This is a question that is oft asked of CE, and I thought I understood the FFG rules until I read the Reference section at the end.

In the main rules, it seems clear that you target the hyperspace gate at a planet in the defensive system. The defensive player then defends with their colony (if any) on that planet. This means that you can attack empty planets or planets with no colony belonging to the defensive player, and the defense has zero ships in the challenge. This sounds like the original Eon rules.

However, in the Reference section it states under Launch: "The offense aims the hyperspace gate at one of the defense's colonies in the target system." (emphasis mine). A colony is earlier defined to be 1 or more ships on a planet. This sounds more like the wording in my West End/Games Workshop edition.

So, what is the correct interpretation? Can the offense target any planet in the defense system?

The offense decides which planet to attack based on what the colour of the Destiny card is. So let's say Red attacks Blue. Red picks Blue planet #2, where Blue has 3 ships. Red has pointed the cone at Blue 2, so Blue must defend it with whatever ships are on that planet (3). If Blue had no colony on Blue 2, then tough. He has to defend with 0. So in this case, Red is attacking a planet.

However, if Red draws Red, and Green fought Red off one of his planets earlier, Red can challenge Green's colony on Red 4. Red points the cone at Red 4 and announces that he's attacking Green's 4 ships there. He could have attacked Yellow since Yellow also has a colony on Red 4, and he couldn't have picked Blue because he doesn't. So in this case, Red is attacking a colony.

If Red draws Red and Red 5 has no colonies on it at all, he can simply land the attacking ships on the planet. So he's attacking a planet again (if you can call it "attacking").

So technically, with the exception of example #3, you're always attacking a colony. It's just that, unless the target planet is your own, the owner of the planet and the owner of the colony (providing there is one) are always the same (Red can't attack Yellow on a Green planet).

I sense your confusion, OP, when reading the rules that way. Let me straighten things out:

When you draw an opponent's color from the Destiny Deck, you are going to target one of their planets, in their system, and that color ships will be defending. If they somehow lost all their ships on a planet (which will happen, no doubt, when the first attack of the game succeeds, actually), then that planet would defend with 0 ships - it doesn't matter who else might have a colony there; you're fighting the planet's original owner. To be honest, unless you're Macron or one of those ship-affecting aliens, defending with 0 ships isn't the game-dooming situation you might think. As others have said before in this forum, the game really is about effective card/hand management. You can affect the game a lot more with a well-played Attack card than by having one or two more ships. And the likelihood of having all your opponents draw your color in rapid succession and pillaging your empty planet, is unlikely. They're more likely going to end up targeting each other. That's why drawing your own color is important - it's your way to get home colonies back.

Thanks for the replies -- much appreciated.

The danger of rules summaries/references is that they can gloss over subtleties in the rules or worse still be contradictory.

When I first played the Eon CE game (we're talking a long time ago!), I was a naive 15-year old and I fear that I thought the game was all about battles. At first I couldn't figure out how powers like Philanthropist could be at all useful. I hope that I am wiser now -- I'm certainly older!

Looking forward to the new edition. My original copy is looking rather shabby.