For posting text-only dream cards (no graphical cards or links to sites hosting such cards) and for speculation on future sets.
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By Takket
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#397621
Make artifacts great again!!!!!!!!!

I was looking through the list of artifacts and, well, some of them suck. Like, why would you ever use them? Specifically looking at very weak cards here. Not ones banned for being TOO powerful (Tox Uhtat) or struggling from effecting cards that are banned (Persistence of Memory). Those cards need errata to be repaired.

So I wanted to try to breathe some life into them. It seems silly to errata cards that are not broken, so I’m going to try some new cards that enhance the artifacts.

First up, Alien Gambling Device

“Use as Equipment card. Once every turn, you may cause any one random selection at same or adjacent location to be canceled and re-selected. (Cumulative.)”

So maybe this saves some personnel you really don’t want to lose? Blech. Not worth earning an artifact for……..

New card:

Site: Club Martus

Martus Mazur, Cos, Roana, bartenders, waiters, any Rom or any personnel with gambler in lore may report here (or download here in place of a normal card play; player draws no cards that turn). Any player who has Martus Mazur unopposed here may draw an additional card at end of each turn and any random selection that player chooses to re-select with their Alien Gambling Device may be re-selected up to three times. This site extends the effects of each player’s Alien Gambling Devices throughout the quadrant.
Deep Space 9: Promenade

Notes: This card is kind of limited to Bajoran or Fed decks by the DS9 only seeding but you can expand it with Quark’s Bar, Cargo Bay, Klingon Restaurant… I kept the wording quite similar to Quark’s Bar, after all Martus did steal Quark’s customers, and his staff!!! I dropped the dabo girls though and added “gamblers”. There are currently 4 in the game, but one is gamma native. Cos is the name of the Alien who gave Martus the device and Roana is the woman who gave Martus her shop to open his club. I started with making alien Gambling Device “your choice” instead of random selection but I didn’t see that as being true to the episode. Martus had no control over the things and no clue how they really worked. That’s how I ended up with letting you select three times but that may still be a bit weak but definitely increases your chances of selecting something you really want. Gambling right! The last sentence makes the device easier to use on your opponent by not having to follow him/her around with it. The card draw could probably be dropped if broken when teamed up with Morn at Quark’s bar.

Next up: Antique Machine Gun

Use as Equipment card. At start of personnel battle, may target two opposing personnel or Rogue Borg (random selection). Mortally wounds targets (only stuns androids).

Pretty much worthless unless you are building a deck around personnel battle and even then you are likely packing enough hand weapons that you don’t need this… and if you are going to earn an artifact for personnel battle, why not Varon-T Disruptor?

New Card:

Dilemma: Defending Her Turf (Planet only)

Lore: Despite not knowing who was attacking her town, Lily Sloane chose to face the danger alone to defend the Phoenix with little regard for her own well-being.

Opponent may download here Any Lily and Antique Machine Gun. She may immediately initiate personnel battle. Discard dilemma.

Notes: So this gives you 2 kills during your opponent’s turn and also leaves the machine gun (and maybe Lily if she is lucky enough to survive) behind on the planet with a stopped away team. Your next turn, if you do it right, you can swoop in with your own away team, scoop up the gun, and start shooting again.

Next up: Canar

Immediately play on one female personnel. Specify one male personnel at a different location. If those two personnel are ever present together, discard both.

Oy… what a mess……. First off, this is one of the worst Trek sense cards I’ve ever seen. The Canar created an empathic bond between two persons in love. So… Decipher responds by basically making this card add nemesis icons to one man and one woman? HUH? They discard each other like mortal enemies? Also the lore says it is “glowing”. It isn’t glowing in the photo. This card annoys me, besides basically only discarding two personnel IF your opponent is dumb enough to place them at the same location. Just about useless. You can try discarding one personnel by placing it on one opponent’s personnel and one of your personnel, but then you still need to get them together, and you lose your personnel.

New card:

Objective: Perform the Bonding

Plays on Table if you have Canar in play. If your Canar targets are moved to the same location, rather than discarding them, they each gain Empathy and may use two Empathy like any other regular skill. When they each help complete a mission, you may discard this objective to score bonus point. Score double bonus points if Canar targets are Aquiel Uhnari and Geordi LaForge. Score double bonus points if you earned Canar from solving a mission.

Point box: 10

Notes: So this card has a number of uses. First off we restore Trek sense by making the personnel “not die” essentially. Now instead of discarding they can work together. This is obviously going to be used for YOUR personnel but you can still use Canar without the objective to mess with your opponent. Adding empathy is true to the episode and letting the two of them, if you keep them working together, pool their empathy into any other regular skill can help you dial a skill for dilemmas or missions.

I intended the cool side effect as well of using this on people who ALREADY have empathy. Imagine Lwaxana Troi and Maques who both already have empathy x2. Now they each gain empathy and essentially have Empathy x3 each for a total of 6 between them. By “using 2 empathy” they can basically add any three skills they want. Lwaxana uses 2 empathy as ENGINEER, Maques uses two as Navigation and they each use their third empathy as Leadership. You just completed Restore Errant Moon! I don’t know if rules would let it work that way but I’m just going to assume they would lol.

As for the bonus points you get 10 if you use Aquiel’s special download to bypass earning it. You get double (20) if you did earn it. You get double (20) if you are true to the episode and use the Canar on Aquiel and Geordi. And the big payoff is if you earn the Canar AND use it on Aquiel and Geordi, scoring double double (40).

Next up: Croden’s Key

Seeds only in Gamma Quadrant. Use as Equipment card. Where present, allows docking/undocking at, and walking into/out of, any player's ship or facility (as appropriate).

Again a card that provides a function that is much more easily provided by cards that are not artifacts. Plus I have to go to gamma to get it. This card doesn’t do much for you that other cards like Invasive Transporters, Untrustworthy Associate, any of the docking sites, Dropping In, etc, don’t do already.

New card:

Mission: Recover stasis pod (Planet)

Lore: Chamra Vortex Region: Asteroid within Chamra Vortex: Locate and revive fugitive’s last surviving family member.

(Navigation x2 OR Croden) + Honor + Geology + MEDICAL + Croden’s Key

When solved may download any personnel.

Any Non-Dominion affiliation may attempt mission.

Opponent’s side: Same

Range: 3

50 points

Notes: Requires an errata to Investigate Rumors to create the region. Another mission could easily be made for the runabout/Miradorn raider that took place in the vortex. You need to acquire the key somehow before completing this mission. Virtually unstealable, but heads up for Assimilate Planet. Non-Dominion to prevent Gamma camping decks. 50 points due to difficulty of needing the key and traveling to gamma. Download of a personnel is bonus to represent Croden’s daughter who was sleeping on the asteroid in the stasis pod that only the key could open.

Next up: Ophidian Cane

Place in hand until played as an Interrupt card to allow 3 through Devidian Door OR double Devidian Foragers (to four personnel) OR double Empathic Touch.

Awesome. So let’s see, Devidian Door is OTF banned…… Empathic Touch doesn’t do a whole lot for you. Devidian Foragers doubling can be nice but there are other cards to place people out of play and even if I don’t “double” Devidian Foragers, pretty sure I can still get past that Altonian Brain Teaser.

The Foragers personnel makes this artifact pretty useful, I guess my beef with it is that only 1 of the 3 uses is something I would actually want in my deck. I’m not going to try to repair Devidian Door, so what about Empathic Touch? It is hard to even relate these things since one is from Time’s Arrow and the other is from Nemesis………..

New Card:

Event: Counsel of the Viceroy

Lore: Praetor Shinzon depended on the ongoing counsel of The Viceroy to temper his otherwise impetuous nature.

Hidden Agenda

Seeds or plays on table. After you have doubled Empathic Touch with Ophidian Cane, place Empathic Touch on table as an Event and double its effects permanently. May not be nullified.

Notes: This was a tough one, but I wanted to make using the cane with empathic touch into a pseudo genetronic replicator. You still need to protect your empaths to protect your other persons. This may be a bit overpowered since The Foragers can get the cane without earning it from a mission.

Next up: Samuel Clemens’ Pocketwatch

Place in hand until played as an Interrupt card. One action that must happen on your next turn (such as your card draw), happens now instead.

Really isn’t a whole lot of useful things you can do with this other than shortening a Cytherian’s trip by a turn or drawing a card early.

New Card:

Time Location: 19th-Century San Francisco

1893 Earth: Site of Devidian incursions into that past.

Seeds or plays on table, if Samuel Clemens unopposed here, you may play Samuel Clemens’ Pocketwatch from hand, even if not earned, and it may apply to your opponent’s turn as well. Data’s Head may seed here and be acquired by any Picard. Native to this timeline: Frederick Le Rouque, Madam Guinan, Samuel Clemens and The Foragers. Once per turn one personnel reporting here may do so for free.

Notes: So, I think this makes the watch a bit better by letting you mess with opponent’s turns’ actions as well. The value I see in this is making their countdown icons go a turn faster (think about using this to nullify their Quark’s Isolinear rods the moment it is revealed to ignore your computer crash). Or you can force them to draw a card and make them vulnerable to Scorched Hand. I removed the requirement to earn it since even this time location doesn’t make earning it worthwhile. The free Data’s head as well is just an added bonus, but only if you bring a Picard back in time to get it.

Next up: Thought Maker

Place in hand until played once as an Interrupt card. Look at opponent's draw deck for ten seconds and rearrange as desired.

The card that was destroyed by the downloading mechanic (And The Juggler being a Ref card to boot). No more putting all your opponent’s ships on the bottom of their deck. GOOD! But what can we do to make this card playable?

New card:

Event: Hidden Agenda: Bok’s Obsession

Lore: Daimon Bok plotted his revenge on Jean-Luc Picard for years. He was determined to make Picard suffer for a decent amount of time, not just an instant.

Seeds or plays on table. Any time your opponent is required to shuffle their draw deck, you may cancel that shuffle. X=3 if you have any Bok in play; otherwise X=2

Countdown icon: X

Notes: So this let’s you take advantage or arranging their deck with Thought Maker, but only for a few turns to slow them down but not permanently cripple them. And you get an extra turn for using Bok. Daimon Bok is Ferengi but has the special download. Non aligned Bok has no download but can be used by any non-Borg. I’m sure you sadistic people can think of things a lot more horrible to do than stashing ships on the bottom of a draw deck.

Last up! A card I don’t think is that bad but just needs a boost. Varon-T Disruptor

Use as Equipment. Doubles your personnel's STRENGTH where present. (Not cumulative.)

Not horrible, definitely good for dilemmas, but I would like to encourage more using this for personnel battles.

New card:

Interrupt: Incinerated

Lore: Varria was incinerated from the inside out at the molecular level by Kivas Fajo’s Varon-T Disruptor. No technology in the galaxy is ever bringing her back.

Plays at start of personnel battle involving your Varon-T Disruptor. Personnel you mortally wound in combat pairings are placed out of play at the end of the battle.

Notes: Ouch. Nano-probe resuscitate THAT!!!!!!

That’s it! So, what set can I expect to see these cards in?
Last edited by Takket on Thu May 16, 2019 6:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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By Jono (Sean O'Reilly)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
Pioneer
1E Cardassia Regional Champion 2023
#397630
Of the cards you mention Varon-T Disruptor, Ophidian Cane and Samuel Clemen's Pocketwatch don't need to be altered.

Why?

The Varon-T is strong and in a battle deck it's great.

The Ophidian Cane just needs an OTF legal Devidian Door to be useful.

I've seen the Pocketwatch win a game by surprising an opponent who thought they were safe from a Borg Cube dilemma.

The others aren't good. But they could become semi-useful if some personnel could special download them.
 
By Slayer07
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
#398496
I'd point out that if you saw the pocket watch do that, but only once, then I'd say that's the exception of being useful and not the rule of being useful. Any card can be good in the right circumstances but it would be nice for a card to be useful in general.

Antique Machine Gun doesn't need a dilemma to be useful, just a download. And since it's Lily's it should be on her.

[NA] Lily Sloane
[Stf] [1E-AU] CIVILIAN
Co-designer of the Phoenix. Mistook Jean-Luc Picard and Data as intruders who wanted to destroy the Phoenix and acted accordingly. Suffering from Theta Radiation Poisoning didn't help matters.
[SD] ENGINEER [SD] SECURITY [DL] Antique Machine Gun
[SD] While landed, your Phoenix cannot be destroyed of acquired by opponent.
Integrity 5 Cunning 6 Strength 6
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By Ensign Q
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#464672
Id say not the artifacts themselves are the problem, but the hassle to obtain them.

They cost a seedslot, they only seed on planets (which have arguably the better dilemma stacks) and you can only seed one at a place.

In order to make them more playable we need more personnel that SD them, more missions that allow seeding them in stacks or even for free. More stuff like Starry Nights, that gives you 2in1 artifacts and so on.
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Ambassador
By bosskamiura (Thomas Kamiura)
 - Ambassador
 -  
Community Contributor
#464673
@Takket - bring your Dream Cards to The Discord Channel!

TK
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First Edition Rules Master
By BCSWowbagger (James Heaney)
 - First Edition Rules Master
 -  
Community Contributor
#464676
Artifacts are just a casualty of a game pace that is too fast, where there aren't enough turns left after the first mission is solved.

Trilithium Weapon could be awesome if you had 15 turns to use it and whatever mission you rotate.
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By Mogor
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#464799
I want to see something like Archelogic dig, play for free where you have ?x arch shuffle all seed cards prior to attempting mission as long as you have arch = to number of seed cards in the attempt.

Or one where you get the artificats immediately but they cannot leave the planet or the arch camp until you finish the mission.
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Director of Operations
By JeBuS (Brian S)
 - Director of Operations
 -  
1E Deep Space 9 Regional Champion 2023
#467020
There was a lot of discussion on the Discord yesterday about ways to slow the game down (by adding more turns, rather than making more time), especially the proposed Intermission card. But one big downside I see to that approach is that Artifacts become even less useful. Since nobody is attempting missions, nobody is solving them, so nobody is gaining artifacts to use.

As I fell asleep last night, I had a thought. What about an Artifact side deck?
[Door] Window To The Past
Place one atop Artifact side deck (up to 13 different [Art] cards face down) during the seed phase. Artifact side deck is now open and in play. You may not seed any [Art] . You may not begin more than one mission attempt per turn. Once each turn, if you have X Archaeology unopposed on a planet, you may probe.
[Evt] , [Equ] : Discovery! Draw a random artifact from the side deck as if earned.
The X Archaeology should be some non-trivial number, though I don't know what that number is. Is Archaeology x5 hard to come by? Dunno. I never tried to get so much Archaeology together in one place. Never had a reason to.

I chose [Evt] & [Equ] as probe successes because those cards also suffer from under-utilization when games are short on turns. (And as such, are excluded as their opportunity cost is high.)

A negative probe failure effect could be added, too, if balance feels off. Not sure what it would be.
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By Ensign Q
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#467027
i thought it would be cool if you could (dilemma) seed "bust fajos gallery". if you aquire it, you would get all artifact cards with kivas in lore
maybe build a whole theme deck around it. kivas running aorund, getting artifacts for points
 
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
#480789
I agree that Artefacts (wish they had got the spelling right...) need an overhaul and LOVE the 19th century San Francisco Time Location suggested above.

Not to break anything (hopefully) but what about a simple Incident card that could be seedable and gains 5 points for any Artefact if returned to a Facility where you have either Archaeology x2 OR Archaeology + Acquisition + Greed.

So either Indiana Jones (it belongs in a museum) or Quark (selling to highest bidder).

I'm sure 'facility' could be more specific too depending on what you want to do with the artefact

thoughts?
 
By Slayer07
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
#480809
dragoncymru wrote:I agree that Artefacts (wish they had got the spelling right...) need an overhaul and LOVE the 19th century San Francisco Time Location suggested above.

Not to break anything (hopefully) but what about a simple Incident card that could be seedable and gains 5 points for any Artefact if returned to a Facility where you have either Archaeology x2 OR Archaeology + Acquisition + Greed.

So either Indiana Jones (it belongs in a museum) or Quark (selling to highest bidder).

I'm sure 'facility' could be more specific too depending on what you want to do with the artefact

thoughts?
Well there is something like that with HQ: Return Orb to Bajor though that only works with orb artifacts and needs Bajor. The problem is not all artifacts play as equipment. Some play like Events (Tox Uthat), others like Interrupts (Samuel Clemens' Pocketwatch) and stay in hand until that point. Some don't play at all until something specific is done (Persistence of Memory) and some just play immediately (1962 Roger Maris Baseball Card). So really it's kind of just limited to equipment cards unless the card is specifically worded to be taken from that player's hand and even then doesn't cover the ones that immediately play.

The other thing is it doesn't really make them more useful, it just means you're now collecting them and making a possibly unneeded trip back to a facility just for five extra points as artifacts I believe can only be under one mission at a time, or would be useless if you go around collecting them by completing missions, where you might just win naturally that way.
 
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
#480917
Well I'm not wanting to make them mega-powerful, just add a bit more to make them a bit more viable and allow some gain of points to tip you over the 100.

Looking at Mercenary Raiders there is something like this anyway but it is very focussed on those mercenary types.

I think there are actually 2 cards here:

Museum of Antiquity - Seed or Play on your Facility. If you have Archaeology x2 + no Greed present, place your Artefact present, on table, or from hand beneath this card to score points (limit 3) (5 Points)

Illegal Auction - Seed or play on your Ferenginar, Neutral or Non-Aligned Outpost or Ferengi Trading Post. If you have Archaeology + Acquisition + Greed present, place your Artefact present, on table, or from hand beneath this card to score points and you may [DL] Gold Pressed Latinum (3 Points)

Thoughts
Last edited by dragoncymru on Thu Sep 12, 2019 2:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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By SudenKapala (Suden Käpälä)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#480943
dragoncymru wrote:I agree that Artefacts (wish they had got the spelling right...)
This confused me. Artifact, I thought, was the correct spelling. Wikipedia also recognizes it. Artefact, to me, seems really strange and wrong -- but that, too, seems to be correct somewhere on Earth. :roll:

Dragon, some more confusion on my part that you could -- or even, might want to -- alleviate. There is a gameplay difference between "here" (anywhere at the location -- even on other ships or facilities, etc.) and "present" (at the surface / exact same place, so as to facilitate interaction). The things you want to do would require things to be -- or not be (Greed) -- present, I'd reckon. :wink: :thumbsup:
I was subconsciously looking for "present" in your card texts, and therefore was confused -- especially in conjunction with "from hand" -- until I realized that you'd written 'here'.
I do understand what you mean now, BTW.

And finally -- since Artifacts will only help you for a short while, after at least your first mission has been done already, they can be powerful, IMO. 8) :thumbsup: :twocents:
Last edited by SudenKapala on Tue Sep 10, 2019 3:18 am, edited 1 time in total.
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