After reading through some of the threads here, I ordered a "Mel's Miniatures" Immobilizer 418-Cruiser, and used some of the excellent templates I've found to build some cards. I've tried to take into account the strengths and weaknesses of the ship, and hopefully this will hold up through play testing. I created one ship card, one ship template, and three unique IDs so far. I may slightly increase the hull value and modify the dice some, but overall this is the way I'm going. Any thoughts are, of course, welcome. Thought I'd share these in case someone else can use or refine them.

Nice!

The stats might be a bit optimistic in some respects (scatter token?) but not totally out of whack. Especially as you gave it a suitably high cost and very low hull value for its size.

I also like the titles, especially Sentinel, but you might need to tidy up the wording a little to avoid ambiguity. For instance, to clear up when you can use them (e.g. "While resolving..."). And what does it mean when you say "a shield value of 1 for this activation"? Its activation ends right after it moves, so it would return to normal shields before anyone else gets a chance to shoot it. What if some areas had been reduced to zero shields? Would those areas increase to 1?

I heartily recommend using wording lifted straight out of the rulebook and existing cards as far as possible (e.g. "toggle [that squadron's] activation slider to its activated side", from Dutch Vander's card, instead of "change [that squadron] to activated"). As well as all available shorthand (e.g. a command symbol followed by a colon to mean "while resolving this command, you can do the following once").

Compare:

But believe me, I feel your pain. It's hard as it is to achieve a more-or-less involved game effect in a clear, unambiguous, tidy way. To do so within the confines of an upgrade card is exceedingly difficult!

Yeah, I agree on the ambiguity part, definitely. The scatter token was put there to try to balance out the hull value some, but I am starting to think that that's overkill. I am going to be refining these, and I'll post up what I come up with.

Please do!

Given the striking similarities I suppose you already came across my version of the Interdictor, but if you haven't you should definitely also check out Wes's cards (which for the life of me I cannot find now, I could've sworn they were here!).

Please do!

Given the striking similarities I suppose you already came across my version of the Interdictor, but if you haven't you should definitely also check out Wes's cards (which for the life of me I cannot find now, I could've sworn they were here!).

Yeah, sure did...hope you don't mind! I really liked the direction you were heading with yours. I'm actually in the process of making some adjustments now, so I should be able to post some stuff up later this afternoon.

Of course I don't mind! As long as you don't mind me borrowing some of your ideas to create more title cards

And don't take the critique too seriously, it's just some friendly advice My day job is pretty much to correct ambiguities and inconsistencies in legal and technical texts, so I naturally tend to be a stickler for "proper" rules wording

I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with next! My shapeways interdictor is also on the way...

Ok, here's version 2.0. The weaponry has been altered, and the "scatter" token has been removed. I also changed the wording on the upgrade cards, most notably on the "Binder" card.

Diablo, I removed my Interdictor cards currently remaking them in my landscape tournament card layout. I happen to like your version as is. I have to finish painting mine.

TK2618, I had a similar idea with the scatter but I invented a new defense token all together which had the same effect, but only against attacks at short range. Ever since that little tie fighter cartoon where it messes up the missiles I had the idea lol.

There is no problem with using black dice either. Seems wave 2 ships that don't even have missiles are gonna have them. Although, I have a feeling their alternate variations on certain ships may differ from the old cannon. Its a new world out there now.

I like the shield reduction idea, but it may be simpler to treat the ship as speed 0 while using these effects. Essentially you would have no defense tokens regardless of you moving or not.

That could work! Though wording it neatly could be tricky if it has to share a card with some of the lengthier abilities.

The most obvious approach would probably look something like:

"You cannot spend defense tokens while this card is exhausted", short and sweet. However, it has the considerable disadvantage that it only lasts until the end of the round, no matter how late the ship activated. If it moved last, for example, only squadrons can attack it with impunity. You could of course slightly reword it so that the effect lasts "until your next activation"... but that relies on system memory, which is inelegant and prone to oversights, contradictions and loopholes. And you could still run into the same problem if the Interdictor activates last one round and first the following.

Maybe a better way of achieving a similar effect could be to instead word the ability thusly:

"Exhaust this card and spend two defense tokens to...". Although not entirely equivalent to being at speed 0, it does mean using the ability is exceedingly costly if the ship has already been attacked this turn, and still risky if it hasn't.

That would be short enough to fit on the card together with pretty much any 'activated' ability. Ongoing effects would need to be somewhat more verbose (e.g. the wording for my Harpax: "At the start of each round, you must spend a defense token or discard this card.").

Although I can understand the desire for consistency, for the sake of flavour and variety, I decided to assign a different cost to each effect. Aside from the one above, I've also used the following:

"[Repair]: You may spend two engineering points..." (could be shields instead)
"Reduce [...] your speed by one."
"While your speed is less than two..."

These represent diverting energy to the well generators from shields and engines. I suppose it might also make sense to represent diverting power from the weapons systems. Maybe "While attacking, you may cancel all attack dice to..." or something similar?

Ever since that little tie fighter cartoon where it messes up the missiles...

From what I've read about the ships, the gravity wells put the biggest drain on the shields, which is what I tried to represent. I do like the idea of the zero speed with no tokens, but I think having some effect on the shields is more accurate for this type of ship. I know that the text length on some of the cards is longer than is ideal, but I'm not really sure how else to pare it down.

I think activation order would be part of using the vessel. If you activate early, you can effect an enemy ship that has yet to activate. If you wait till later to preserve your own defense, you may not really be influencing the round much.

TK2618, Its hard to represent shield strength that is reduced without physically reducing the shield dials to 1 after the ship uses an ability. Unfortunately you would have to keep record of what you were doing to put them back up next round. So if you are set on shield drain, why not actually do like the Dominator? Just set a shield cost to execute your ability.

Diablo, from a wording sense do you mean Exhaust or discard a defense token?

Diablo, from a wording sense do you mean Exhaust or discard a defense token?

I mean spend

...which makes you either exhaust a readied token, or discard an exhausted one.

(from rules ref, p.3: "When a readied defense token is spent, it is flipped to its exhausted side. When an exhausted defense token is spent, it is discarded.")

So if you've been attacked and forced to exhaust a couple of tokens already you can still trigger the card effect - but you'll have to discard one of the tokens permanently.

Though I suppose in some cases (such as the "...and spend two defense tokens to..." suggestion above) it might indeed make more sense to use the term Exhaust in the cost. On the one hand this prevents you from using the ability at all if you have already exhausted more than one token. On the other hand, it does allow you to use the ability even at speed 0 (when you're not permitted to spend tokens).

Ouch.... I have to exhaust aka throw out the ship name cards to activate my gravity projectors???

Ouch.... I have to exhaust aka throw out the ship name cards to activate my gravity projectors???

Exhausted cards get refreshed at the start of each round. You're thinking of discarding

EDIT: I wrote depleting at first... I think that's just in Imperial Assault?

I think activation order would be part of using the vessel. If you activate early, you can effect an enemy ship that has yet to activate. If you wait till later to preserve your own defense, you may not really be influencing the round much.

TK2618, Its hard to represent shield strength that is reduced without physically reducing the shield dials to 1 after the ship uses an ability. Unfortunately you would have to keep record of what you were doing to put them back up next round. So if you are set on shield drain, why not actually do like the Dominator? Just set a shield cost to execute your ability.

Diablo, from a wording sense do you mean Exhaust or discard a defense token?

Wes, you're exactly right about the activation order...there is definitely a choice to be made there, and I think that helps keep the ship from becoming too overpowered.

With regards to tracking the shields, you make a good point. I think I may alter he cards to reflect that change. A shield cost is going to be easier to deal with, and the same temporary effect on the shields can be achieved if the player invests in he engineering command.

Ouch.... I have to exhaust aka throw out the ship name cards to activate my gravity projectors???

Exhausted cards get refreshed at the start of each round. You're thinking of discarding

EDIT: I wrote depleting at first... I think that's just in Imperial Assault?

Oh I see..... I didn't know that.

Next question, the cards are self printed, how about the shield and command dails?

Are there after market or 3rd party command and shield dails?

Not as far as I know, though Mel has ship and squadron bases in his Shapeways store.

I think most of us have enough official ships that we can generally use spare bases and dials where required. Anyway, at this stage, I think buying spare official ships (even if just for their bases and dials) is more cost-effective than 3D printing those parts.

So would the Interdictor/Immobiliser 418 be considered medium or small ship?

Small, I believe. Seems to match up better with the Gladiator. I did notice that the Shapeways model seems to take the notched stand as opposed to the peg stand.

The "exhausting the card" wording is in my cards because I don't want the effect being tripped multiple times a round. Too powerful to be used like that.

At 600m, it's right on the edge: the Gladiator (500m) is Small, the Assault Frigate (700m) is Medium. Personally, I would rather put it at the lower end of Medium (coexisting with 700m and 900m ships) than at the upper end of Small (150m, 300m, 500m), and my base reflects that preference. But in truth, either would work.

Interesting. I may alter the speed and manueveability of the ship to reflect that, then.

I think it works best as a small ship. Really, there ought to be more than three base sizes, but we're stuck for now with just three, so we have to work with that.

I have to disagree with Diablo - I think it ought to be a small ship. Length-wise it fits right in between the Gladiator and assault frigate, and Mel's model is only slightly shorter than the Victory (and might be a little longer than the AF, I haven't checked), but in terms of volume, it's WAY smaller than either the Victory or the assault frigate. It's not nearly as tall or wide as the Victory and not nearly as...bloated as the assault frigate.

This isn't the best picture for comparison - I'll try to take a couple better ones when I get home - but even here you can see how much smaller the Interdictor is than the Victory.

Ok, here is version 3. Changes were made to reflect a slight increase in the size of the ship...wanted something that had armament in the small ship range, but that manuvered more like a medium ship.

Ship card changes:

The ship cost was changed from 60 to 70.

The dice colors have been altered to reflect the short-range capabilities and remove mid-long range shooting options.

The hull value was increased by 1 (4 to 5)

The speed table was altered to make the ship less manuverable at speed 1.

An additional die was added to the rear arc.

Title card changes:

Any engineering cost was removed.

A shield cost was added.

Card cost was increased.

Wording was simplified and clarified.