Weekly Prequel Ship Design Thread: Eta-2 Interceptor!

[SpikeSpiegel 2,077]

I haven't changed my mind about introducing the prequel ships to a separate-but-compatible game yet and I still think it would be interesting to design some ships. I usually see prequel threads pop up once a week with recommendations for a ship to be designed and now I feel obligated to bring it up each week. I'll make this week 1 of a series of threads to design prequel ships, and I'll link back to each thread every week. Hopefully it will be interesting enough to stick around and fun to look back on.

If you are opposed to the ideas of prequel ships, you are still more than welcome to share your opinions. Though, I kindly request to try to keep things on an objective, design-based criticism to help those of us that are interested in designing ships design better ships and improve our knowledge, input and overall ideas for the game.

With that being said, lets design the Eta-2 Actis-class Light Interceptor!

Flavor fully, Eta-2s were agile, had little to no shielding and couldn't take much of a beat down. They were armed with Ion Cannons and Astromech, as well as being piloted by force-sensitive Jedi, which is a fair trade off for an agile, weak interceptor.

Eta-2 Light Interceptor

Attack: 2

Agility: 3

Shield: 1

Hull: 2

Actions: Barrel Roll, Focus, Evade, Target Lock

Cannon, Astromech

I feel the lackluster hit point stats can be made up for with an amazing dial, much like the A-Wing or TIE Interceptor. Having a highly agile, glass cannon of a fighter would be an interesting sight to see on the field. Sure, you can potentially throw an HLC on it and give it 4 Attack for 7 points, but is it worth putting it on a risky 1 Shield 2 Hull ship? But with the low HP value, I'm not sure if this shoehorns players wanting to field the Eta-2 into a position where they feel the absolute necessity to run them with a cannon upgrade or not at all.

I also think Target Lock might also be able to be replaced by a new Jedi-specific action, and the lowest PS, non-Jedi pilot will miss out on this ability reducing its action bar to 3 actions. But that's a whole other design scheme that can be tackled later. If this is the case for a generic, non-Jedi pilot, I think it would be safe to add 1 Hull or Shield to the ship, since it was mostly the Jedi who liked to run their Eta-2s with little shielding.

I'd also like to see what pilots and abilities we can come up with for the Eta-2. Design away!

[markcsoul 2,122]

I mentioned this in another thread, but I think any jedi ships, assuming they have jedi pilots, should be the first ships to have agility 4 as their "force sensitivity" would give them an added edge on defense.  Would also help negate having low hit points.

 

Possibly could omit target lock.

 

Cannon is tricky as they do have ion cannons, but putting a autoblaster or heavy laser cannon on them doesn't feel right.  Perhaps they could only take cannons that have a max cost of 4 or something (in case any future cannons come out at 4 points).

[Icareane 489]

I will probably proxy play my Eta-2s as Tie Fighters.

[aadh 385]

Not so sure about the cannon and I agree that TL should be replaced.

 

Again I want to reiterate how much I'd love to see this as a separate-but-compatible game.

[Sparklelord 731]

I'd include Boost in that action bar, since you want to offset the fragility with arc-dodging.

A Jedi ability-like action would be neat, but I'd definitely give it even to the lowest PS ship. Padawan Pilot or some such thing, still able to do Jedi stuff, just low PS. (Perhaps a defensive-style Target Lock? Action: Gain a token, which you can spend to then reroll as many of your evade dice as you like. Given the fragility, this would make a nice ability for those times when arc dodging isn't possible and so it's taking fire-- e.g., very nice vs. a YT-1300. Would also work nice with a 4-agility ship as markcsoul suggested. And I think there's only 2 cards in the game right now that let you do anything with blanks on defense)

A pilot skill suggestion, especially for a Jedi pilot, is an improved version of Boba Fett's ability. Something like, "when you reveal your maneuver dial, you may change it to a different bearing of the same speed. You may not change it to a red maneuver if you have any stress tokens."

[Rakky Wistol 2,903]

Ps 3-9

Att 2

AG 4

Hull 3

SH 1

Astro and EPT

BR, Focus, boost

Interceptor/Ewing dial

That's it. If you go with AG3 give them the evade action. Astromech already opens up just about every other option.

I think a "Force Sensative" EPT is a no brained eventually. I'd like to see a series of 3-4 of them. Maybe a basic one that "unlocks" a different upgrade type.

[nikk whyte 3,868]

What was that one video game that gave you force powers from inside the ship? You could shoot lightning and such.

Upgrade: force lightning

At range 2 you may roll 3 dice against one opponent. This causes both the attacker and defender to receive a stress token.

[Babaganoosh 3,079]

I think a "Force Sensative" EPT is a no brained eventually. I'd like to see a series of 3-4 of them. Maybe a basic one that "unlocks" a different upgrade type.

I could see a force-user upgrade slot working within the game, like an EPT slot but only available on a handful of pilots. But they have already produced the pilots with which this makes any sense. The time for a "force ability" slot is come and gone.

On the other hand having "force" EPTs is silly, especially given the number of pilots who are definitely not force users, such as Han Solo, Boba Fett, Fel, etc. it would only make sense if those EPTs were only available to force sensitive pilots somehow. That would be quite a headache to arrange I think.

[Rakky Wistol 2,903]

Most Force Users in game have EPT slots. Making a "force sensative" EPT that does a small thing and unlocks a "force use" icon would be cool.

Han Solo is force sensitive and I think Fet may have been as well. They just weren't force users. Han calls this "luck". Fet calls this "skill".

[markcsoul 2,122]

I don't think a special force ability is necessary.  Just give them good pilot abilities and ept slots, and like I suggested maybe a higher evade value.

 

If they do go that route it would probably be a mod called "Use the Force" or something that's "Jedi Starfighter" only.  It would be too hard to get force users in the game already that ability (luke, vader, etc).

[KommanderKeldoth 2,600]

I don't think overt force use really fits into the game.  Yeah, luke has a focus themed ability and vader can take two actions, but they're not going around moving asteroids or shooting lightning from their ships.  It doesn't really fit with the movies either.  Even Anakin doesn't resort to telekinesis when he needs to get rid of buzz droids on Obi-wan's fighter at the beginning of Ep 3.

 

It would be cool to have a whole range of 'force' themed pilot abilities instead of an across the board action.  So far, a lot of the force-like abilities have centered around the focus action (luke and kyle).  Examples:

 

-As long as (insert jedi pilot name here) has at least 1 focus token, increase this ship's evade dice by one

or

-You may spend a focus token to cancel 1 'hit' or 'crit' result on an attack roll (kind of like an avade version of han solo)

or

-All friendly ships within range 1 can change 1 eyeball result into an evade when defending