[Rancour@gmx.de]

Hi,
I was wondering how you compose your away team or crew, you send on a mission. A rough outline what skills and the number of people you usually try to bring along would be nice.
Red-shirting doesn´t seem to happen very often.

I know you can´t be prepared for everything. Do you bring the mission requirements, do you leave your ship in orbit?

[Armus]

Hi,
I was wondering how you compose your away team or crew, you send on a mission. A rough outline what skills and the number of people you usually try to bring along would be nice.
Red-shirting doesn´t seem to happen very often.

I know you can´t be prepared for everything. Do you bring the mission requirements, do you leave your ship in orbit?

I usually get 6 or 7 idiots into play and throw them at a mission.

[AllenGould]

I usually get 6 or 7 idiots into play and throw them at a mission.

Ah, the Lord Farquaad strategem.

[Armus]

I usually get 6 or 7 idiots into play and throw them at a mission.

Ah, the Lord Farquaad strategem.

Indeed. I'm shocked at how well it usually works too, even if I'm left scraping bodies off the Hull, or the planet's surface.

[WeAreBack]

Always enough to overcome Lack of Preparation. One good reason to choose only missions that have no attribute requirements if you can. Sometimes you can use a single personnel, like Deanna Troi for First Contact,Martin for Eliminate Virus or M'vil for Plague Planet and then throw on a few other random personnel, maybe 3-4 total on a first attempt.

They will mostly be stopped or killed, but if you pick the right missions you should be able to have at least one "chump away team" with all the skills and then still have all the skills again to come in once the dilemmas are cleared (often you can use the mission specialists as the actual solvers for the extra 5 bonus points).

[BCSWowbagger]

Figuring out who goes on a mission is the most boring and clock-burning part of the game for the opponent, so I try to minimize it. Sometimes I'm in a delicate position and I need to run two teams at a mission, both of whom can meet requirements, but usually I just throw 6-8 at the mission at random. If I have 12+ people around, I will literally shuffle them together and randomly select the team.

Maybe that's bad? Maybe this game is supposed to be about the choice of who to send on missions? But agonizing over the choices takes forever and it doesn't lead to better outcomes as often as you might think.

[Kaiser]

For the first attempt (usually turn 2 or 3) I mostly just throw all available bodies at a mission except
- people that run a draw engine (if any)
- personnel that provide bonus points if I plan for a two-mission win without much of a point cushion
- if I have enough redundancy, I like to keep a set of mission requirements back, but that is a much lower priority.

I hardly ever worry about Lack of Preparation. I usually run through Edo Probes. If I have the skills in play, I prepare for LOL Yichu, but I almost always attempt a turn earlier rather than wait until I have those things covered. For attempts in space when I have neither STP or WNOHGB or similar tech out, I try keep a set of mission requirements in reserve if I know my deck is light on those skill or doesn't have a way to download them.

[boromirofborg]

These days in normal/constructed, I should have enough redundancy that even losing the entire crew isn't a deal breaker. So as soon as I have a decent size group of people (6-7ish) I'll basically attempt it.

[stressedoutatumc]

My favorite tactic is to visibly randomize a team and send them down. Stare right at your opponent while you do it.

[Kaiser]

My favorite tactic is to visibly randomize a team and send them down. Stare right at your opponent while you do it.

That is much more effective in 2E. In 1E, the opponent might not even bother to be at the table and go to the bar instead while you work through the dilemmas they laid down half an hour ago.

[PantsOfTheTalShiar]

For me, it's most important to start attempting by turn 2. There are a lot of dilemmas you don't pass with your personnel, you just trigger them and wait for some other condition in order to pass: Experience Bij, Dead End, Edo Probe, Whale Probe, most , Friendly Fire (after Personal Duty). That, plus other countdown dilemmas, and the value of gathering information, are why I like to start attempting early.

So on turn 2, I'll send almost everyone at a mission, protecting any personnel needed for plays/draws, and often protecting an extra so that I don't get stuck unable to staff ships.

For early and mid-game attempts, I run down a short list of dilemmas that represent the worst things that are likely to happen. If I can reasonably play around those dilemmas, I will; otherwise I just hope for the best. So, for a while, I would form an Away Team and crew that could pass both "God" and Jol Yichu if I could with my available personnel. Typically I try to have 2 personnel with MEDICAL for Hippocratic Oath + Plague Ship. I usually don't care too much about point loss dilemmas until I know that they are a part of my opponent's strategy.

Late game attempts, when I have a ton of personnel but need to solve this turn, is an area where I could use improvement.

Against The Squire's Rules, I pretty much just send everyone, though I may consider if I want to limit point loss from The Higher... The Fewer (usually I don't care). The random dilemmas and random stops mean that it's not worth it to try to play around particular dilemmas, and the fact that they're all Either dilemmas means that not many terrible things can happen. I find The Squire's Rules to be less fun to play against for these reasons.

[stressedoutatumc]

My favorite tactic is to visibly randomize a team and send them down. Stare right at your opponent while you do it.

That is much more effective in 2E. In 1E, the opponent might not even bother to be at the table and go to the bar instead while you work through the dilemmas they laid down half an hour ago.

That has never been my experience in 1E. I know you are exaggerating but I think you are doing it wrong if you think 1E is akin to solitaire.

[Rancour@gmx.de]

My favorite tactic is to visibly randomize a team and send them down. Stare right at your opponent while you do it.

That is much more effective in 2E. In 1E, the opponent might not even bother to be at the table and go to the bar instead while you work through the dilemmas they laid down half an hour ago.

That has never been my experience in 1E. I know you are exaggerating but I think you are doing it wrong if you think 1E is akin to solitaire.

I appreciate all of your opinions, but if you think Kaiser is doing it wrong, you probably never had the honor of facing him in a tournament

[stressedoutatumc]

That is much more effective in 2E. In 1E, the opponent might not even bother to be at the table and go to the bar instead while you work through the dilemmas they laid down half an hour ago.

That has never been my experience in 1E. I know you are exaggerating but I think you are doing it wrong if you think 1E is akin to solitaire.

I appreciate all of your opinions, but if you think Kaiser is doing it wrong, you probably never had the honor of facing him in a tournament

I know who Kaiser is; I know what he does for the game, his channel, and his ability. Actually learned alot from Kaiser and his content and respect all he does. Earnestly, I do.

Having said all of that, I, to @Kaiser just respectfully disagree that 1E is like playing solitaire and 2E is just so much more interactive. 1E is plenty interactive if you build for it and are willing to pay the fee.

[Professor Scott]

I completely disagree. Unless you play something that allows you to attack your opponent in 2E, there is almost ZERO interaction. Yes, my opponent picks from the random dilemmas they draw from a pile they picked at the prior to the game based on what they expected would be useful, and they then decide on a order for me to face them, and then guess what? I face them. I could declare how many are in the away team or crew and then leave the room and come back after the opponent picked their dilemma pile and then they can just about leave the room while I work my way through them. I can still make a random selection without the opponent's presence. Aside from some play and the occasional action, I don't need an opponent as much as I need a clock, as I am racing to out score my opponent.

I will concede that 1E dilemma selection is even less interactive, but at least I can go shoot at my opponent or beam down and attack their AT.

I guess what I am saying is that 1E and 2E are both solitaire, but IMHO 2E is moreso.