I've noticed a couple of these being proposed frequently, and here are my thoughts on them. Feel free to comment on them and/or add to the list.

1) I've usually seen it listed as:

•C-3PO

Crew Member

Add the Astromech Symbol to your Upgrade Bar.

0-3 Points

Sounds fair, right? Sacrifice a crew member slot on your ship to add an Astromech Droid. Come on guys, you're not fooling anyone. We all know that you want this as an option so that you can slap R2-D2 on the Falcon and make an already powerful ship into a near-indestructable juggernaut. There is a reason why Fantasy Flight hasn't done this. The Astromech abilities are designed to be balanced on small, quick fighters like the X-Wing. Likewise, the crew member abilities are designed to be more balanced on slow and tough freighters like the Falcon and Shuttle (can you imagine a gunner on Wedge?). Putting crew members on fighters or astromechs on freighters would upset the balance of the game and create some really overpowered combos, like the Jugger-Falcon. It could easily break the game. Is that really what you want? A list that wins all the time except for mirror matches? No, no it is not.

2) Something along the lines of:

Weapons Upgrade

Modification

Increase your Attack Rating by 1

4-5 Points

This one isn't as bad as Astromech-Falcon, but I think there is a reason why we haven't seen it yet and hopefully never will. First though, I see two perfectly legitimate reasons why people want it: the A-Wing and the TIE Advanced. Both ships suffer in dogfights by only having 2 Attack dice, and this upgrade would let them go toe to toe with X-Wings and TIE swarms a lot more effectively.

But here is why it wouldn't fix anything, not really. Because with such an upgrade you would simply have people adding it to X-Wings or Falcons or TIEs and so the A-Wings and Advanceds would still be outgunned. What really scares me is a list that looks something like:

(18) Howlrunner

(16) Academy TIE (12) + Weapons Upgrade (4)

(16) Academy TIE (12) + Weapons Upgrade (4)

(16) Academy TIE (12) + Weapons Upgrade (4)

(16) Academy TIE (12) + Weapons Upgrade (4)

(16) Academy TIE (12) + Weapons Upgrade (4)

(98 Points total)

5 ships with an attack rating of 4? Yikes!

I am far happier with cards like Expose and Opportunist that give you extra attack dice only under certain conditions- conditions which fast, maneuverable ships like the A-Wing and the Advanced are good at creating. That being said, I can see FFG making a "Weapons Upgrade" card like this someday, although I hope that they won't. Or if they do, I hope it comes at a cost, like Expose does. Maybe something like "Increase your weapons rating by 1, and decrease your shields rating by 1. This card may not be equipped on a ship with a shield rating of 0".

Those are the main ones I have noticed. Like I said, if you have noticed others being tossed around, feel free to add.

In some ways I figure if a "Weapons Upgrade" modification comes out it will have limitations on it like the Stealth Device does when it comes to increasing Defense dice. If it is also limited to ships with less that 3 primary attack dice it isn't as much of a threat.

In some ways I figure if a "Weapons Upgrade" modification comes out it will have limitations on it like the Stealth Device does when it comes to increasing Defense dice. If it is also limited to ships with less that 3 primary attack dice it isn't as much of a threat.

Note the hypothetical list that I just added in my Edit. I still think that it could be a bad idea.

I agree, 2 "no-brainers" but after you put the brainpower behind it is devestating.

To be honest I'm not a fan of any of the buy card to get icon you don't have cards that are suggested...

They are almost all just bad for the game, even when not broken, they remove the uniqueness of ships. Why take a B-Wing if an X-Wing could get system upgrades etc... One of the most important ways ships get seperated is by what upgrades they can attach. Would Y-Wings would never get taken if you could put turrets on better ships?

I am far happier with cards like Expose and Opportunist that give you extra attack dice only under certain conditions- conditions which fast, maneuverable ships like the A-Wing and the Advanced are good at creating.

The problem is that the Advanced a) isn't that maneuverable, b) only has EPT slots on named characters. They definitely help with the Interceptor and the A-Wing, though Expose is really iffy as it costs an Action, and arguably gives less of a boost to firepower than a focus.

In some ways I figure if a "Weapons Upgrade" modification comes out it will have limitations on it like the Stealth Device does when it comes to increasing Defense dice. If it is also limited to ships with less that 3 primary attack dice it isn't as much of a threat.

Limiting it just to ships with 2 attack dice was already explained

My biggest problem with an upgrade like that is it makes a fundamental change to what kind of ship you have.

Imagine what stealth device would do to the Y-wing, B-Wing or YT-1300 if you could keep the dice after you got hit. The B-wing would become just a better X-Wing.

The same thing would happen if you upped the firepower of the TIE Advanced, it would become just a better TIE Interceptor.

Oh and if the A-wing had 3 attack dice, I don't think there would be a reason to ever take any other ship.

I would add to your list:

Letting more ships take Advanced Sensors.

You may ask how can this be bad, but the Systems upgrade is the B-wings cool thing. I think it would make the B-wing less cool and even Advanced Sensors is more ships could take it. Advanced sensors would just become super common and a whole aspect of the game would go away.

Take for example all the Leadership rules in Warhammer 40K. (sorry if you are not familiar with the game) The leadership rules are cool and they add an interesting element to the battle. Except you almost never use them because almost every army gives you cool ways to get around them. Those cool leadership rules were basically made irrelevant because at least half the armies in the whole range either have super high Ld skill or have a pretty powerful get around.

To be honest I'm not a fan of any of the buy card to get icon you don't have cards that are suggested...

They are almost all just bad for the game, even when not broken, they remove the uniqueness of ships. Why take a B-Wing if an X-Wing could get system upgrades etc...

Oh yes!!! That is another one!

3)

Whatever-you-want-to-call-it-upgrade

Add the Systems upgrade to your upgrade bar

X points

Another modification that would seriously mess up the game. System Upgrades work great on B-wings and Shuttles with their slow movement and relatively crappy movement dials. Sticking Advanced Sensors on an A-wing with Push-the-limit? BAD BAD BAD game-breaking idea.

Edit: Ninja'ed by Hrathen!

Those examples are rather OP once real thought has been put into them... I'm sure even ideas that we've all thought up as good ideas can appear OP even if you do think up Limiting factors for them...

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For 1.)

that exploitation of R2-D2 on the Falcon or any ship with crew + large SP-rating is obviously tough to destroy.

Also should C-3P0 be an actual crew card at those costs would make the combo OP. Especially in your highlighted example of the Falcon. 3P0 + R2D2 + Nien Numb? The costs for R2D2 (4pts) is balanced towards Y-Wings and X-Wings. The surviablity gained has no negative trade-offs other than points.

I would think more realistically a C-3P0 card would read:

•C-3P0: Crew, Rebel Only, Turn (1) Crew Slot into (1) Astromech Slot; 8pts

12pts for the 3P0 + R2D2 combo while denying that second crew slot. Rebel Only for 'canon' sake.

or possibly:

•Protocol and Astromech: Crew, Turn (1) Crew Slot into (1) Astromech Slot; 8pts

An introduction of such a card also has the potential of Killing New Astromechs through point balancing. Since any New Astros would also have to take into consideration of the 3P0 card when selecting costs.

If the latter card would be made Potentially further limit to "non-unique" Astromechs also.

For 2.)

As mentioned once given to a swarm it's incredibly powerful for the number of Dice Rolls granted especially at 4-5 pts.

The game already has a similar Card in it... it cost 7pts, reduces hits to non-Criticals, range limited to 2-3.

Sound familiar? If it was limited to ships with 2:A. Then why not allow ships with 3:A take HLCs?

If such a card existed for less of a cost than HLC, It's introduction would put HLC out of the job, especially if it did the same or better at a cheaper cost.

Also a Modifications shouldn't have limit on who can take it. If you could make an A-Wing have 3:A why take an X-Wing? Missiles are better For Alpha-Striking, A-Wings can Evade AND take EPTs while X-Wings cannot. Essentially it would writeout the ship this game was named after.

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TL;DR

• Adding Slots or converting slots should have a nearly unbearably Large Point Costing since current cards are point balanced towards what ships currently can use them.
• Adding Dice also should have a nearly unbearably Large Point Costing as well as a limiting factor.
• Modifications should not have a restricting factor on who can take it other than "this ship already has it" (Targeting Computer and already has Target Lock action

Anyways throwing out ideas are fun, but if you "house-rule" cards and actually test some stuff what you need to scale back or limit is glaringly obvious... not from the one testing but your opponent's opinion. Look at the Buff Empire "Y" or Buff Rebel "Z" threads the people shooting down ideas are those of opposing factions because they already see what can be exploited to hurt their play while the Proposer only sees how it best effects their situations.

I'm not exactly sure what limitation I'd put on a "Advanced Weapons" modification that causes it to fail like a Stealth Device fails once the ship is hit. My basic thought is that it is "damaged" when the ship takes damage and if you want to be cruel with it you could have it REDUCE a ship's attack after it has suffered damage. +1 attack while the ship is healthy but -1 when it has taken (some level of) damage.

Of course my primary thought to "improve" the A-Wing and Advanced would be to add some kind of missile with "unlimited" ammo. It could turn a missile slot into something similar to a cannon slot but would still work like ordnance but without the discard effect.

As for 16 point Academy TIEs running around with some Advance Weapons that they could lose that price is almost reasonable considering the Interceptors start at 18 points and have boost built in. Have that modification cost more and you remove that "advantage" in the TIEs.

I will defend the C-3PO card idea. The following we'll say the C-3PO card is 1 point and a unique crew so only 1 on the board is allowed.

lets look at the 2 options first the easy one.

HWK- The HWK would benefit incredibly with this. The R2 Astromech, R5 astromech, R5-D8 would be great fits because of the HWK's difficult dial, and 4 hull. R2-D2 would a terrible choice because of its one shield.

A: Rorak- C-3PO + ion turret + R2 Astromech = 26pts

-or-

B: Rorak- C-3PO + ion turret + shield upgrade + R2-D2 = 33pts

Makes the HWK a little bit more desirable. and cheap enough with option A to still put him in a 4 ship build.

Now lets talk the Falcon (the apparently scary option)

Outer rim smuggler- C-3PO, R2-D2, = 32 points

the ship is a pilot skill one with the same options as an X-wing to restore a shield with one less evade dice. its 32 point cost makes it A lot harder to feild in a 4 ship build. And lets take one point off and put R5-D8 in instead of R2-D2. The falcon is now losing it action in attempt to restore a hull damage, granted the falcon has a lot of hull, a target lock or focus is a little more valuable with only 2 attack dice.

now lets look at a bigger "threat"

Chewbacca- C-3PO + R2-D2 + Nein Numb + Falcon title = 49 pts

3 attack,1 evade, 4 forward maneuvers and the slight 1 to restore a shield, 13 HP (5 are shields) you have a fortress of a ship, yet reducing you to a 3 ship build that hinges on 1 ship. The Falcon is without its gunner making it less offensive and a bit more defensive. but if attacked right (focus fired) its not going down much slower than it use to. it can only restore 1 HP a turn and with 1 evade the damage received can overwhelm it and also in order to restore a shield it has to do a move other than its typical Hard 1 to the left or right.

An astromech on a falcon makes the 3 ship build more of a threat to easy to build 7 ship empire or 4 x-wing smasher squad

yet also gives options to the HWK and Outer Rim smuggler to make them more appealing and versatile.

Personally I don't think just adding 3PO or any other protocol droids should garner you an astromec.. 3PO and R2 are a uniqu combo in the movies.. and purely story line.. the 6 movies are actually being told through R2.. he's the most consistent of them all throughout them

You could have a balance in place for the Weapons . Make the card cost high enough to make it hard to fit swarms. Sticking with a theme, since the weapons are heavier the ship is less maneuverable. So increase primary weapon by one decrease agility by one. The Second balance would flat out stop some ships for even thinking about that upgrade.

I will defend the C-3PO card idea. The following we'll say the C-3PO card is 1 point and a unique crew so only 1 on the board is allowed.

[...]

Chewbacca- C-3PO + R2-D2 + Nein Numb + Falcon title = 49 pts

3 attack,1 evade, 4 forward maneuvers and the slight 1 to restore a shield, 13 HP (5 are shields) you have a fortress of a ship, yet reducing you to a 3 ship build that hinges on 1 ship. The Falcon is without its gunner making it less offensive and a bit more defensive. but if attacked right (focus fired) its not going down much slower than it use to. it can only restore 1 HP a turn and with 1 evade the damage received can overwhelm it and also in order to restore a shield it has to do a move other than its typical Hard 1 to the left or right.

An astromech on a falcon makes the 3 ship build more of a threat to easy to build 7 ship empire or 4 x-wing smasher squad

yet also gives options to the HWK and Outer Rim smuggler to make them more appealing and versatile.

Nein Numb isn't even fully required to turn that into a powerhouse.. why run? just slowly move and generate shields your turreted so you'll always have a shot. Also R5-D8 could be more devastation on Chewie. you have a 5/8 chance of healing facedown and Chewie is Crit-Immune.

Which is why a Large Point investment should be required and maybe additional drawbacks.

3PO and R2 are and are not unique in the stories,visually in the movies yes from what I recall. But a Protocol/Astromech combination was used for translating the astromech when they couldn't be plugged into a translating display screen if you couldn't understand droid speak (binary?).

Also finally another who feels Star Wars is the story of R2-D2 recalling the adventures of the Skywalker Family..

Yes a protocol droid helps with translations, but typically don't travel around together... lol.. nor berating each other.. lol

Indeed, I was reading somewhere about R2 being the only one that is in pretty much all events, and where henhas some small holes 3PO fills in the details..

I will defend the C-3PO card idea. The following we'll say the C-3PO card is 1 point and a unique crew so only 1 on the board is allowed.

[...]

Chewbacca- C-3PO + R2-D2 + Nein Numb + Falcon title = 49 pts

3 attack,1 evade, 4 forward maneuvers and the slight 1 to restore a shield, 13 HP (5 are shields) you have a fortress of a ship, yet reducing you to a 3 ship build that hinges on 1 ship. The Falcon is without its gunner making it less offensive and a bit more defensive. but if attacked right (focus fired) its not going down much slower than it use to. it can only restore 1 HP a turn and with 1 evade the damage received can overwhelm it and also in order to restore a shield it has to do a move other than its typical Hard 1 to the left or right.

An astromech on a falcon makes the 3 ship build more of a threat to easy to build 7 ship empire or 4 x-wing smasher squad

yet also gives options to the HWK and Outer Rim smuggler to make them more appealing and versatile.

Nein Numb isn't even fully required to turn that into a powerhouse.. why run? just slowly move and generate shields your turreted so you'll always have a shot. Also R5-D8 could be more devastation on Chewie. you have a 5/8 chance of healing facedown and Chewie is Crit-Immune.

Which is why a Large Point investment should be required and maybe additional drawbacks.

Chewbacca- C-3PO + R5-D8 + Gunner = 51 pts

it is now exchanging its action for a what, 60% chance to restore one health? and since I'm losing my action, gunner is a reasonable second crew member to put in the Falcon. Making one ship eat over half of my allotted points,

The good does not out weigh the bad in this situation no more than other things already implemented in the game. An upgrade like this could help a lot. I don't want this game to be "well im empire, i need to have 6+ ships" or "I'm rebel i must have 4 ships." This is a way to make the rebel 3 ship build scary to a swarm.

[...]

Chewbacca- C-3PO + R5-D8 + Gunner = 51 pts

it is now exchanging its action for a what, 60% chance to restore one health? and since I'm losing my action, gunner is a reasonable second crew member to put in the Falcon. Making one ship eat over half of my allotted points,

The good does not out weigh the bad in this situation no more than other things already implemented in the game. An upgrade like this could help a lot. I don't want this game to be "well im empire, i need to have 6+ ships" or "I'm rebel i must have 4 ships." This is a way to make the rebel 3 ship build scary to a swarm.

Chewie still has EPT available so PTL can be taken as an upgrade option for a second action. although while Gunner is great I would select Recon Specialist instead for double Focus for Defense or focus splitting.

Don't overlook that with Engine upgrade and it's large base, the Falcon is the fastest ship in the game. Not even A-wings and Interceptors can keep up with it. Add Nien Numb and suddenly all those straight 4s are green. Add R2-D2 and now you have a powerful ship that can zip in, deal some serious damage, take some serious damage, zip away literally faster than anything chasing it, recover its shields, then repeat. Maybe there is a way to deal with that but I don't see how.

Also, take for example a really good and commonly used Rebel combo:

Luke Skywalker + R2-D2 + Draw their fire, flying alongside Biggs with Stealth Device, and maybe with some shield upgrades thrown in.

Now take Luke out and replace it with a Falcon with R2-D2 on it. Nasty.

If and when FFG makes a way for the Falcon to use Astromech droids, I predict that the next major tournament champion will field an Astro-falcon, as will a least half of the top 8. Too OP.

Add R2-D2 and now you have a powerful ship that can zip in, deal some serious damage, take some serious damage, zip away literally faster than anything chasing it, recover its shields, then repeat. Maybe there is a way to deal with that but I don't see how.

what you do is focus fire the 2 little guys that were put on the table with the Falcon, if they want to do quick strikes with the falcon thats fine, let him burn up his time. that ship can still easily take a lot of damage and is big enough to easly get in a firing arc.

[...]

If and when FFG makes a way for the Falcon to use Astromech droids, I predict that the next major tournament champion will field an Astro-falcon, as will a least half of the top 8. Too OP.

Add R2-D2 and now you have a powerful ship that can zip in, deal some serious damage, take some serious damage, zip away literally faster than anything chasing it, recover its shields, then repeat. Maybe there is a way to deal with that but I don't see how.

what you do is focus fire the 2 little guys that were put on the table with the Falcon, if they want to do quick strikes with the falcon thats fine, let him burn up his time. that ship can still easily take a lot of damage and is big enough to easly get in a firing arc.

umm.. also Dual-Falcon builds would be incredibly tougher...

[...]

If and when FFG makes a way for the Falcon to use Astromech droids, I predict that the next major tournament champion will field an Astro-falcon, as will a least half of the top 8. Too OP.

Add R2-D2 and now you have a powerful ship that can zip in, deal some serious damage, take some serious damage, zip away literally faster than anything chasing it, recover its shields, then repeat. Maybe there is a way to deal with that but I don't see how.

what you do is focus fire the 2 little guys that were put on the table with the Falcon, if they want to do quick strikes with the falcon thats fine, let him burn up his time. that ship can still easily take a lot of damage and is big enough to easly get in a firing arc.

umm.. also Dual-Falcon builds would be incredibly tougher...

a formidable 2 ship build would be really nice to see. But we would need to keep in mind 3PO would be a unique card, so only one on the team on your side. but it would be nice to see:

Never tell me the odds list:

Chewbacca- Luke skywalker = 49

Han- C-3PO, R2-D2 = 51

Too OP.

Gah. I thought I was fairly up on abbreviations, but my prior forum experience tells me that OP mean Original Post(er). I'm drawing blanks on what this forum is using OP for.

It often means "original post/poster" but it can also mean Over Powered without too much difficulty.

It often means "original post/poster" but it can also mean Over Powered without too much difficulty.

Ah! The light bulb goes off. Thanks.

If we do see r2d2 on a falcon it could be as a crew version with an appropriate ability. I'd probably expect repair hull or flip damage card or similar since that would line up with the films nicely. maybe it could come as a set with 3po crew?

I'd also quite like to see a version of engine upgrade that gives barrel roll. if only so I can have it on green awings with ptl. call it 'lateral thrusters' or something. 4pts.