Ship Efficiency Model: Best and Unseen Ships by Faction

I've been working on a Ship Efficiency model, and the first version is ready for release. I don't think it's perfect, but I'm at the point where I need some outside eyes to take a look at this and give suggestions. You can find the spreadsheet here. If you're interested in what the model does, you can read the summary here. Feel free to also make a copy of the spreadsheet (File -> Make a Copy) so you can dig into the calculations and/or change some assumptions.

If you need a clickbait title to get you through some exposition, you'll never guess the galaxy's best TIE Interceptor pilot! :)

(EDIT: I tried making the images bigger so they're easier to read on mobile. Apologies for how they overflow the sidebar on a PC, but the clarity is probably more important!)

As a quick introduction, I model the value of each ship in three situations, taking into account almost everything about the ships including their actions and dials. I compare these ships to the benchmark 65th percentile ships in three categories:

• Joust Efficiency is the ship's efficiency in focus-fire situations where repositioning isn't useful (e.g. your other ships will still be in arc).
• Focus Fire with Repositioning (FFwR) efficiency is the ship's efficiency in focus-fire situations where the ship's maneuverability and repositioning abilities can let them survive to make more attacks by avoiding arcs.
• 1v1 Efficiency is the ship's efficiency in end-game or isolated situations and includes the bonus for repositioning.

Focus fire situations value multiple ships over one ship: two 3-attack ships with 4 health each are better than one 3-attack ship with 8 health because they attack twice.

I use the three efficiency values to calculate each ship's balanced point cost, and the discount is the difference between the balanced point cost and the ship's official point cost. Right now, I have 80% of the weight being placed on Focus Fire with Repositioning with the other two receiving 10% of the weight.

(Quick note: Using an equal weight of 0.33 on all three categories also seems to give pretty reasonable balanced point costs. E-Wings with Proton Torps end up with higher point costs, which is desirable. It also values pre-maneuver arc-dodgers a bit lower; for example, it would say Guri's fairly-costed.)

Here are the main items the model doesn't handle well so you can adjust for them in your head:

1. It doesn't handle the flexibility of focus tokens. Ships with low agility and evade and ships with single calculate and target lock may be slightly overvalued.
2. It's not great at modeling attacks which require a target lock. I use a hack to address this issue, but low initiative ships may not have a large enough penalty compared to mid-initiative ships.
3. Even when I exponentially discount ship durability, the model seems to undervalue front-loaded damage. For instance, it recommends both the E-Wing with Proton Torps and the VCX-100 should cost under 67 points.
4. Keep in mind squad efficiency is different from an individual ship's efficiency. If you pair glass cannon ships with tanky ships, your squad efficiency will differ wildly based on which your opponent attacks first.

While this model is grounded in some objective numbers, play experience, and tournament results, it requires many assumptions and judgment calls. Don't think of this as the literal truth, but rather as a consistent metric that I think can be used to value ships. Definitely play around with the numbers and feel free to use assumptions you think are more reasonable. You have my personal permission to play ships with low numbers as long as you're having fun, and you're not a bad person if you only play ships with the highest numbers.

Benchmark ships

It's helpful to see what the ships are compared to before we go into the factions. I'll focus mostly on the Focus Fire with Repositioning efficiency in the later sections, but first, let's take a look at some ships the model believes to be correctly costed against the benchmark of the 65th-percentile ship.

Conveniently, the model says the generic T-65 X-Wing, TIE Fighter, and Firespray are all appropriately costed. Boba Fett without the Marauder/Han combo, Duchess, and Attack Shuttle Hera with a Dorsal Turret are also benchmark ships. I had the model weigh Focus Fire with Repositioning efficiency most heavily when calculating balanced points, so these ships are all close to the 65th-percentile there but can differ wildly in the other efficiency metrics.

Best Ships: Rebels

At first glance, Rebels have several extremely efficient ships including the four most efficient ships in the game. Why are they under-performing in tournaments?

A closer look reveals their problems. First, their top pilots are often repeats. If Rebel players could use Legends cloning technology to bring three Luukes or five Saabines, they'd probably win more games (amusingly, Rebels still wouldn't have good tournament results since these players would count as Scum). Second, Sabine and Luke are dependent on arc-dodging in a balanced initiative meta. With 25% of ships in tournaments having initiative 5 (often with large bids) and 15% having initiative 6, their arc-dodging abilities become less valuable.

The list of efficient Rebel ships is rounded out by the other Rebel standout Wedge Antilles and a bunch of problematic ships. The Sheathipedes are efficient, but have few ideal support targets. The other Attack Shuttles are good but face a different kind of cost constraint (the one in the real world).  The ARC-170s are poor squadmates for Sabine and Luke because of their mismatched damage-to-durability ratios. They don't have enough damage output to punish opponents that focus on Sabine and Luke first. Thane Kyrell is the best of the rest. The list of good Rebel options is noticeably shorter than other factions.

Rebel's best bet might be to stuff Luke, Sabine, Wedge, and a good fourth ship (Thane) into a list. Pairing Luke and Sabine with Shara Bey and a Sheathipede is another potential option. Adding Selfless on an ARC-170 might also be enough to make them good partners for the more fragile Luke and Sabine.

Best Ships: Imperials

The buffers Captain Jonus and Colonel Jendon top the list with their best squadmates. They're still in the top 25 if you're crazy like a fox and take a naked Captain Jonus or bring Colonel Jendon with Sloane and five naked TIE Bombers. Even better, the best squadmate for these ships, the TIE Bomber (with or without Barrage Rockets), is also extremely efficient.

The popular Imperial aces also show up: Whisper, Redline, Soontir, Vader, and the other Juke Phantoms round out the top 50. It's no surprise these ships often place highly in tournaments. Other popular ships include the TIE Reapers and Lieutenant Sai.

Turr Phennir is the biggest surprise (we've answered the clickbait question!). The model says he's one of the strongest ships in a balanced initiative meta. He's probably the biggest victim of today's top-heavy meta: his efficiency drops to 2% below the benchmark when 40% of ships are above initiative 4. Keep an eye out for him if the popular high-initiative ships get nerfed. Saber Squadron Ace is a similar but less extreme story.

Secret Service Iden Versio shows her value when she's protecting Madam President Howlrunner. Note Howlrunner herself is nowhere on the list (she's -4%), and Iden's also much less efficient without a VIP to protect.

Finally, Night Beast reprises his early 1.0 role as a cheap and efficient filler. He's less of a damage threat compared to several of the other TIE Fighter aces, but he's much more likely to stick around. You might want to give him a try next time you need a filler ship.

Best Ships: Scum

The usual suspects come early in the line-up. Quadjumpers, Escape Crafts, Drea, Guri, Marauder/Han Boba Fett, and Palob all top the list. 4-LOM would probably be a bit higher if it was easier to properly value his ability; he's a top-35 ship with Advanced Sensors and the title if he cleared his stress every round without passing it to any ship, and he's still efficient naked if his ability was just worth 3 points.

Unkar Plutt seems to be the best Quadjumper by far even with a conservative estimate of his ability, but it seems like few people take him over the cheaper generics. I'm wondering if higher initiative is a big handicap for Quadjumpers (I'm currently not taking initiative into account for the tractor beam). Quadjumpers are also big targets, so maybe the extra points aren't worthwhile for a ship that will be focus fired early.

The biggest surprise is probably Han Solo, especially since he might be more efficient without the title than with it. After some initial hype, it seems like Scum Han couldn't overcome his default 2-dice attack and mostly disappeared from the top tables. That said, my assumptions may be generous, and I don't add any value for being able to dock an escape craft.

One last thing I want to highlight is the Bounty Hunter with the Marauder/Han combo showing up at #45. As we saw earlier, Boba Fett and the generic Firespray are pretty fair. I think we can all agree it's Marauder/Han that's too strong. I hope Boba Fett won't face any direct nerfs despite his strong showing in tournaments.

When Your Faction Identity Sucks

Rebels were advertised as the faction of friends helping each other out. Well, part of the reason Rebels are having so much trouble is because their support ships are almost all bad.

It's a bad sign when taking upgrade so you can use your pilot ability makes your ship worse. Rebels do have some efficient ships with coordinate, but so do all the other factions. Their best non-coordinate support ship (ARC Garven) is highly unreliable.

But maybe the buff targets are really good so the support can be worse (even though this doesn't really work)?

Well, there goes that idea. Shara Bey and Edrio Two-Tubes are decent when supported, but not enough to make up for having to bring a wildly inefficient support ship.

It's no surprise Rebels are weak. I'd expect significant buffs to all of these support ships and at least a 1-point cost reduction for Perceptive Co-Pilot.

Beyond the lackluster support ships,

Where's the TIE Swarm?

The TIE Swarm had lots of hype before the new edition launched, but they haven't seen much play afterwards.

The model suggests most TIE Fighters are appropriately costed or slightly overcosted. They might actually be fine since the model doesn't seem to value up-front burst damage as highly as it should. Why doesn't the TIE Swarm see any play?

I think we all know the answers to that question. First, the top tables are filled with much stronger ships. Second, they have to compete against better swarms. We've already seen how efficient Jonus, Jendon, and Drea are. The Sloane swarms have equally average TIE Interceptors and TIE Strikers, but these glass cannons get the most value out of Admiral Sloane's Biggs effect on a tanky ship. Finally, the TIE Swarm suffers the most from Trajectory Simulator, something which is not in the model.

I love the looks of a TIE Swarm on the board, and hopefully the first round of buffs and nerfs will bring these back into popularity.

Jumpmaster Woes

I have to eat some crow here. I never thought the 2.0 Jumpmaster was great, but I thought it might be decent. Well, it's not. To be fair, I don't give the Jumpmaster with the title any credit for its mobile arc. Still, rotating the arc requires taking a stress and the Jumpmaster's green maneuvers are not ideal so it's not worth that many points. Scum has a lot of good options, but the Jumpmaster isn't one of them.

The Slumber of Fat Turrets

Fat turrets were too strong in X-Wing 1.0. In the transition, they lost half their arcs and all of their good action-efficiency upgrades. Their current state is not pretty.

The Scum Falcon's OK (although I'm not sure they qualify as "fat" turrets), and Lando in the Rebel Falcon is the closest other ship to matching the benchmark. The rest are extremely weak and it's no surprise they don't see much play.

These ships will probably see some buffs, but more importantly, they'll also improve when better upgrades are released. Fat turrets should have their day in the sun again soon.



Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this introduction. Feel free to check out the spreadsheet and let me know if you have any suggestions for improving it!