I need some ideas for the ships highlighted in red, and also some ideas for the 7 slot stuff like "pilot academy" etc, especially for the imperials.

looks like a slightly complicated campaign system, where you need to do a lot of bookkeeping. Also a lot of changes to the rules and game system/balancing in general; too much for my taste, for no obvious reason (other than "because we can"). If one side gets a good start and levels up fast there's no way for the other to keep up, since the then higher developed ships circumvent the balancing and can more easily smash the opponents.

Wow ... you kind of overexert ppl here.

Don't get me wrong - I really like the idea behind it. I love space strategy computer games where you develop stuff, build it and finally use it to conquer the whole galaxy. Just like Master of Orion II to name the best of the best game in this genre.

Or : Empire at War to name the one in the Star Wars Universe.

Your attempt is very ambitious for a board game. Not that there are games of similar complexity out there.

Its just that the balancing of all parts of the game ... the strategy campaign part, the develpment and all these ressource getting and building of fleets ... will take forever and it don't really helps I'f you get some random tips and hints of some random guys. Playing time consuming yet badly designed games is pain in the ass for most people.

What you need is a team. 2 or 3 really ambitious people who want the same thing putting thier brains together and develop, test and try until everybody is happy.

For the development part I would start with a different granularity. I would take the waves as "tech levels". Consider the waves are balanced. So you have 3 Tech Levels, everybody starts in tech level 1, imperials have the TIE Fighter and the TIE Advanced and rebels have the X-Wing and the Y-Wing. You may consider some development within the tech levels to get to the next tech level or you may reach the next tech level by other means like gaining and holding strategical ressources on the strategy map like R&D installations or whatever fits your needs.

I don't want to discourage you, I want you to consider to go from simple to complex and only go to complex if it is worth to do so. If you have a simple R&D part and it is fun to play with think about whether it is more fun to make this part more complex or if the fun came from its simplicity. Enhance the fun parts and kick the dogs ... Yeah, poor dogs.

it's actually for a shop, so the number of players i'm expecting is somewhere in the neighbourhood of, letmesee..... about 12-16 players spread over 4-6 weeks? Bookkeeping shouldn't be too much of an issue, I plan to print out everything on boards and just hang it on a wall, where everybody can see and do changes etc as they wish.

noted about the possible balance issues. I think keeping the upgrades reasonably balanced, and putting enough buffer between upgrades should help keep things somewhat balanced. I was thinking of maybe introducing random missions as the league proceeds that are heavily slanted towards the losing side to let them catch up (eg. escort mission for rebels, rebels have 100pts imps have 55pts etcetc, winning team gets x2 R&D). I will see about the "development in tiers" thing, seems like a good idea.

I need ideas for possible upgrades that can be used for the Bwing, TIE fighter, and TIEinterceptor. Simple things like -1 cost, or free evade action, get a sensor slot etcetc

And this is where things get complicated. I wouldnt change the available ships by making them super through R&D. They all have their strength an their flaws. Even minor chances could mess the whole thing up and if they don't - its probably not worth thinking about.

Free evade actions for TIE-Fighters? wow ... sounds like a game-breaker.

- 1 cost for TIE-Fighter? Sure if you want to face 9 of them. If you give the rebels a -1 cost for the X-Wing it has almost no effect.

But if you need fast ideas to fill the red gaps:

TIE Fighter : The development is towards greater firepower which leads to T/I for named T/F pilots in the end.

so an attempt by empires' engineers to give the TIE-Fighters more firepower could be:

Overloaded Lasers (modification for ships with firepower 2): On attack you may throw 3 dice and choose 2. Get a stress token thereafter.

TIE Interceptor : Im not sure in which direction R&D should go. We know its the Avenger direction, which mainly means shields ... but an Interceptor with shields is a different ship. So lets enhance what the T/I excells in:

Advanced Control Thrusters : The action bar gains the Daredevil-Manoeuvre

OR How about using a 1 bank for barrel rolls just like the one Aces pilot?

B-Wing : Difficult ... what do a B-Wing pilot really miss ... an astromech slot ! This sould come with a price, though.

If you want to talk Game Balance, one of the biggest issues I've seen is the YT-1300 scale is rather overpowered. Also, the Lambda Shuttle scale isn't particularly great for a ship that no one but me takes anyway.

Let me see what I can do with the shuttle upgrade list.

Engine upgrade is where the shuttle soars. The speed of the shuttle is not to be underestimated when this modification, but it's so expensive and takes up the slot. This level will seriously increase the attractiveness of the shuttle and is low enough that it can draw interest in dumping upgrade points into this ship.

The ST-321 title is enticing, though I think it's a bit too costly for it's ability. This serves more as a close enticement to keep investing.

The EPS slot is something that the shuttle desperately needs, and one that will make the shuttle quite potent. Barrel Roll and hard turns as actions both become options to make the shuttle nimble.

As for the turret, it's an interesting idea. I'm more inclined to just give them a rear firing arc without the turret upgrade. Afterall, even with a hyper maneuverable shuttle, I'm not entirely likely to want to ion someone behind me and the blaster turret isn't a great investment for a ship that needs its actions elsewhere.

yeah - I like the idea using a turret on a shuttle for an rear arc only. Thats exactly what I miss on the shuttles.

Maybe giving it an own cheap power 2 laser turret for 2 points.

I'm trying not to make the whole upgrade thing too runaway, like originally I thought of giving the Bwings an action: +1 agility until the end of turn, but when you combine that with Ibtisam and sensor jammer, suddenly it gets too broken way too fast. Or if you see the lv12 for Xwings, that is actually pretty sick, your Xwing is now nearly immune to crits

Will think about the falcon again, my idea was that the Falcon now has all upgrades avaliable, making it the most customized YT1300 in the galaxy, and the lv12 R&D helps to encourage people to pimp up the falcon. Does not affect the ORS though.

I really need ideas for TIE fighters, TIEint and Bwings. Not exactly fair if the shuttle gets like 5 upgrades and the TIEint gets only its named pilots and maybe 1 or 2 actual upgrades

EDIT: maybe for the TIE and TIEint, (when rolling dices to fix your crits, you may reroll the dice once)??