[Marquetry]

No, I do not want to see Xindi. Ferengi need love. Vidiians need love and others. DS9 needs love.... Not another Enterprise affiliation. Enterprise got enough. DS9 is the far better show and shitty Enterprise gets love all the time

But there are people who don't think Enterprise is shitty and love it, and don't like all of the depressing war parts of DS9... .

If we're going by what hasn't had much love recently, the DQ needs it - including the Vidiians as you mentioned. I'd be okay with that instead of Xindi for now.

For the point of already having a lot of affiliations... I just want to play with characters I know and enjoy from the show, and don't care much whether they feel different enough. Am I the only weirdo/casual 1e person who feels that way?

[Enabran]

No, you are not alone Amber

[Klauser]

... For the point of already having a lot of affiliations... I just want to play with characters I know and enjoy from the show, and don't care much whether they feel different enough. Am I the only weirdo/casual 1e person who feels that way?

Not at all. I've been a tournament director (Decipher era) and am now pretty much a casual player. There's a small group of folks in my area who are willing to play on occasion and their draw to the game is almost always affiliation or character driven. So from my perspective, all the play I get anymore is driven by who wants to play what, and not by whatever "left-handed monkey wrench, train-wreck" of a deck that gets me the most downloads/card draws in any given turn.

As far as the criticism of what Trek franchise needs more/less affiliations than the other, look at the current affiliations in the game by franchise:

TOS Affiliations: Federation | Klingon | Romulan | Mirror

TOS Movie Affiliations: Federation | Klingon

TNG Affiliations: Federation | Klingon | Romulan | Ferengi | Cardassian | Borg

TNG Movie Affiliations: Federation | Borg | Romulan

DS9 Affiliations: Federation | Bajoran | Cardassian | Dominion | Klingon | Romulan | Ferengi | Mirror

VOY Affiliations: Federation | Borg | Kazon | Vidiian | Hirogen | Klingon

ENT Affiliations: StarFleet | Mirror | Klingon | Vulcan

With the exception of the TOS Movies and TNG Movies (which are limited by their source material) the TOS and Enterprise era (4 each) have the least affiliations to choose from. TOS material doesn't support any more affiliations ...

... but ENT certainly does. As referenced above, I believe there is ample material for Andorians and Xindii affiliations. I haven't taken a close look at the Suliban, but I suspect there might be. And there are players who love Enterprise enough that it may warrant developing those affiliations. I think the CC should develop them. For exactly the point you bring up in your question.

However, I understand they are still focusing on evening out the oh-so-many rough spots that Decipher left the game in when they retired from the field.

Edited for minor errors ...

[AllenGould]

Worth noting that list is thirty-three entries long. And that's missing Non-Aligned and the other cross-affiliation factions (Maquis and Holograms to name two).

[enabrantain]

Xindi would make a great affiliation for the Enterprise era. I actually began work on creating my own a while back, but hoped the CC would do it for me. They're basically the Dominion of Star Trek: Enterprise and I could easily predict follow up episodes if the show had run longer, like a Xindi civil war story arch. For ships I gave a stat bonus if they had the right Xindi on the right ship. Mint green is my suggested affiliation color.

I play the game as a block entity. So not all affiliations show up everywhere. I don't think every faction needs it's own affiliation. Andorians and Telerites... I think they should be Non-Alligned with maybe a support engine to let you play them like an affiliation. But the Xindi really kept to themselves and didn't play well with others, they were a major antagonist for over one season of the show, and it wasn't a mini-series.

[Davey1983]

Yes.

[Klauser]

Worth noting that list is thirty-three entries long. And that's missing Non-Aligned and the other cross-affiliation factions (Maquis and Holograms to name two).

True enough. However if you discount the affiliation repeats and the Mirror cards, that comes in a more reasonable (?) thirteen affiliations. When you spread it out over all the Trek franchises available to us, that still leaves Enterprise with only four (three if you discount Mirror).

[Klauser]

Since this whole subject of Enterprise-era races came up again, I took a closer look at the Suliban at Memory Alpha.

Source: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Suliban

Ships: There are at least 5 distinct ship classes ranging from Stealth Cruiser to single "Cell" ships.

Personnel: There are 6 named Suliban personnel, one of which is female. There are 23 unnamed Suliban characters, 5 or 6 of which are female and 2 that appear to be children.

Equipment: Suliban Pistol and Suliban Rifle. Oh yeah, and the Suliban Cloaking Device.

So like the Andorians and Xindi, there's clearly enough source material for another Enterprise-era affiliation.

[Armus]

Maybe.

If there's a good idea that can be developed, tested, and ends up contributing to the game, then I have no philosophical objection to the Xindi existing as their own affiliation.

On the other hand, if there isn't enough material, or it can't be developed as a full affiliation with its own unique flavor, then it shouldn't be done just to do it. In that case, give us a Degra to close the broken link on Xindi Test Strike and call it a day.

[Enabran]

There are 23 unnamed Suliban characters, 5 or 6 of which are female and 2 that appear to be children.

Do not go that way, or we will end in cards with images like this:

[AllenGould]

Worth noting that list is thirty-three entries long. And that's missing Non-Aligned and the other cross-affiliation factions (Maquis and Holograms to name two).

True enough. However if you discount the affiliation repeats and the Mirror cards, that comes in a more reasonable (?) thirteen affiliations. When you spread it out over all the Trek franchises available to us, that still leaves Enterprise with only four (three if you discount Mirror).

But then you have to account that slots are not allocated evenly. Feds show up more than every 13th slot, for instance. So adding affiliations means that everyone who isn't will show up less often to make room.

[TyKajada]

.

No,

As mentioned by others, there are plenty of other affiliations that help and support. Those first please.

[Hoss-Drone]

I'll be blunt. I only trust it to be good if I'm somehow involved. Since I'm unlikely to be asked, it's probably best left alone. I also feel like vidiian needs to be helped first. It's a crime how little help vidiians have and yet their entire hook has an enormous amount of potential. So if I was to be asked to help with 1e design, I would probably want to work on vidiians instead.

[Enabran]

were seen in how many episodes?
Thats the difference, Xindi appeared in almost one season. There is so much more material to work with.

[Klauser]

There are 23 unnamed Suliban characters, 5 or 6 of which are female and 2 that appear to be children.

Do not go that way, or we will end in cards with images like this:

Fair point on the card images - if you restrict yourself to just one or two sites.

However, there are other image sources online - some in hires - that our developers can access covering the same or near-the-same shot for many of the characters in question.