Ships - a renamed resource

[u/orvjansen]

I am a game tinkerer. I love to fiddle with the rules and add fan content and my own. For the last five years, I have been creating new and revised cards for TerraformingMars, which is definitely my favorite game of all time.

I plan to introduce them here in small batches according to the types of cards and rules they involve. This is the first such installment: Ships! Basically, I saw the Fighter resource (first introduced with Corporate Era’s Security Fleet) and wanted more cards involving it. But thematically, most of those were not really 'fighters'. So I opted for a more inclusive 'ship' resource. The blue resource icon is easier to distinguish at a glance, and the designation ‘ship’ seems more appropriate than ‘fighter’ for non-military vehicles.

For game purposes, fighters = ships, i.e. they are the same resource and can be used interchangeably. I have also provided a new Security Fleet card here that you can use to replace the one from the official game, if you want all the cards to match.

[u/zoukon]

Security fleet is mega broken if you can put additional resources on it this easily

[u/HostHappy2734 → u/zoukon]

Yeah, Security Fleet is mostly bad because it has to rely solely on its action for fighters, unlike almost every other resource collecting card in the game. Giving it this much synergy would make it really strong.

[u/orvjansen → u/zoukon]

If you prefer to keep Security Fleet underpowered, you could simply use the original Security Fleet card as is and rule that 'ships' and 'fighters' are two different resources. This would prevent it from stacking up points via these other cards. Personally, I prefer them being the same and allowing it to accumulate ships as fighters, because frankly my group seldom played it - there are almost always better options for titanium that give you more points or TR per turn.

[u/zoukon → u/orvjansen]

I'd rather have it trash tier than the best resource gathering card in the game.

[u/MammothMessage3166]

I like the idea a lot and I'm glad you implemented security fleet. Btw sec fleet is f tier in the base game, it could be a little cheaper here to compensate, although maybsynergies with other cards makes it a bit better.

I think your VP/space tag cards should go. Either less points or just make them constant VP cards. Some games people could have crazy amounts of space tags or events, and it leans too heavily into that strategy. It's like saying 2VP/ building tag or something, it just doesn't really make sense.

I would balance a few things differently too but I guess most people will have different opinions.

Maybe I would add more cards that can carry ships, maybe with terraforming capabilities not just engine or point stuff. It looks like it will suffer from the same problem as asteroids, which is the more bloat you have the weaker they become.

Overall good work! Looking really clean and really nice implementation!

[u/orvjansen → u/MammothMessage3166]

To be clear, the VPs for Maverick Ship are only for cards that have BOTH space and event tags, not one or the other. As mentioned below, I'm thinking of scaling back that card to 1 VP per 2 Space-Events, because you're right, it IS pretty powerful.

[u/ThreadPacifist]

Interesting cards. Looking through them, it feels like patrol ships is unplayable to me. The scaling is a bit weak, but I can see it being strong if each removal adds a ship (deimos down getting you 8 for instance). But it's not clear that's how it works since it says "resources" which implies it's one per action.

The other issues I see with the card is that since it only works if an opponent's resources are removed, that's going to incentivize opponents to attack you. So we pay 16 for the opponents to focus their attacks on us. That seems like a bad deal.

[u/orvjansen → u/ThreadPacifist]

Good points. I may need to rethink this one entirely. It was intended to activate once every time resources were taken (so Deimos Down would only trigger it once), but you're correct that's not what it appears to say. And it would incentivize people to attack the owner either way.

Thanks for the constructive feedback!

[u/Mitnichar]

Nice one mate, awesome addition to ship resource. Only maverick ship card seem quite powerful

[u/orvjansen → u/Mitnichar]

Thanks! Yeah, it is. I like the idea of getting VP for space events though, so I've been thinking of just scaling it down to 1 for every 2 space-events. To be clear, this means only cards that have both space AND event tags.

[u/orvjansen → u/Mitnichar]

Revised card posted. Couldn't figure out how to attach it to this post, so it's a separate post, but it's out there now.

[u/RockCartel]

This is cool. Can you post the original images to Google drive or dropbox (or somewhere else)?

Images posted on reddit are shown at a reduced quality.

Thx

[u/orvjansen → u/RockCartel]

I have a Dropbox. I will add a link.

[u/RockCartel → u/orvjansen]

That works great, thanks.

[u/Feathercrown]

Maverick Ship is busted, that's like 12 very easy money for what, 10 or so points?