Posted: 07 April 2007 at 6:24pm | IP Logged

A couple of my players said what can you do to spice up the game so I came up w/center decks.

The idea is you build a deck w/ a theme to it and have rules for when people draw from it

some examples

Arms dealer-During allocation for 5 economy you may buy a card from this deck-the deck is made of equipment( alot of mines phaser and shield refits)some small ships(mostly Bolar,Vektrean and grand chieftens tribe) and sone crew-a smattering of l and o(mainly electronic warfare.

Galactic storm -each turn you draw 1 card from the deck and each turn you may play one hazard w/out consumining a card play.the deck should be mostly small hazards w/ a few helms man and navigators thrown in

Refugee-each turn draw 2 cards from this deck-

The deck should be filled w/mostly useless crew as they fill up your hand it becomes difficut to draw and you are forced to play them-this represents huge floods of refugees moving through the galaxy and straining resurses

Mine field-the battles have wandered into an ancient mine field during allocation if you allocate 3 reasurch you may draw from this deck-i-the deck should contain E mine cards and H mine field cards and a few minesweepers

Posted: 08 April 2007 at 3:20pm | IP Logged

Sounds like one of the variations my group did.  see "VARIATIONS" dated july 2006 page two in deck construction area.

other ways to add more ships to your play is to allow planets Free ships to protectthem or increase them. EG dont make ships which are around a planet to consume command points, but limit them to (react firing only) in which they may onle fire at ships which fire at them.

Capture planets... for  example a T7 planet must have 7 heavy weapons fired at it and crew worth 7 must land on the planet to secure it.  The Heavy weapons fire si declared as subdue damage assumed to hit military targets only and does not destroy the planet.

Destruction of planets doesnt happen.  When hvy weapons destroys planet, set off to the side.  If player can pay double the planets ouput they can bring it back into play.  This represents rebuilding the planets manufacturing capabilities.  ONLY cards that says planets are destroyed or giant planet eating monsters( planet gouge) will place the planet into discard pile.  Such cards are O10 planet destrctn, S4 terrain field(psys) etc