and in one night I prove their statistics wrong..

No actually you don't. You can't prove them wrong in one night, because that one night is far too small of a sample size to be considered proof.The idea that dice roll on a bell curb is far too well proven for it to be considered anything but a fact.The d10's you mention, are quite likely not true, as in they were manufactured with some sort of flaw that changes how they roll.

As I said, been rolling dice for a while now.. haven't seen a statistic proven in that time..

Those 10s were just dice I pulled from a box in a store.. I am doubtful they were anymore flawed than the others in the box... but that possibility exists, I won't deny that.. flaws are always a possibility in the manufacturing process..

As I said, been rolling dice for a while now.. haven't seen a statistic proven in that time..

Just because I've never been to France doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Just because I can't see the curve of the earth doesn't mean it's not round.

Just because you seem to roll better then avg also doesn't prove anything. In fact you most likely do roll on avg like everyone else. But just don't notice it.

That said, it's actually been proven a number of times using machines. Roll an single dice that's made correctly 1,000,000 times on the same surface and you'll see the avg come out.

Juggler,

Why do you erm.. focus on focus so much in your calculations? Its hard on the numbers, but if you take an offensive stance, take target locks for your attacks. Sometimes you'll net the exact same results as focus (you'll get to reroll blanks at the cost of rerolling focus), and sometimes you'll net all hits, allowing you to save that Target lock for a future round. This can be especially useful when at rage 3 where its unlikely you'll take damage without the focus to fall back on.

Overall, i do find value in your numbers (I'm sure your spreadsheet blows the doors off of my mine), I just feel like giving you a bit of a challenge as I haven't found the Advanced to be so bad it needs a 2 point drop. I wonder if there is something that I'm doing in my games that is hard to model with the math.

Focus and Target Lock have the same exact hit distribution if you don't consider critical hits, so you can use the 2 interchangeably here for the purposes of statistical analysis. On the game table, yes, I take target lock occasionally over focus. You're right, I could tweak the average damage numbers based on an appropriate percentage chance that you roll all hits and keep your target lock for the next round. Average damage rolled over multiple turns is just an educated guess from a statistical point of view, since you can't predict the conditions. There are obvious limits to statistical analysis and this is one of them, so the combat results are just a ballpark sanity check.

Another way of comparing a squad's combat effectiveness is use a modified version of Lanchester's Square Law:

D*H*N^2

where D is the average damage per turn (damage vs an actual target, not just rolled hits), H is the number of hit points, and N is the number of ships. With mixed-ship types this model starts to break down, since the glass cannons get taken out first.

Comparing 5 ships @ 5HP each vs 7 ships @ 3 HPs, and normalizing their damage to 1 (which you can do in this case because they both have 2 dice vs 3 defense dice), you get:

5x TIE Advanced = 1*5*5^2 = 125

7x TIE Fighters = 1*3*7^2 = 147

So, even without resorting to brute force combat calculations you can still predict that the 7 ships will win. What's interesting, is that a 17% increase in combat effectiveness is still enough that 2 out of the 7 ships will survive at full health. Things snowball very fast with focus fire, so small changes in point values can have significant changes to the results. 2 points might not sound like much, but can actually be quite a big deal.

Also, it's not a spreadsheet. It's a set of custom scripts that I wrote in MATLAB.... engineering PhD student by day, X-Wing player by night.

I can calculate the exact damage PDFs for multiple ships firing at you in one round. The only thing I don't currently take into consideration is losing stealth device, I need to add that.

As I said, been rolling dice for a while now.. haven't seen a statistic proven in that time..

Just because I've never been to France doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Just because I can't see the curve of the earth doesn't mean it's not round.

Just because you seem to roll better then avg also doesn't prove anything. In fact you most likely do roll on avg like everyone else. But just don't notice it.

That said, it's actually been proven a number of times using machines. Roll an single dice that's made correctly 1,000,000 times on the same surface and you'll see the avg come out.

I think the point he's making is that in a single game, there really isn't a large enough sample of die rolls to be really statistically significant. We're only making a few dozen die rolls throughout the course of a given game

Found this from awhile ago:

___________________________________________

Advanced should be dropped 1 pt across the board... even Vader. Yep, people load him up and make him viable, not people would still load him up and he might actually be useful. If you reduce by one and use some of these titles, advanced become pretty fun! If you don't reduce the costs, make these titles cost 1 less (except x7)

Advanced- Lord Vader's x1 (unique): free, add the elite pilot skill upgrade to your upgrade bar.

Advanced- Prototype x2: 1pt, add the systems upgrade to your upgrade bar.

Advanced- Prototype x3: 1pt, your firing arc is increased to 180 degrees.

Advanced- Prototype x7: 2pts, you may use the tie interceptor movement dial rather than the tie advanced movement dial.

Advanced- Prototype Aggressor: 1pt, you have a rear firing arc

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now this concept ins interesting.

A pity the x1 is no unique title. And even the Aggressor is mentioned ^^

Interesting found. Also for the rebel ships mentioned.

---

There are now a few possibilities. The Advanced has potential after all. MAYBE the designers were really VERY close to the background, when they designed the ship. Only a few of the Advanced were built and only very elite imperial pilots werde selected to fly them.

As far I know the Tempest and Storm Squadron is a invention of FFG and Maarek Steele flew every Imperial starfighter but the Advanced (x1). But only Vaders pilot card says x1 ... the others are just ... well ... lies.

The designers concentrated too much on Lord Vader. They made Vaders Tank. The first generation of sinear's small spaceship shield generators drained power from engines and weapons. And only Vaders superb piloting abilities made the Advanced worthwile.

There is nothing known about the other imperials pilots. Most likely Sinear test pilots and a secret weapons test squadron.

Lets call the test squadron 'Storm' and see how things could have made better and lets assume that Maarek was part of this squadron:

Storm Squadron Pilot PS5 + elite (22 points)

Maarek Stele PS7 + elite (ability: for the first hit a faceup damage card is a dealt) (25 points)

Starkiller (yes, thats me) PS8 + elite (ability: 1 eye to hit) (26 points)

Darth Vader PS9 + 2 elite (ability: 2 actions) (28 points)

Another approach, nevertheless I like the System Upgrade idea.

What do you think about Maareks ability? and Starkillers (anti - Luke) focus light?

I have a friend who swears by Tie Advanced. He ALWAYS plays them. He just recently acquired his own core set, so I gave him one of my 3 TAs. I NEVER fly them. The only real purpose for the TA is to burst through a swarm and attack strategic targets.

So, even without resorting to brute force combat calculations you can still predict that the 7 ships will win. What's interesting, is that a 17% increase in combat effectiveness is still enough that 2 out of the 7 ships will survive at full health. Things snowball very fast with focus fire, so small changes in point values can have significant changes to the results. 2 points might not sound like much, but can actually be quite a big deal.

Also, it's not a spreadsheet. It's a set of custom scripts that I wrote in MATLAB.... engineering PhD student by day, X-Wing player by night.

I can calculate the exact damage PDFs for multiple ships firing at you in one round. The only thing I don't currently take into consideration is losing stealth device, I need to add that.

We could also postulate from your data that the tie fighter is, in fact 2 points cheaper than it should be, or perhaps the Fighter is 1 point too cheap and the advanced 1 point too expensive. What other squads stand out statistically, and do they pan out on the table?

My 2 cents:

I like a PS4 Storm with an elite pilot slot at 21 points. PS5 kind of breaks the mold from waves 1-3.

PS7 Steele at 25 points, sure. How about simply making it "you may change 1 hit to a critical hit". I was thinking about it, and a 25 point Steele at PS7 may still be OK with his basic ability. He doesn't get much play now because of his cost. His native ability could be good with Missiles, Homing Missiles in particular. The concept is unique and cool, I kind of don't want to get rid of it completely, is all.

PS9 Vader at 28 points - sounds good. Did you give him TWO elite pilot slots though??? I think he only needs a 1 point cost adjustment. His ability is amazing and he already sees occasional play, although maybe not super-competitively.

I really like the PS8 pilot! I have been waiting for FFG to release a pilot with the offensive equivalent of Luke. I think that's great. He would do pretty good damage if he target locked every round, with 1 free hit to focus.

Average damage numbers:

PS8 pilot with target lock + 1 free focus to hit vs. target lock)

2 attack vs 1 defense: 1.43 vs 1.15

2 attack vs 1 defense w/ focus: 1.19 vs 0.91

2 attack vs 2 defense: 1.08 vs 0.85

2 attack vs 2 defense w/ focus: 0.64 vs 0.48

2 attack vs 3 defense: 0.80 vs 0.61

2 attack vs 3 defense w/ focus: 0.31 vs 0.23

Unrelated note: I just played a game tonight, it came down to about 5 rounds of Han and Soontir both going double focus + evade for their action. Han had Gunner and Soontir kept evading most of the shots, and whittling down Han. It was hilarious. Falcon only had 1 hull left at the end, Soontir died on a rock, although Han was probably about to finish him off anyway with a range 1 shot (no focus though). Honorable mention goes to a Tempest Pilot who fired an Assault Missile that rolled 3 blanks and a focus. We played house rules where his Tempest was 19 points, so he was able to get a shield for Soontir. Crazy game at the end.

I got another possible ability for Maarek which would be quite interesting and unique for his 27 points:

A simple "Critical hits ignore shields" ... this would be the first time where Markmanship really comes in handy.

And with his 2 attack + markmanship action there is a good chance to deliver a critical against a X-Wing ...

So with just a 2 attack value maarek wouldn't be OP i think - but a good wingman or option for vader.

Imperial swarms could just ignore Maarek. Even A-Wings are more or less save, due to 3 defence + evade option. But those popular B-Wing lists should better try to take him out first or they would suffer.

I think crits ignoring shields would overpower him. It would be like having a repeating proton bomb on your team.

I think crits ignoring shields would overpower him. It would be like having a repeating proton bomb on your team.

Thats different. Maarek woudlnt be a 'repeating proton bomb' ... you have to produce criticals and you have to hit ... I am not saying like: Maarek does splash damage with automatic crits ignoring shields ...

To produce crits you should have Markmanship ... thats 30 points! A third of your squad! For 30 points Maarek should be at least as effective as Wedge!(!!!)

Common, try it - let Wedge + R5 (or R2) (30 points) fight against Maarek + Markmanship (30). I guess Wedge would win at least in 9 of 10 battles. But WITH this buff it would be more like 5 out of 10 fights ...

TB, Crits that aren't evaded going through shields on a ship with Attack 2 really doesn't feel overpowered. You still have to hit and have a crit.

Found this from awhile ago:

___________________________________________

Advanced should be dropped 1 pt across the board... even Vader. Yep, people load him up and make him viable, not people would still load him up and he might actually be useful. If you reduce by one and use some of these titles, advanced become pretty fun! If you don't reduce the costs, make these titles cost 1 less (except x7)

Advanced- Lord Vader's x1 (unique): free, add the elite pilot skill upgrade to your upgrade bar.

Advanced- Prototype x2: 1pt, add the systems upgrade to your upgrade bar.

Advanced- Prototype x3: 1pt, your firing arc is increased to 180 degrees.

Advanced- Prototype x7: 2pts, you may use the tie interceptor movement dial rather than the tie advanced movement dial.

Advanced- Prototype Aggressor: 1pt, you have a rear firing arc

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now this concept ins interesting.

A pity the x1 is no unique title. And even the Aggressor is mentioned ^^

Interesting found. Also for the rebel ships mentioned.

---

Since I came up with them I havn't had a chance to play our "campaign" mode so I can't speak to their viability but they seem like they should work just fine. Remember, no names the same so no putting Vader's title on Vader!

I like the prototype idea for the advanced and the "production model" for the rebel ships (reducing cost by 1). If I ever get to play some more casual games I'll report back.

I was thinking that I you used somone to squad leader maarek so he could Target lock and marksmanship it might be too overpowered that way especially if his pilot skill was lowered.

Not saying I'm right but i would certainly try it, think you could potentially cripple a lot of ships one at a time before he died.

I was thinking that I you used somone to squad leader maarek so he could Target lock and marksmanship it might be too overpowered that way especially if his pilot skill was lowered.

Not saying I'm right but i would certainly try it, think you could potentially cripple a lot of ships one at a time before he died.

more powerful than Wedge? or Ibitsan or any number of equivalents on the Rebels side. If you are going to be paying X-Wing, B-Wing prices for a model then it should be having X-Wing, B-Wing effects on the game. Maarek + a high PS ship with Squad Leader, should be approaching Wedge backed up by Biggs or possibly Kyle.

I am really starting to like the idea of Maareks' crits ignoring shields.

I'm about to test this some time.

That would be a B-Wing killer.... 5 shields won't do much good if the crits just skip it altogether. Marksmanship would be the obvious choice. I'm afraid that skipping shields entirely would be too overpowered, since you could cut the effective health of some ships in half.

He's also PS7, so his ability should be good, but maybe not THAT good.

That would be a B-Wing killer.... 5 shields won't do much good if the crits just skip it altogether. Marksmanship would be the obvious choice. I'm afraid that skipping shields entirely would be too overpowered, since you could cut the effective health of some ships in half.

He's also PS7, so his ability should be good, but maybe not THAT good.

He is only Attack 2, and it's a single model. You should be able to focus fire him, or avoid him. Also even with B-Wings and a lucky flip on the Crit Damage you would need 2 crits to get through from Maarek to actually kill them. Which I feel would be harder to do than you would think.

Look at how much Ten pays for his uncancellable crits. Look at how much Proton Bombs cost. I'm sorry, but even if I agreed that the Advanced was overcosted, there is no way it is THAT overcosted. Bypassing shields is way to powerful to just have as an ability, especially on a ship that can carry Markmanship.

Yes, Maarek's ability isn't game altering. And that's okay. Not every ship can fit into a competitive meta. No designer is that perfect. At best, we can hope for some new Advanced only upgrades to bring them up a bit more in people's eyes.

Ten pays 1pt for his ability...same as most pilots with good abilities from what we can tell. His ability is always on, just as reliant on dice, but doesn't care about the game state.

Even Vader pays 1 point for his ability. Even Wedge's is only one point. Han Solos ability is so ugly strong combined with a gunner, that it feels like it is broken - and its only 2 points. Taking into consideration that the Advanced is overpriced by 2 - 3 points, and we would corract this either way and Maarek stays at 27 points, his ability for his crits ignoring shields would be 3 - 4 points. And this would be fair. Consider he has only 2 attack and he need to take Markmanship for another 3 points to use his ability.

If Ten Nunb paid 1 pt for his ability, he would cost 29 pts. (22 for base pilot, +6 for pilot skill, +1 for ability). And as good as Wedge and Vader are, they don't have built in Proton Bombs. You will pardon me if I think the ability to essentially use Proton Bombs every turn is a little overboard. But hey, let's really get rid of A-wings while we are at it, just to boost 1 pilot. And you will pardon me if I feel the "accepted" 2-3 pts that the advanced is overcosted is hyperbole. I think that the +1 Evade and 2 extra actions (with Barrel Roll being one of the best in the game) matches up pretty evenly with the X-wing's attack.

But I'm done with this topic. This has degenerated into fantasy. FFG is not going to errata the pilots or the costs. We just have to accept that the Advanced wasn't really designed to be used outside of Vader for now, until FFG decides to give them a boost. Whenever that may be. Not all ships will be tier one.

You forgot the EPT. Tens' ability is 2 points.

At the end this is ALL fantasy, but nevertheless worth to discuss about.

Thanks for trolling by, I hope you enjoyed this topic.

That would be a B-Wing killer.... 5 shields won't do much good if the crits just skip it altogether. Marksmanship would be the obvious choice. I'm afraid that skipping shields entirely would be too overpowered, since you could cut the effective health of some ships in half.

He's also PS7, so his ability should be good, but maybe not THAT good.

Make it a max of 1 Crit per turn that ignores shields?

That would be a B-Wing killer.... 5 shields won't do much good if the crits just skip it altogether. Marksmanship would be the obvious choice. I'm afraid that skipping shields entirely would be too overpowered, since you could cut the effective health of some ships in half.

He's also PS7, so his ability should be good, but maybe not THAT good.

Make it a max of 1 Crit per turn that ignores shields?

More than one uncancelled crit is a very rare event anyway - and if you really run a B-Wing list, you know about your prorities. And even if you dont manage to kill Maarek early, he'll need about 3 rounds to kill a B-Wing - assuming that he'd manage to attack the same B-Wing in this 3 rounds, and produce a critical hit which wasn't cancelled.

So even then, Maarek wouldn't be a no-brainer. An on top of this, nobody else could support Maarek, because the other pilots would hit the shields; unless there are Sprays or Bombers with Proton Bombs in this list.

So, I don't hink Maarek would be overpowered, in the end he would only be dangerous to ships with thick shields and a thin hull. And if the opponent has 0 shields, his ability is worth nothing (think about Tie Swarms in competitive play)

BUT he would finally get a role on the battlefield he would fill in. Just like the other unique pilots (apart from Fels Wrath)

I think Major Juggler dislikes the idea of having 'standard laser cannons bypassing shields' thats not logical.

Just imagine Maarek as a force user could feel the fluctuations in the shield configuration matrix and he is able to use the weak spots