[Fake Person]

Yes, as their own affiliation.

[Enabran]

Most of the times Memory alpha is having the best images for that kind of characters.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Unnamed_Suliban
12 of the unnamed Sulibans are in a horrible quality.
And some of them are from THAT scene


So, how good can such a source be? Please forget the Suliban as an own affiliation.

[Klauser]

Most of the times Memory alpha is having the best images for that kind of characters.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Unnamed_Suliban
12 of the unnamed Sulibans are in a horrible quality.
...
So, how good can such a source be? Please forget the Suliban as an own affiliation.

I took a closer look at the images you refer to - particularly from ENT Season 1 "Detained". And I agree ... you're right that quite a few of the "unnamed" listed only have poor images at best. A rough look at the unnamed personnel list on Memory Alpha results in about 1/3 to 1/2 of those not having a decent image to pull from.

While I understand that we don't want a lot of poor quality images on cards (ahem ... Selan), if the CC decided to proceed with development of the Xindi, or the Andorians, or the Suliban ... I'm sure they would take into account available art during the development process.

[Klauser]

Back to crp's original question - do we want to see 1E introduce the Xindi?

I think Marquetry's post above answers that question. There are players that are drawn to 1E because they get to play affiliations from their favorite shows. Enterprise was not "my" favorite Trek, but there are those players - like Marquetry - who's favorite "Trek" IS Enterprise. Or Voyager, DS9, TNG, or (like me) TOS. And would love to be able to more completely experience their favorite Trek through this lens of this game.

There are also the higher-end, more competitive players who seem to view all this affiliation "creep" as a distraction from getting the game's "house" in better order.

I've been a TD and an Ambassador, and I've worked as a playtester during some of the later Decipher expansions. In my experience, you need to feed the casual players and the new players coming into the game. Increasing the affiliations for an under-served Trek franchise - like Enterprise - is a great way to do just that.

If you don't take these players into account, once the current "high-end" players move on the game risks dying as well.

[AllenGould]

Back to crp's original question - do we want to see 1E introduce the Xindi?

I think Marquetry's post above answers that question. There are players that are drawn to 1E because they get to play affiliations from their favorite shows. Enterprise was not "my" favorite Trek, but there are those players - like Marquetry - who's favorite "Trek" IS Enterprise. Or Voyager, DS9, TNG, or (like me) TOS. And would love to be able to more completely experience their favorite Trek through this lens of this game.

There are also the higher-end, more competitive players who seem to view all this affiliation "creep" as a distraction from getting the game's "house" in better order.

I don't think this is entirely fair - affiliation creep also means that if your favorite affiliation isn't the "in fashion" one you can get out in the cold for years (and years, and years). And every new affiliation extends that queue.

I did a bit of math last night and built a heat map of how much focus an affiliation has had each expansion. And you'll notice those big white spaces of "did not make an appearance". (And to bang on my personal drum a bit more, notice how Feds seem to always find a way to be a major part of most sets, except when Starfleet takes their spot.) Adding another faction to the rotation means stretching out how long everyone else has to wait. (And some of the DQ affiliations have been on a *very* long dry spell.)


Boring math for the stats-inclined:

• Because we're talking about affiliation focus in a set, the measurement I used was "percentage of cards in set that are personnel of that affiliation".
• It's a percentage so that the varying set sizes don't skew numbers (and when you look through the Decipher sets, I think you'll find the big hits match what you remember the set "being about")
• I excluded boutiques small sets/promos because most of them are deliberately about a specific affiliation, so are out-of-context for "are we paying attention to this affiliation".
• The heat map goes to 50% color at 10% appearance (which looks to be about the point of "this affiliation is a major part of the set"), and 100% color at 30% appearance (which looks to be the "this set is about these guys" mark - Ferengi in RoA, Starfleet in Terran Empire, Vulcans in LLaP).
• Non-Aligned and Neutral are ignored because it looks like most people don't really think of them as "an affiliation" (and is fair, because most major appearances of them are for vastly different groups - Khan, Maquis). Doesn't affect the percentages for anyone else.
• Multi-affiliation personnel are counted as part of all their affiliations - no halfsies. Simpler that way.
• Black squares are pre-first appearance, with a row marking the Decipher/CC split (just cause). White blanks are sets post-first appearance where that affiliation had no personnel in the set.
• Yes, I did only a mediocre job of matching cell colors to affiliation colors. Life is short.

[Armus]

Back to crp's original question - do we want to see 1E introduce the Xindi?

I think Marquetry's post above answers that question. There are players that are drawn to 1E because they get to play affiliations from their favorite shows. Enterprise was not "my" favorite Trek, but there are those players - like Marquetry - who's favorite "Trek" IS Enterprise. Or Voyager, DS9, TNG, or (like me) TOS. And would love to be able to more completely experience their favorite Trek through this lens of this game.

There are also the higher-end, more competitive players who seem to view all this affiliation "creep" as a distraction from getting the game's "house" in better order.

I don't think this is entirely fair - affiliation creep also means that if your favorite affiliation isn't the "in fashion" one you can get out in the cold for years (and years, and years). And every new affiliation extends that queue.

I did a bit of math last night and built a heat map of how much focus an affiliation has had each expansion. And you'll notice those big white spaces of "did not make an appearance". (And to bang on my personal drum a bit more, notice how Feds seem to always find a way to be a major part of most sets, except when Starfleet takes their spot.) Adding another faction to the rotation means stretching out how long everyone else has to wait. (And some of the DQ affiliations have been on a *very* long dry spell.)


Boring math for the stats-inclined:

• Because we're talking about affiliation focus in a set, the measurement I used was "percentage of cards in set that are personnel of that affiliation".
• It's a percentage so that the varying set sizes don't skew numbers (and when you look through the Decipher sets, I think you'll find the big hits match what you remember the set "being about")
• I excluded boutiques small sets/promos because most of them are deliberately about a specific affiliation, so are out-of-context for "are we paying attention to this affiliation".
• The heat map goes to 50% color at 10% appearance (which looks to be about the point of "this affiliation is a major part of the set"), and 100% color at 30% appearance (which looks to be the "this set is about these guys" mark - Ferengi in RoA, Starfleet in Terran Empire, Vulcans in LLaP).
• Non-Aligned and Neutral are ignored because it looks like most people don't really think of them as "an affiliation" (and is fair, because most major appearances of them are for vastly different groups - Khan, Maquis). Doesn't affect the percentages for anyone else.
• Multi-affiliation personnel are counted as part of all their affiliations - no halfsies. Simpler that way.
• Black squares are pre-first appearance, with a row marking the Decipher/CC split (just cause). White blanks are sets post-first appearance where that affiliation had no personnel in the set.
• Yes, I did only a mediocre job of matching cell colors to affiliation colors. Life is short.

Is there a reason you didn't include affiliated ships in your analysis?

Off the top of my head, Voyager from Engage is a big one to be leaving out.

[AllenGould]

Is there a reason you didn't include affiliated ships in your analysis?

Because getting a random ship in a set doesn't really flag as "this is a X set".

You're right that Kazon Voyager is a big help to them (They Will Be Coming is a big Borg help too from the same set), but I don't think we'd call Engage a Borg or Kazon set.

Same thing for missions with your affillation on them, random equipment... there's lots of cards that can be useful to an affiliation, but useful is a different metric than focus.

[Armus]

Is there a reason you didn't include affiliated ships in your analysis?

Because getting a random ship in a set doesn't really flag as "this is a X set".

You're right that Kazon Voyager is a big help to them (They Will Be Coming is a big Borg help too from the same set), but I don't think we'd call Engage a Borg or Kazon set.

Same thing for missions with your affillation on them, random equipment... there's lots of cards that can be useful to an affiliation, but useful is a different metric than focus.

Yeah I guess I'm just confused as to why random people count but random ships don't when it comes to measuring affiliation focus.

*shrug*

[Orbin]

Is there a reason you didn't include affiliated ships in your analysis?

Because getting a random ship in a set doesn't really flag as "this is a X set".

You're right that Kazon Voyager is a big help to them (They Will Be Coming is a big Borg help too from the same set), but I don't think we'd call Engage a Borg or Kazon set.

Same thing for missions with your affillation on them, random equipment... there's lots of cards that can be useful to an affiliation, but useful is a different metric than focus.

The Gift is missing from your analysis. While there are only 3 personnel in the set, none of them are or .

- James M

[AllenGould]

Yeah I guess I'm just confused as to why random people count but random ships don't when it comes to measuring affiliation focus.

Well, I don't personally put much weight into those low-percentage numbers. (which is why I'm using heat maps so they barely show up). For instance, I don't think Bajoran players would consider getting a random Bajoran or two every set as continued Bajoran focus. (In fact, I know a Bajoran player who doesn't think Emissary counts as a Bajoran since it was so heavily focused on Fed/Baj, but I digress).

The early take-aways I had were:
1. There's a bad habit of giving an affiliation a set and then... kinda forgetting about them.
2. Rule 1 does not apply to Feds, who show up in significant numbers all the way down.
3. I wonder if the reason Blaze is remembered so fondly is that it's easily the most balanced in terms of giving almost every affiliation a decent number of cards. (Borg got ignored, and Ferengi look low but also hadn't been officially introduced yet).
4. Props to the Gamma Quadrant design team, for being the only set to have neither Feds nor Starfleet in it.

[AllenGould]

The Gift is missing from your analysis. While there are only 3 personnel in the set, none of them are or .

I left out all the small boutique sets. 2PG, Anthologies, etc.

[Klauser]

Back to crp's original question - do we want to see 1E introduce the Xindi?

I think Marquetry's post above answers that question. There are players that are drawn to 1E because they get to play affiliations from their favorite shows. Enterprise was not "my" favorite Trek, but there are those players - like Marquetry - who's favorite "Trek" IS Enterprise. Or Voyager, DS9, TNG, or (like me) TOS. And would love to be able to more completely experience their favorite Trek through this lens of this game.

There are also the higher-end, more competitive players who seem to view all this affiliation "creep" as a distraction from getting the game's "house" in better order.

I don't think this is entirely fair - affiliation creep also means that if your favorite affiliation isn't the "in fashion" one you can get out in the cold for years (and years, and years). And every new affiliation extends that queue.

I did a bit of math last night and built a heat map of how much focus an affiliation has had each expansion. And you'll notice those big white spaces of "did not make an appearance". (And to bang on my personal drum a bit more, notice how Feds seem to always find a way to be a major part of most sets, except when Starfleet takes their spot.) Adding another faction to the rotation means stretching out how long everyone else has to wait. (And some of the DQ affiliations have been on a *very* long dry spell.)

I love me some data!! And thanks for including the heat map - it does make your point about affiliations and dry spells.

And on re-read and reflection, my comment about high-end players and affiliation creep was over-broad. I was trying to make a point and got a bit carried away.

Apologies if I stepped on any toes ...

[Smiley]

I did a bit of math last night and built a heat map

I love it when you say such sexy things! =)

Love the analytics there. Good data for us to use in the future!

[jadziadax8]

I did a bit of math last night and built a heat map

I love it when you say such sexy things! =)

Love the analytics there. Good data for us to use in the future!

Ok, so I’m not the only one here who finds a well-constructed spreadsheet to be kinda sexy.

[VioletBlaze]

Ok, so I’m not the only one here who finds a well-constructed spreadsheet to be kinda sexy.

Found the Vulcan.