Multi Questions about TIE Interceptors and some about other things.

[SableGryphon 2,847]

Woah there fellas. Fly casual. We're here to enjoy a fun, well balanced game. We don't need to get quite so caustic and we don't need to get nasty with each other. Both of you have valid points which are worth exploring, though we're getting to the end of that exploration.

 

We also don't need to try to unbalance the game in order to fit examples of artistic license in the game. Let's be honest, if the Interceptor had a weapon that can one shot any ship in the game, it's cost would be above 100 points. It's an unrealistic request and one that will never happen in this game. Enjoy the game as it is. Interceptors are getting a lot of love soon with the Imperial Aces expansion, but they are never getting the death star laser upgrade.

[Bilisknir 443]

I am doing all this with a MASSIVE grin on my face. His over enthusiam for the interceptor coupled with his exhaustive list of citations supporting his view are, in my mind, hillarious. Would almost say he is being Crazy Awesome!

[Black Knight Leader 424]

<sarcasm>If your TIE Interceptors get such powerful guns, I want my B-Wings to have the same - I mean they carried 3 Laser Cannon and 3 Ion Cannon and 8 Torps. You get hit by that you are going nowhere! I mean it was designed to take out Cap Ships!!!</sarcasm>

 

You already have that ability with autoblaster.  It is nearly always going to kill most Imp fighters in one round.  Then in universe you got the crow which is a double hulled B-Wing if it was in this game it would prob have a strenght 6 autoblaster.

[Black Knight Leader 424]

Woah there fellas. Fly casual. We're here to enjoy a fun, well balanced game. We don't need to get quite so caustic and we don't need to get nasty with each other. Both of you have valid points which are worth exploring, though we're getting to the end of that exploration.

 

We also don't need to try to unbalance the game in order to fit examples of artistic license in the game. Let's be honest, if the Interceptor had a weapon that can one shot any ship in the game, it's cost would be above 100 points. It's an unrealistic request and one that will never happen in this game. Enjoy the game as it is. Interceptors are getting a lot of love soon with the Imperial Aces expansion, but they are never getting the death star laser upgrade.

 

I am not being nasty =[

 

I am just going to be frank, because being Black Knight Leader is boring, I like SW and Alien games more when they fit with canon even if it doesnt ballance.  Dont get me wrong I LOVE THIS GAME, it does a super job fiting with canon most the time.  I just feel the Rebs got the better deal with fire power.  I heard a guy talking about "A-Wing alpha strike tactic." and that is one major reason I came on here and asked what is the best way to deal with a all A-Wing squadron.  In universe or in SW TIE Fighter or the other sims in that family I would look at my missile threat indicator, lock on to the enemy fighter and fire lots of vollys of lasers destroying the missile and then at the right distance do a Wotan Weave.  I have no ability to do that in this game and it worries me.

 

Just for custmiseations sake I would love to be able to customise the whole load out of anycraft in this game in a sim way you can in Mech Warrior.

[VanorDM 11,599]

I like SW and Alien games more when they fit with canon even if it doesnt ballance.

There's two types of games that sacrifice balance in the name of canon.

One, a home brew type game that you and your friends play because you're all willing to forgo balance.

Two, games which never get published. Which I suppose would include group one.

You cannot produce a competitive game and sacrifice balance for any reason. Balance frankly trumps just about everything, because with out that, then the whole game falls apart. If one side is clearly superior to the other, then no one will play that side.

There is no way you can put a ship that has the power you say a Interceptor should have, without destroying the game. If you wanted to set up rules like that for yourself as house rules, go for it. But that would never become part of the official FFG game.

I also question the idea that what you're saying is even canon in the first place. Because you really don't see that happening much in the movies. In all the video games the Tie Interceptor had more firepower then a standard Tie, but not anywhere near enough to one shot anything. It even took a couple shots to take out the Z95's.

Edited December 3, 2013 by VanorDM

[CrookedWookie 1,258]

Yeah I agree, it's one thing to argue about whether everything is in perfect scale (which I also think is kind of a silly discussion, since even canon sources are so contradictory on a lot of points), or criticizing in a general way "I thought this ship would be tougher, I thought that ship would have better firepower, this ship seems to be over/under-costed a bit."  

 

It's quite another thing to start talking about the make and model of the armament, the power output compared to the guns on this other ship, or - worse - trying to take cinematic action pulled from the screen and directly translate that into hard and fast numbers in the game.  It just doesn't work.  If the narrative calls for a TIE to get blown up in a single shot, it's going to get vaporized in a single shot, regardless of what shot it.  If a main character is in that TIE, you can be sure that it'll survive a bunch of hits and near misses all of a sudden, because there are no hard and fast rules in the narrative. Everything exists to serve the story being told, and there's no need for balance, and a very limited need for consistency.

 

The B-Wing is a perfect example of this to me.  The model clearly has each and every weapon it CAN mount, modeled right onto it.  Never mind the fact that in 'canon' each torpedo launcher would actually have a magazine of half a dozen or more torpedoes and not be a single shot item, it would have regular lasers, and an Ion cannon, and a heavy laser cannon, and the autoblaster, and torpedoes, and...  

 

Now if you want to spend the points, you can load one of those things up.  If you take the most expensive upgrade in every slot, you can turn a 22 point Blue Squadron pilot into a 49 point monster.  That's 3 points more expensive than Han would cost you, or equal to Chewie PLUS 7 points in upgrades.  If you want to field two of those and call it a day, have at it, but it's not going to make for a very balanced squad.

 

So you can argue that the B-Wing should have all three types of cannons, AT ONCE, rather than simply having access to each, but from a gameplay standpoint it just doesn't make any sense.  Even if it was possible to directly translate everything you see on the screen, perfectly into the framework of the game (and it's not) the entire concept of balance between factions, each ship filling a role, any kind of remotely competitive gameplay goes out the window.

[VanorDM 11,599]

Yeah I agree

Which just goes to prove how intelligent and wise you are.

 

It's quite another thing to start talking about the make and model of the armament

There's in a way two different issues here.

One the scale of X-Wing isn't IMO fine enough. I'm not talking about the size of the ships, but the scale of points vs damage/shields/hull/ect... I'd rather of they made X-Wing a 1,000 point standard for lists, and had X-Wings with 10-15 points of shields, 20-25 points of hull, and do 20-30 damage per hit. Because with the 100 point list, and 1-3 damage they have as the base for the system, there just isn't a lot of room for fine tuning.

If they had gone that route, the Tie Interceptor could of done 25-35 damage for example, vs the 15-20 damage the Tie Fighter does.

Now having gone with the scale they did, does make for a much more accessible game. It lets people get up to speed quickly because there's less over all book keeping, more action and more explosions. Which does make X-Wing a very fun game.

It's a bit of a conundrum I guess. I would of liked to see something closer to SFB, but if they had gone that complex the game would of most likely not been nearly as popular. I know my one friend wouldn't of likely touched it at that rate.

The other is as you point out one of balance. You can't make a ship that is as powerful as the OP is asking for, doing so would wreck the game as a competitive game. I also question how canon that would really be. Since as pointed out none of the other games allowed this, and those games are perhaps a lower form of canon then the novels, but are still canon.

Edited December 3, 2013 by VanorDM

[CrookedWookie 1,258]

I like your style, Vandor.  

 

I hear what you're saying - you're using "scale" a little bit differently than I think it normally gets thrown around.  Generally it gets used the sense of 1:270, or 1:450, or whatever.  You're almost talking about the scope of the game - which, of course, might wind up affecting the scale of the miniatures themselves, if you wanted to account for much larger squadrons on the same size play area.

 

FWIW, in one of the other discussions I said I'd actually enjoy much the same thing.  If they wanted to introduce capital ships I think it would be cool if they came out with another version of the game, using a variation of the same basic mechanics, where the capital ships were all about the size of a Falcon or a Lambda in the current game, and then each fighter sized base had maybe a small SQUADRON of fighters on it, in a smaller scale, rather than one larger one.

 

It would be more of a fleet-scale game, versus a small squadron dogfighting game, which I think would be a cool alternative.  I'll be curious to see where exactly they take the Epic or Cinematic or whatever rules when those hit, because I do think it would be cool if there was an easy way to play much larger furballs than are generally allowed under the current point limits and such.

[VanorDM 11,599]

You're almost talking about the scope of the game - which, of course, might wind up affecting the scale of the miniatures themselves, if you wanted to account for much larger squadrons on the same size play area.

Scope is a better word perhaps.

I don't want to see more ships on the table per-say. Just that instead of 25 points for Biggs or 5 points for a PT. It would be 250 points for Biggs and 50 points for a PT. The reason for that, is then you could make something that costs 255 points that's slightly better then Wedge but not quite as good as Garven... Just as an example.

[Bilisknir 443]

 

You're almost talking about the scope of the game - which, of course, might wind up affecting the scale of the miniatures themselves, if you wanted to account for much larger squadrons on the same size play area.

Scope is a better word perhaps.

I don't want to see more ships on the table per-say. Just that instead of 25 points for Biggs or 5 points for a PT. It would be 250 points for Biggs and 50 points for a PT. The reason for that, is then you could make something that costs 255 points that's slightly better then Wedge but not quite as good as Garven... Just as an example.

 

 

Granularity of the points costs is what you are aiming for,

[CrookedWookie 1,258]

 

You're almost talking about the scope of the game - which, of course, might wind up affecting the scale of the miniatures themselves, if you wanted to account for much larger squadrons on the same size play area.

Scope is a better word perhaps.

I don't want to see more ships on the table per-say. Just that instead of 25 points for Biggs or 5 points for a PT. It would be 250 points for Biggs and 50 points for a PT. The reason for that, is then you could make something that costs 255 points that's slightly better then Wedge but not quite as good as Garven... Just as an example.

 

We could multiply everything by 10 if it would make you feel better.  

It's an interesting idea.  The problem, I would say (aside from the fact you said "better than Wedge but not quite as good as Garven," which implies Garven is better than Wedge), is that "better" is a pretty nebulous term.

 

99% of the ships in X-Wing have the same stats regardless of who is piloting them - Wedge or a Rookie, an X-Wing is an X-Wing across the stat line.  So, ok, a Rookie costs 21 points, a Red pilot 23.  We can tentatively speculate that unless it SCALES as it gets higher, it's about a point of cost per point of pilot skill above the baseline.  If you take that assumption for now,

Biggs 25 points, minus 21 for a Rookie leaves 4, minus 1 for the bump from ps 4 to 5 means his ability is valued at roughly 3 points.

Garven is 26 points, minus 21 for a Rookie, leaves 5, minus 2 points for ps6, means his ability is also worth 3.

Luke is 28. minus 21 for Rookie is 7, minus 6 for pilot skill means his ability is only worth 1?

Wedge is 29, minus 21 for Rookie is 8, minus 7 for pilot skill means his ability is also only worth 1, despite being one of the most lethal in the game.

 

And that's not even counting the fact that the two guys with the seemingly cheapest special abilities ALSO get access to elite pilot skills - and you'd think that slot has to factor into the cost somewhere.

 

Which basically tells me that there's no hard and fast formula.  Even if there is one for pilot skill (which I'm not even sold on), the way they 'value' a pilot's given ability seems to be completely subjective.  They seem instead to decide on an appropriate ps level, figure out what ability to give them, and then kind of fudge the point cost to fit where they want it to slot in.

 

My point being, making the numbers larger to allow for more (good word, Bilisknir) "granularity" in the point totals is sort of moot, because I'm not at all convinced there's any solid formula making sense of the points as they exist now.  I think everyone can point to a pilot who seems cheap for their ability and/or PS, and pilots that hardly anybody touches, because they're too costly for what you get, or even like Boba Fett, where their ability just seems a bit underwhelming even if the PS is nice.  Not bad, but not what you'd maybe hoped for.

 

I couldn't even tell you if they decide they want to create a pilot at psX and go from there, or come up with the abilities first, or decide "hmm, there's a nice progression here of point cost, so cost Y looks like it would fit in nicely there" or what.  I suspect sort of a hodgepodge of all of those things.  Which is simply to say that granularity is nice, but even excepting the fact that I think they wanted to keep the numbers nice and manageable and NOT incredibly complicated to add up, the point totals they assign from pilot to pilot are so subjective that I think blowing the system up with a much wider range of variance would do a lot more harm than good.

[Black Knight Leader 424]

 

I like SW and Alien games more when they fit with canon even if it doesnt ballance.

There's two types of games that sacrifice balance in the name of canon.

One, a home brew type game that you and your friends play because you're all willing to forgo balance.

Two, games which never get published. Which I suppose would include group one.

You cannot produce a competitive game and sacrifice balance for any reason. Balance frankly trumps just about everything, because with out that, then the whole game falls apart. If one side is clearly superior to the other, then no one will play that side.

There is no way you can put a ship that has the power you say a Interceptor should have, without destroying the game. If you wanted to set up rules like that for yourself as house rules, go for it. But that would never become part of the official FFG game.

I also question the idea that what you're saying is even canon in the first place. Because you really don't see that happening much in the movies. In all the video games the Tie Interceptor had more firepower then a standard Tie, but not anywhere near enough to one shot anything. It even took a couple shots to take out the Z95's.

 

 

 

It depends on the game you are playing.  Flight sims can get away with being true to source.

 

You do see the Interceptor one shot kill fighters in the movies.  Your example of the Z95 is from the game itself, not the cut scenes, and in that game 2 lasers from a TIE Fighter equal 4 from a Interceptor/avenger/defender.  In game play 80% of games Interceptor has the weakest attacks they hardly ever do as much damage as a Fighter. 

 

All my sources show it being as powerful as I am talking about even Return of the Jedi itself.  The only modles that dont have that power are the blaster type.

[Black Knight Leader 424]

Yeah I agree, it's one thing to argue about whether everything is in perfect scale (which I also think is kind of a silly discussion, since even canon sources are so contradictory on a lot of points), or criticizing in a general way "I thought this ship would be tougher, I thought that ship would have better firepower, this ship seems to be over/under-costed a bit."  

 

It's quite another thing to start talking about the make and model of the armament, the power output compared to the guns on this other ship, or - worse - trying to take cinematic action pulled from the screen and directly translate that into hard and fast numbers in the game.  It just doesn't work.  If the narrative calls for a TIE to get blown up in a single shot, it's going to get vaporized in a single shot, regardless of what shot it.  If a main character is in that TIE, you can be sure that it'll survive a bunch of hits and near misses all of a sudden, because there are no hard and fast rules in the narrative. Everything exists to serve the story being told, and there's no need for balance, and a very limited need for consistency.

 

The B-Wing is a perfect example of this to me.  The model clearly has each and every weapon it CAN mount, modeled right onto it.  Never mind the fact that in 'canon' each torpedo launcher would actually have a magazine of half a dozen or more torpedoes and not be a single shot item, it would have regular lasers, and an Ion cannon, and a heavy laser cannon, and the autoblaster, and torpedoes, and...

 

Now if you want to spend the points, you can load one of those things up.  If you take the most expensive upgrade in every slot, you can turn a 22 point Blue Squadron pilot into a 49 point monster.  That's 3 points more expensive than Han would cost you, or equal to Chewie PLUS 7 points in upgrades.  If you want to field two of those and call it a day, have at it, but it's not going to make for a very balanced squad.

 

So you can argue that the B-Wing should have all three types of cannons, AT ONCE, rather than simply having access to each, but from a gameplay standpoint it just doesn't make any sense.  Even if it was possible to directly translate everything you see on the screen, perfectly into the framework of the game (and it's not) the entire concept of balance between factions, each ship filling a role, any kind of remotely competitive gameplay goes out the window.

At least half the Interceptors in my refrences where not main characters.  Some of the main characters where taken out by noname 181st Pilots.  Just like I said before on blu-ray special features show that every fighter did have predetermened stats and characteristics.  This has carried over into the lore of these ships which is why weapon damage stays consistant for each weapon on the ships.  Same goes for other bits of tech.

 

I could care less if they changed the B-Wing to fit with canon it already instantly kills almost every type of Imp fighter in one turn.

[Black Knight Leader 424]

 

Yeah I agree

Which just goes to prove how intelligent and wise you are.

 

It's quite another thing to start talking about the make and model of the armament

There's in a way two different issues here.

One the scale of X-Wing isn't IMO fine enough. I'm not talking about the size of the ships, but the scale of points vs damage/shields/hull/ect... I'd rather of they made X-Wing a 1,000 point standard for lists, and had X-Wings with 10-15 points of shields, 20-25 points of hull, and do 20-30 damage per hit. Because with the 100 point list, and 1-3 damage they have as the base for the system, there just isn't a lot of room for fine tuning.

If they had gone that route, the Tie Interceptor could of done 25-35 damage for example, vs the 15-20 damage the Tie Fighter does.

 

Unless your talking about the blaster armed type the damage is to low for the 9.3 type.  But since alot of people want to break canon I suggest making both versions do negative damage with a chance to self destruct if a crit is rolled.

[Vonpenguin 389]

The Interceptor already has a three attack, a three dodge, an amazing maneuver dial, and a relatively inexpensive cost.  It is without a doubt one of the single best ships in the game. There is only so much you can do with a scale where nothing rolls more than three dice without modifiers. I'd also like to point out that what you are interpreting as a blaster with massive power that kills anything it hits could very easily be just an above par weapon and the pilots scored nice solid hits through either luck or skill.

 

I also find it odd that you can accept the difference between cutscenes and gameplay in the video games but gameplay and story segregation in this annoys you.

 

Also just to check you are aware of the fact that in order for the B-wing to one shot an Imp it would need to roll all hits and the imp would have to roll zero evades and not have taken the evade action either right? the odds of that are slim at best. And it would only ever work on two of the six imperial ships.

[CrookedWookie 1,258]

Not to mention the fact, throwing a snit about the way the Interceptor is portrayed in the game, only to turn around and say something like "I could care less if they changed the B-Wing to fit with canon" sort of throws your entire argument out the window.  If you want to apply your understanding or interpretation of canon selectively, and only to ships you like or care about, you might as well just make up your own house rules because we can't help you.

[VanorDM 11,599]

We could multiply everything by 10 if it would make you feel better.  

No, it wouldn't work at this point. But if I were involved in the design process back before the game shipped I would of recommended a higher point value.

 

I could care less if they changed the B-Wing to fit with canon it already instantly kills almost every type of Imp fighter in one turn.

First off, no it doesn't. It has as much chance to one shot a Tie Fighter as a X-Wing or Tie Interceptor does. Which is little to none.

Second, this statement makes it pretty clear you are little more then a Tie Interceptor fanboy, a term I hate to use, but in this case is clearly appropriate. You aren't interested in what's good for the game, or even what is canon vs what isn't. You just want your favored ship to be powerful as you think it should be.

So you'll drag up any tidbit you can find that supports your argument, but ignore anything that works against it. You aren't interested in what's canon, you just want your fantasy ship.

[CrookedWookie 1,258]

Preach, Vandor.  

[VanorDM 11,599]

I'm sorry if I came off a bit harsh.  But wanting to throw balance out the window bugs me... Wanting to do it for what seem to be fairly dubious reasons makes it worse.

Edited December 4, 2013 by VanorDM

[CrookedWookie 1,258]

No, man, that was meant to be more of a "hallelujah, brother!"  You said a mouthful.

This entire Interceptor discussion was moderately ridiculous in the first place - everything in the game is, by necessity (as you know, clearly) both highly abstracted, and adjusted for balance purposes.  Neither one of those lends itself very well to measuring precise laser cannon output - both, together, make that kind of argument wholly moot from the get-go.

 

And you're right on - the minute we went from arguing canon (which is already tenuous footing at best) to "I don't care what you do to the B-Wing, I just want my Interceptor..." this quit being a rational discussion and officially became irrational fanboy love, and there's no point arguing with that because nothing anyone could say would convince him they didn't ruin his Interceptor or that it works just fine, as is, within the context of the game.

 

Never mind the fact that it's the first ship out of three waves, getting extra love from FFG in the form of the Aces pack with a bunch of new pilots, new upgrades, and two shiny new paintjobs.  They're definitely mistreating that poor Interceptor all right.  CURSE YOU, FANTASY FLIGHT!  CURSE YOU! ! ! 

[Bazinga 24]

CW your not suggesting the imperial aces will bring balance to the force, the game and one fan boys over enthusiastic love of interceptors?

[VanorDM 11,599]

CW your not suggesting the imperial aces will bring balance to the force, the game and one fan boys over enthusiastic love of interceptors?

It's not That good

 

I think it will bring the Tie/In to a place where it's more commonly seen.  Right now most people seem to think the ship is a bit on the underpowered-for-the-points side.  I tend to agree, I can win with a 4 Tie/In squad using PtL, but it's not easy.

[Bazinga 24]

But they look so good, surly style accounts for something?

[Black Knight Leader 424]

Not to mention the fact, throwing a snit about the way the Interceptor is portrayed in the game, only to turn around and say something like "I could care less if they changed the B-Wing to fit with canon" sort of throws your entire argument out the window.  If you want to apply your understanding or interpretation of canon selectively, and only to ships you like or care about, you might as well just make up your own house rules because we can't help you.

You are taking my comment the wrong way since I wrote before I want the ships to better fit with cannon.  I am not selective about cannon.  Show me with refrences where I have been selective.

[CrookedWookie 1,258]

 

Not to mention the fact, throwing a snit about the way the Interceptor is portrayed in the game, only to turn around and say something like "I could care less if they changed the B-Wing to fit with canon" sort of throws your entire argument out the window.  If you want to apply your understanding or interpretation of canon selectively, and only to ships you like or care about, you might as well just make up your own house rules because we can't help you.

You are taking my comment the wrong way since I wrote before I want the ships to better fit with cannon.  I am not selective about cannon.  Show me with refrences where I have been selective.

 

Umm, I did.  Several times.  

"I could care less if they changed the B-Wing to fit with canon it already instantly kills almost every type of Imp fighter in one turn," which is both stretching the truth and pretty much the definition of being selective about canon.