A few quandaries

[darkgoldfish]

First off, just got through playing my first game and had a blast. The rules are super elegant and well laid out.

I have however noticed a few oddities that could possibly just be mistakes.

1. The tsunami cannon has an outlandish damage output that puts it in a category outside of anything else in the game. I'm wondering if it's supposed to read that it gets +2 strength per round not fired (as opposed to damage). But even then it's just flat out better than the energy cannon in every way. Also the wording isn't really clear. If you don't fire it in turn 1, I'm assuming it doesn't get +2 damage for the rest of the game.

2. For the nomads, the 'mirage of the void' legendary fleet is absurdly good, while 'the forgotten' is essentially unplayable. Also the wording around the 'mirage of the void' con are a pretty unclear. 

3. The 9" placement rule for objectives makes it very likely that you'll be unable to place all 5 objectives if you roll max.

Overall very good though. I'm looking forwards to playing more games!

[onepagerules]

1. The Tsunami Cannon deals +2dmg on round 2, +4dmg on round 3, and +6dmg on round 4. Anyway, it's going to be re-worked to differentiate it more from the Energy Cannon.

2. We are going to tweak the wording on the Mirage of the Void to make it clearer.

3. Are you playing on a 6x4 or a 4x4? In any case, we are thinking of reducing the number of objectives to D3+1.

[darkgoldfish]

I think that's a good idea with the Tsunami cannon. Probably something like 4 strength instead of 6 and having it gain deadly if it didn't fire in the previous round would make it an interesting alternative without invalidating the energy cannon.

We did play on a 4x6, but after you factor out the 9 inches from table sides and deployment zones, you've only got 54"x6" to work with, and most of the time players will end up accidentally blocking out the 5th objective (not the end of the world, we just played with 4).

Looking forwards to seeing how the game progresses. I think it's probably the best designed space battle game I've played to date.

[darkgoldfish]

Two more oddities (hopefully this stuff helps with updates).

With the Xenos list, the spike launcher is in every way worse than the bio-cannon, shorter range, no blast and only targets ships.
And with the progenitor list, the Baryon turret is in every way worse than the Neutron cannon (as well as the heavy cannon from the core list).

[onepagerules]

Hmmm... seem to be typo's, I'll have to check those, thanks for the feedback!

[darkgoldfish]

Here is another one that confused us while we were playing. The gravity launcher for nomads doesn't really explain how the trap works. Is it a one use per game item that remains on the table for the rest of the game? does it only last one round? Can you use it multiple times? I'm assuming that once it's used it's still considered to be an upgrade on your ship, so you can take hits on it?... when the upgrade is destroyed, do active gravity traps go away?

[onepagerules]

Hmmm... I see how it can be confusing, I'm definitely going to try to make it a bit clearer.

It can be used multiple times and stays until the end of the game. The upgrade can take hits even after placing markers, and the markers remain in play if the upgrade is destroyed.

[darkgoldfish]

Ah not what I had anticipated. I think you could word it like: "once per round during the ships activation, place a permanent gravity trap marker within 6". Enemies treat the space within 4" of the trap as difficult terrain"

[darkgoldfish]

And a couple of more:

The tractor beam: Can you pull a ship far enough towards you that it causes an overlap? or does the ship just stop at base contact.
The warp drive: doesn't explain how the 2d6 movement works. I'm assuming it's done instead of the normal movement and turning from the move action?

The Rogue special rule: says that it allows the squadron to activate in other phases than the squadron phase. Is that only if it chooses not to activate in the squadron phase? or is this an extra move/shoot? if it's an extra activation, how many times can it be done? and what constitutes a "move or a shoot" - would a cruise action count as a move here?

[onepagerules]

Tractor Beam - Yes, you could pull it far enough that it causes an overlap.
Warp Drive - Correct, it replaces the normal movement and pivoting.
Rogue - You can choose in which phase it can activate, but it still only gets to activate once. Cruise would count as moving, yes.

[darkgoldfish]

I feel like rogue could be worded something like: "Squadrons with this special rule may choose not to activate in the squadron phase and instead make their activation in any other phase. When doing so they may not shoot, unless they take the hold action."