/swg/- Wake Me Up Inside (Can't Wake Up) Edition

It's certainly a well-thought-out box of symbolism.

Just spitballing here for you. It probably wouldnt work out too well but who knows
TIE Bomber: · Tomax Bren (24)
Crack Shot (1)
Plasma Torpedoes (3)
Extra Munitions (2)
Cluster Missiles (4)
Guidance Chips (0)
TIE Bomber: Scimitar Squadron Pilot (16)
Extra Munitions (2)
Cluster Missiles (4)
Guidance Chips (0)
TIE Bomber: Scimitar Squadron Pilot (16)
Extra Munitions (2)
Cluster Missiles (4)
Guidance Chips (0)
TIE Bomber: Scimitar Squadron Pilot (16)
Extra Munitions (2)
Cluster Missiles (4)
Guidance Chips (0)

I just quite liked the bit about the flowers in her hair meaning that this really is Padme visiting him.

geordanr.github.io/xwing/?f=Galactic Empire&d=v4!s!191:19,126,136,-1,-1,-1:-1:25:;191:19,126,136,-1,-1,-1:-1:25:;191:19,126,58,-1,-1,-1:-1:25:;191:19,126,-1,13,-1,-1:-1:25:&sn=Unnamed Squadron

you could try this..

>One of the Shadowcaster pilots is Asajj Ventress
>One of the Protectorate fighter pilots is Old Master (AKA Darth Maul)

How long until we see a list called Check Your Privilege?

... If your gonna use stuff from Imperial Veterans, you might as well go the whole hog

geordanr.github.io/xwing/?f=Galactic Empire&d=v4!s!191:19,126,-1,14,-1,-1:-1:25:;191:19,126,-1,14,-1,-1:-1:25:;191:19,126,-1,17,-1,-1:-1:25:;49:-1,-1,-1,-1,-1:35:-1:u.95,u.183&sn=Unnamed Squadron

I so want to get stoked for the Fang Fighter, but without an A-Wing/Interceptor type dial it'll be useless, and I just don't trust FFG to not fuck it up.

I need ideas for non-Jedi light-side users.

mmm what's the joke ?

They already mentioned that it's going to have a similar dial to the Interceptor/A-Wing, in the article. So far the big difference is that it has 2-speed Tallon Rolls, and a mighty need to face-rush targets.

not him but that looks good.. gonna try it ASAP.

FFG have a burning hatred for Scum dials. They'll find a way to hamstring it: it'll be missing 3-turns, or it'll have white 4 and 5 straight, or it will have no k-turn.

I hope I'm wrong though. I only have scum+ original starter, and I've been kicking around buying Imperial Aces so I can play some fast, maneuverable ships. I'd rather just wait for the Fang.

Ooh, there's tons of non-Jedi "light side" Force traditions in Legends.

starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Force-based_organizations

Kind of surprised that I'm not seeing a "light side Force tradition" category. But... there's 81 traditions there, even though it includes dark side traditions.

With as ludicrously self-destructive the Sith are, I'd be surprised if a lot of dark side traditions lasted very long without falling apart.

That's a very interesting encoding mechanism. It looks like each ship is a vector with ordering being upgrade slot and value being index into some array.

The Sith are generally the exception to the norm. While the other dark side traditions tend to be pretty destructive, they're not usually actively telling their members to kill each other to advance.

FFG do not, contrary to your belief, have a "burning hatred" for any faction's dials. For what it's worth, only the Scyk is really suffering as far as dials go. The Khyraxxz suffers more from lack of repositioning built-in, and being designed to fill the gap as the "Scum X-Wing". Compared to Rebel ships, both the Scyk, and the Khryraxxz, are basically trading 3-speed Turns for (arguably more valuable) 1-speed "knife-fighting" Turns. The only problem here, is the Scyk is too expensive and trades green turns for both 1 and 2 speed green banks (something As don't have, and Interceptors need Tie mk2 to get). FFG just missed the boat on predicting the value of green 1 and 2 speed banks were, and access to a cannon/missile/torp.

The Starviper's only problem dial-wise, is people expecting it to be the Scum Interceptor. It's a bruiser, first and foremost, and shouldn't be using PtL. It effectively had a bleached B-Wing's dial with the addition of a green 3-speed straight, and 3-speed S-Loops instead of a 2 K-Turn. Whereas the G-1A really IS a Scum B-Wing.

The big ships are all built as standard for big ships, with the YV-666 being a slightly more maneuverable shuttle, while the Firespray and Aggressor resemble the Falcon and Outrider (keyword resemble). Aggressor of course is loaded full of green straights and banks. The oddball here is the delicious Jumpmaster, with it's crazy awesome dial.

Y-Wing and Z-95 dials are literal copy-pastes of their Rebel equivalent.

So no. FFG does not have a hate-boner for Scum dials. They just don't have an actual "Interceptor" yet. Just the failure that is the Scyk, and the tricky Starviper that every fucking newb wants to throw Push the Limit on.

...

They worked with the CIS (scum)

its Old Teeoch not Old master.

so the FFG article says
>Ordnance and upgrades that can literally change the shape of the battlefield

obviously the upgrade is the shadowcasters righed cargo bay that drops a debris feild. But the only ordnance is the arcs torpedo.
Can we take this too mean that seismic torpedoes could do something like moveing or removing debris/asteroids?

or they do some amount of uncancelable damage

So I finished The Last Command, and yeah, its still good.

Once again, Zahn continues building on previous plot threads. Joruus C'baoth goes full cuckoo-bananas, first mind controlling the entire crew of the Chimaera and then going full megalomaniac where he returns to Wayland to mind rape his way into controlling Thrawn's growing army of clones. Thrawn pulls off hilariously clever bullshit like defeating a planetary shield by sneaking cloaked warships under the shield and timing the shots precisely through C'baoth. Then he drops a bunch of cloaked asteroids around Coruscant to effectively seal it off from traffic until the New Republic can find them all.

Most Trilogy characters continue to get solid moments. Luke does spy stuff and keeps trying to make Mara a hero. Leia hires Karrde to go rescue Luke & Han's raid on Wayland (at the most several weeks after the birth of the twins). Borsk Fey'lya makes some amends for being a giant cunt in Dark Force Rising. Hobbie and Janson go bar hopping with Wedge while the rest of Rogue Squadron gets no characterization. The Noghri make their big defection. Ghent gets to be the first fa/tg/uy in Star Wars.

Mostly though, its Talon Karrde and Mara Jade's time to shine. Karrde tries his hand at herding cats by building an alliance of paranoid smugglers while Niles Ferrier intentionally AND accidentally fucks everything up all the time. Mara has to deal with YOU WILL KILL LUKE SKYWALKER ringing in her head and completes a redemption arc by being the one to actually kill Joruus C'baoth.

cont

Positives continue to be Zahn's ability to build to and deliver elaborate action set pieces. The finale with C'baoth is fucking great because A) everyone involved in the Mount Tantiss raid has something to do (Lando & Chewie set demolitions, Artoo & Threepio disable comm jamming, everybody else has to deal with C'baoth) and B) Joruus goes sickhouse without a lightsaber because he's THAT powerful with the Force. Even the dumb clone Luuke serves his purpose: He's a Dark Link fight for Luke, a display of Joruus' mad love of power since he's effectively a puppet, an excuse to bring back Luke & Anakin's old blue lightsaber, and provides Mara a loophole to YOU WILL KILL LUKE SKYWALKER without actually killing the real one.

But yeah, Thrawn Trilogy complete. Its not High Literature, but its grand, sweeping and fun, which makes it Star Wars as fuck and the reason why its at the top of EU recommendations.

And a few observations on wimmin in Star Wars. Every female character in this trilogy is competent. Leia does badass diplomacy and rescue missions. Mara wrestles with her demons and past and is a more interesting inheritor of Anakin's saber because her flaws and temper make her cool. Bel Iblis has TWO talented, middle-aged female lieutenants. Mazzic's arm candy is actually a badass bodyguard. Winter is introduced as one of the most useful people in NR Intelligence. Even Mon Mothma gets characterization and growth where she reconciles with Bel Iblis during the Siege of Coruscant. The Noghri leader Leia has to deal with the most in order to sway them to her side is a grandmother.

That's just within this trilogy.

So when people are all “Rey is the first strong female in Star Wars” they can go fuck themselves.

Am I the only one worried about the direction that Vector Thrusters is heading? Engine Upgrade never sat well either; what sets the ships apart IMO is primarily the dials and action bars. Making mobility actions universally available cheapens them.

that'd be nice but doesn't fit the changing the shape of the battlefield description.

Capping this for future use.

>while the rest of Rogue Squadron gets no characterization.

Well, that's why we had Stackpole and Allston. That's one of the things I loved about Zahn's novels; they weren't just good in their own right, they provided a solid foundation (and good standard) for other authors to follow. The fact that a lot of the authors (and these three in particular) were both friends as well as professional compatriots made it all the better.

Still can't believe Allston is dead, though.

if they're universally available at high cost and the cost of using an often valuable slot it seems fine.

Besides expert handling has been a thing for a while now, so every ship potentially being able to barrel roll isn't new.

Oh definitely. It just takes constantly reminding myself that it takes until the X-Wing books to give them personalities.

Also, I don't think Zahn's as good at large scale battles as he is at smaller ones.

On the plus side, Pash Cracken made a cameo.

I know that feel. Phanan's death was one of the most powerful moments in old canon

>So when people are all “Rey is the first strong female in Star Wars” they can go fuck themselves.

Nice strawman.

What Rey IS is the first female primary protagonist in a Star War movie, a title held only by Anakin and Luke up till this point.

Yeah, he knows the effects of tactical genius, but doesn't know exactly what those tactics would look like. I remember that first scene in Heir to the Empire where Thrawn uses some Death Blossom Technique (was it called a Marg Sabl maneuver or some shit?) which the enemy commander is psychologically incapable of countering, but we never get any real description of what it does apart from launching TIEs out and around a Star Destroyer's hull. Even when the New Republic force does its own fatal maneuver, it's described simply as "useless." That said, if you're gonna write about stuff you don't really know about, it is the professionally sound thing to keep it brief.

Also, I forget which book it's in, but there's that bit in one of the X-Wing books where the Battle of Bilbringi is retold with Corran as the viewpoint. I don't recall if that account matches up with the one in Last Command, but if it did, that's just a wonderful little touch.

"It's up there again."

>Strawman

Sadly no

theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/30/star-wars-is-a-game-changer-awakening-the-feminist-force-in-little-girls-everywhere
usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/01/05/star-wars-force-awakens-feminism-column/78265780/
bustle.com/articles/130516-why-rey-in-the-force-awakens-is-the-feminist-hero-weve-all-been-waiting-for
msnbc.com/msnbc/star-wars-the-force-awakens-hero-rey-hailed-feminist-icon

Clearly, that little six year old bitch should have felt grateful for having strong female secondary character in the books, where they belong.

She's not even a good strong character.

Funnily enough, women tend to feel differently on that point. And given that the character was made to make them feel more included in the core Star Wars universe, your opinion doesnt count for shit.

your "But I'm Such A Nice Guy" is showing

She really isn't. She's instantly perfect at everything she encounters; that's not a strong character, that's a 15 year old's livejournal character.

Finn was the only character in that movie that had a personality.

>She's instantly perfect at everything she encounters

The Force wills it.

But seriously, the next movie had better put her through the wringer--she needs to fail, and fail big time, in order to grow as a character.

Finn and Poe were the best parts of that movie. All of Rey's bits were uninteresting and made me want to get back to anyone else.

>women tend to feel differently on that point
Funnily enough, no, not all women do. There are still girls out there who think Rey pales in comparison to ANH Leia.

"I have to go back to Jakku!"
"Why?"
" I HAVE to!"
"Okay, fine, why?"
"I have an understandable longing for adventure but feel obligated to return to my shithole in the desert and wait for a vague and mysterious reason that I won't explain because we need a twist for later!"

Finn & Poe Are Dead was great while it lasted, so was Han & Chewie's last hurrah. I get why Darth Chemical Romance did what he did so Ford wouldn't have to play Han again, but he was the only character in the movie to have any chemistry with Rey.

I still think there's hope for Rey, but Episode VIII should've been about her searching for Luke and dealing with being a fish out of water in a big galaxy. Gives her character growth and add buildup to Luke's appearance.

Wait, why the fuck did I post Mara?

See Jew Jew Abrams will never let his perfect feminist superheroine grow as a character. If Ep8 ends the same way as ESB, with Rey confronting Kylo Ren over the fate of Finn/Poe and failing, the same SJWs who are fawning over star wars now will start screaming about how JJ is perpetuating the rape culture. Disney wants them to keep buying the merchandise, so that isn't going to happen.

Ep8 will probably end on a downturn, but it won't be due to Rey failing. She'll win some small victory but the FO will sill come out ahead despite her. That'll let JJ continue to hug the plotline of the OT while keeping Rey perfect.

I liked Poe. I claimed he has no personality, but that's just because he didn't get much screen time. It'd be cool if he became a focus in Ep8.

Does somebody has that comic spread of Darth Vader's "I see only dead people"

>It'd be cool if he became a focus in Ep8.

No doubts there. He's gotta bone Finn at some point to fulfill the progressiveness quota.

That and he was actually supposed to die in that crash, but then they needed an ace pilot but couldn't be bothered putting in how the hell he survived and got back to the Resistance.

...

I think you're severely overestimating the level of influence JJ has on the next film. He's not directing it, he didn't write it, and he's just one of three executive producers on it.

Boom

This doesn't surprise me.

Fortunately, JJ's not directing the next one.

A girl I know grew up reading the old EU and absolutely loathes Rey.

>couldn't be bothered putting in how the hell he survived
Maybe he had a focus token.

thanks laderios

It's shown how he survives in the book.

Cheers

>he literally Force-floated that coffee cup over to himself while giving his speech, despite the fact that he has no means of drinking from it in the first place

You could replace ever instance of JJ with Disney and change nothing.

Disney wants money.
Money comes from sales.
Sales come from parents.
Many parents are SJWs.
Disney panders to SJWs.

>bonus for nazi overtones, more explicit the better)
That's literally part of the original trilogy from the very beginning.

What the hell, my unicode checkboxes didn't show up.

> [X] Star Wars Progressiveness Quota
> [X] Person Of Color™ protagonist
> [X] White male antagonist (bonus for nazi overtones, more explicit the better)
> [X] Stronk Womyn who don't need no man
> [ ] Homosexual relationship
> [ ] Interracial relationship
> [ ] Trans/Queer/Pan/Whatever background character
> [ ] Regional borders depicted as evil

Thing is, SJWs don't actually buy things. Look at how badly FemThor did in sales. They just complain about about Patriarchy and Privilege until the core audience goes away.

Old Marvel Star Wars is a goldmine of fun panels.

Also, Jolli Y-Wing dial for Scum when?

>> Person Of Color™ protagonist
Lando, Mace, and the Fetts have starred in their own books, comics, and side stories. You also had blue humans, pink humans, red humans, green humans, and custom vidya PCs to mess with since early Legends. Then there was that one time Wedge turned Chinese.

>> White male antagonist (bonus for nazi overtones, more explicit the better)
Have you not watched the fucking OT?

>> Stronk Womyn who don't need no man
Shitloads of those have been around since Legends. We don't see Mon Mothma with a husbando in the films. Revan, Exile, and Jaden Korr can also be made female and go through their stories without love interests.

>> Homosexual relationship
Juhani and Whatserface. Also Juhani and Revan if you played a girl Revan.

>> Interracial relationship
Lando and his wife, Farlander and B-wing, Juhani and Whatserface, Corran and the Selonian, Gavin and Asyr, Hobbie and the ground, Ibtisam and Nrin Vakil (IIRC). Wedge's magical race-switching powers also make things a bit confusing.

>> Trans/Queer/Pan/Whatever background character
Juhani and Whatserface were gay, yes. Pretty sure C-3P0 is also at least a little gay.

>> Regional borders depicted as evil
The Outer Rim and Unknown Regions have always been full of scum, villainy, and assholes.

So, /swg/, what would you like to see in a hypothetical X-Wing Second Edition?

The rules:
> May add or remove any upgrade card, including entire categories.
> May change the format of pilot cards to add or remove any features, with the requirement that all text be legible on the standard sized card with room for art
> May not remove any model or mandate any new model (though may change the behavior of models arbitrarily)
> Must use the same maneuver templates and dice (may add new templates/dice if necessary)
> Must use maneuver dials, but may change them arbitrarily and/or add new rules concerning dials

Basically, you have a chance to do a redo of the rules and card contents.

>typical /pol/ knee jerk reactions
seriously, did you not watch the original trilogy or read any of the legends material?

>> [ ] Trans/Queer/Pan/Whatever background character

Hutts used to be hermaphrodites that changed genders depending on their stage in life.

Whatever they do has to minimize the amount of physical components that get changed. New cards are fine, new cardboard/dials would be annoying.

Doubling the points would be a good idea. You could have some more granularity in points costs. Say Vet Instincts isn't worth 2 but is better than most 1 point upgrades, in the new system it would be 3.

I like the idea of alternating activations in any order, keeping pilot skill for shooting only. Might put a check on hyper-mobile aces always moving last.

Why is her neck bending that way; is she supposed to be melting like a Dali clock?

Wow, how lucky I was conveniently having a discussion with one of my players in my upcoming Shadowrun campaign while this argument resurfaced and went away again.

Some people don't like Zahn, and I can kind of see it but I'll never feel it in my heart. I think that out of the three, Zahn gets the *core* of Star Wars (paraphrased: "The drama of the story isn't whether or not the characters might die, but how they will get out of the fix they're in"), Stackpole really gets the setting of Star Wars (a galactic society which has just barely recovered from about a century of warfare and still has problems old and new, plus I still like his explanation of the Force the best in some ways), and Alston got the heart of it (A saga of people and families. Good, bad, funny, heartbreaking people).

I won't say anything about the new canon because I already said my piece, but no matter what shit the EU threw at me I always had Zahn, Stackpole, and Alston.

Even if a significant portion of their content went ignored.

Your neck is longer than you think user.

I think my neck's about four inches long, how about you, user?

You're probably right; I've never taken an anatomy class, and when I was into oil painting over a decade ago I never bothered with human subjects.
It's just the way that she's sitting on that rock that looks so uncomfortable and unnatural to me.

>remove EPT from Contracted Scout

done

>uncomfortable and unnatural
Maybe it's a metaphor for the way the writers handled their romance. Or for the after-effects of a good Diet Choke.

What do you think about a T-65 X-wing fix that's a title card for locking/un-locking s-foils?
Perform the S-foil action, and you change your dial from the X-wing's to a much faster greener dial (maybe the tie interceptor); and your x-wing's can't fire it's primary weapon, but it gains more defense dice.

Fewer upgrade card types. Not counting the huge ship upgrades, there are 14 different upgrade slots! A lot of redundancy could be removed:

> Elite
> Cannon
> Torpedo
> Bomb
> Crew
> Astromech
> Tech
> Illicit
> Title

Maybe modification.

Man including Ventress is a far stretch

Stay mad.

I think having a wide range of upgrade types allows for more granularity in ship design.

There's a balance reason why Torpedo and Missile are seperate. Ditto System and Tech.

That would just fucking break the game. The meta would stall after one's find the most op upgrade combinations

>Afyon sucked on his teeth for a second. “You’re right. I guess I just remember the Clone Wars and how the ‘hero’ labels were handed out. You’d think a dozen Jedi and two dozen snubby jocks won the whole thing."

So, uh, is Stackpole a psychic or something?

>getting rid of Illicit

G-G-G-GLITTERSTIM FOR EVERYONE

different guy, but I'd actually like to add some sort of "Pilot Accessory" slot, to which things like glitstim and that mindlink thing would be moved, and new cards added. give you more choice for customizing pilots, and would potentially cut down on EPT proliferation by giving an alternative for "unusual, but not elite" pilots

Writing on the wall user, writing on the wall.

Here's my X-Wing 2.0 (based on my own abandoned starfighter skirmish game).

The game remains largely the same, but a few things change. First of all here are the changes to the Ship Cards.

Ship Cards now ONLY represent ships. Pilot abilities will not appear on ships. This reduces the need for ships to come with multiple cards depicting the same statline.

There are a few changes. Ships now have a new 'Preference' category, which denotes the type of ship it is. This is important for the next step. The categories are: Fighter, Interceptor, Bomber and Freighter. Sometimes a single ship straddles two categories.

The initiative section, for the remainder of this explanation, should be read as 'Difficulty' - this is the natural difficulty an untrained pilot has with this particular ship. If a pilot does not have the preference to fly a Bomber, that pilot will find the Bomber more difficult to fly, which makes the combination more expensive.

So what happened to Pilot Abilities? Well, Pilots are their own Upgrade Card now, in the same vein as Modifications. You cannot field a ship without a Pilot, so the point cost should be read as base ship + pilot cost = cost to field ship.

Generic pilots (such as an X-Wing Rookie) have no native ability or elite pilot talent, and they range from 0 to 3 points. Generic Aces have an EPT but have no Pilot Ability, and they range in points from 4 - 5. Unique Aces have both an EPT and a Pilot Ability, and they can get pretty expensive.

Pilot Skill is now expressed on the card.

So how do Pilot/Ship cards interact for the purpose of list building? See the attached picture.

This new system also does away with Titles (and the continuing quagmire which is Titles). Wave IX has brought to the fore the limitations which the current system has with expressing unique Ship abilities, which the new system counteracts. See attached pic.

Any combination of Pilot and Ship are possible, as long as you're willing to pay the extra cost. When constructing your lists you need to consider: Is putting this pilot in a ship they do not Preference worth the extra cost? Would I be better off putting them in a ship they Preference and spending those extra points on an EPT or some Torpedoes? A new world of Tactical Options await in the new X-Wing system.