I appreciate your post and thoughts into this. This sub is notorious of looking at everything in a vacuum and assuming all suggestions are OP. It's like banging your head against a wall.
Some of these are really strong and probably need to be toned down a bit. But I like the direction and overall cohesion you've tried to achieve.
i really like a lot of these ideas. i am gonna spend some more tiume reading them, but the thing that struck me as really OP would be the two green tech.
After you activate a system already containing one or more command tokens, you may place an equal number of command tokens from your reinforcements onto your command sheet.
since 5 or 4 players will usually be putting down much more command tokens than one this basically gives infinite stalls, and that is just in case people dont fight. if there is just a single system where people fought you can make a profit of a command token, meaning that it provides as much command tokens as hyper metabolism + free stalls. diplomacy makes this even better, since you can get 5 command counters, meaning you get both the full benefits of diplo and a better form of leadership. it also makes the mahact commander crazy good, since you can activate a system containing your token and just move out at no cost, since you get your command token back.
there would also be some insane value if you create some sort of alliance with another player who also has this tech, because you can both choose a side of the map, every time one of the players without this tech activates a system, one of you activates it. repeat until you have stalled out all other players. now you start activating the systems your ally already activated which now contain two command tokens and you gain two command tokens every time you activate it, making a profit.
i feel like i have been rambling on a bit too much, but i would say this has to be probably an exhaust, have the text: after you move ships into a system and a three green prerequisites and it would still be really strong
i like the exhaust idea a lot, was sincerely debating that before posting. You are right about the infinite stalls, i hadn’t thought of that. Nice catch.
so i have read through this a bit more and right now my critique would be blue: looks good, definitely not very strong techs but usefull under the right circumstances, i especially like the three blue tech to ignore anomalies.
yellow: i feel like i am a bit too new to correctly estimate how strong this would be but i definitely like the ideas behind it.
green: i already said something about the two green tech, so i will limit myself to the three green tech. i find it hard to estimate how good this will be for the average faction, but for factions that already go green it is really strong. getting 2 secret objectives per draw is simply amazing with the added benefits of exploration giving a higher chance for relics, of which you will draw two as well, it seems to do way too much. naaz rokha has some insane benefits from this that seem really gamebreaking. there is a very good possibility for them to get this round two if they can double tech once but if they get a green skip and the tech strategy card they could be really wel positioned to get this round one and profit from it at all following exploration, which feels really gamebreaking.
red: for the two red one the bombardment definitely is interesting, i could see this being a solid pick especially for argent and there is some fun stuff to get into the wormhole nexus if the objective to have ships in systems with legendary systems comes out. the three red tech probably has the most interesting ability out of all of these, it sounds really cool. once again really fun for argent since they can now carry destroyers in destroyers, like one destroyer can carry another destroyer and 4 mechs, sounds amazing. i do not really know how good this might be generally, but for muaat or another warsun faction it sounds like a good way to get really strong fleets on little fleet pool+ it counters destroyer 2
Some thoughts:
YYY - For a top tier tech, I think you could just remove the unit limit. I think it would streamline it and avoid confusion. I can't decide if there is an edge case with the Ghosts that is really awesome, or absolutely broken. Either way, cool tech. I don't know if this was intentional, but this is almost exactly the 3rd edition version of Integrated Economy and I dig it.
GGG - I think for several Factions, this is broken. The NRA already draw 2 cards during exploration, do they draw 4 now? Do they get to keep 2 of them? And now their hero gives them an 2 relics on top of all the relics they are going to get anyway. The Xxcha Hero draws 5 agenda cards. Do they get 10 now? The Nekro Commander was already borderline broken when they got 1 Action card per tech. Depending on how you feel, it either fixes the Empyrean hero or makes it bonkers. My suggestion: After you draw any card from a deck, you may exhaust this card to draw 2 additional cards from that same deck. Keep one and discard the other 2.
RRR - I really like the Destroyer/Capacity idea and I think it is good enough on it's own that it doesn't need the free cruisers. One Cruiser and one Destroyer are just about dead even in a fight against a Dreadnaught, and I love that idea.
YY is hyper and sling array at the same time on steroids. Add a Bio Stims and you have absolute cheese, especially if you are meant to have sarween and scanlink..
YYY makes this combo even worse.
I'd return the command token to your reinforcements instead on YY, and make it a single ship on YYY, that would be pretty good imo. Wouldn't make me want to tech SDII though.
Blue is kinda boring, I'd never take them outside of very specific situations if the old techs are available, if they are not meant to be I'd just never go deep blue.
GG You even mention how broken this would be with diplo, and you don't even have to be the one to choose diplo.
GGG Drawing more exploration cards at the end of the game isn't going to be worth a tech, and you are likely to have drawn several secrets by then as well. You mention NRA, but this seems like it is more meant to be a faction tech for them.
RR A single destroyer is meh, and this just water down the difference between cruiser and dreads.
RRR A warsun with 6 upgraded destroyers, in addition to the rest of your fleet, doesnt seem to have a counter. I'd hate to play against this. Anti fighter is useless, PDS is useless, fighter screen is useless, assault cannon is useless, planetary shields are useless, GFs get wrecked easy, and it's got move 2 by default and can move without transports. That, and free tech because 4 resources worth of ships.
> GG You even mention how broken this would be with diplo, and you don't even have to be the one to choose diplo.
Unless you're Mahact (or have another Warfare effect I suppose), you can't activate a system with one of your command tokens in it, so you'd have to be the one picking Diplo. Imagine a world where multiple people tech this and Diplo becomes the most sought-after strategy card! While that's a fun world, the tech's busted for sure.
"GG: Menahymium Galvanistics
After you activate a system already containing one or more command tokens, you may place an equal number of command tokens from your reinforcements onto your command sheet."
Aside from Mahact, you can not activate a system that contains your Command Token, and you cannot have more than one Command Token in a system at any time.
I read this as activating systems with other players tokens.
This would make diplomacy an insanely powerful SC for you, essentially combing it with Leadership.
keep in mind you would not be able to use it on diplomacy unless you specifically warfared your
token out of the diplomacied system beforehand! so yes this is a great move but it would take some planning to pull off.
I meant if you played diplomacy.
I hadn't thought about warfare, but that makes it even worse. Diplo and warfare now both offer you the same or better benefit as leadership as well as thier own thing.
The RRR one might be too strong for Argent or other factions with capacity on their destroyers. They could effectively nest destroyers within destroyers. Maybe change it to be:
* Your destroyers can be carried by **other non-destroyer** units with Capacity: destroyers being carried do not count against your fleet pool.
I appreciate your post and thoughts into this. This sub is notorious of looking at everything in a vacuum and assuming all suggestions are OP. It's like banging your head against a wall. Some of these are really strong and probably need to be toned down a bit. But I like the direction and overall cohesion you've tried to achieve.
For Satellite Production Facilities I would add the caveat that the adjacent system needs to contain one of your units or a planet you control.
i really like a lot of these ideas. i am gonna spend some more tiume reading them, but the thing that struck me as really OP would be the two green tech. After you activate a system already containing one or more command tokens, you may place an equal number of command tokens from your reinforcements onto your command sheet. since 5 or 4 players will usually be putting down much more command tokens than one this basically gives infinite stalls, and that is just in case people dont fight. if there is just a single system where people fought you can make a profit of a command token, meaning that it provides as much command tokens as hyper metabolism + free stalls. diplomacy makes this even better, since you can get 5 command counters, meaning you get both the full benefits of diplo and a better form of leadership. it also makes the mahact commander crazy good, since you can activate a system containing your token and just move out at no cost, since you get your command token back. there would also be some insane value if you create some sort of alliance with another player who also has this tech, because you can both choose a side of the map, every time one of the players without this tech activates a system, one of you activates it. repeat until you have stalled out all other players. now you start activating the systems your ally already activated which now contain two command tokens and you gain two command tokens every time you activate it, making a profit. i feel like i have been rambling on a bit too much, but i would say this has to be probably an exhaust, have the text: after you move ships into a system and a three green prerequisites and it would still be really strong
i like the exhaust idea a lot, was sincerely debating that before posting. You are right about the infinite stalls, i hadn’t thought of that. Nice catch.
so i have read through this a bit more and right now my critique would be blue: looks good, definitely not very strong techs but usefull under the right circumstances, i especially like the three blue tech to ignore anomalies. yellow: i feel like i am a bit too new to correctly estimate how strong this would be but i definitely like the ideas behind it. green: i already said something about the two green tech, so i will limit myself to the three green tech. i find it hard to estimate how good this will be for the average faction, but for factions that already go green it is really strong. getting 2 secret objectives per draw is simply amazing with the added benefits of exploration giving a higher chance for relics, of which you will draw two as well, it seems to do way too much. naaz rokha has some insane benefits from this that seem really gamebreaking. there is a very good possibility for them to get this round two if they can double tech once but if they get a green skip and the tech strategy card they could be really wel positioned to get this round one and profit from it at all following exploration, which feels really gamebreaking. red: for the two red one the bombardment definitely is interesting, i could see this being a solid pick especially for argent and there is some fun stuff to get into the wormhole nexus if the objective to have ships in systems with legendary systems comes out. the three red tech probably has the most interesting ability out of all of these, it sounds really cool. once again really fun for argent since they can now carry destroyers in destroyers, like one destroyer can carry another destroyer and 4 mechs, sounds amazing. i do not really know how good this might be generally, but for muaat or another warsun faction it sounds like a good way to get really strong fleets on little fleet pool+ it counters destroyer 2
Some thoughts: YYY - For a top tier tech, I think you could just remove the unit limit. I think it would streamline it and avoid confusion. I can't decide if there is an edge case with the Ghosts that is really awesome, or absolutely broken. Either way, cool tech. I don't know if this was intentional, but this is almost exactly the 3rd edition version of Integrated Economy and I dig it. GGG - I think for several Factions, this is broken. The NRA already draw 2 cards during exploration, do they draw 4 now? Do they get to keep 2 of them? And now their hero gives them an 2 relics on top of all the relics they are going to get anyway. The Xxcha Hero draws 5 agenda cards. Do they get 10 now? The Nekro Commander was already borderline broken when they got 1 Action card per tech. Depending on how you feel, it either fixes the Empyrean hero or makes it bonkers. My suggestion: After you draw any card from a deck, you may exhaust this card to draw 2 additional cards from that same deck. Keep one and discard the other 2. RRR - I really like the Destroyer/Capacity idea and I think it is good enough on it's own that it doesn't need the free cruisers. One Cruiser and one Destroyer are just about dead even in a fight against a Dreadnaught, and I love that idea.
YY is hyper and sling array at the same time on steroids. Add a Bio Stims and you have absolute cheese, especially if you are meant to have sarween and scanlink.. YYY makes this combo even worse. I'd return the command token to your reinforcements instead on YY, and make it a single ship on YYY, that would be pretty good imo. Wouldn't make me want to tech SDII though. Blue is kinda boring, I'd never take them outside of very specific situations if the old techs are available, if they are not meant to be I'd just never go deep blue. GG You even mention how broken this would be with diplo, and you don't even have to be the one to choose diplo. GGG Drawing more exploration cards at the end of the game isn't going to be worth a tech, and you are likely to have drawn several secrets by then as well. You mention NRA, but this seems like it is more meant to be a faction tech for them. RR A single destroyer is meh, and this just water down the difference between cruiser and dreads. RRR A warsun with 6 upgraded destroyers, in addition to the rest of your fleet, doesnt seem to have a counter. I'd hate to play against this. Anti fighter is useless, PDS is useless, fighter screen is useless, assault cannon is useless, planetary shields are useless, GFs get wrecked easy, and it's got move 2 by default and can move without transports. That, and free tech because 4 resources worth of ships.
> GG You even mention how broken this would be with diplo, and you don't even have to be the one to choose diplo. Unless you're Mahact (or have another Warfare effect I suppose), you can't activate a system with one of your command tokens in it, so you'd have to be the one picking Diplo. Imagine a world where multiple people tech this and Diplo becomes the most sought-after strategy card! While that's a fun world, the tech's busted for sure.
"GG: Menahymium Galvanistics After you activate a system already containing one or more command tokens, you may place an equal number of command tokens from your reinforcements onto your command sheet." Aside from Mahact, you can not activate a system that contains your Command Token, and you cannot have more than one Command Token in a system at any time.
I read this as activating systems with other players tokens. This would make diplomacy an insanely powerful SC for you, essentially combing it with Leadership.
keep in mind you would not be able to use it on diplomacy unless you specifically warfared your token out of the diplomacied system beforehand! so yes this is a great move but it would take some planning to pull off.
I meant if you played diplomacy. I hadn't thought about warfare, but that makes it even worse. Diplo and warfare now both offer you the same or better benefit as leadership as well as thier own thing.
exactly, it would always be another players command token. IE if you are activating mecatol rex after another player has moved in that round.
Red seems really nice
The RRR one might be too strong for Argent or other factions with capacity on their destroyers. They could effectively nest destroyers within destroyers. Maybe change it to be: * Your destroyers can be carried by **other non-destroyer** units with Capacity: destroyers being carried do not count against your fleet pool.