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Despite FFG efforts to fix them Torps and Missle still seemed un-used, what would your suggestion be for fixing them ?

Personally I'd like a mod that allowed you to fire one in addition to your normal attack but that might be too far the other way

Problems I see with Torps and Missiles:
1) Cost- they are just too expensive compared to other secondary weapons, or even just buying more ships
2) Limited use- other Secondary Weapons and ships help you on more than one turn
3) Have to acquire and Spend Target lock, meaning that the benefit of the extra dice is often lost because you cannot re-roll your blanks.

I find that the ordinance which avoids some or all of these points do see use, while the ones that don't are never seen. Also, having some for of utility ability greatly increases your chances of seeing the upgrade. Extra munitions goes a way to help with points 1 and 2, but is limited to ships that have multiple ordinance slots. Also note that the only place I feel we will ever see some ordinance (Proton Torpedoes) is in Large Ships ordinance tubes, where you don't care as much about point 1, Ignore point 2, and also need to bypass energy requirements.

1) Flechette Torps: Cheap, have utility. I see these guys turn up occasionally as a way to fill points splashing a bit of control into your list.
2) Plasma Torps: Not great, but seem to be the go-to way to fill a torp slot on a heavy bomber if you have one left after extra munitions due to their somewhat lower cost and high potential damage.
3) Ion Pulse Missiles: Cheap, Utility, do not require Target lock to be spent. Like Flechettes, a good way to tech control.
4) Proton Rockets: Cheap, require focus instead of Target lock, don't require you to spend focus. My favorite, for adding a lot of punch to TIE-Advanced's and A-wings.
5) Cluster Missiles: Although they hit all of the drawbacks, without even the high-dice alpha-strike, getting multiple attacks in one turn is insanely powerful (Corran, TLT), and these have some synergy with Redline, N'dru Suhlak, and Fire Control System which allows them to actually be relevant.
6) Advanced Homing Missiles: Cheap, do not require you to spend your target lock. There are also some pilots on whom bypassing shields to Crit will potentially one-shot them.
7) Assault Missiles: Because their damage potential is insane vs the right list, and can often threaten your opponent into splitting their forces.

Overall, I thin that one of the big problems right now is that most ships with ordinance slots fall into one of three catagories:
1) Heavy Bomber- Lots of Ordinance slots, but cost will spiral out of control quickly even with extra munitions.
2) Torpedo-only- Torpedoes for the most part suck, so even extra munition can't save them. The fact that these ships (B-Wing, Y-wing) also have access to other secondary Weapons also tends to compound the problem.
3) One-Slot- only one slot, meaning extra munitions can't be taken. So there has been no fix for these guys, and they are just hoping that the ordinance is naturally good.

As for your suggested fix, it's not as crazy as you may think. There is a cards coming in wave 8 that appears to refer to both Missiles and Primary weapons, but it' effects (and whether it affects Torpedoes) are unknown.

#1. Extra munitions is the right idea, but didn't go far enough. Get rid of the discard penalty completely.
#2. They have started to introduce self-modifying torpedoes. This is a good thing.

 Anpu-adom wrote:
#1. Extra munitions is the right idea, but didn't go far enough. Get rid of the discard penalty completely.

The problem is then you take over the role of cannons, and end up with a situation where a ship with a missile or torpedo slot never uses its primary weapon. A HLC costs 7 points for a four-dice shot, an infinite-shot missile or torpedo with the same firepower is only four points. And that's clearly not balanced.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Anpu-adom wrote:
#1. Extra munitions is the right idea, but didn't go far enough. Get rid of the discard penalty completely.

The problem is then you take over the role of cannons, and end up with a situation where a ship with a missile or torpedo slot never uses its primary weapon. A HLC costs 7 points for a four-dice shot, an infinite-shot missile or torpedo with the same firepower is only four points. And that's clearly not balanced.

Then something like "Fire the weapon, gain a Weapon Disabled Token on this upgrade card." In my opinion, all of the original secondary weapons were roughly twice as expensive as they should have been. Newer ones are much better, as they are trying to adjust things. Simply put, this isn't something that will be truly fixed until some second edition of the game down the road.

There are a lot of other tricks popping up recently. The Targeting Astromech lets you get a torpedo shot off out of a Koiogran Turn or Talon Roll.

Paired with the fact that a Proton Torpedo is already sort-of-self-modifying (with its focus-to-crit ability) it becomes quite interesting as a second-, not first-strike weapon.

 Anpu-adom wrote:
Then something like "Fire the weapon, gain a Weapon Disabled Token on this upgrade card."

Attack Wing has that same mechanic at only 5 points, it doesn't help.

Ion Pulse on a Z-95 works reasonably well.

 TheWaspinator wrote:
Ion Pulse on a Z-95 works reasonably well.

Yeah, because they are dirt cheap, let you re-roll with their target lock, and can completely dick with a 30pt+ ship.

Torpedoes and Missiles are the damn same thing...

I'd love to see torpedoes become actual objects on the play field with their own movements. Torpedoes are generally slow and not very effective in dogfights with small ships (or shouldn't be) they should be more effective vs large ships or epic ships. They may be less effective this way but at least then they're more realistic / interesting. Then you could also up their range from range 3.

FFG has said that they consider Torpedoes and Missiles to be separate things.
Militarily, torpedoes would be used against large targets (ships). Missiles or rockets would be used against smaller, faster targets but would result in less damage.

 Anpu-adom wrote:
FFG has said that they consider Torpedoes and Missiles to be separate things.
Militarily, torpedoes would be used against large targets (ships). Missiles or rockets would be used against smaller, faster targets but would result in less damage.

Yes I agree but when they say "they consider torpedoes and missiles to be separate things" yes they have different upgrade slots but they act exactly the same way, which they totally shouldn't...

When I said "Torpedoes and Missiles are the damn same thing... " I meant in respect to X-wing's current gameplay with them.

Torpedoes should be primarily used against large ships, but that's why I'd like to see torpedoes on the actual play area to represent their movement, making dodging them possible with actual ship maneuvers instead of more green dice rolls. Each torpedoes could have limited movement using strait or bank turns, making it hard to hit small ships but easier to hit large ones. The damage could be similar to the proximity mine when the torpedo detonates on a ship, because ships really cant evade an explosion.... I think that would be far more interesting and potentially useful, even if you don't hit anything with your torpedo your forcing the enemy player to react and dodge possibly putting them out of position.

I think missiles are fine the way they are (concept wise) but they need some advantage over normal attacks in dog fighting otherwise they're kind of useless. Realistically missiles should have far better range and be harder to dodge, but you can only carry a few.

I agree that conceptually, torpedoes need work. I don't agree with collapsing their slots however. A-wings shouldn't be throwing out torpedoes and bombs, Y-WIngs shouldn't be throwing out missiles. X-wings should have the option to throw out both (but maybe not bombs).

This just out:


So you can at least pre-lock your target at the begining of the game. Screws you at close range, but with the new PS5 generic bomber with an EPT, maybe we'll see more use for:

I'm guessing Long-Range Scanners trup Fire Control System, but otherwise that is pretty sweet.

Makes Redlines ability pretty hot getting the 2 target locks instead of one.

Honestly, the Scanners are probably the weakest part of that pack. Yeah, they are useful for picking up the Alpha Strike, but are terrible after that first turn. The problem is that they are restricted to ships who need Target locks to fight, but then restrict Acquiring a target lock in average dogfighting range.

Keeping the slots separate is probably a good thing. Star Trek Attack Wing has much fewer types of upgrade slots and it leads to horrible imbalance because of the huge number of possible card combinations on a single ship. Limiting options per ship is key to maintaining balance.