980s.

When that ship did not get one, I interpreted sensor jamming as not within scope of this game, however to find out the B-Wing can upgrade to one (or similar) when that has never been mentioned before as a standard option (or any option?) for a B-Wing seems odd.

Theories:

1. There is going to be a Lucasfilm reconsideration of ship capabilities and we wil see this change reflected on official sources. But I doubt it.

2. More likely, FFG are not trying to be as consistent with ship capability detail as some of us might hope.

Thoughts appreciated.

Cheers

Steve

You've overlooked the 3rd possibility: they didn't know quite how to implement it so retconned it now they have worked it out.

ha ha, yes. Well I really hope we see new A-Wing cards with the symbol on so they can take that Upgrade so we can see some close range sensor jamming. I see no reason why a B-Wing couldn't have one, just never heard of it before.

Steve, the short answer is yes, you're right. The A-wings were lightly armed, insanely fast interceptors that had a sensor jammer. The B-wings were a flying weapons platform that had some advanced systems to help the pilot with stabilization and targeting. I don't think I've ever read anything about the B-wings being an Electonic Warfare/System Upgrades sort of ship.

Thanks John and jboweruk

I wonder why they did this? Yes it could be due to recent design (the more I think about it, the more that makes sense!). Please FFG - give us new cards and recon that accuracy back in there!

Love the Rebel Captive and the Moldy Crow though - I think the set would have been my favourite in terms of ideas if not for this jammer crammer!

cheers

Steve

I'm glad you've made this thread. I noticed that too, and thought it was a little odd.

Not that I have anything useful to contribute, but I just wanted to say… "what he said!"

Glad it's not just me! I played RPGS so this was well known to us lot, but I only read Heir to the Empire. I was half expecting someone who read the last 100 books to correct me, but after searching the net it seemed as if FFG have come up with this out of the blue. It concerns me as I noticed creativity with missiles but overlooked that in favour of gameplay options, but this seems a bigger deal to me.

Tactically, both in the lore and potentially in this game, using a sensor jammer at close range with an A-Wing is the opposite application as doing it in support.

Thanks for your thoughts on this.

Cheers

Steve

I use a stealth device to simulate it.

Would the A-Wing be too overpowered if it was enabled?

I agree that FFG is gradually introducing new things and taking feedback into account when designing successive waves. The Rebel generic pilots for the X and Y-Wing for instance don't have elite tallents, but the higher generic A-Wings and TIE Interceptors do, likely because the Elite talent TIE Fighter was better received when customizing lists.

Putting aside the sensor jammer too, you'd think with the giant antenna as an upgrade icon the Falcon should have had a sensor slot for it's rectenna?

Normally I don't like printing new cards to make old ones redundant (or re-printing existing cards we have to buy again), but I would like to have some of the old ships carry these new features. At least a generic X-Wing with an elite pilot talent!

I was talking last with a friend and we came up with an interesting possiblity for doing this sort of thing; FFG could come up with new ship upgrade cards! For example, with the A-wing they could make a 'sensor jammer'-type of ship upgrade card, costing X number of points, that does Y text ability and has the A-wing only restriction! This would work as a way to adjust a great number of ships that already exist. Perhaps an upgrade card that adds a pilot talent slot? Or the Y-wing 'Longprobe' as a Y-wing only upgrade*, etc, etc, etc.

*the EU RPG books had a modified Y-wing, the Longprobe, that was a single seat, scout variant.

When the X-Wing computer game came out, the A Wing officially got missiles (which they never had before). Since then, everything I've read has ommitted the sensor jammers and added the missiles. Seems like a retcon to me.

Modification cards. That's what they are there for. "A-wing only: Sensor Jammer" Maybe even with the text to allow one more modification in conjunction.

Well while we're at it, according to certain sources the A-Wing also had spinnable laser cannons that could fire backwards… The problem is that they can't implement every detail into the game, because after all not all the options would make sense in this game.

The spinable cannons were technically a non-standard feature. Big thing about the A-wing was that the parts for it were largly made by a number of small scale mechanics and technicans and then assembled later with little standardization of parts, leading to A-wings haveing far more individual quirks than normal snub fighters. I could easily see a title card pack coming out to represent things like this or the many y-wing varients. Don't hold out hope for a rear arc a-wing though as it's not printed on the cardboard inserts and while it's generally corner to corner I can see so many arguments happening because of that.

Vonpenguin said:

no don't misunderstand me, i am not hoping for it, i am just saying that the feature existed, just like for the shuttles. I don't know if there were Lambdas with no rear armament but this is also a highly customizable ship and i imagine a lot of them had their rear guns removed for other stuff like say more cargo space or even … Systems upgrades like we find them as an option for our shuttle.

Concerning the cards, yes i also hope for them to come at some point but the most important thing to me would be other pilots, ship variants are nice sure but a wider array of pilots and skills would open the game more i think.

You are forgetting the simplest reason they weren't with the A-Wing and the simplest fix!

Reason - They hadn't hammered out the rules for System Upgrade cards

Fix - Make System Upgrades like Modifications…..every ship can have 1

Thanks everyone, a lot to think about. My friends and i would happily house-rule if it meant we could have a great balanced game and represent the ships in line with their represented capabilities.

Love the Stealth idea too.

As far as those A-Wings firing backwards, well a quick internet search found fluff saying "Mark 2 onwards" - the standard just has a 60 degree Front Arc. Of course the point being made was some things don't need to be represented however my case is that Jammers on A-Wings, in my opinion are almost as big a deal as the Ion Cannon on a Y-Wing.

I also found that the reason A-Wings had Jammers was very much in keeping with their role as fast ships on recon missions. Get in fast, don't be seen.

As far as the X-Wing PC series goes, we are talking about dates. That was in 1993, but I have the d6 RPG making a big deal of the jammer in the late 1980s, and then the d20 has it in a book published in 2001 - and it's still confirmed online now.

Of course, this game is not about the full role of ships, I appreciate it's a focus on the Dogfight, but even so, I think some of us prioritise the gameplay and variety, others like me need the ships to make as much sense as possible!

And the Falcon's rectenna - I have to pass on that. I think it's just longer sensor ranges but I have not read the books and manuals that came out over the last 2 or 3 years. As we are in a dogfight in this game, sensor ranges are not relevant.

Also, I wonder what FFG will do when it comes to their RPG, a different beast entirely but it will be interesting to see how ship capabilities and roles get handled in that too.