Discuss all of your questions, concerns, comments and ideas about Second Edition.

Which do you find more edifying/interesting/fun as a player?

abilities that trigger in the play/draw phase
3
16%
abilities that trigger at some point during a mission?
8
42%
Orders
8
42%
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Ambassador
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#562192
I think I've realised that I prefer my abilities out of the play/draw phase. There's a satisfaction in terms of amassing the best army, but that feels like mostly a generic ccg thing. For me, this game really shines in mission attempts, so I like my abilities there.

Possibly weird question, but what's your preference?
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Executive Officer
By jadziadax8 (Maggie Geppert)
 - Executive Officer
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2E North American Continental Semi-Finalist 2023
ibbles  Trek Masters Tribbles Champion 2023
2E Deep Space 9 Regional Champion 2023
#562200
I picked abilities that trigger during a mission, but I'll put a caveat in there - I like ones that are unusual; not just skill or attribute gains. Things that come to mind are Jean-Luc Picard, Argo Pilot's download of Escape or Remata'Klan, Unit Leader's exclusion ability. Both have been game-winning for me in the past.
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First Edition Art Manager
By jjh (Johnny Holeva)
 - First Edition Art Manager
 -  
#562228
I selected Orders.

Mission attempt abilities get gummed up in my head with "is it during the attempt, or while facing dilemmas, or whenever?" timing issues.

Play/Draw abilities always feel like they are slowing the game down and are so often contingent on "remembering to do it." Feels like these tend to lead to gaming unpleasantness.

Orders are not as "swing-ey" for the gamestate as the other options, but Orders feel clean and logical, and today I like that.

Interesting question!
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Second Edition Art Manager
By edgeofhearing (Lucas Thompson)
 - Second Edition Art Manager
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Community Contributor
#562299
Abilities that trigger during a mission attempt are definitely the most powerful abilities, but also lead to people shuffling around their attempting crew looking for a way to break through that they hadn't thought about, which can be annoying. They add strain to what is already the most complex part of any turn.

"When you play" effects seem simple enough, but often gets the beginner all hung up on the play-and-draw phase, which isn't a great beginner experience.

Order effects tend to be cleaner than either of the other two, but Order effects that last all turn can create memory issues and can be as bad as (or worse than) mission attempt triggers when it comes to complicating mission attempts.
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Ambassador
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#562531
Thanks @edgeofhearing, that’s quite a nuanced summary of a few things I had going in my head.

Re the long lasting order problem, that’s always been a weird one for me, especially personnel that affect one other personnel like Jenna D. Feels like if there can’t be a card that’s visible all the time as a reminder, the ability should be really simple and frequently important like attributes +1 to everyone.

I guess mtg uses tokens as a way of giving long lasting abilities to the owner of a card, but that’s hard to implement with any trek sense I can think of.

Likewise enchantments … your personnel have to move around, be shuffled etc, so how do you attach new abilities to only one person in a way that’s visible?
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First Edition Rules Master
By BCSWowbagger (James Heaney)
 - First Edition Rules Master
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Community Contributor
#562606
Fritzinger wrote: Mon Sep 20, 2021 11:19 pmyour personnel have to move around, be shuffled etc, so how do you attach new abilities to only one person in a way that’s visible?
Maybe we should all bring paper clips?

This is a hard problem.
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By Gorgo Primus (Benjamin Rostoker)
 - Delta Quadrant
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#562609
I mean, you could always slide a tiny slip of paper into the sleeve for it. Or just take notes.

On Lackey it’s easy to add a note to a specific card that comes up when you hover it.
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Ambassador
 - Ambassador
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#562615
Gorgo Primus wrote: Tue Sep 21, 2021 1:45 pm I mean, you could always slide a tiny slip of paper into the sleeve for it. Or just take notes.

On Lackey it’s easy to add a note to a specific card that comes up when you hover it.
Aren't notes technically illegal?

I haven't known OP rules in that detail since 1e days so I could be wrong.
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By Gorgo Primus (Benjamin Rostoker)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#562617
You can't keep notes on your own personnel? I've never needed to do so before so I don't know either way, but I presumed that rule was to keep you from taking notes on your opponent's stuff so a reminder that your Kira was +1 Strength from your other card would be fine.

Edit:
OPG wrote:Players may write down whom took the first turn, the time the game / match started, the time the game / match is due to end and changes to any player's score (First Edition, Second Edition, and Tribbles.) Players may also write any changeable or selectable characteristic of a card on a slip of paper and insert that in the card's sleeve (e.g. in First Edition the classification and gender of a Soong-type Android or in Second Edition the skill on Vina, Orion Slave Girl.) No other note taking (e.g. the location of a dilemma in First Edition or the personnel an opponent has in play in Second Edition) is permitted during a game.

So it explicitly allows my first idea, but seems to disallow my second - although taking notes on your own stuff is the opposite of the example they use for what's not allowed. I'll note that my Lackey suggestion would clearly fall under the first of these from my interpretation though since the 'note' is affixed to the card it refers to itself and is only visible when it is.
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By boromirofborg (Trek Barnes)
 - Beta Quadrant
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1E North American Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
2E North American Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
#563078
Maybe a separate topic, but that to me feels like a rule that would be worth revisiting now for a few reasons.


1. It can lessen memory as a skill, and equalize paying attention.
2. With online gameplay, it's not like people can't keep notes offscreen easily.
3. Lackey already keeps lots of notes like this in the automatic game log. Making it where paper games have the same benefit if desired would be a good thing.
4. Parity with other CCGs in the rulespace isn't a bad thing unless there is a good reason to deviate. Makes it easier for players who would be playing either Trek as, lets face it, probably not their primary game.


I know Magic allows notes during the game of things that happened during the game. It doesn't allow strategy like sideboard plans.


Overall this feels to me like the change from hidden to open deck lists. The idea was at big events, closed deck lists gave an unfair advantage to large teams who could more easily scout and see what other big names were playing during the first few rounds. With open deck lists, that advantage was nullified in favor of it being in game skills instead of who you know.


I am not asking for anything as drastic as that, and I think in ST, there are hidden knowledge things like dilemmas, etc that you shouldn't give away before game starts. That's fine.


But I don't think I should get a big edge over you, if I'm able to remember what dilemma I encountered under Planet X, and you have memory issues and wrote it down. As long as you are paying enough attention and think to make the note and check it, I don't see an objection to in game notes.


It also has the benefit of allowing players that want to write tournament reports the ability to make better notes in the moment.
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By Gorgo Primus (Benjamin Rostoker)
 - Delta Quadrant
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#563081
Being able to write down every skill they have on their personnel would be way too big a change in the game, and for the worse. Memory - specifically Skill Tracking - is a vital part of the game by design. MTG let’s you take notes because outside of your hand and deck, there’s no hidden information during gameplay. And though Lackey has a log you could scan through if you wanted and you could cheat and write down everything, it’d be awful sportsmanship to do so as it’d be against the rules to do either. The Lackey log should generally just be used to keep track of counters spent if you get lost in the middle and need to check where you’re at. :twocents:
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By Armus (Brian Sykes)
 - The Center of the Galaxy
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Regent
Community Contributor
#563086
Gorgo Primus wrote: Mon Sep 27, 2021 6:12 pm Being able to write down every skill they have on their personnel would be way too big a change in the game, and for the worse. Memory - specifically Skill Tracking - is a vital part of the game by design. MTG let’s you take notes because outside of your hand and deck, there’s no hidden information during gameplay. And though Lackey has a log you could scan through if you wanted and you could cheat and write down everything, it’d be awful sportsmanship to do so as it’d be against the rules to do either. The Lackey log should generally just be used to keep track of counters spent if you get lost in the middle and need to check where you’re at. :twocents:
Indeed. One of the few things that would make me want to play the game even less than I already do would be to devalue skill tracking as a player skill.

Decipher did that late in their run. It took years for Design and Errata to acknowledge the problem and even more years to undo the damage.

This is why I get cranky when I see the current regime ignoring even the obvious Design lessons that the history of this game provides. There's no excuse for negligence like that, willful or not.
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By boromirofborg (Trek Barnes)
 - Beta Quadrant
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1E North American Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
2E North American Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
#563087
It's interesting. I remember starting back in 95, and for the longest time, I cannot remember ever playing with anyone that hid the personnel. Usually when attempting you'd see who the personnel were, and when they were chilling at an outpost, they were all in a "stack" below the outpost.

When I was re-reading the rule book the other day, prepping to get a friend back in to it I realized that part of that is that the rules say when reporting, place them beneath the outpost.

So of course to a lot of us, beneath meant vertically, one slot below the outpost instead of "stacked under the outpost and then covered by the outpost."

I played in a fair amount of tournaments, including a few different decpihercons, and I don't remember hidden information being quite as big of a deal as it seems to be now. (I remember being very surprised by the discussion weeks ago about covering parts of the cards when revealing to an opponent.)

I'm sure it was and the years have just eaten away at the memory, but it seems if nothing else a very poor design to care so much about personnel and them do your best to make sure that your stars of the game are rarely seen by both players.

I wonder if playing a lot of games over AIM and Kedenya chat had something to do with hat, since usually being text based you had to be clearer about who was attempting what and where.

Respectfully, I also think that something that would make the game more accessible at the low end is a good thing, as long as the skill ceilings are kept high.

When it comes to the basic fantasy of why I play this game over other card games (not that I've played much recently, that I admit), I've never once sat down and thought, I enjoy playing memory game of 30-40 moving pieces and 4x that many possible skills and combinations.

It's seeing the what-if of the episodes play out, or watching the Borg assimilate Cardassia. All my fondest memories are around a long table fighting to flip that DS9/Nor back and forth, or try to get past dilemma combos. Not "which person had that skill.".
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Director of Operations
By JeBuS (Brian S)
 - Director of Operations
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1E Deep Space 9 Regional Champion 2023
#563090
boromirofborg wrote:I've never once sat down and thought, I enjoy playing memory game of 30-40 moving pieces and 4x that many possible skills and combinations
I've always felt this way, too (though for 1E). I'm not sure why Guess Who became such a big part of these games. I'm of the opinion that even notes should be allowed during a game. If we want to advertise the games as strategic, I think we could take a page from chess, no?
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