Strategy: Sensitive Controls and Vectored Cannons

Why would you use Sensitive Controls and Vectored Cannons? They represent a major loss for aces, for example, who get a lot of use out of repositions that happen at their initiative. However, there are several advantages to weigh:

1. Stress Timing
2. Pre-maneuver Reposition
3. Rear-facing Arc for A-Wings
4. Block Lower-Init Opponents

Whether these advantages make the tradeoff worthwhile will have a lot to do with your fleet and how you intend to fly.

## Stress Timing

One big advantage is stress timing. With Autothrusters or Vectored Thrusters you're stressed for the entire round every round that you use it (from that activation until your next activation where you perform a blue maneuver). This means action sources like coordination, hopeful/discliplined, etc typically won't help you. Sensitive Controls and Vectored Cannons shrink this stress window: you're now only stressed between the System Phase and your Activation, meaning you can be granted extra actions at any time during the rest of the round.

Rebels have ships like AP-5 and Ahsoka to grant actions through stress, but you have to actually field those ships and they are not the only source of bonus actions. Keeping your a-wings unstressed allows granting them actions from Hopeful, coordination, etc. On the crafier side, consider some trickery with Jake with an A-Wing buddy. Have Jake's buddy boost in the system phase, then activate and clear their stress at init 1; now Jake can activate and grant a focus action when he boosts/rolls as his action. If you want Jake to boost in the system phase and grant a focus with that timing (e.g. because he's facing a ship and plans to bump to deny shots), you can do so.

For a TIE Interceptor or Silencer, they're typically not easy to coordinate and struggle to benefit from Discipline because they spend all round nearly every round stressed. Sensitive Controls means they can enjoy these benefits, so long as they can make good use of that system phase boost and don't miss autothrusters too much.

For this reason I'm less inclined to put it on a high-init ship because aces can use Autothrusters or Vectored repositions so well, but there may be cases where even that makes sense (like pre-maneuver repositions).

## Pre-maneuver Reposition

The next big advantage is greatly altering your maneuver direction with a pre-maneuver boost/roll. It's a bit challenging to take full advantage of without Sense since it's in the system phase, but you can change the angle of your blue or white maneuver by 45 degrees, or 90 with Extreme Maneuvers (e.g. Kylo). I had fun with this in an ETA Actis and it's a similar idea -- it makes your ship very unpredictable and the foe has a hard time knowing where you'll go to block you, get arc on you, avoid your arc, etc. You can combine with Sense or Cassian to know where a foe is going and choose based on that. A pre-maneuver straight boost or roll can also be used to slightly adjust your endpoint e.g. to dodge around an asteroid before your maneuver, avoid a bump & killbox, etc.

## Rear A-Wing Arc

If you've ever played with ships with rear arcs, you might know the advantages this conveys. Being able to shoot behind you means you can arc-dodge and still have foes in arc, shoot as you retreat, etc. An A-Wing can equip missiles to cover its front while pointing its arc in the back, if desired.

The disadvantage is RZ-1 A-Wings can only rotate their arc in the system phase, and they cannot mix and max Vectored Cannons with Vectored Thrusters since it's Standardized. For an a-wing swarm this can work really well, but it's less popular on their aces (though not unheard of).

## Blocking with Higher Init

One funny trick is to system-phase-reposition your ace or other ship to block an enemy's maneuver regardless of their initiative, then do your maneuver normally. Normally higher init ships get blocked, but your system phase reposition timing flips this on its head. You might even block a foe and maneuver into position to shoot them outside their arc.

## Conclusion

Is it worth giving up post-maneuver repositions? Hmm.... That's a tough trade for aces in most cases, with some edge cases that make sense. For init 4 and below IMO there's a lot of ways to make good use of it. If you want to take additional actions during the round (e.g. from coordination), block foes with system phase repositions, adjust your position or angle before your maneuver, or simply have a rear arc with your a-wings, then the configuration may be worthwhile.