This forums is for questions, answers, and discussion about First Edition rules, formats, and expansions.
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 - Gamma Quadrant
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Continuing Committee Member - Retired
#580710
Smiley wrote: Sun Jul 10, 2022 3:55 pm So many things...

But here goes...

Rotation - All games need a smaller card pool to be playable but a larger crowd. Most players can't afford and/or remember more than up to around 2000 cards at a time.

Treaties - They should never have been. If you have an outpost of the affiliation and can play them, they can mix. It should be that simple. And that would also be the cost. A seed slot for a low shield facility and a mission to go with it (and mission II with a built-in outpost should never have been made). This would also have solved so many other things like affiliations with not enough on-screen people. You can play then on your own, but you are going to struggle. Just play then with something else and you're good to go.

Equipment - They should play anywhere in play! The restriction to play than like Personnel and ship just makes them less unique. And they should probably have had a cost associated when used.

Events - they should never have been able to not be nullified. They should all have been more easily played so that there would have been more counterplay, And the counters should have had a bigger cost associated with them as well as been created specifically for each affiliation.

Affiliations - Should have had a specific and distinct flavour. All to make each one play differently and to tickle the imagination of the players to build different decks, combining them in new ways to do strange and fun things.

Silver bullets - Nopp, should never have been a thing, ever. Fix the problem card instead.

Ban - As soon as something becomes a problem. Don't wait. Release a different card that does something similar but without the problem later if need be.

Errata - Only errata if there is an error on the card when released or if a rule changes or similar things happen. Never errata the to change the power level. But do use Errata to change cards en mass to update them to the latest rules changes.

Special download - Should never have been a thing. It corrupted the game economy.

Missions - I think the original version where you could steal anything was good, in theory.

Dilemmas - Two things; they lacked a cost and they should have never been seeded. 2E got it more right I think than 1E ever did.

The seed phase - Should have been restricted to the missions and the facilities. Anything else just makes the gameplay too similar every time. Card plays should count for something.

Card Copies - There should have been a 3 or 4 card restriction on copies of cards. The game just becomes either too predictive when you can have any number of them or too similar as players had too many of them in their decks. Deck construction should be interesting but not hard and math as it is now.

There, I have managed to remember some of the things I think the game could have done better. I probably missed a lot of things that someone will remind me about further down this post. =)
Congratulations you just designed 2e and gave it an otf? :?
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By eberlems
 - Chief Programmer
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Explorer
2E European Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
2E  National Second Runner-Up 2023
#580718
Since there the requirement to buy a bunch of boosters is gone, how about making cards for some rule things like Timeline disrupted in 2063?

Make reprints the same name, gametext, skills like other versions.
Tasha Yar - Alternate; Seven of Nine (The Borg); Commander's Office; Captain's Log; Vidiian Outpost; Kazon Outpost come to mind.

Several Missions don't have exact matching locations between persona/mirror locations: Plasma Storms Class-M Planetoid Rendezvous point.

And a bunch of PAQ cards could use a errata to say what they actually do.
 
By phaserihardlyknowher (Ben Daeuber)
 - Beta Quadrant
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#580798
I think about this a lot. 1E is the closest I've come to playing an episode of Trek in any game, be that card, board or video, so when I get frustrated with the design and I think that the game could improve with ideas from other games (primarily costing in all its various forms), I then think about how that might interfere with that feel. I've not played a bunch of 2E, but from what I have played and watched, it just doesn't *feel* as muck like Trek. I'm sure there are fixes for many of the issues people have raised that don't disrupt that, but I'm not smart enough.

So I guess I have two things:

Rotation: Limited card pool gives a spot for different dilemmas, personal, and strategies to shine. It's also far less intimidating. This likely wouldn't have worked well with Decipher's release model because sets tended to be themed, meaning TNG would have rotated out as DS9 was coming in. Spreading things out would have meant people could have still played their favorite properties, but with different crews, ships and missions. I think FFG did an ok good job with Netrunner in this regard. The "big box" expansions were focused on specific factions or corps, but the booster packs were a bit more distributed. The packs also rotated and the big boxes didn't (though, they got on that too late).

Flavor: As much as Borg confuse me, you can't argue that they don't bring something completely unique to the game. There are factions with a pretty good flavor, but others are very similar in their mechanics. I think the CC has made a lot of progress here, but Decipher didn't really come out of the game with unique TNG factions and that means a lot of initial design decisions hold back the flavor. In the end, you need ways to score points and those are limited.

Anyway, everyone here has good ideas, but I could sum up the frustration with the Decipher era game as "lack of thought and play testing."

EDIT: I lied, I thought of another I feel strongly enough about: Q the Referee. Just ban the problem card, Decipher. Q the Referee was a de facto ban, but only for people who had the knowledge (and money) to get the cards.

Rotation would have helped here because you could reintroduced the original card in a modified version in future sets after the original had rotated out.
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By Takket
 - Delta Quadrant
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#580821
oh, building on some other things I've read here.......

Kevin Uxbridge and Amanda Rodgers............ HORRIBLE, AWFUL cards. Terrible. "We're going to create these entire class of cards called events and interrupts that do all kind of cool things in the game, and also create these two cards that ruin those things, universally, with no cost."

Decipher basically had to come up with objectives and incidents partly because they needed space for more gametext, but also because they needed you to be able to DO things in your deck that opponents couldn't just blow up for no cost. and since they never dealt with AR/KU, we ended up with this ugly "immune to..." text taking up space on dozens of cards so they could actually be used to design a deck around without worrying your deck would be ruined.
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By GooeyChewie (Nathan Miracle)
 - Gamma Quadrant
 -  
Continuing Committee Member - Retired
Architect
#580829
I think there's three ways to think about this question. One, if I could make only one change, what would it be? Two, if I had carte blanch to make as many changes as I wanted while still keeping the game recognizable as 1E, what would I do? And three, if I were building a Trek game from the ground up with only the barest of trapping of Decipher's versions, what would I do?

One change:

I've considered several options, but I think I've settled on rotation. Does it stink to have portions of your collection get rotated out over time? Yes it does. But rotation has its benefits as well. It keeps the cost of entry down for new players, who only have to buy the base set and whatever is legal at the time. And it allows the problem cards and poorly-implemented mechanics fade away rather than printing silver bullets and Ref cards to deal with them.

Carte Blanche:

I think the main things 1E would need to keep to still feel like 1E are the space-line and seeded dilemma combos. Outside of those, I think a lot of the lessons Decipher implemented into 2E were good ones.

1. A cost system. My preference would be to call it 'dilithium.' Like 2E, I'd have players get 7 per turn and let them spend 1 to draw a card (no automatic draw at the end of the turn). Unlike 2E, I would not require the player to spend all of it every turn, which means cards could spend dilithium as a cost at other times, for abilities or interrupts. Cards could also interact directly with dilithium. For example, dilemmas might cause you to lose dilithium or your opponent gain dilithium.

2. A set selection of skills. No weird one-offs like Cantankerousness or Garumba, and no species-specific skills like Mindmeld. I don't have a detailed list in mind (well, I do, but for 2E), but the point is novelty skills cause more confusion than they provide benefit.

3. Declared species and keywords. Don't make players search through lore to figure out these basic gameplay functions.

4. Replace Integrity with Diplomacy. This change would involve Diplomacy no longer being a skill. Integrity is extremely Federation-focused. Replacing it with Diplomacy put traditionally antagonistic affiliations on more even footing with the "good" guys.

5. Headquarters and mixing affiliations. Let HQs be missions which take up one of your six mission slots and seed like any other mission. Let affiliations mix freely as long as you can get the personnel/ships into play. The downside of running multiple HQs would be that your opponent gets to concentrate their dilemmas on your remaining missions.

6. Federation sub-affiliations. With the vast majority of shows focusing on a Federation (or at least majority Federation) crew, they naturally turned into a super-affiliation. For gameplay purposes, they should have been delineated from the start. As per the previous point, you could play different sub-affiliations together by running multiple HQs.

7. Maquis as an affiliation. I feel like Decipher was concerned there wouldn't be enough Maquis personnel to justify a full affiliation, but I think at this point we have proven there are.

8. Card limit. As others have discussed, any given card should be limited to 3 or 4 in the draw deck, or 2 as dilemmas.


Completely Different Game:

I'd like to steal from Decipher's Lord of the Rings TCG, but with the trappings of the Star Trek game, as follows:

•Instead of Free Peoples cards, you have Crew cards
•Instead of Shadows cards, you have Dilemmas
•Instead of The One Ring, you have the Command (as in the ship your Captain commands)
•Instead of Sites, you have Missions
•Risk takes the place of Twilight (Risk is our business, after all!)
•Personnel (Captain and Crewmates) take the place of Companions (Ring-bearer and non-Ring-bearer)
•Personnel still have classification and three attributes (Diplomacy, Cunning, Strength), but no other skills
•Burdens still exist, but they represent the weight of command instead of the draw of the Ring.
•Dilemmas have at least one attribute but may have more than one. Personnel 'face' dilemmas rather than 'skirmish' minions, and need to beat all of the dilemma's attributes to overcome the dilemma and avoid taking damage.
•Sufficiently damaged Personnel go to Sick Bay rather than the Dead Pile (which explains why they can't come back for the rest of the game without cards directly allowing it).
•Events and Interrupts take the place of Conditions and Events, respectively.
•Equipment acts like LotR Equipment, playing on individual Personnel and usually increasing their attributes. Equipment would often play on personnel of appropriate classification.
•Ships would work a bit like Followers, playing to your Support Area and providing, well... support.
•As with LotR, you win by either getting your Crew to Mission 9 and surviving, or by having your Dilemmas send the opposing Captain to Sick Bay, or retiring the opposing Captain with Burdens.
•Like Samwise in LotR, certain Crew will have the First Officer keyword and can become the Captain once per game if your original Captain is sent to Sick Bay.
•Yes, I've thought about this idea way too much.
 
 - Beta Quadrant
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#581145
Lots of cards from the first three sets are heavily flawed: Major Rakal, Stephen Deseve, [Bar] , ❖ Soong-type android.

[1E-AU] ships shouldn't have [1E-AU] as a staffing requirement, it sounds good at first, but Samuel Clemens should not be helping you run your Future Enterprise.

Ships in general needed a wider range in stats, abilities, more staffing requirements. A Galaxy Class starship should have taken [Cmd] [Cmd] [Stf] [Stf] [Stf] [Stf]. Getting a 'big ship' out and getting it staffed should have been a big deal.

Smaller ships should have had incentives for using them, and certain missions should have required certain size/types of ships.

Missions should have had game text, giving bonuses and penalties beyond dilemmas.
 
By Klauser
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
#581232
eberlems wrote: Sun Jul 10, 2022 6:09 pm Since there the requirement to buy a bunch of boosters is gone, how about making cards for some rule things like Timeline disrupted in 2063?

Make reprints the same name, gametext, skills like other versions.
Tasha Yar - Alternate; Seven of Nine (The Borg); Commander's Office; Captain's Log; Vidiian Outpost; Kazon Outpost come to mind.

Several Missions don't have exact matching locations between persona/mirror locations: Plasma Storms Class-M Planetoid Rendezvous point.

And a bunch of PAQ cards could use a errata to say what they actually do.
Back in the early 2000's, I had a Borg player that made a similar observation about Enhanced First Contact's "Add Distinctiveness". Even as early as then, getting First Contact boxes was getting to be a challenge.

Fool that I am, I tried my hand in designing some of those cards.

I took some commons and uncommon personnel/ship cards from the PAQ expansions and graphically altered them to the Borg templates, then included some common & uncommon Borg-compatible support cards to round out the simulated PAQs. During play, if the met the requirements for Add Distinctiveness, I had a stack of about 30 "commons" and fewer "uncommons" and let them draw a enough to simulate a pack of 4 uncommons and 5 commons.

They were one of my early attempts at doing what amounted to dream cards, and while they were graphically primitive, they were popular with our local players. They even got a couple of younger players more interested in the Borg affiliation.
 
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
#583587
What would I have done differently?

Before I answer that, let’s point out that this game we all love was designed very nearly 30 years ago.

30 years! That’s over half the lifetime of ‘Star Trek’ as a show! I think that says a lot about us as fans, and the original game and its design that makes us keep coming back for more. As someone said earlier in the thread, STCCG1e was a terrific ‘show emulator’. Let’s keep that in mind...

So here are my changes:
1. Currency – The game needs tokens of some description to allow a cost system to be introduced. Call it ‘Dilthium’ or ‘Latinum’ or whatever. Just give players a fixed amount each turn that they can spend on cards. This means you can save up, spend all in one go, use it for other purposes etc. Original CCGs had no tokens at all. Now an LCG would come in a box – so include tokens!

2. Card Costs – An absolute MUST DO to try and get some balance with the mega-powerful cards, the very situational, to the plain run-of-the-mill. Personnel, Ships, Equipment and Events all need a Cost to play.

3. Remove Dilemma Seeding – This pulls me right out a game and puts off players by the ton. Second Edition did it much better with the Dilemma deck. But I would tie the ‘cost’ of a Dilemma card and how many you draw/face to the POINTS of a Mission, not the number of Personnel.

4. Points – Everything seems to be in multiples of 5, so why bother? Make it 20 or 25 points to win and Missions are worth 4-7 points each (or thereabouts). Have a Point tracker in the Box Set (like the LOTRLCG Threat tracker) to make it easier to track them rather than pulling cards out of the spacelane.

5. Mission Themes – This is a big one for me as I am always bothered that with the exception of the Space/Planet Dilemma distinction (and a lot of Dilemmas are both!) you can put any Dilemma on any Mission. This means that it gets samey as players always find the nastiest Dilemmas and always play them. Why not have Mission types too? ‘Exploration’, ‘Diplomatic’, ‘Scientific’, ‘Combat’, ‘Profit’, ‘Covert’ could all be Mission types and the keyword printed on the Mission. Then all Dilemmas also have the keyword on them (some could have 2 or 3 possibly) and can only be played at that Mission type when drawn from a Dilemma deck.

6. Affiliations – Each Affiliation should have more of an individual flavour. A lot has been achieved by the CC in their wonderful virtual sets over the years. My Box set should have Starter Decks for 3 Affiliations that showcase what the Affiliation is all about – the Federation being Mission-solvers, Klingons battle heavy and Romulans sneaky. Perhaps there should be a set of ‘Affiliation’ Events, Incidents and Interrupt cards? Perhaps such cards (say 5 cards?) are MANDATORY for inclusion in a deck? This way we can have loads of Affiliation cards for each, but a player playing Klingon must choose to have at least 5 ‘Klingon Affiliation’ cards in his draw deck?

7. Eliminate taxis – You get to a Mission and find a ‘wall’ Dilemma. What do you do? Return to your outpost and pick up a new Personnel, or get another ship to shuttle a Personnel across like you ordering a pizza. Why can’t Picard or co overcome this problem with thought, insight, bravery and ingenuity rather than calling for back up? This problem has bothered me like 5 above. The solution is to rule that you CAN use Currency to gain Skills/Stats without having to move. And perhaps (more theme here) is that some Skills are cheaper/more expensive depending on your Affiliation. ‘Treachery’ comes cheaper to Romulans . Raising ‘STRENGTH’ by +3 comes cheaper for Klingons... A little reference sheet is all you need per player in the Box Set.

8. Starting Cards – Another MUST DO. Waiting around for Ships and Personnel at the start of a game is a terrible waste of time and drags. Give all players X points at the start of a game to play Ships and Personnel they want.

9. Hero Versions – This could be optional but it’s a thought. Have ‘Hero’ versions of Personnel that can ONLY be played as a Starting Personnel. Then other versions could be in your Draw deck – so there could be 2 versions of Deanna Troi – a Hero and a ‘supporting character’ weaker version for the draw deck. Perhaps some Main Personnel – Picard, Kirk, Spock, Janeway etc – could ONLY have Hero versions?

10. Artefacts – Second Edition got it right with them being tied to Archaeology skills and you as the player put them into play when appropriate. No seeding!

11. More Space on the Timeline – it is the final frontier after all. This will also have an effect on 7 above and 12 below. I thought the ‘Space’ cards were a great idea. Perhaps each ‘Mission deck’ should have 6 Missions, 1 Outpost and 3 Space cards??

12. Solo Mode – All current games have a solo mode these days, such is the state of modern gaming – particularly post-Pandemic - many gamers game alone.

13. Multi-player – Again, this would be lovely. As would a ‘play versus the game’ Mode where players play against a common Enemy (Borg?) or simply work together to score points against a countdown turn number?

14. Longer Games – I read some terrible reports that games now last only on average about 8 turns? How awful is that! After all that prep and it’s over so quickly? Hopefully that would be remedied by some of the above (esp 10).

15. LCG Format – Release the game as a Core Box Set as I’ve state above, then with expansions added a fixed amount of new cards to the game. This can be done thematically too with different elements of the game – AU, Holodecks, new Affiliations – being introduced with the expansions.

There you go - my thoughts on how to make STCCG into STLCG and a game for the 21st century whilst retaining its roots.

Feedback would be greatly appreciated as others have far greater knowledge of the game than me.
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By boromirofborg (Trek Barnes)
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
1E North American Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
2E North American Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
#583588
One thought I've had bouncing around in my head, trying to design a "1.5" edition of STCCG:

Costs for playing cards, sure. But combining the way that 2E had resources but noting to indicate them, and 1E's seeds (which I enjoy)

You get 7 seed cards that you "tap" to indicate using to pay for cards. Of those, up to 3 can be [RC] (let you modify your reports, such as making [CF] [Kli] cost -1, etc.
1 would tap to pay for something or tap for your EOT draw, and 3 would be [WC] that let you draw under circumstances. (T: Draw if your staffed ship is in the NZ, for example)
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By ShipNerd
 - Beta Quadrant
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#583589
Balance Draw/play
In order to make the game and the affiliation balanced, make sure all affiliations/decks have easy access to play 2-3, draw 3. But not (much) more. Either as rule or by having an overall plan for 1e as a whole. Have pointed that out many times about 14 years ago.

Maybe have a variance of +/-1 draw/play depending on the affiliation. e.g. [1E-DQ] have higher skill density so give them a bit more difficulty drawing/playing as much as. With playing i also mean downloading personnel.

Make it right the first time, to avoid confusion
Make sure to have competent people in 1e head, creative, balance deparmtent to ensure you make it right the first time, to avoid unsesseary errata/rule changes. overpowered expoidable cards should never enter the play scene. its not the fault of the gametest department in my book, as design could have been a lot more carefull and let competent people overseen it at all times. THe current expansion is very good in that aspect.

Make sure to have the affiliations equal at the same time. Not realse an expansion focus only on one affiliation. put in 1-2 cards to re-balance affiliations, if needed immediatly and not 2-3 years later, when its "their turn".

I consider Paddy and James to be very competent. For the rest, i either have my concern, or for some people i simply do not know, them well enought.

Make the game simpler by putting rules on cards, keeping the depth of the game
Make the game simple immediatly. Remove as many build-in rules immedialty.
Like what have been done with miracle worker.

Still there is "guramba". Or that many rules could become card gametext, like tactics, or [NemR] [NemL] , or creating a card that allows a tactic side deck AND explains the rules on it, instead of having BBDoor with a 2nd function. remove it or put it on another card. Same with [Trib] [Trob], [Art] . There are more things like that. I think all rule changes where great, thx to WCBWowbacker and former rule guys, i think allan g. While the botany bay rules it good for the game, it should be on a cards game text. Ideally there should be no build-in rule for any icon. Bit tricky for [DL] [Holo] [HA] . but even that might be feasible, if a competent person is putting their hands on it. I am not available since i wait for many months for an answer from the current 1e head. only provide help to other people now.

All this makes sense because

Many of my friends have long given up on treks format, as it took simply too long, to be balanced and simpler. We play with basically those rules already now, for almost a decade. I stopped 1vs1 online treks since everyone is on a different level. the people who lose are gone and now i realized even when winning often, it makes no sense, if it's just the same few experienced people playing there.

Simplify seed system
Create seed cards, that combine important functions to reduce the necessary amount of seed cards, making it simpler. Those new seed cards could also solve some of the problems above.

Have fun with ships
Releasing some more cool ships is long overdue, too. There are more then 400 ships named in the trek, left to be seen. THere could be a ship of the month and still enough ships for years to come, while some special ships could be reserved for certain themed expansions.

Getting over some people´s ego, by accepting that there are competent and incompetent people regarding 1e and let it be an option to point those people out.

Mind accepting the critisizm that competent people tell that for decades, and listen to those, instead of letting everyone be a designer or only those who talk conformity to certain trekcc officials? Or will the mods call me names again, for pointing out destructivity and incompetence in some people ;)

Traditional Format
Give decipher-only cards some love with a few simple rules and maybe a few bans, where card owner can play that.

Provide simple but powerfull decks
Currently provided decks could be more simple AND more powerfull.

Level-Up Rules
Have formats/tournaments where you only need to know premiere rules (or less). Could be combined with decks. Like decks that simply do not include sites, trouble, tribble, iniltrator, tactics etc. and other decks that increasingly contains them, with a rule sheet expaining the current version of those rules. learing inche by inche getting new player into it, including those who already play but not with all cards/rules.

Let go of EGO.
The people in charge and there different motivations have influence, so that needs to take into consideration as well. Let the expierenced player realize if they win all the time, the other woun´t have fun anymore. Do you realy want to end up playing the same few people in the world? Allow the game to be simpler to have someone to play with. Be willing enought to learn some rules as a new guy to experience the wonderful depth of 1e. Let the trekcc officials be ciritized, as incompetent, and accept it as an optionen. step down if you are not competent or find a suitable position, where you are competent. let the mods allow to point out destructive behavior in people and incompetence instead instead of controlling everything by themselve and give people names and ban to easily. be paragons instead and see the other side. Let the inexperienced player accept that a good motivation of balancing the game is not enought you need experience or a person who helps out.

Multiplayer:
Make the game a party game for the entire family / group. My Multiplayer format that i invented years ago, that can be played with 2-4 people is played and constantly refined. Support it by making it a format, here on trekcc (without rating). Does not need to be in the tournament system, but promoting it with the authority of trekcc would spread it.

CONCLUSION
Let motivation to help out less experienced players be combined by competence of 1e veterans
thx @Hoss-Drone for this thread. Edit: Misread it. Thx Odin for asking.
Such advice like here was offered decades ago by many people, it need to be sorted out by competence.
Mind taking the gold this time? The game needs your competence (like Hoss) and the willingness to help out less experienced players (like SirDan and the other former Balance Head displayed). If fooling around stops, there is a good chance this game survives and thrives in the future.

Despite checking there are grammar and spelling errors i am not a native speaker. if someone unintentionaly or intentionaly misinterpteds words i might clearify my intent, i do not discuss or justify. I love to share information and constructive ideas.

Still 1e in its right form, with the right people is really fun. [EE]
Last edited by ShipNerd on Sun Aug 21, 2022 9:50 am, edited 1 time in total.
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By boromirofborg (Trek Barnes)
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
1E North American Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
2E North American Continental Quarter-Finalist 2023
#583611
ShipNerd wrote: Sat Aug 20, 2022 11:30 am Ideally there should be no build-in rule for any icon. Bit tricky for [DL] [Holo] [HA] . but even that might be feasible, if a competent person is putting their hands on it.
I agree with most of your ideas over all, but I would actually go the other direction with this one, to an extent. I've played a lot of magic, and that game has shown me there's a lot of strength and design in having things like loaded icons icons/keywords for a few reasons:

Personally, I think anything that would have the same rules text on 10+ cards probably should be a loaded keyword or icon.

If I were designing it from scratch, [SKR] [KCA] [TE] [1E-Maq] would all have their compatibility rules baked in, instead of requiring either another card or valuable text space to do so.


When you step back and think of it, there's a lot more icons then the ones you called out that are loaded that people don't event think about. For example, I would not want affiliation icons unloaded. ( [Fed] for example). I don't think moving the basic definition of affiliations should be moved to cards. Same with the icons representing card types, quadrents, space/planet, [Down] [Flip] , etc.

(in fact, [Down] [Flip] are the perfect example of something that if it was written out, would require too much text to be on every card.)
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By ShipNerd
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
#583627
boromirofborg wrote:
ShipNerd wrote: Sat Aug 20, 2022 11:30 am Ideally there should be no build-in rule for any icon. Bit tricky for [DL] [Holo] [HA] . but even that might be feasible, if a competent person is putting their hands on it.
I agree with most of your ideas over all, but I would actually go the other direction with this one, to an extent. I've played a lot of magic, and that game has shown me there's a lot of strength and design in having things like loaded icons icons/keywords for a few reasons:

Personally, I think anything that would have the same rules text on 10+ cards probably should be a loaded keyword or icon.

If I were designing it from scratch, [SKR] [KCA] [TE] [1E-Maq] would all have their compatibility rules baked in, instead of requiring either another card or valuable text space to do so.


When you step back and think of it, there's a lot more icons then the ones you called out that are loaded that people don't event think about. For example, I would not want affiliation icons unloaded. ( [Fed] for example). I don't think moving the basic definition of affiliations should be moved to cards. Same with the icons representing card types, quadrents, space/planet, [Down] [Flip] , etc.

(in fact, [Down] [Flip] are the perfect example of something that if it was written out, would require too much text to be on every card.)
In order to open up my optionen of [SKR] [1E-Maq] ...
Well to be honest I consider it best that [SKR] [KCA] [TE] [1E-Maq] have their own cards to define compatibility. leaving it as an non-build-in icon and staffing icon, because otherwise 4 icons need build-in rules.

Yeah I totaly agree with [Down] [Flip]. Should not be explained each time. How about explaining it once on a battle bridge door? If that's still to much to write, having the basic Tactics rule (randomize [Tac] in the BBSD and draw 2 [Tac] in each battle, choose one simultaniously with your opponent and get Weapons bonus = to Attack value and schields bonus for every attack ship by Defense Bonus value) would already help a bit IMO. Also i would not mind a rule change printed on the card to draw 3-4 tactics to actually have a bit of a choice.

Also as i said [DL] [HA] [Holo] are difficult to change and might to too much of a change for the game. Very understandable if you or others see it this way. Some loaded icons make sense, in card games, magic and stccg.

Thx for sharing your point of view. In the end, it's the designer/rules guy deciding what they do with all that stuff.
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