[MidnightLich]

Hi folks!

This thread will be home to the official Q&A for the design team of The Cage, which will be releasing on Friday, June 21st. If you have questions about cards, the process, or more, feel free to ask them here. Designers will hop in and edit their answers into your posts. ...or WILL we? Behold, I'm quote-replying! Bwahahahahaha!

Here was your design team:

James Monsebroten [Orbin]
Jason Drake [Wambundu]
James Heaney [BCSWowbagger]
Charlie Plaine [MidnightLich]

We look forward to answering your questions about The Cage!

-crp

[Takket]

final frontier looks like it had a LOT of tweaking based on its caveats. How many revisions and play testing sessions did it take to get it right? What was the first draft of this card?

[Orbin]

final frontier looks like it had a LOT of tweaking based on its caveats. How many revisions and play testing sessions did it take to get it right? What was the first draft of this card?

Text on the incident was finalized in version N fo Delenn.

The first version of the card is close to what the last version was. It offered two free reports, the ship came as an in place of your normal card draw download and it had restrictions on Crossover and Time-locations. The core spirit of the card remained the same, but the execution changed a bunch during testing, partly due to rules issues and power level issues.

- James M

[winterflames]

Is this dilemma we see today an indicator of A khan reaction that uses the Botany Bay icon? Or a botany bay dilemma that uses augments?

Or both?

[BCSWowbagger]

final frontier looks like it had a LOT of tweaking based on its caveats. How many revisions and play testing sessions did it take to get it right? What was the first draft of this card?

Text on the incident was finalized in version N fo Delenn.

The first version of the card is close to what the last version was.

I mean, originally originally, it was two three-line cards (arguably three?) and the overlap with the 25-point missions was a big problem. Remember Black Star and United Earth Space Probe Agency?

We definitely tried to finesse the restrictions and got bit hard on the butt by our cleverness. So the restrictions became thicker and more explicit as we went along. Nobody's chuffed about that, I think, but it made the card work pretty well, which is the important thing. We did manage to preserve the core goals: give a competitive generic free play option without a time location that makes something like sense, and don't be quite as restrictive as Continuing Mission.

Is this dilemma we see today an indicator of A khan reaction that uses the Botany Bay icon? Or a botany bay dilemma that uses augments?

Or both?

Wouldn't you say that this is a Botany Bay dilemma that uses augments? It does have the icon on it.

The playtest title for Augment Aggression was Space Seed, but Creative wanted a different title to allow different images.

[jjh]

Space Hippies.

How many?

How groovy?

[Orbin]

final frontier looks like it had a LOT of tweaking based on its caveats. How many revisions and play testing sessions did it take to get it right? What was the first draft of this card?

Text on the incident was finalized in version N fo Delenn.

The first version of the card is close to what the last version was.

I mean, originally originally, it was two three-line cards (arguably three?) and the overlap with the 25-point missions was a big problem. Remember Black Star and United Earth Space Probe Agency?

We definitely tried to finesse the restrictions and got bit hard on the butt by our cleverness. So the restrictions became thicker and more explicit as we went along. Nobody's chuffed about that, I think, but it made the card work pretty well, which is the important thing. We did manage to preserve the core goals: give a competitive generic free play option without a time location that makes something like sense, and don't be quite as restrictive as Continuing Mission.

Good point. I also should have clarified that Final Frontier was in the file as of Version B, so it was there a long time and version B was sent to testers in September.

- James M

[Orbin]

Space Hippies.

How many?

How groovy?

Not as many as we originally were looking at. One of the original ideas we had was to include a theme from The Way to Eden, but they never ended up making the cut.

- James M

[BCSWowbagger]

Did anyone survive the Hippie Purge (aka Herbert Day)?

The Hippies were tied to a trope / mechanic that Charlie came up with, which we all really liked, -- but it didn't gel in this set. (I think it needs to happen in a set not tied to a specific property logo, because of how it reaches across eras.) When the time came to shrink the file from 112 to 61, with testers telling us to focus more on the TOS highlights, the Hippies didn't survive.

But I would be surprised if we never see them again. They were on the "1E Design Picks a Project 2019" poll. I'm pretty sure I voted for it, based on what I knew I liked about it.

[jrch5618]

Brad sent me. (Does this still work?)

Brad is the Keymaster. We need the name of the Gatekeeper. -crp

Anyway, will we be getting any new ships in this set? Maybe a new version of Starship Enterprise? We only have two versions of it (well, not counting the one), and both are a bit derpy.

[BCSWowbagger]

Anyway, will we be getting any new ships in this set?

Yes: https://www.facebook.com/TrekCC/photos/ ... =3&theater

Speaking of, I can't remember whether our brilliant social media manager and writing team have revealed both Tactics yet, or just the one.

[Orbin]

Anyway, will we be getting any new ships in this set? Maybe a new version of Starship Enterprise? We only have two versions of it (well, not counting the one), and both are a bit derpy.

There is no Starship Enterprise in the set, though at one point we had 2 different Starship Enterprise versions in the playtest file.

- James M

[Iron Prime]

How hard was it to fit in "off spec" cards. It sounds like this was a large set that was cut down to a medium-sized set. With all the push for was it hard to make room for anything else?

Yes, although one of our design goals overall was to have the icon add value without being a requirement. M-5 Computer is a good example of this, as it's easier to use on an ship, but open to anyone. I would have still liked to see more off-color cards in the file, but that's always true. -crp

[jrch5618]

Brad sent me. (Does this still work?)

Brad is the Keymaster. We need the name of the Gatekeeper. -crp

I don't know. He just calls himself 'The Gatekeeper'. This guy - kinda creepy, lives in a graveyard.

Anyway. Are there any cards that specifically help out using the Sherman's Peak time location, or is most things revolving around using Final Frontier?

Also, are there any facilities in the set? Commodore Stone mentions Starbase 11...

[Armus]

Brad sent me. (Does this still work?)

Brad is the Keymaster. We need the name of the Gatekeeper. -crp

Anyway, will we be getting any new ships in this set? Maybe a new version of Starship Enterprise? We only have two versions of it (well, not counting the one), and both are a bit derpy.

Kyle sent me.

Oh, well, if Kyle sent you... then I'll let you access the archive. -crp