[DarkSabre]

guys, calm down.

we've had special downloads since First Contact. many cards have been designed with "suspends play" timing in mind. a special download represents something that's actually built into the card, always at hand, usable in a pinch. (in 2E, many such downloadable verbs would actually be abilities printed on that personnel, which would allow for different timing on each - which btw also caused a lot of discussion and confusion... in 1E, there's just no space on the cards for that.)

in my opinion, 1E's special downloads are doing a FANTASTIC job modelling this concept:
- the thing you're downloading is separate, yet always at hand
- the rule is deceptively simple, yet creates interesting, powerful interactions
- it still requires choice during deck building (most decks cannot possibly include all downloads that would be available on their cards)
- if you really don't like the concept, it can still be fought in-game (Containment Field, Computer Crash, ...)

yes, getting out of the middle of a mission attempt is powerful. so is adding skills during a mission attempt. of course it's worth building decks around maximizing these abilities. but it's neither creating massive NPEs nor pushing game speed to unacceptable levels. please don't change what's not broken.

on a personal note:
i don't know about you, but i grow attached to my cards in play, and don't want to lose them. i've always sought out ways to play 1E "safe": staying in other quadrants, scanning dilemmas, ... however, i also vastly perfer attempting with all i've got to having to micro-manage crews, or redshirting. big attempts have grown increasingly risky since the Scans were banned (and then nerfed). Mission Debriefing punishes big attempts enough already. Cytherians (with 1E's liberal battling) and Denevan Neural Parasites punish big attempts way too much.
you think the game is slow now? removing the possibility of "emergency" special downloads like The Gift and Smoke Bomb and Out of Time, while keeping the dilemma power level unchanged, would definitely not work for me. my experience from games where i didn't draw my emergency downloads (or was facing Computer Crash), shows that, forced to (knowingly) play under these conditions, i'll take loads of time before each mission attempt, sorting through my personnel, thinking through everything that could go wrong, selecting the perfect team, trying to keep everybody as safe as possible. sometimes i'll start redshirting (ignoring all the possible redshirt punishment, because the prospect of losing all i've reported to a single bad dilemma outgrows the sum of all redshirt punishment in the game). and i've hated each such game. if that's something my opponents have to devote significant resources to, i'll swallow it up and move on. but if the game of 1E were changed to such conditions globally, permanently, i do believe that would make me quit 1E for good.

I sort of feel the same. We can’t drastically change something like this esp when the issue is really the meta and other issues instead of SD


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[BCSWowbagger]

I'd like to point out that some of the mentioned cards were definately designed that way because they should have exactly this ability, to cheat with Dilemmas. Downloads of Out of Time, The Gift, all the Vulcan Mindmeld .

I can't speak to The Gift, because it was a Decipher-era card. I do know from what Dan has told me that Out Of Time was designed to be a permanent replacement for Temporal Vortex, so Errata would be able to remove its Referee icon. Daniels was given the DL (and made Non-Aligned, and given SECURITY) so that non-22 players would have easy access to Out Of Time without having to draw into it. The idea was not to make him the 22nd-Century's marquee bug-out card; it was to make him the game's marquee time travel solution.

Now, obviously, that didn't quite work out. Out Of Time wasn't flexible enough to replace Temporal Vortex, and so Design kept iterating on time travel solutions until we finally got Protect the Timeline and Temporal Conduit. But the intent for Daniels/Out Of Time was to replace Temporal Vortex. It's certainly possible Design realized it could also be used as a bug-out... but also entirely possible Design was blindsided by it. (This happens: I'm 100% sure the intention on Will Riker was not to allow his team to bug out of a mission attempt while aboard a Yridian Shuttle, but it happened anyway.)

Either way, Daniels definitely wasn't intended as a bug-out boy. That was a side effect caused by the fact that timing is SuperMagic and there was nothing Design could do about it. The fact that bugging out is now his primary use is totally contrary to Design's intent.

So a rule change must lead into a massive wave of Errata to make all those cards work again.

I'm nearly done with my list of every single in the game and the effects this change would have on them (I'm at 456 out of 503), but I'll drop a little spoiler here: the number of skill-cheat cards that would be affected by this is a lot smaller than you might think, and a lot of them benefit factions that have recently seemed a bit overpowered.

You may well be right that some of the skill-cheats would benefit from errata to let them work during attempts (Fitting In and Sucking Up To The Boss come to mind, although nothing even currently downloads Sucking Up), but it'd be a manageable set of cards, not a mass errata.

many cards have been designed with "suspends play" timing in mind.

The number of these is also a lot smaller than you think (and most of them are , which is getting a new block of cards this year and next year anyway).

- the rule is deceptively simple, yet creates interesting, powerful interactions

It's really unbelievably complicated, because the suspends play timing allows you to do all sorts of ridiculous things the game never intended or even imagined. Two examples:

Alice's DS9 Maquis ship initiates battle against Bob's ship in the Neutral Zone. Both players are using tactics decks, and both forces score hits. Bob places the first tactics damage marker, a Breen Disruptor Burst which selects Bill Samuels to die. Alice announces that, just before Bill Samuels dies, he is downloading his Organized Terrorist Activities onto Bob's ship. (She had originally been planning to save it for later.) Her argument is that Bill isn't dead yet (merely selected to die) and that Bob's ship isn't considered "damaged" until the damage step of the ship battle is fully resolved... and, besides, Bob's ship even doesn't have any Tactics markers on it yet, so it can't possibly be construed as damaged. Is her download of OTA legal?

There is a correct answer, but it depends on some very intricate details of specifically how the resolution of battles works -- details that ordinarily don't make a whit of difference, because they can only be responded to in very narrow, predefined, and well-understood ways (e.g. The Needs of the Many). I'll bet you have to look it up, and you're one of the best players in the world.

(Another fun way to abuse OTA, this one much less complicated and obviously legal: wait until your opponent begins a mission attempt. First dilemma is Gomtuu Shock Wave. Wait to see whether opponent meets requirements. If opponent can meet requirements, do nothing. If opponent cannot meet requirements, the ship is about to be damaged. Quickly announce that you are downloading OTA onto his ship, which is -- technically -- still undamaged. You damage the ship. THEN Gomtuu damages the ship. Oppnent's ship explodes. Did AllenGould intend this as a valid use of the card while he was designing The Maquis? Allen, feel free to speak up, but my guess is "no". Indeed, the card's text is specifically written to prevent situations like this. But, as with Daniels, suspends-play timing routinely ruins Design intent, and there's nothing Design can do about it.)

Okay, second example:

Bob wants revenge, so his Away Team attacks Alice's Away Team. He declares the battle and shows a leader. Alice plays I'm A Doctor, Not A Doorstop, but Bob kills it with Amanda Rogers. So then, Alice uses Orderly Mavek's special download of Frame of Mind (as an event) to erase the Leadership skill from the only leader in Bob's group. Bob no longer has a leader, but his Away Team has 3 Empathy. Is the battle successfully prevented? (If so, is Bob's Away Team "stopped"?) Why or why not?

ANSWER:

The battle continues, because Alice waited to use the Frame of Mind download until after I'm A Doctor, at which time the battle is considered "just initiated" and the leader check becomes irrelevant. If Alice had used Frame of Mind before I'm A Doctor, that would have worked, since it would have occurred in a mysterious timing window, totally inaccessible to any card without suspending play, that exists at the end of the announcement step of personnel battle but before the battle is considered initiated.

However, this probably wouldn't have helped her: despite the Glossary rule that all personnel are "stopped" even after a cancelled battle, using Frame of Mind during the announcement step isn't considered a response to the battle, but aborts the announcement of the battle ab initio. So Bob's personnel are not stopped and, if they cure Frame of Mind, they can attack again immediately.

Insane timing courtesy of the DL icon working at suspends-play speed for effects nobody involved in Design would have thought of in a timing window Rules hasn't even described. Would you have ruled this correctly in a tournament?

Cards with DL become much, much easier to design, test, and (especially) get rules committee signoff if you know exactly when they are allowed to be used. Under the current rule, since they can be used at literally any time you can imagine, including during timing windows that the game doesn't technically have, DL's have to be vetted very carefully indeed, and stuff (like the above) still gets through unnoticed all the time, or is noticed but the costs of fixing it are too high.

One of the last things Cristoff did as brand manager was get a bunch of non-1E players together to teach them 1E and see what the pain points were. His conclusion was stark:

I've done multiple sessions with players and designers at school where they where tasked with learning/teaching/playing the game (1E, in different scenarios). The general feedback is that the is problematic to that level that players can not figure out how it works, when to use it, which one how was used etc... The takeaway from the research was that the function and rules for was such a barrier of entry for players that they could not get past it or enjoy the game. Out of all the people that was involved in the project, only one could see themselves play the game afterwards.

Smiley had a couple issues with DL, both the suspends-play timing and the once-per-game "bookkeeping" aspect. But the timing was a huge part of it, and anyone here who's new enough to the tournament circuit that you remember the day you found out DL's could be used to bug out of a mission attempt in progress, flying in the face of all other timing rules and quite a lot of TrekSense, knows exactly how those design students felt.

but it's neither creating massive NPEs nor pushing game speed to unacceptable levels.

Well, whether bug-outs that wreck dilemma combos (dilemma manipulation on the cheap!) qualifies as a massive NPE is in the eye of the beholder. I've long since stopped arguing about what counts as an NPE.

But the suspends-play DL timing is definitely pushing game speed to unacceptable levels. That's much less subjective, and much more obvious.

Anyway, I'll finish my spreadsheet probably tonight and hopefully be able to post some kind of report (along with the raw data) soon thereafter: which cards would change (most would not), how they would change, what affiliations would be most impacted, etc.

[Latok]

The number of these is also a lot smaller than you think (and most of them are , which is getting a new block of cards this year and next year anyway).

If the cards were designed with the timing rule in mind every card since those has been? Which if I had to guess I would go with a majority of them.

[Hoss-Drone]

Im of the opposite opinion to stefan, I think should take an action and should have the option to go to hand so they can be used when appropriate vis a vis interrupts.

I say this after how many games with my smoke deck under my belt. It's fun to play, but it feels super dirty when I can bomb out of denevan/cytherians then send in the pawns, then resume later with the all stars.

[BCSWowbagger]

The number of these is also a lot smaller than you think (and most of them are , which is getting a new block of cards this year and next year anyway).

If the cards were designed with the timing rule in mind every card since those has been? Which if I had to guess I would go with a majority of them.

I'll rephrase: Decipher Design and CC Design were both increasingly aware of the potential effects of the suspends-play timing as time went on and (ab)use became more prevalent. But, even as they became more aware, they rarely designed cards that were intended to be dependent upon the suspends-play timing for their core functionality.

The number of cards that were designed to take advantage of suspends-play timing (not just as a side effect but as an intention) is small, and the pool is disproportionately (but by no means entirely) / .

Like, when we community-designed Joran, were we all aware that this could use suspends-play timing to get a random kill in the middle of a battle or mission attempt? I like to think we were. But nobody was depending on that to give Joran's download value. The mission attempt/battle thing was just a side effect of how timing currently works. (That said, we didn't really discuss it.)

A lot of conversations in Design work the same way: "Hey, you know this will make that card suddenly work during a mission attempt, too, right?" "Yeah, we noticed. Not what we were aiming for, but it's fine, and basically unavoidable."

[Se7enofMine]

I really like the possibilities. It's a "pull a rabbit out of a hat" kind of moment.

Obviously I am not on the tournament scene and only play friendly games so perhaps my perspective would be different.

But, in a social setting, pulling some last second shenanigans using always makes for a great and entertaining moment with the boys.

[BCSWowbagger]

ALL THE DLS: A Report, As Promised

Most cards in the game can't interrupt other actions. Even an Interrupt or "at any time" Incident can only interrupt a mission attempt or battle if it says something like "plays at the start of battle" or "plays when your personnel is about to be killed." The game calls these "valid responses," but all that really means is, "You can't interrupt another action except when a card allows it."

Special Downloads do not follow this rule. Cards accessed with a Special Download may interrupt any action or any part of an action (typically a mission attempt or battle). This has caused some difficulties. One possible solution to those difficulties would be to change the Special Download rule so that it works like other "at any time" actions: you can only interrupt an action in progress if the card you're downloading allows you to (in other words, if it's a valid response).

Problem: before now, nobody knew how it would affect the game. Some people thought the change would cripple certain affiliations. Others thought it would profoundly alter the game's pace (for better or for worse). There's been a lot of speculation, but there are so many Special Downloads that it's been impossible to get a handle on them all.

So I just spent a week doing that research.

There are, by my count, 498 distinguishable Special Downloads in the current game. (There are also 4 broken links for which I have only speculation.) I went through each and every one of them to see how exactly each one would be affected if Special Downloads changed from "suspends-play speed" to the "at-any-time speed" that most of the game follows. Here are my results.

(Full data available here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing )


No Effect

235 of the 498 Special Downloads (47%) would not be affected by the change at all. (At least, not that I could see.)

Sometimes this is because they are worded as valid responses, and thus would continue to work as they do now. For example, Tharket special downloads Prisoner Escort, which "plays on a personnel you just captured." If you capture a personnel, you can immediately play this card, even in the middle of your opponent's mission attempt, because Prisoner Escort says you can.

Many other Special Downloads are unaffected because they simply can't be used during a mission attempt, battle, or other group action anyway. Take Kazon Fighter, which special downloads Blue Alert. You can currently special download Blue Alert during a mission attempt or battle, but actually using it is an action, which means you have to wait until after the mission attempt or battle to do anything with it anyway. So there's zero effect.

Somes of these cards might have weird edge cases where the timing could make some theoretical difference, but I couldn't think of them. Thus, the effects of the rule change on these 235 cards would be none or negligible.


Marginal Changes

161 of the 498 Special Downloads (32%) would be marginally affected. That is, you might notice that you can no longer use these during a mission attempt or battle, but most of the time, you're not going to care.

For example, Deputy Quark special downloads Renewal Scroll. Currently, you can do this in the middle of a mission attempt or battle. Why would you want to do that? There are a couple possibilities. Maybe it's a last-ditch attempt to find your Asteroid Sanctuary. Maybe you're facing a Royale Casino dilemma and want a stronger hand. But, 99% of the time, it makes zero difference to you whether you use Renewal Scroll before, during, or after the mission attempt or battle.

Many of the downloads in this category download a specific personnel or equipment. For example, Nevala downloads a Romulan PADD, while Sarajevo downloads Emory Erickson. Under current rules, you can start the mission attempt, wait to see if you need the Romulan PADD (or whatever) and THEN download it. Under the revised rule, you'd have to get it before you begin the attempt.

This... doesn't make a whole lot of difference. With these, you don't get a choice of equipment, so there's no advantage to waiting-and-seeing. It's just a question of whether you wait to fetch your PADD (or Medical Kit, or Nikolai Rozehnko, or whatever) until right after you reveal the first dilemma (maybe Quality of Life) or right before. There are marginal cases where the current rules allow you to "smuggle" a PADD download past, say, The Gatherers and then have it available for Executive Authorization. Under the new rule, you wouldn't be able to do this. So these marginal changes aren't nothing. They just aren't very much.


Substantial Changes

So far, we've looked at 396 of the 498 Special Downloads (80%) and found that the changing Special Downloads from suspends-play to valid-response timing would have only marginal (or, more often, zero) impact on them. Feel free to leaf through my work on those for mistakes, but we can pretty much set those 396 cards aside now.

That leaves us with 102 of the 498 Special Downloads (20%) that we actually need to take a closer look at. These cards would change in impactful ways.

Are you necessarily going to care? No. Akorem Laan's special download of D'Jarras is one of the "substantial changes", but it could vanish completely and you wouldn't mind, because you've never stocked D'Jarras in your deck and you're never going to. (Sorry, D'Jarras.)

But there will definitely be some that everyone will have an opinion on, particularly the "Bug-Out" downloads, which would no longer function under the new rule (unless one or more of them received errata).

So, out of these 102 downloads, what EXACTLY would get changed? And where do they fall on the scale from lame Akorem Laan/D'Jarras to mega-strong Daniels/Out Of Time?

"Bug-Out" Downloads

9 of the 102 are "Bug-Out" downloads. They move or redirect your cards and, because Special Downloads can be used even during a mission attempt under current rules, these 9 cards allow you to start a mission attempt, look at the dilemma, encounter it, realize you're going to fail it, then suddenly special-download one of these cards, moving all your personnel out of the current crew or away team and ending the attempt without facing the consequences.

For example, Borg Outpost was given a special download Transwarp Network Gateway in 1997 to facilitate transit from the then-interim Delta Quadrant to the Alpha Quadrant. But, when the Delta Quadrant actually came out, it became possible to use this download instead to move a Borg Cube through another Transwarp Network Gateway just after encountering a nasty dilemma (say, V'Ger), ending the scouting attempt and saving the ship and crew. (If you have a Transwarp Network Gateway in your HAND, though, you can't use it to do exactly the same thing, because it isn't a valid response.)

Under the new rule, you would not be able to use these cards during mission attempts. None of them are valid responses. You'd just have to make like everybody else since they errata'd Emergency Transporter Armbands back in 1995 (to prevent the exact same thing) and see your mission attempts through to the bitter end.

"Any X" Downloads

53 of the 102 significantly impacted special downloads -- more than half -- are downloads of "any [something]": "any tricorder" or "any Captain's Order" or "any Treachery personnel." The reason this matters is because you can choose any of several options for your download. Under current rules, you can wait until you're facing a dilemma where you don't have the requirements, then choose the exact right personnel, equipment, or other card to allow you to get past that dilemma.

For example, when Harrad-Sar encounters Friendly Fire only to discover his Away Team has no Leadership, he can choose to download Navaar and pass. But if he'd encountered Jol Yichu'! instead, he could have downloaded D'Nesh instead to give him the Anthropology to pass that, too.

Most of the "any" downloads aren't as good as that. Benjamin Sisko (Chain of Command) can get you Any Jake in the middle of an attempt, but there's only three Jakes in the game, and they ALL have some variation on ENGINEER / Youth / Biology. Not exactly a dilemma-cheating champ.

But there are some "any" downloads that are notoriously incredible. Starship Enterprise's power to fetch any Federation personnel in the game right in the middle of an attempt is one of the strongest anti-dilemma moves in the game. (Trust me, I just spent 18 months designing a set for OS Feds. It's amazing.)

If the rule were changed, these would no longer be usable during the mission attempt in this way. Players would need to choose the personnel they expect to need and download that personnel before the mission attempt begins.

(I'm counting downloads of Holodeck Door, Ready Room Door, Shape-Shift, etc. as being in this category, since those cards also just go ahead and get you "any" of something.)

Mid-Mission Dial-a-Skill

25 of the 102 special downloads we're concerned about can be used in the middle of a mission attempt to get a needed skill out of nowhere. This comes in many different varieties, from Kira Meru's ability to download Comfort Women (first function) to get a skill to the U.S.S. Enterprise-E (20th Anniversary)'s ability to download the Borg Queen mid-attempt, at which point she can select any skill she wants. The most prolific users of this tech are the (and ) personnel, who love special-downloading equipment into a mission attempt that allows them to select a skill on the spot. Their best trick is using the of Classic Communicator to gain a skill from a stopped personnel at the mission. Good bye filter dilemmas! Bonus if you get the Communicator from the DL on a personnel who was already stopped. (Again, I just came off 18 months of abusing this for Project Delenn.)

And, of course, there's a handful of Interrupts that DON'T normally work during mission attempts but magically DO only when they're special downloaded. Namely: Fitting In, Vulcan Mindmeld, Combat-Ready: Jury Rig, and Combat-Ready: Tense Situation. When Clerasil ToB and I talked earlier about a "mass errata" to fix cards that were really supposed to work during mission attempts but don't, I think those are the four to look at. (Throw in Sucking Up To The Boss and Cluttering Irrelevancies while you're at it. No, they're not downloadable by anyone. They're just dial-a-skill cards that aren't very good. )

Limited Attribute Manipulation

There are 5 special downloads (of the 102 that make a difference) that allow you to boost your attributes in various ways. (For example, Warrior's Birthright.) However, all 5 are limited -- they only work for a single turn, or at a single mission. Most are events, too, so they're costly. If you play them at the wrong mission, or at the wrong turn, they might not help you at all. (Or they might save the day.) This is what makes each of these cards tricky.

Enter the special download. Thanks to its suspends-play timing, the currently allows you to get the attribute manipulators only after you find out you need them. This allows you to eliminate the costs of using these cards while keeping the benefits.

Assassination Plot Downloads

5 of the 102 significantly affected special downloads are just downloads of Assassination Plot. Currently, you can use Assassination Plot in the middle of a battle if you decide you don't like somebody you're engaging or about to engage. After this rule change, you wouldn't be able to do that anymore. You'd have to kill the target before or after the battle.

There's also a situation where you can get your assassin onto the same planet as an opposing away team while they're attempting a mission (likely with Assassination Attempt). Currently, you can immediately use that to kill somebody (returning assassin to hand). If this rule were changed, you'd have to wait until the mission attempt ended -- which, to be fair, it probably will, because Assassination Attempt is a tough dilemma to pass.

That doesn't seem like a huge deal to me, but it also didn't seem just marginal, so I erred on the side of inclusion and counted these 5 as a significant change.

Miscellaneous

There's a few others -- 7, to be exact -- that don't fit readily into any of the above categories. For instance, Joran special downloads Shrouded Assailant, which, under the new rule, would no longer allow you to murder an opponent's personnel in the middle of a battle or while they are facing a dilemma. (You would now have to play it before or after the mission attempt or battle.) There's a few other oddballs in this category: Joret Dal special downloads Counterintelligence (so does Boone Impersonator), Martok Founder special downloads Dial Martok For Murder, Second special downloads Divert Power, Revised Seven special downloads Borg Nanoprobes, and Miles O'Brien special downloads Near-Warp Transport.

No biggies in there, but the changes to each card are big enough to be listed as "significant."

Impact by Era / Affiliation

Who exactly gets hurt by all these changes? (Who gets helped?)

I'll give you the TLDR here at the top, before we get into the weeds: , , , and (including ) would all be heavily affected, and the new from Project Discommendation would be somewhat curbed as well.

Almost everyone would see two or three cards change, but, for factions besides the ones I just listed, there tend to be fewer changes, the changes are more modest, and/or the affected cards aren't in wide use anyway. (Seen Founder Agitator using his special download in any decks lately?)

As a result, it seems to me that the proposed rules change would likely weaken the factions I just listed, while making everyone else relatively stronger, since the concentration of powerful mid-mission special downloads in certain factions (especially in ), many of them released within the past 24 months, would cease to be an issue.

But that's just my interpretation. Look at the data and draw your own conclusions:

Deep Space 9

: 2 significant changes

Kira Meru and Akorem Laan would no longer be able to dial-a-skill into a mission attempt.

: 3 significant changes

Mila's "any equipment" would have to be chosen before the attempt.

Toran (Homefront II) couldn't use Assassination Plot during a battle or attempt.

Boone Impersonator couldn't use Counterintelligence mid-attempt.

: 3 significant changes

Founder Leader, just like other Founders, wouldn't be able to Shape-Shift during an attempt. (She could still use a played Flight of the Intruder, of course.)

Founder Agitator couldn't use Assassination Plot during a battle or attempt.

Martok Founder would no longer be able to use Dial Martok For Murder at suspends-play speed to murder specific targets who are currently facing a dilemma. (E.g. Opponent facing Replicator Accident, shows only Physics, Martok kills Physics, everyone dies.) He'd have to Dial Martok For Murder before the attempt begins.

: 5 significant changes

Agent Garak, Benjamin Sisko (Chain of Command), Captain Nog, Jake Sisko (Emissary), and Lauren all provide some form of an "any" download, which would now have to be chosen before a mission attempt began.

Most of these aren't very good for dilemma cheating, mind you, so don't be fooled by the large number in this faction. (The first four can download Any Garak, Any Jake, Ready Room Door, and Any ENGINEER Equipment, respectively.) But they don't have to be good to be impacted by this rules change.

And, to be fair, Lauren's Life's Simple Pleasures actually is quite good if you can use it for a female download mid-mission attempt.

: 2 significant changes

Hanok's and Grand Nagus Gint's "any Rule" downloads would no longer allow them to grab 6th Rule in the middle of a mission. (The rest seem to be unaffected, but 6th Rule is snazzy. And since 6th Rule only works on Ferengi, I included Hanok here instead of with the Dominion. In a Dominion deck, his download should be unaffected, but in a Where Opportunities Are Made deck, he might miss the mid-mission 6th Rule.)

: 3 significant changes

Taya would have to pick her target before the attempt while Anastasia Komanov loses a bug-out power. Joran... loses very little, really.

: 3 significant changes

Bareil would be the big one here, losing the ability to dial for ANY equipment card mid-attempt. Security Chief Garak is similar but not as strong. The Intendant (Crossover) could still download Assassination Plot while a captive, but not during a mission attempt or battle. Not sure how much difference that makes to folks in practice, but there it is anyway.

: 2 significant changes

Under the new rule, Smiley couldn't fetch Tinkerer to get fresh equipment mid-attempt, and Mr. Tuvok would be unable to Vulcan Mindmeld mid-attempt as well.

: 0 significant changes

: 0 significant changes

: 0 significant changes

Next Generation

: 2 significant changes

Joret Dal couldn't use Counterintelligence mid-attempt. Bralek would have to choose a personnel to download outside a mission attempt.

: 3 significant changes

James T. Kirk has an "any" download for Captain's Orders, and U.S.S. Enterprise (Chain of Command) can get you a different Enterprise (even in the middle of a battle, or just after this Enterprise has been targeted for destruction by "God") using Wall of Ships -- if you're willing to break Continuing Mission. Those would all have to be done outside mission attempts under the new rule.

Miles O'Brien can do Near-Warp Transport in the middle of a mission attempt in the current rule, which I'm frankly not sure why it isn't more widely used right now. The ultimate "bug-in" card!

: 2 significant changes

Kurdon couldn't pull any personnel into a mission attempt in progress, but would have to choose beforehand (or wait until the attempt is over). Quark (The Next Generation) would have to choose his PADD before attempting, too.

: 1 significant change

Kahless (The Next Generation) would have to get Warrior's Birthright before starting a mission attempt under the proposed rule.

: 3 significant changes

Tomalak (Homefront III) and Ambassador Spock each have an "any" download that would now generally have to be selected outside a mission attempt. Jean-Luc Picard (Engage) has a dial-a-skill special download that would no longer work during a mission attempt -- although it only works when he's with a Mindmeld personnel right now anyway.

: 4 significant changes

...but most are barely used. Livingston would lose the ability to get Ready Room Door mid-attempt. The Foragers have the same thing with Devidian Foragers. Will Riker's of Dropping In would cease to function as a bug-out card, but I don't think it was widely used for that anyway. (Dropping In would remain a valid response to somebody dropping SHIELDS for beaming; you just wouldn't be able to suspends-play on a ship with low SHIELDS to beam out of a mission attempt.)

players might notice the loss of Beverly and Will's ability to download "any tricorder" into an attempt in progress, though.

: 0 significant changes

Delta Quadrant

: 5 significant changes

The big loss here is obviously Kes's of The Gift, the only bug-out card in history that was arguably actually designed for the intention of letting you bug out of a mission attempt in progress. Of course, if that was the intent, why not just print on The Gift that it can play during a mission attempt or suspend play, y'know?

In much less interesting news, Equinox Doctor would now have to choose which of his two equipments to download before he starts a mission attempt.

Meanwhile, Project Discommendation had more DL cards that took advantage of suspends-play timing than the previous 18 years of Voyager sets combined. Revised Chakotay and Revised Kim can both dial-a-skill under the current rules, and Revised Seven of Nine can instantly restore someone just killed during an attempt (and they're not even stopped, like with Genetronic Replicator or Sickbay). Pretty amazing for one faction in one set!

: 2 significant changes

Penk's Tsunkatse download have to be used before starting a mission attempt or battle. U.S.S. Dauntless's ability to use Quantum Slipstream mid-attempt as a bug-out card has been often overlooked.

: 1 significant change

Janeway (another Discommendation card!) would need to get Warrior's Birthright before attempting a mission, instead of on-the-fly.

: 1 significant change

Halok would have to choose his "ENGINEER-related equipment" outside a mission attempt.

: 0 significant changes

Classic Films

/ : 5 significant changes

U.S.S. Enterprise-A, Brigadier Kerla, I.K.C. K't'inga, and Kronos One would all lose the ability to dial somebody directly into a mission attempt.

Vixis could no longer use her download of Incoming Message - Federation as a bug-out card.

: 1 significant change

Allamil's flexible is often used to get out key personnel who are otherwise hard to access, like Sybok, but it's pretty strong in the middle of a mission attempt, too, if you have a good selection of targets for him to choose from.

Original Series

: 8 significant changes

Man, what can't these guys do with special downloads?

Captain Kirk (Chain of Command) can get any Captain's Order, which is meh, but Dr. McCoy, Starship Constitution, and Starship Enterprise can grab a wide variety of personnel immediately, ignoring quadrant restrictions, mid-attempt.

Meanwhile, Ensign O'Brien, Lt. Bashir, and Lt. Dax can all download equipment directly into a mission attempt that allows them to select a broad range of strong skills.

And, to top it off, they have a Bug-Out Card: Nilz Baris's of Incoming Message - Federation.

Not only does OS Fed enjoy one of the largest numbers of that can exploit suspends-play timing, they also have several of the strongest.

: 8 significant changes

Much like their Alpha Quadrant counterparts, OS Fed TE can fib around a LOT of dilemmas with their impressive array of that can exploit suspends-play timing. First Officer Spock, I.S.S. Constitution, and I.S.S. Enterprise can all give you a wide choice of personnel or equipment, while Chief Surgeon McCoy, James Tiberius Kirk, Marlena Moreau, and Security Chief Sulu can all dial up skills in the middle of an attempt.

Crewman Bredahl can use Assassination Plot during an attempt or battle, too, but I don't think anyone much cares. Poor Bredahl.

: 2 significant changes

TwT wasn't as generous to the Klingons as it was to the Federation, but the mid-mission personnel downloads on Battle Crusier and I.K.C. Gr'oth are nothing to sneeze at. Add an Organian Peace Treaty and the Fed + Kli forces (properly supported by modern draw and play engines) will suspends-play their way past practically any dilemma in the book.

: 1 significant change

Gal'Gathong could no longer pick a relevant personnel on-the-fly while facing a dilemma

: 2 significant changes

Harcourt Fenton Mudd and Odo (The Trouble With Tribbles) would each lose some mid-attempt dial-a-skill ability.

22nd-Century

: 8 significant changes

Nobody comes close to for suspends-play (ab)use except the team, particularly those MACOs. Charles Tucker III, Erika Hernandez, and Jeremy Lucas all have "any" downloads that can come in awful handy if you wait to see what dilemma you're facing first. T'Pol, Amanda Cole, and Jeremiah Hayes all have dial-a-skill abilities. And Fiona McKenzie rounds them off with some limited attribute boosting via Raktajino. Add in Major Reed's own MACO dial-a-skill and you have pretty potent ways (under current rules) to ignore the ordinary timing rules and bust past dilemmas.

And who can forget the card that kicked this whole conversation off? Daniels, with his powerful (but essentially unintended) ability to bug out of a mission if there's a corresponding time location via Out Of Time, caps off the cheese.

That said, a lot of MACO special download tech would still work under the proposed new rule. For example, Sascha Money's download of Combat-Ready: Solidarity would still be a valid response to a MACO being about to die.

: 6 significant changes

They're not MACOs, but they're strong, with the ability to dial in skills or personnel with Koss, Sh'Raan, T'Pol (Pre-Warp Pack) (twice, in her case!), V'Tal, and V'Las. That's right: all the special downloads that exploit suspends-play timing just happen to be high-quality dilemma-busters. They have both a high number of significant suspends-play downloads and a very high average quality on them. Watch out! (And, remember, they stack with the downloads listed below, too.)

: 3 significant changes

It's only 3, but they're good -- and they stack with the downloads listed below. Antaak, Captain Vorok, and Duras Son of Toral all provide "any" downloads, and they are very broad "any" downloads. Antaak's Mah Nlv download will get you any THREE factional Klingons you like (plus any Targ). Vorok can get any Hologram. And Duras... well, okay, he only has two possible targets, so not as good.

: 2 significant changes

Harrad-Sar and Shobbi-Har each have nearly identical downloads, giving them each access, even while facing a dilemma (under current rules), to any of several quite skillful slave girl personnel.

: 1 significant change

Muk would lose the ability to dial up a person or equipment mid-attempt.

: 1 significant change

Under the proposed rule, Major Reed's Combat-Ready: Tense Situation only works outside mission attempts and battles . Of course, he usually shows up in Alpha Quadrant MACO decks anyway...

: 0 significant changes


Enterprise-E

: 1 significant change

Paul Porter would have to choose his "any PADD" before starting a mission.

Non-Era/Quadrant/Faction Specific

: 4 significant changes

Borg Outpost would no longer be able to use its TNG download to bug out of a scouting attempt in progress.

Borg U.S.S. Enterprise-E couldn't dial-a-skill for Borg Queen mid-attempt.

Queen's Borg Sphere (Resistance is Futile) would have to get Optimize Drones before an attempt instead of waiting to see if it's needed.

Second couldn't grab Divert Power (for its second function) in the middle of a battle after preliminary ATTACK and DEFENSE totals have been added up; he would have to get it before the battle, just like somebody using a Ready Room Door. (First function is unaffected.)

(generic) : 1 significant change

Ensign Jameson couldn't use Out Of Time as a bug-out card anymore. She'd have to use it for, y'know, time travel.

(generic): 1 significant change

Tal'Aura, who downloads Assassination Plot -- a nice trick for a dissident in the world of Enemies of the State.

Conclusion

Changing Special Downloads to be an "at any time" action rather than a "suspends play" action would alter the gameplay on a number of cards, but it would not break those cards -- or the game.

Whether or not the proposal is ultimately a good idea is a subject for continued debate, but now you can debate with data instead of just speculating about what would happen.

This is James signing off.

[PantsOfTheTalShiar]

If we're going to talk about "designer intent":

1) We have a tool to fix cards that do not behave as intended: Errata.

2) Let's consider (as Stefan does) the designer intent of , and why the designers of First Contact would have invented an entirely new timing window.

"Suspends play" is a welcome relief from what are otherwise overly restrictive timing rules. Getting rid of it for will make the game less interactive. The most fun game I ever played was at South Dakota Masters when Kris and I decided to just keep shooting at each other. Part of that fun was using Mila Ablative Armor for a surprise defense to one of Kris's attacks. If I couldn't suspend play, then I would have to download the armor after Kris moved to my location, but then Kris would see my armor and could decide not to attack. Now instead of having a trap for Kris, he would be in complete control.

I also like how B'Etor (The Sky's The Limit) could Lursa (or vice verse) to potentially pass Personal Duty / Friendly Fire. It's fun to feel like you can outsmart dilemma combos; without the ability to outsmart combos the game just becomes a matter of spamming out personnel and sending them to their deaths.

Yes, the "bug-out" cards that can escape any dilemma are bad. But according to James's research, there are only 9 of them, and we can fix any of those that we deem necessary: Smoke Bomb could only stop an opponent's crew or Away Team, Out of Time could play on table and allow your temporal agents to time travel as a separate action, and so on.

[BCSWowbagger]

2) Let's consider (as Stefan does) the designer intent of , and why the designers of First Contact would have invented an entirely new timing window.

I think there's a straightforward answer to that:

Because, in 1997, the game's timing rules were still a huge, largely undefined mess, and Decipher didn't know how to accomplish the effect it wanted within the rules as they existed at the time (check out the complete timing rules at the time!). So they did what Decipher did almost every time they had a big complicated rules issue in front of them: they dodged it, threw a kludge at the game, and hoped it worked.

I think it's significant that First Contact itself only had one that can be used to any real effect during a mission attempt (Paul Porter). Then, in 1998, Decipher released 307 new cards, and not one of them could exploit suspends-play timing. It wasn't until 2000 and TwT that they began to lean into it.

If Decipher was deliberately trying to use to allow players to mess around with things during mission attempts, they did a pretty good job keeping it secret for several years after releasing FC.

22 years later, we have fairly well-defined and well-documented timing rules. suspends-play timing is an anachronism from a far more chaotic and arbitrary time.

"Suspends play" is a welcome relief from what are otherwise overly restrictive timing rules. Getting rid of it for will make the game less interactive.

I wrote a rulebook, so I'm and foremost in favor of easily explainable, and above all CONSISTENT rules. If the game's default timing is too restrictive, then we shouldn't just make one random icon be an exception to it; we should change the entire "at any time" timing model to work this way. And if the default timing is not too restrictive, then we should make it so everything runs at that pace, except in rare, narrow, and well-understood cases.

[AllenGould]

1) We have a tool to fix cards that do not behave as intended: Errata.

We have a tool, but we don't have a new shape. There's no mechanic in the game for 'this guy comes with a free card, but only as an action' that isn't Once per game, may download $CARDNAME. Just look at The Borg triplets - it's an entire line of card text on a personnel. (They go slightly over, but that's the restriction text). We can't errata to text that won't physically fit on the card.

The "obvious" solution would be a new icon, but there's not a lot of appetite for those these days.

[Armus]

I'm still digesting all of this, but I gotta say:

Thanks James for putting this together. I'm sure it took a lot of work on your end and it really does enable better discussion.

[Takket]

If we're going to talk about "designer intent":

1) We have a tool to fix cards that do not behave as intended: Errata.

2) Let's consider (as Stefan does) the designer intent of , and why the designers of First Contact would have invented an entirely new timing window.

"Suspends play" is a welcome relief from what are otherwise overly restrictive timing rules. Getting rid of it for will make the game less interactive. The most fun game I ever played was at South Dakota Masters when Kris and I decided to just keep shooting at each other. Part of that fun was using Mila Ablative Armor for a surprise defense to one of Kris's attacks. If I couldn't suspend play, then I would have to download the armor after Kris moved to my location, but then Kris would see my armor and could decide not to attack. Now instead of having a trap for Kris, he would be in complete control.

I also like how B'Etor (The Sky's The Limit) could Lursa (or vice verse) to potentially pass Personal Duty / Friendly Fire. It's fun to feel like you can outsmart dilemma combos; without the ability to outsmart combos the game just becomes a matter of spamming out personnel and sending them to their deaths.

Yes, the "bug-out" cards that can escape any dilemma are bad. But according to James's research, there are only 9 of them, and we can fix any of those that we deem necessary: Smoke Bomb could only stop an opponent's crew or Away Team, Out of Time could play on table and allow your temporal agents to time travel as a separate action, and so on.

that's pretty much my feeling. usage in the situations you describe are just good deck building a few surprises are good!

The bug outs are bastardizations of the point on the cards they and should be change/eliminated.

[commdecker]

I support the idea of changing the rules of the icon so that it doesn't suspend play. Having worked on and with Design, I will assert that the reasoning behind putting this icon on any given card typically only goes as far as "There should be a connection with this card," and perhaps as far as "You can get this card into play more easily." It is (practically?) never a requirement or even a thought that "You can get this card into play really anytime you want it, even in the middle of a mission attempt or a battle." As shown by both anecdotal evidence and James' more extensive research, such a meaning has had many unintended consequences, some of which cross the line into objectionable territory. (Yes, that's my opinion, but also the opinion of some others here.)

It's chiefly the bug-outs that matter to me. As James pointed out, Decipher moved away from allowing bug-outs with their own ETA errata. They aren't meant to be part of the game. Sacrificing the "suspends play" timing in order to get rid of them, and I support doing that. Yes, doing it as a rule change means affecting all of the cards in the game, but that is a tradeoff I am willing to make. I see very little in James' extensive list that even makes me pause in thinking over that position.

[Mogh, Son Of Worf]

I want special (disrupt play) downloads - not retarded (slower and later) downloads. This is 1E. We download to hand next? if you don't want suspend play in design, make a and write download.

[admiral-mogh]

I want special (disrupt play) downloads - not retarded (slower and later) downloads. This is 1E. We download to hand next? if you don't want suspend play in design, make a and write download.

Was er sagte!