How good is the Twin Laser Turret?

The Twin Laser Turret is the best turret upgrade, and FFG has come out before saying it probably should have cost 7 points. With the recent grumbling about Twin Laser Turret, I thought I might run some numbers and see how good it really is.

Based on calculations using the X-Wing Dice Probability Calculator, the short answer is Twin Laser Turret is strong. It's comparable to a 3-dice attack if you have the token advantage over your opponent, but it's much stronger if your opponent has a token advantage over you.

On the other hand, a Twin Laser Turret Y-Wing is the same price as a Fire-Control Systems B-Wing, so it's not quite the apples-to-apples comparison. The 3-dice attack with focus and target lock has much better damage output. If you have focus and the target is a 2-agility ship with focus, the damage is roughly even across the first two turns of shooting. Still, the target lock takes a round to kick in and the Twin Laser Turret is harder to avoid. I'd say the Twin Laser Turret is still a bit too strong when using an equal-point benchmark.

Even if it's strong, it's hard to say whether Twin Laser Turrets is worthy of a nerf. I'm not sure Twin Laser Turret really pushes ships out, unlike torpedo U-Boats. If FFG were concerned about it, the easiest way to nerf Twin Laser Turret is to allow range bonuses to apply to turret secondary weapon attacks (I'd like to see it applied to all secondary weapon attacks for rule simplicity purposes). This also has the benefit of buffing the other turrets, none of which are strong enough to see consistent play.


Twin Laser Turret vs. 3-dice attack

With focus, against a tokenless opponent:
0 Agility: -0.35 (1.90 TLT vs. 2.25 3D)
1 Agility: -0.13 (1.75 TLT vs. 1.88 3D)
2 Agility: +0.01 (1.54 TLT vs. 1.53 3D)
3 Agility: +0.08 (1.30 TLT vs. 1.22 3D)

With focus, against an opponent with focus:
1 Agility: +0.03 (1.66 TLT vs. 1.63 3D)
2 Agility: +0.27 (1.30 TLT vs. 1.07 3D)
3 Agility: +0.26 (0.90 TLT vs. 0.64 3D)

Without focus, against a tokenless opponent:
0 Agility: +0.25 (1.75 TLT vs. 1.5 3D)
1 Agility: +0.30 (1.47 TLT vs. 1.17 3D)
2 Agility: +0.28 (1.18 TLT vs. 0.90 3D)
3 Agility: +0.26 (0.93 TLT vs. 0.67 3D)

Without focus, against an opponent with focus:
1 Agility: +0.35 (1.30 TLT vs. 0.95 3D)
2 Agility: +0.32 (0.87 TLT vs. 0.55 3D)
3 Agility: +0.24 (0.54 TLT vs. 0.30 3D)

Twin Laser Turret vs. 3-dice attack with Target Lock

With focus, against a tokenless opponent:
0 Agility: -0.81 (1.90 TLT vs. 2.81 3D)
1 Agility: -0.69 (1.75 TLT vs. 2.44 3D)
2 Agility: -0.52 (1.54 TLT vs. 2.06 3D)
3 Agility: -0.40 (1.30 TLT vs. 1.70 3D)

With focus, against an opponent with focus:
1 Agility: -0.53 (1.66 TLT vs. 2.19 3D)
2 Agility: -0.27 (1.30 TLT vs. 1.57 3D)
3 Agility: -0.09 (0.90 TLT vs. 0.99 3D)

Without focus, against a tokenless opponent:
0 Agility: -0.50 (1.75 TLT vs. 2.25 3D)
1 Agility: -0.41 (1.47 TLT vs. 1.88 3D)
2 Agility: -0.35 (1.18 TLT vs. 1.53 3D)
3 Agility: -0.29 (0.93 TLT vs. 1.22 3D)

Without focus, against an opponent with focus:
1 Agility: -0.33 (1.30 TLT vs. 1.63 3D)
2 Agility: -0.20 (0.87 TLT vs. 1.07 3D)
3 Agility: -0.10 (0.54 TLT vs. 0.64 3D)