I figure that this idea is buried in another thread somewhere, but I couldn't find it. Has there been any talk about not playing asteroids at the beginning of the game and rather, having destroyed ships turn into debris fields instead? I think that this is a marvelous mechanic and would add so much to the flavor of the game.

Thoughts? Comments?

I agree wholeheartedly.

It's a house rule written in stone over here.

As of now I think standard practice (but still not sanctioned in competitive rules) is you can substitute 1 asteroid token for 1 debris cloud token when you place one of your 3 obstacles.

Now I understand the current problem with debris cloud tokens. Not every player has them as they are in a expansion not the core set. So here are some ideas (too unofficial to be proposals) involving the satellite obstacle tokens in the core set. So why not treat those tokens as debris clouds. Sure they are smaller but give them the same effect and everyone who plays should have bought a core set so everyone should have them.

So this is my idea into making 2 obstacle pools. The asteroid and the debris cloud. Everyone should bring 1 asteroid set and at least 3 debris satellite tokens when they play a game. Players may bring up to 6 debris clouds instead of satellite tokens.

1 asteroid set consisting of 5 small asteroids and 1 big one becomes the asteroid pool.

Players who have debris clouds will put up to 6 debris cloud tokens into the debris cloud pool. If there are fewer than 6 debris clouds then players will put debris satellite tokens until there are 6 tokens in the debris cloud pool. Treat the satellite tokens as debris clouds.

Players can take turns choosing any available obstacle from either poll and placing them on the board until the agreed amount of obstacles are placed.