Turbolaser Upgrades: Or "Knowing is Half the Battle!"

The best way of improving your offense/firepower/dice rolling: It's turbolaser time!

Notice the lack of Green lasers here.  Clearly Imperial ships shouldn't be shooting at all! It's in the graphic!

Let's get started alphabetically! Yeah!

Information! The most helpful way to add dice!

DTT let's you add a Red dice in after your initial roll and then remove a dice. You can remove a blank Red die, a blank Black die, a Blue die that you didn't need, a die with less damage (if you roll the double hit).  It's an informed reroll, and that makes it somewhat useful.

Who wants it?
No one?
A) it's a modification
B) Linked Turbolaser Towers exists (below) which is this but better in every way for 2 points more.  Anything that really wanted DTTs wants LTTs instead.  I really can't recommend this card anymore, go see LTTs instead. If you're points strapped entirely, put it on Salvation. But you should be using LTTs instead.

They look pointier than your standard turbolaser, so you can tell they're for salvos

Coming off the wave 10 presses, it's DBY-827 (henceforth DBYs).  You can turn any salvo attack dice to 1 with a crit.  So, yes, that DOES mean my black dice can flip into a hit/crit with it. And ain't THAT mean.

They pair GREAT with Flak Guns but moreso, they pair best with 2 approaches.  First, you're likely going to want Local Fire Control to ensure a second salvo on your ship (and the ability to use both!). You want LFC because if your opponent rolls or produces an accuracy and locks down your single salvo token, you're going to feel slightly silly when you spent 6 points (with Flak Guns and DBYs) to sit around with.  I also feel you want the second salvo in order to ensure that the CR90 firing on you has to consider potentially taking 2 salvo shots in return, especially if I can change the black dice coming at it into a hit/crit each time.  Those evades burn out fast in that case.

The second thing you're going to want is a focus on applying a lot of damage, more than focused damage into one hullzone.  This is me saying "I'm not sure I would pair this with XI7s if you have a 2 turbolaser ship" because I think you want them burning their tokens even harder and faster to neutralize the damage coming back at them.  The obviously strongest use of this card is to change a black dice to a hit/crit, but sometimes it might be just a blue/red dice salvo.  Because they're taking this damage (from attacking you; it's a salvo remember?) and then moving away, you're going to want to fire on them again, but you can't guarantee what hullzone they're taking the damage on and then exposing to you.  If you keep the damage from the salvo XI7'ed into that same hullzone, I HIGHLY doubt a good opponent is going to try to leave that hullzone exposed to you at the end of their movement if they have any say about it.  So pair it with a different turbolaser; and even more importantly pair it with ships that are just trying to pour more and more damage into a ship (don't use XI7s on other ships with it either, haha!).  It does go great with Intel Officer, though, that's for sure.  Nothing as rude as me firing back for ~4 damage on YOUR turn and me Intelling that token you were about to use for it.  Remember your Intel Officer timing window, though (end of step 2, before you do anything else in step 3)!

To the left, to the left, (and the right)

Tied for the most expensive modification, Enhanced Armament adds an extra Red dice on the sides.  This DOES affect Fire Lanes, and it also effects your ability to determine obstruction or not.  Back in the day, people would put these on CR90s, but then TRCs showed up.  We'll get to those below.

Why would you want this?
More dice, more damage, or creating ranges.  I've had good success putting one of these on a Torpedo MC30 with Ackbar.  What THAT does is give me attacks at Red Dice range and Blue Dice range for a relatively cheap cost.  It ONLY affects your side arcs, though, so anything that wants dice improving its front or all over doesn't want this.  You CAN put this on a LMC80 or a Nebulon, but the smarter plan is to improve a good arc, not "fix" a "poor" side arc of anything.

Because this is 10 points, and because it's a modification, it's not often seen/just thrown onto a ship "because you can."  Many ships would rather have improvements on their damage or preventing full defense token usage.  However, this still sees work on MC30s, Assault Frigates, and Arquitens.  This is GREAT on Arquitens, especially, as they're so dependent on their side arcs, and with a concentrate fire command that's 5 red dice, but you can also do this cheaper with Slaved Turrets.  With the only ONE turbolaser slot on the H1MC80, you don't usually want these, even with Ackbar.  Ackbar's already adding in 2 extra red dice for you, the smarter plan is to mitigate your opponent's defense tokens (below) or reroll your red dice that don't deal damage 3/8 times instead of just adding in more dice.

Dodge, duck, dip, dive, and.... something

Heavy Fire Zone is a very different turbolaser in that it's not modifying your attack against a ship but against squadrons.  The timing windows work, even though it may not look like it.  Lemme point you right to Eric's article about the attack sequence and wait for you to come back.

Alright, so you would pick your target and then you can change the blue dice you would be throwing at it into reds.  This is a nice way of forcing squadrons at LONG range to close with you, ensuring that you can hit them outside of your normal blue dice range (so yes, you can flak at long range with it).  When they close with you, you can use your blue dice (which provide more reliable damage and better ways of making it occur, Leading Shots and Toryn being the obvious examples).  The card does come with the downside that you don't usually have many great ways of rerolling red dice, but you're throwing them at least?  Add in a blue with Kallus or Draven and then reroll with Leading Shots?  They can't be engaged with any friendly squadrons of your own, of course, so it's there to force your opponent to move in towards you.  It also doesn't combine with Ruthless Strategists, because again: not engaged with your own squadrons.  But it's long range flak!

Who wants this? Maybe certain ISD-II builds, maybe Nebulons, maybe Assault Frigates?  They all have 2 blue flak, and one more turn of free flak isn't horrid if you weren't using the turbolaser.  You just have to be in red range, which generally then means you're moving towards the squadron ball you're shooting at.  Keep that fact in mind as you use it, and that the 4 points aren't spent better elsewhere.

Most improved with the addition of wave 9!

Wave 9 sees the stock of HTTs rise immensely.  With Salvo prevalent in both the GAR and Separatist factions, and Local Fire Control/Reactive Gunnery seeing use, you've got a decent shot at both hitting ships that have multiple different defense tokens they'd like to use or ships that want to Salvo.  They can Salvo, or they can prevent a lot of the damage coming in.  If your attack is strong enough, they'll usually default to reducing the damage coming in, which then means you're not taking damage back, a win for you!

Who wants this?
Ships that deliver strong attacks that want to be braced down (and redirected and evaded and and and....) and fire them at ships with multiple defense tokens they want to spend.  The more they CAN'T use, the harder their choices become.  If they just brace it, they're taking a lot of damage and potentially wiping a side's shield.  For extra spice, combine it with a critical effect that deals extra damage post defense tokens (HIE, ICB, ordnance criticals, etc) to really stick it to the ship.  And again, they're very great at keeping your opponent from using Salvo on you.

Just make sure the damage you put out is enough that the Brace is worth using more than just eating an extra 1-2 damage from your attack.  4 damage braces down to 2 normally and becomes 3 with an HTT attack (if they try to use other tokens), so I'd try to be hitting 4+ damage each attack you want to use them on so it's a meaningful choice (3 braces to 2 either way, so HTT doesn't actually affect it).  I'd personally be aiming for 5+ damage each attack, but ~4 damage isn't a horrid choice (you won't get as much mileage as you would from the 5+ damage though).

Fancy modification version new for 1.5!

H9 Turbolasers are great.  In Wave 1, no one thought they were, then flotillas showed up.  These can take a dice showing any damage symbol and change it to an accuracy.  First, this doesn't work on black dice.  They don't have an accuracy icon.  Second, you have to have an icon showing.  Your blank red dice gets NOTHING and can't be changed.  The interesting thing about this is that you can actually change a second dice to an accuracy if you already rolled one, just to lock down a second defense token.  This is useful against Demolisher or a Pelta, but the main use of H9s is to GUARANTEE an accuracy for your ship.  Lock down that brace, prevent the damage reduction from hurting their ship.  Or lock down the contain against that Damage Control Officer.  It's a guaranteed accuracy, and that's super helpful.

Who wants these?
Anyone fighting flotillas, ships with salvo defense tokens, or big tanky ships with massive hulls and defense tokens you want to burn out; everyone who can take them and get a benefit from them.  Torpedo MC30s especially, as they can change a blue dice (that ALWAYS has an icon) to an accuracy.  Combine them with Weapon Battery Techs for a guaranteed crit!  I've had good luck with these on LMC80s and MC30s, and they're good on a VSD-II long range sniper.  As they're modifications now, though, you need to be sure that it's not getting in the way of a different modification you'd like on your ship.  But they're still good, even as modifications.

Where have you been all my Nebulon based life?

Linked Turbolaser Towers (Towers, not turrets!) is the replacement/good version of DTTs (above).  Instead of being a modification and an exhaust effect, it's 2 points more for a reroll on any red dice you attack with.  ANY.  Strap it on an SSD or Starhawk and reroll that red flak! Reroll from BOTH your Nebulon/Arquitens/Assault Frigate attacks! Staple it to your Munificent and Consular! Staple it! This turbolaser puts DTTs in the dustbin, and that's BEFORE we even get to the flak bit that really hates one particular squadron! These are really good!

Main people I expect to see using this are any primarily 2-4 Red dice throwing ship and don't have the tokens for TRCs, this is the turbolaser for you.  Anything that's throwing 5+ red dice (Ackbar HMC80s and Cymoons) may want more than just this as their dice corrections. Nebulons, Assault Frigates, Arquitens, and the previously mentioned Munificent and Consular love them.

I dislike Foghat, so the obvious joke isn't being used here. Slow your roll, instead

Quad Battery Turrets is a modification.  And it adds blue dice! Technically! It adds a blue dice IF AND ONLY IF the ship you are firing on is currently faster than you are.  So if you're both at speed 1, no dice (a yuk yuk yuk).  But this is great for any ships that want to slowly move forward, letting your opponent come into range.  The fun thing about this is that because it adds a blue dice, you can trigger Leading Shots at long range.

The OTHER fun thing about this is that it applies to all arcs.  I've had great fun throwing an extra blue dice out the front arc of my Nebulon AND out the side into the same ship.  2 blues and a red is a pretty good side shot from a usually front focused Nebulon.  Heck, even the blue and red at long range is a good help at cracking your opponent's ship.

So who wants this?
Much like every other turbolaser on this page, who wants this is going to be a small sampling of all the possible ships it CAN fit in.  The ships that want this are those that are going to want to go slow (or those that drop their speed when they get close).  By going slowly in, it forces your opponent to either go slowly as well (and let you keep tagging them with your base armament of dice when they can't return fire back as well as you) or go fast (and get hit with that extra blue dice and any concentrate fire dice that you add to your attack against them).

For ALL of these that you're driving, you need to take into account that this upgrade does NOT TRIGGER unless the ship you're firing on is going faster than you or at your same speed (so put Engine Techs on your HMC80 if you need to keep moving forwards...).  Keeping THAT in mind, sometimes if you really need the dice, you may have to slow down to speed 0 the turn before.  Try not to stay there too long.  There's a good quantity of ships that max out at speed 2 these days, so it's not always easy to recommend these, but they are the easiest way to get that Leading Shots blue for your misbehaaving red dice (or for a Kraken long-range ion cannon critical on your Munificent!)

Well, be seeing you, buddy

QTC came out in Wave IV, and it made a blip on everyone's radar before disappearing.  This goes really well with the Close Range Intel Scan Objective, that.... no one actually plays.  This goes really great on another ship paired with Home One, or Sensor Team, but... that's a lot of accuracies you don't necessarily need.

The problem with it is that because it adds a dice, it has to be expensive.  But how often do you NEED a second accuracy icon? You need to generate one, and it shuts down flotillas if you can get one, but eesh, a lot of work for an extra accuracy.  Keep in mind that no matter what you do, you NEED an initial Red Accuracy before you can do anything with QTCs.  With only 1 side out of 8 having that icon, you either need a way to guarantee it shows, or a way to manipulate the dice to get there.  If your plan is "Hope I roll one" that's a bad plan and you should sub in H9s instead. 

I WANT to like this card, but the cost makes it very expensive.  If I bring Home One for another ship, that's a minimum of 113 points (and THEN you want another ship to actually profit off of Home One....).  Combine that with whatever other ship I've got, it's just a very difficult thing to build around.  It MIGHT work on an Assault Frigate using this, but this is a very weird build I'm getting towards.  

So who's taking this?
Honestly I think the modification change may have killed this one.  Maybe a weird Warlord build with this and Sensor Teams where you just mod your dice all over the place, and that is definitely 23 points you can add to the Vic. Good luck with that.  Or something nuts with Captain Jonus or Home One.

The Ship with the Golden Gun

Slaved Turrets gives you an extra red die in your shot against a ship, but it also restricts you to only being able to attack from one of your hull zones.

So who's taking this then?
Ships that want an extra red dice ANYWHERE but that don't want to pay 9-10 points for Spinal or Enhanced Armament.  You can add it anywhere, which is nice, but with the fact that you only get one attack, it's a little hard to swallow, personally.  With a Concentrate Fire order, you can add in another die, but again: one attack.  I can see it on an Arquitens, or a Scout Hammerhead.  Slaved Turrets aren't BAD, but it's a 1-point difference in the argument of if you'd rather have more dice or LTTs to correct your shots after rolling.

I've never seen anything like it!

Spinal Armament is the front and rear version of Enhanced Armaments.  Works pretty similarly, just focuses on ships that want to be firing out the front.  Same points about Enhanced Armament adding to Fire Lanes works here, too, as does the point about improving a good arc versus "fixing" a "poor" one.

So who's taking it?
ISDs, VSD-Is, Nebulons, LMC80s, and Assault Frigate builds that are trying to double arc your ships. Not an Arquitens or MC30 though (outside of Sato MC30 builds that have the 9 points to spare).  Again, improve your best arcs, don't fix the downsides. This section is short as it's basically just like Enhanced Armament above.  If you're trying to determine which one of these two you want (if you want them!), figure out how you usually want to be attacking your opponent's ships the best, then improve your better arc.  Weirdly, as Ackbar is already adding in more red dice, you don't want Enhanced Armaments (usually, like I said above).  However, most ships using their front arcs to fire at things DO want Spinal Armaments (because there isn't a front-arc based Ackbar....).  However, putting Spinals on there prevents you from most other Turbolaser upgrades.  Stuff that throws its damage out the front and can take Gunnery Teams appreciate Spinals.

Your plan for BOTH Spinals and Enhanced Armament is to just add more dice and use that to overwhelm your opponent.  As they're both red dice, having ways to reroll those dice if/when they miss are super helpful (Leading Shots, LTTs in a second turbo slot, concentrate fire tokens), lest you be at the mercy of how well you roll.

How to CR90A: volume 1-infinity

Turbolaser Reroute Circuits (TRCs) are great ways to improve Red dice that you throw.  BUT! You NEED to have evades and the turbolaser slot to use them.  You also only get to do it ONCE, as it's an exhaust effect.  The ability to change a red dice to a double hit (or a crit if you're using Dodonna!) makes a few red dice able to throw great damage repeatedly.

Who takes these?
CR90s love these, MC30s have a decent reason to use them, and Captain Needa in the officer's slot on an Arquitens all take these.  If you're putting these on a ship with only 1 native evade token (Arquitens, Nebulons, Assault Frigates), you either need to use the evade for TRCs or use it to prevent damage from hitting you at long range, which points me towards having you use another turbolaser (LTTs) instead..  Most ships that want this are those with 2 Evades, so they can use this with one token and still be able to avoid damage with the other if necessary, especially if they're one of the last ships activating that turn.

So good it got its own article!

XI7s are great.  Preventing your opponent from significantly using the redirect can result in dead ships FAST.  It's a great card for fighting anything with a redirect token, as it just lets you bore into their hull like a beam-drill laser.  It does nothing against flotillas, but it's so good against so many other ships that it's worth taking (see Eric's linked-to article, though, for more on this).  Combine it with 1 accuracy and you can shut down most ships ability to brace the damage.  With no ability to brace and only being able to redirect 1 damage, that's a ship who's in for some bad times.

Who wants this?
Ships that can put out significant damage.  "You can only redirect 1 of the 3 coming at you" versus "You can only redirect 1 of the 7."  ISDs usually use and love these, but LMC80s do too; I've run them on an MC30 under Sato (and THAT's evil!) rolling a mess of black dice.  Brace, don't brace, you're not redirecting most of this.  HMC80s love these, especially under Ackbar.  Just get all that damage coming in at one arc that really can't push it around.  Mmm, MMMM, TASTY!

I've been around forever! I'm still super hard to make work!

So the cool thing about this is that if you can get this working, you get to do TWO face-up crits!  That's super great with Dodonna or Screed! Potentially pointless with anyone else! Right now, the main place I can recommend this on is a LMC80 with XI7s or the Mon Karren title or SOMETHING.  To get this working, you NEED to find a way to both get through the shields of whatever you're shooting, and get through ENOUGH that you do two damage.  With Dodonna running that LMC80, this is good.  Otherwise I wouldn't bother (I'd barely bother WITH Dodonna running it...).  I'd also use that LMC80 as either a finisher or a followup or the second shot per turn.  If you're targeting Small based ships, the LMC80 can roll pretty well against them and finish them off, but against an ISD you're going to NEED to find a way to get those shields down first.  If you only get 1 damage through to the ship, this upgrade is effectively useless.  Once again, more beam drill to get the damage into the ships you need damaged. 

Ignore Wreck It Ralph, always go turbo.

Hopefully this gives you a good idea about HOW to build your ships to get the most killing out of them. If you have any questions about any of these, please ask!