Design Log: Stardate 08.08.2002

Your Mission, Should You Decide to Accept It...

... is to figure out how 2nd Edition Mission cards differ from Mission II cards. In truth, there's more of a similarity than you might expect. No, not built-in wormholes, the other unusual feature of Mission II's. (Or should that be Missions II?)

For those who didn't happen to encounter the Enhanced Premiere packs, they contained missions that were similar to some of the original Premiere missions – same location, same picture (almost), same requirements, same title with a Roman numeral "II" appended – but some of them had built-in outposts. You got to seed one card that was both a mission and an outpost (the "almost" attached to the "same picture" above refers to a little outpost/space station inserted into the images).

The similarity in 2nd edition doesn't apply to all missions by any means, and it's not exactly a built-in outpost; in fact, there are currently no outposts (or any other facilities) in 2nd Edition. The missions in question are, specifically, homeworlds, and the bulit-in feature is the reporting ability formerly inherent in outposts and headquarters. In 2nd edition, your homeworld is your starting location. It's a place to report your personnel, ships, and equipment, and the game text is explicit: Romulus, for example, says that your [Rom] cards, [NA] cards, and equipment can report there. In this respect it works pretty much like 1st edition headquarters; personnel and equipment report on the planet, and ships report in orbit. The text also says your ships can repair there, so you get that aspect of an outpost, but there's no docking and no shields to protect a ship. And, oh yes – there are no mission requirements. Homeworlds aren't attemptable or solvable, so you can forget about hanging out and solving your homeworld mission in safety. To score points you're going to need to get on a ship and trek on out to your other missions.

Why doesn't the game text just say you can report compatible cards? "We've eliminated the concept of compatibility," says designer Evan Lorentz. There was so much confusion over the difference between compatible and matching and what constituted "mixing and cooperating" that the designers adopted a much simpler approach: if you can get the personnel into play, you can use them together. So how does a Romulan player get Klingons into play? "Just stock the Klingon homeworld in your deck and play it during the game. Your Klingons can report there and then join your Romulans." There will also likely be ways to report personnel aboard ships (though I didn't see any in the demo decks other than Telek R'Mor's special skill).

I got a first-hand look at the new missions, both homeworlds and solvable missions, when Star Trek Brand Manager Sean Smallman hauled me off to the marketing offices to demo the game to me the other day, just before jetting off to Milwaukee to show off the demo decks to the Gen Con attendees. I of course insisted on having the Romulan deck.

Now, remember, there's no seed phase – OK, it's about a two-second seed phase – we slapped Earth and Romulus down on the table, shuffled our decks, and started playing. To start with we reported personnel, drew cards, and played a few deck manipulation cards (Data, Keep Dealing is still here, for example) for several quick turns in order to (a) get a ship and enough personnel in play to go solve missions or at least pick a fight, and (b) find some missions to solve. Solvable missions are stocked in your deck and you build the spaceline during the game. You can play up to one mission each turn, at no cost. Sean handed me his first mission. "You get to decide which end of the spaceline to place it on."

Well, of course I'm going to put it as far from your homeworld as possible, and if you have a mission with a Romulan icon, I'm going to put it where I can steal it – hey, wait a minute, there aren't any affiliation icons (or requirements, or points) on my end of this mission! "That's right, no mission stealing." At least not now. I suppose there's no reason why the "opponent's end" icons couldn't appear on selected missions in the future, and there's also the possibility that an event card could let you attempt an opponent's mission. But for now, better plan on doing your own missions, and better plan on at least one planet and one space – you have to solve one of each and score 100 points to win.

Other than that, missions are pretty much the same as in 1st edition. Attempting them is slightly different because you're now required to have the mission requirements in the Away Team or crew when you start the mission attempt (but not to continue, should someone get zapped by a dilemma). The designers say this is one more way that rules tweaks will ease the learning curve for Star Trek CCG, as one of the most common misconceptions in the current game is that you do have to have the requirements for the attempt. And mission requirements now almost always include an attribute total (e.g., STRENGTH>35) in addition to skills, to prevent red-shirting.

The one other new feature on missions is a number that indicates how many dilemmas you'll face when you attempt it... but that's a mission for another day and another design log.

Kathy McCracken
Major Rakal
Star Trek Intelligence Officer

August 8, 2002

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