Ive always felt that the position of deflector shields should be modified just because of the quotes from the films. Its a concept of the ship. and one that has merit. Don't see the complexity behind it. Your ship has three shields. Place the tokens either to the top or the bottom of the card. Depending on where the attack strikes determines the level of defense dice rolled.

@Thrawnshand

You make that sound simple but what you are actually doing is describing a complex set of conditions with significant impact to game balance using simple terms. Rules would need to be implemented to address where an attack originates and what part of the base is front vs rear and even if all of that were easily done the point calculations for all shielded ships would have to be redone because shields would take a significant nerf.

Whats so complex? During the action, place shields. During the attack phase determine number of dice rolled. Arcs are based on the front or the back of the ship. All side attacks overlap.

Why do we fear some complexity? That's what makes the skill of the player shine through instead of just the build of the cards and the roll of the dice?

Hyperbole much?

Complexity and skill are not analogs. It is not that I fear complexity, so much as I need a good reason to endorse additional complexity. You have added ideas about front, back and now side arcs to each stand. You would still need to address who decides which arc is hit when the line from (presumably the closest point of the attacking ship's base) to the target hits a corner. More importantly you have to give a reason to have to measure such arcs in the middle of a multi-ship furball when each measurement risks moving the pieces on the board.

Finally, you did not address at all that your proposed idea would be a reduction in the effectiveness of all shields. Calling it "skill" doesn't make it a good idea. It is just ego bashing those who disagree with you.

double the measurements, new bases needed, more opps where were those sheilds, more tracking... the beauty of xwing is how complex it is within a very simple system. Adding in a few things here and there as special abilities is one thing, adding multiple extra "actions" a player must take every turn for every ship is quite another.

Why do we fear some complexity?

I don't think any of us do. But it is clear that FFG wanted to keep the rules for X-Wing simple which means it's more accessible, which means better sales.

They could of added in things like this quite easily during the design process, and it's very naive to assume they didn't. Complexity for it's own sake is not a good thing in any case. If a more complex system doesn't add real improvement to the game, then it's a bad thing at best.

Adding in a simple method of making angled shields, or arc's can improve the game perhaps, but perhaps not. Having to keep track of shield facing seems to me, to not add enough improvement to the game to make it worth it

Way to take it too personally. First, if you don't like the idea, that's fine. No need to make it as if it was a personal attack. It wasn't written that way and you don't need to twist it. Second, its not that complex an idea. The base is a square, there are four sides. You either hit the front back or sides. As far as extra measuring goes? Why? Your already measuring for the attack. Hell, you could make it down to front and rear, and drop the sides.

Now as for the reduction of effectiveness of shields, no, its a matter of your placement of where the shield is being powered. Actions concerning shields still take place as normal, just the number of defense would rise or fall depending on the location of the hit.

And yes the skill would be anticipating the next line of attack, for both the attacker and defender. Its not a complex idea, not a difficult one to apply, and is part of the Star Wars Universe, just as much as the intangible force.

How about this:

Want to play with front, rear, and side deflector shields?

Go play another game system. If I have to worry about front/side/rear arcs, I'll go and play another game system that handles all of the little nitty gritty details and takes hours to play. If I want to play something that is short, fun and action paced, I'll play X-Wing.

If you want to see "Angling deflector shields" as something more than a simple get an extra evade token, or get a temporary shield token, or some similar abstract mechanic that can be quickly and easily represented, then you are playing the wrong game system.

This is how my group uses it:

System Upgrade

4

Any, System Enhancement

Shield Modulator

Declare Before Shooting begins, this player may state he is maximizing shields in Rear or Front. If he does so, the area not declared will take all hits as with 0 shields, but when the area declared is hit, the defending ship may reroll 1 result on the Defense Die. Only rear and front may are effected and m ust have at least 1 shield.

Way to take it too personally. First, if you don't like the idea, that's fine. No need to make it as if it was a personal attack. It wasn't written that way and you don't need to twist it. Second, its not that complex an idea. The base is a square, there are four sides. You either hit the front back or sides. As far as extra measuring goes? Why? Your already measuring for the attack. Hell, you could make it down to front and rear, and drop the sides.

Now as for the reduction of effectiveness of shields, no, its a matter of your placement of where the shield is being powered. Actions concerning shields still take place as normal, just the number of defense would rise or fall depending on the location of the hit.

And yes the skill would be anticipating the next line of attack, for both the attacker and defender. Its not a complex idea, not a difficult one to apply, and is part of the Star Wars Universe, just as much as the intangible force.

First off, apologies I see that you mentioned dice in your first post too and I did not catch your meaning on what that was to entail. Shields don't currently use dice.

I think you have a much more fleshed out idea in your head than you have communicated how do you propose that shields modify dice? Do you think that shields aft should mean a shot from behind goes against the two defense dice an X-wing gets, or that it should get some additional dice for focused shields? What exactly is your idea?

Second, You are reading hostility where I am offering none. When I said hyperbole, that is my reference to the emotional connotations that my objection to your idea is from fear, and not a rational appraisal of the mechanics as you have explailned them.

I'm all for a cool mechanic that would not require massive changes to existing game play. I don't see any way for damage arcs to be added without needless complexity. I would need a lot better argument for how such additions will improve game play and maintain the excellent balance we currently enjoy. Howeverr since I'm not actually sure what your idea is, why don't you articulate it completely and avoid wording which attacks those of us who disagree with you.

Forward and aft shields + energy management on small craft would be interesting but we would get a completely different game. Imagine you have a power source and enery levels for lasers and shields and your engines needs power, too.

This is just a rough example, if someone want to design more complex rules:

X-Wing Rules

Shields:

You start the game with 1 shield front and 1 aft.

You can swith to 2 front 0 aft or 0 front 2 aft.

2 front and 2 aft is the maximum shileding.

Shields needed 'at least 1 energy' to keep level or you will lose 1 shield.

You need at least 2 energy to recharge 1 shield.

You may recharge your by 1 or 2 per round.

Weapons:

For your weapons you have 4 energy levels: no enery (0), low energy (1), mid energy (2), high energy (3).

When you attack, the number of dice you get depends on the energy level.

So if you have energy level 3, you'll get 3 dice.

After your attack you drop by one energy level.

You may recharge your weapons by 1 or 2 levels per round.

You can swith power from weapons to shields and the other way around.

Engines:

Your ship has a 'power plant' producing a constant power level of 2.

Moving your ship at low speed means that your have surplus power for the other systems.

Moving at max speed will consume all of the surplus power.

etc.

I think you can see that it will be a different game in the end. Even if you still use the flightpath-system.

The current mechanic assumes you are already angling your shields and doing it perfectly. You can't damage a ship until all it's shields are stripped no matter how much attacks fly in from a single arc possibly overwhelming a poor pilot into a mistake of not shifting them correctly.

Way to take it too personally. First, if you don't like the idea, that's fine. No need to make it as if it was a personal attack. It wasn't written that way and you don't need to twist it. Second, its not that complex an idea. The base is a square, there are four sides. You either hit the front back or sides. As far as extra measuring goes? Why? Your already measuring for the attack. Hell, you could make it down to front and rear, and drop the sides.

Now as for the reduction of effectiveness of shields, no, its a matter of your placement of where the shield is being powered. Actions concerning shields still take place as normal, just the number of defense would rise or fall depending on the location of the hit.

And yes the skill would be anticipating the next line of attack, for both the attacker and defender. Its not a complex idea, not a difficult one to apply, and is part of the Star Wars Universe, just as much as the intangible force.

I still think that this idea sounds simpler in your head than it would be in practice. I only say this because I've been playing miniatures games for decades, and games where the attacker and defender's facing are both important are much more complex, in play, than ones where only one or the other is important.

Think of it this way - when in the game are you most likely to have arguments and hurt feelings show up? In my experience, it's usually measuring ranges and firing arcs - often the attacker is pretty sure that the attack is within range and within the firing arc, while the defender believes otherwise. When you add in the defender's shield arc, you increase the potential for arguments by 50%, which weakens the game.

I think that shield arcs could be a really fun optional rule, but to the average player they would probably make the game less fun and less accessible. I prefer to think of the fore/aft shields thing as something that is already abstracted into the game - the X-wing has 2 shields, so maybe it has one in front and one in back. When an attack hits a shield, the X-wing pilot is already angling the deflectors to compensate.

The current mechanic assumes you are already angling your shields and doing it perfectly. You can't damage a ship until all it's shields are stripped no matter how much attacks fly in from a single arc possibly overwhelming a poor pilot into a mistake of not shifting them correctly.

This.