X-Wing Academy Lesson #3 - Dice Rolls & Action

"Never tell me the odds" - Han Solo

Ever wondered how many hits, evades, focus & blanks are there on
each dice?

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The game is going your way. The opponent is left with only Dark Curse, trapped at the edge of the map hiding its cowardly presence behind an asteroid. You adjust your maneuver dials, flying your 4 Academy Pilots in duos, coming in from 2 different directions hoping to catch DC in a classic pincer maneuver. I have you now! Or so you thought.

DC shoots first and rolled 2 critical hits. You roll your defense dice - and blanked out. 1 of the face up damage was a direct hit, and your pathetic AP was blown to smithereens. That was unlucky, you thought, but no matter its still 3 against 1.

But Dark Curse's ability makes it difficult for you to hit him. What was suppose to be a quick victory turned out to be a lengthy and agonizing dogfight. You pray to the dice gods for a miracle but was met with silence. Your luck turned for the worse and one by one your APs fell, rolling consecutive blank dices. Few more rounds later, the last of your APs was blown away by a point blank shot.

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Lady luck can be fickle. There are times your dice can do no wrong; Other times its so frustrating that you just want to chuck it into the fire. For the short tempered, towards your opponents' face. Or for the psychopaths, your opponents' face into the fire. 

That's the nature of the game. Dice injects a random element into the game and makes outcome unpredictable. Still, dice results might be beyond your control but you can seek to understand it, manage it and perhaps even use it to swing the tide of battle in your favour. Let's start of by looking at the dice:

Attack
4 hits (including 1 crit)
2 focus
2 blanks

Defense
3 evade
2 focus
3 blanks

An unmodified attack dice has 50% chance of scoring a hit, while an unmodified defense dice has 37.5% of scoring an evade. In other words, an unmodified attack dice has an attack strength of 0.5, while an unmodified defense dice has a defense strength of 0.375.

What are the odds of rolling 3 crits? 0.19%

"Your focus determines your reality" - Qui-Gon Jinn

Focus greatly enhances your results - attack strength increases to 0.75 while defense strength increases to 0.625. So, that's a 50% increase in attack strength and 67% increase in defense strength. Simple math would tell you that focus is more useful in defense. So yup, the next time you want to modify those focus into attack, perhaps its wiser to save it, in case you get shot at.

"Stay on target..." - Gold Five

TL works even better. While the attack strength is approximately the same as focus, TL helps mitigate bad dice rolls by allowing re-rolls for the blanks. If you didn't find it necessary to use it this round, you could save up the TL and stack it with a focus in the next round and almost guarantee a full hit. 

"If your enemy is superior, evade him" - Sun Tzu

Evade token increases your defense strength by 1 - in defense strength that's the equivalent of 3 dice. While taking a focus might give you more than 1 evade results ( i.e. 3 dice = focus, focus, evade), the evade token guarantees that you dodge 1 damage. Focus is only more favourable if you roll 4 defense dice or more.

TIE fighter's worse nightmare. The odds of rolling 3 blanks
is 5.27%. Not as low as you thought, yes?

So how do I do the math?

Using the example above, a AP rolling 2 attack dice has an attack strength of 1 (can't use focus on DC), while DC rolling 4 defense dice (extra dice for asteroid) has a defense strength of 1.5 (0.375 x 4). So its no surprise that you couldn't hit a thing. 

How about Wedge vs Soontir Fel + Push the Limit?

Soontir Fel can take an evade as his first action and use PTL to take a focus as his second action and when he receives a stress token, his ability allows him to receive another free focus, giving him a total of 2 focus and 1 evade. Assuming Wedge shoots first and  modifies his attack with a focus, his attack strength is 2.25, while Fel has a total defense strength of 2.25 (2 evade dice with focus gives you 1.25 and evade token gives you 1). Math says Wedge is unlikely to hit Fel.

Soontir shoots back with a focus modified attack strength of 2.25 vs Wedge's unmodified defense dice of 0.75 and should be able to deal between 1 - 2 damage. 

So I should attack when my attack strength is higher than the target's defense strength?

In general, yes. But don't forget actions are one-off bonus. You can still peel off the enemies' focus/ evade and bring it down with focus fire.

I prefer to look at percentage rather than expected hit rates...

Go here. 

I'm not really a math person...

Let me make it easy for you:

1. Don't lose your action. That means not bumping into things. I can't stress this enough. Revise lesson #2 if you have problems.
2. Focus works better on defense. You might want to consider saving it for later.
3. TL/ Evade is better than Focus, but Focus is more flexible.
4. Always focus fire on a single target. Even if you don't deal any damage in the first shot, chances are you can take away his focus/ evade, making subsequent shots easier.
5. TL with a high pilot skill (PS) ship and Focus with a low PS ship. High PS shoots first and if doesn't destroy the enemy follow up with the low PS ship. And if he does, low PS ship can shoot another target.
6. Mess up your opponents targeting priorities by taking evade on ships in range 2 and focus on ships in range 3.
7. When somebody messes up your targeting priorities, just shoot the closes enemy. Its just easier.
8. Try baiting your opponents to shoot  Dark Curse + Stealth Device behind an asteroid at range 3. Its hilariously (for you).
9. If possible, force your opponents to bump into you and lose action. Action denial & bumping warrants a lesson on its own.
10. Just because your attack strength is higher doesn't mean that you WILL hit something. Statistics and probability doesn't necessary translate into actual results. Dice are random after all.

Who should the B-Wing shoot first?
The range 2 TIE with evade or range 3 TIE with focus?