Random idea that popped into my head after discussing with a friend what they do and don't like about armada.

One element which is nice compared to X-wing is that there's always a mission. Granted, it's often a variation on "kill everything" (kill this dude specifically, kill everything with bombers, kill everything from behind) but sometimes it's not.

It also has an edge over 'roll randomly' scenarios (like 40k) that you build your squad knowing what sort of missions you're going to play, or accept you'll play your opponent's missions and use every last point for extra killy hardware.

Scenarios in X-wing are really good fun. If you don't play them....try. Really. It's a great change.

I was wondering if there might be some mileage in introducing them into 'normal' games?

A normal game has two 100 point sides, and two victory conditions:

• Kill more points worth of enemy ships than you lose
• If you destroy all enemy ships, you win.

Suppose one of the things you could spend your 100 points on was an 'objective' card, which modifies the win conditions (by giving you something else you can do, for which you get given victory points)? Would that work?

As an explanatory example, imagine an objective card:

Objective: Disable Communications Array

Costs: X points

Rules:

• At deployment, give your opponent 3 satellite tokens. Your opponent must deploy these following all the rules for deploying friendly small ships, at an effective Pilot Skill of 0.
• Satellite tokens are treated as obstacles that can be attacked, target-locked, damaged, and destroyed as if they were your opponent's ships. Each satellite with has a hull value of "3" and an agility value of "4".
• When a satellite suffers damage or critical damage, instead of drawing Damage cards, assigned a damage token to it to indicate its current damage. When a satellite is destroyed, its token and damage token are removed from the board immediately
• In addition to destroying enemy ships, gain Y points for each satellite destroyed.
• If all your ships are destroyed, the game ends, but your opponent does not win automatically if you have scored more points in total.

How many points would you pay to include this in your squad/expect to earn for it? At what price point would you actually try to complete a mission rather than just kill your opponent?

The above is a very game-changing objective. Alternatively:

Objective: Trophy Kill

Costs: X points

Rules:

• In addition to destroying enemy ships, gain Y points if you destroy your opponent's ship that is worth the most squad points.

Would be a very 'cheap' objective and probably not be worth very much - because it wouldn't change the game a great deal (I'm not convinced it'd be a worthwhile objective, to be honest, because you should always be seriously considering gunning for your opponent's most expensive ship....)

Still only a newcomer to Armada and we haven't used the objective cards yet (we play it so infrequently we have a difficult enough time remembering the core rulesand to shoot, then move) - but it certainly looks like they can add a metric crapton of depth to an already tactical game.

Would something similar be good for standard 100/6 X-Wing? Possibly.

Having to account for having cards like Most Wanted or Intel Sweep in play and needing to potentially play the game in a slightly different manner as a result could open up the list building process, at least.

I like it a lot.
I don't know how that works in Armada, but in X-wing you could make it so every player needs to bring 3 mission cards to every match, then at the beginning of the match, every player randomly chooses 2 face down mission cards from his opponent, flips them up and then selects one. The selected mission card becomes his opponent's mission for the match.

This could really open the design space, since missions could be just about anything. They would be a passive effect running during the whole match, and the designers could be really creative with that.
From straight missions as you have described, to special squad variations like
"Infamous Squadron: Place a non-unique non-restricted non-discard-on-use EPT upgrade card that costs 1 or fewer points over this card. If all ships under one player control share type, all those ships gain that card's ability text."

Or

"Meteor Shower: At the end of the End phase, all obstacles perform a 1 straight maneuver towards the right side of the board. If an obstacle leaves the board from the right side, the player with fewest scored points places it within range 1 of the left side, at at least range 1 of any ship."

Or

"Just Covering the Evacuation: Place a GR-75 transport on a corner of your board edge. If at the end of the End phase of any round your transport has left the board within range 2 of the opposite corner, you win. If it is destroyed, you lose."

Quote

I don't know how that works in Armada, but in X-wing you could make it so every player needs to bring 3 mission cards to every match, then at the beginning of the match, every player randomly chooses 2 face down mission cards from his opponent, flips them up and then selects one. The selected mission card becomes his opponent's mission for the match.

In armada, you pick 3 cards in fleet building, then either your opponent picks one of yours, or you pick one of theirs, depending on who is the 'first player' (think Initiative in X-wing terms). The resulting mission applies to both players.

It works pretty well. My main thoughts why you wouldn't port the system across wholesale:

• The big one: If it's a bolt-on to the game mechanics (which it is; the generic 'game of X-wing' as it currently exists has no overarching mission beyond 'settling things the old navy way'*), as opposed to something 'baked in' from day 1 (like it is with armada), then the system has to allow for either only one player, or neither player, wishing to use a mission. Hence, the objectives should be specific to one player, with the other player merely being encouraged to stop you (to avoid you getting 'free' points) rather than having a load of mandated victory conditions they have to meet.
• If there's the possibility of only one player wishing to use a mission, then having them pay for the privilege of doing so makes sense to me, because (presumably) they're gaining an advantage by doing so. Equally, the cost of providing your squad with a mission card and the options to earn extra points/gain bonuses in deployment/whatever are something you need to be balancing against "just having another TIE fighter".
• Since they're paying points, that opens up the possibility of different mission cards having different points costs, which in turn allows different missions to have different cost/reward balances and/or in-game benefits. Theoretically you could have a mission card which essentially says "you are a ridiculously cool mary sue godlike super-ace. Show off by destroying all and sundry" which provides massive benefits to one pilot - but then the player can be charged an appropriate amount for it.
• That in turn means you're selecting your mission at squad building, which is good, because then you should be designing your squad with its mission in mind (in addition to simply slaughtering your opponent as quickly as possible).
• Which in turn means the mission card can in turn be properly integrated into squad building; if a mission card costs X points, and makes a specific 'squad leader' (or 'ridiculously cool mary sue godlike super-ace') who has to achieve the objective to prove how awesome they are, then giving them the bonus of one or more additional Elite upgrade slots, for example, might be workable.
• Additional thought: If a player spends points on something, there needs to be a mechanism for the opponent to 'win' those points - Fortunately, a mission could have succeed/fail criteria - succeed and you get umpty ump bonus points, fail and your opponent gets the squad point cost of the mission card as if it was a ship he'd destroyed.
• Not sure if scores should be capped at a maximum possible of 100 points, but it seems fair to me - after all, the absolute best a player who doesn't want to use (or doesn't own) mission cards can do is 100-0 someone. If mission cards potentially allow someone to 150-0 or whatever, then anything based on points scored gets skewed out of whack.
• Yes, theoretically that might mean that if I wipe you out completely but you've completed a mission, we might get a 100-100 draw, but even that has it's own balancing factor - because if we've both got 100 points, but I've got it through a mission completion but all my ships are dead, then you should have a pretty **** easy time of it with Final Salvo....
• At the same time, some sufficiently desperate missions (the ones where pointedly you want to allow the mission player to win even if wiped out) might include bonuses to Final Salvo to counterbalance this; if it's a last stand - an ace taking on 2-1 odds to 'buy time' for an evacuation - then the idea is that if that 40-50 point ship manages to take a 60-70 point chunk out of the enemy squad before he goes down, you should win.

* First one to die, loses.

This idea pops up every 12-18 months. I always like it. There is a debate about what missions would be fair or balanced. People often come up with ideas. There are a lot of traps to watch out for with to fight Suicide Runs and things like that. @Babaganoosh is much better than myself for building missions that are pretty balanced. You should look at some of his.

Overall, many people like the idea and want it. There are a lot of people that don't want it and say they wouldn't play with it. I always talk about how with WHFB they said they were introducing missions. Many claimed it was the death of the game and you couldn't play tournaments that way. It turned out to be a big hit and worked really well in tournaments.

19 minutes ago, heychadwick said:

There is a debate about what missions would be fair or balanced. People often come up with ideas. There are a lot of traps to watch out for with to fight Suicide Runs and things like that.

Yeah, that's the big kicker. If it's possible for one side to have a mission and one not, or two sides to have different missions, you need to apply a lot of logic to make sure there are no mutually exclusive victory conditions/scenario rules, for example.

14 minutes ago, heychadwick said:

There are a lot of people that don't want it and say they wouldn't play with it.

Indeed. Much as I like mission scenarios, the idea is that no-one should forcibly have the "just kill everyone" objective taken away from them.

16 minutes ago, heychadwick said:

I always talk about how with WHFB they said they were introducing missions. Many claimed it was the death of the game and you couldn't play tournaments that way. It turned out to be a big hit and worked really well in tournaments.

I've only really played 40k and Battlefleet Gothic, rather than fantasy, where there have always been mission objectives. People have often expressed dislike of particular scenarios or missions (Maelstrom of war is - I think - good fun, but is very much a love-it-or-hate-it game, and the potential for the cards to screw you over despite your tactics exists), but rarely have people expressed dislike of the concept of a scenario.

I'm not opposed to the idea of Mission cards in X-Wing at all, and scenarios with alternative win conditions are always fun to play out. Brainstorming ideas for casual/kitchen table play works for me.

However, the counter-argument I've always seen (and the one I tend to agree with) with mission cards in X-Wing is "why focus on the mission when I can just blow up all my opponent's ships before they gain any/enough mission victory points?". If my opponent is paying squadron points (per the OP's example of how missions might work and be included in a squad) and I show up with a full 100 point squadron list without missions, it's going to be that much easier for me to destroy my opponent's entire squad before they get any mission victory points to help equalize their own disadvantage.

4 minutes ago, Derpzilla88 said:

I'm not opposed to the idea of Mission cards in X-Wing at all, and scenarios with alternative win conditions are always fun to play out. Brainstorming ideas for casual/kitchen table play works for me.

However, the counter-argument I've always seen (and the one I tend to agree with) with mission cards in X-Wing is "why focus on the mission when I can just blow up all my opponent's ships before they gain any/enough mission victory points?". If my opponent is paying squadron points (per the OP's example of how missions might work and be included in a squad) and I show up with a full 100 point squadron list without missions, it's going to be that much easier for me to destroy my opponent's entire squad before they get any mission victory points to help equalize their own disadvantage.

Missions could affect both player with environmental or passive effects, perhaps making a "destroy all" approach less effective.

Indeed. And that should remain a choice - you're essentially setting yourself a mission of "kill everything" with a bonus of "have a full 100 points to spend on your squad".

That needs to be the point against which any alternate mission is balanced.

I think it might have been @VanorDM who mentioned playing a format where each side was required to take a ship with an Intelligence Agent on board, and the objective was to be the first person to take down the other side's agent. Said it was a lot of fun, but someone put together a list which was almost impossible to beat in the format.

Playing multiple objectives like Armada could bypass that issue, though. Sure, you might be able to build a list that could win Most Wanted 99% of the time, but how would the same list fare in Intel Sweep? Or standard 100/6?

Just now, FTS Gecko said:

Said it was a lot of fun, but someone put together a list which was almost impossible to beat in the format.

Yeah that was a tournament I played in and one guy put the intel agent on the Phantom which was docked with the Ghost, which was flying with Biggs. So missions like that have to have something in them to prevent easy wins.

In that case something like 'The intel agent can't be on a ship that's docked to another ship' could fix the problem.

49 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Indeed. Much as I like mission scenarios, the idea is that no-one should forcibly have the "just kill everyone" objective taken away from them.

31 minutes ago, Derpzilla88 said:

However, the counter-argument I've always seen (and the one I tend to agree with) with mission cards in X-Wing is "why focus on the mission when I can just blow up all my opponent's ships before they gain any/enough mission victory points?". If my opponent is paying squadron points (per the OP's example of how missions might work and be included in a squad) and I show up with a full 100 point squadron list without missions, it's going to be that much easier for me to destroy my opponent's entire squad before they get any mission victory points to help equalize their own disadvantage.

There are ways to set up the missions where losing ships is important and could cost you the game. This should be a good thing. So, it is possible to just blast the other side off the table to victory. Some of that comes down to a few things, though. At the moment, there are some tournament lists that are about avoiding damage and/or out lasting your opponent. Those types of lists wouldn't do well if your goals were to kill the enemy quickly. Also, if your opponent managed to get around you and got to the objective while you destroyed half to much of their list, it might just come out as a close game or lose for the person going for the kill. Depends on the objective points and how many you got to kill before they hit the objective. There is also the idea of a mini swarm or swarm where you can only kill so many enemy cheap ships a turn. This could favor the opponent as they can hit the objective before you can kill enough of them to make the points matter. So...I think being able to win by killing the enemy is a valid tactic and should be something people think about, but I would say it's not always a winning strategy to play.

54 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

I've only really played 40k and Battlefleet Gothic, rather than fantasy, where there have always been mission objectives. People have often expressed dislike of particular scenarios or missions (Maelstrom of war is - I think - good fun, but is very much a love-it-or-hate-it game, and the potential for the cards to screw you over despite your tactics exists), but rarely have people expressed dislike of the concept of a scenario.

This was all around when 8th Ed WHFB was coming out. There was a pretty strong tournament scene internationally. We even had 100+ people tournaments here in NC at least once a year. There were many podcasts and such. Before that, it was just "kill them all" games that scored points purely on defeating everyone. GW declared that all tournaments would be with the d6 mission in the back of the book (with one being a "kill them all" mission). They were pretty simple and interesting missions. If you were clever and had a flexible army list, you could claim victory from a beat stick army that was bashing any unit it faced. It took feints, distractions, and cheap units to go for the objectives while you sacrificed the rest of your army. Many people hated the idea. Nay sayers said it would be the end of tournament play. There was no way you could manage that in a tournament. It would be too complicated. Others said it took away from the purity of the game and the true essence of what it was to play it. Many of the same arguments I hear about introducing it to X-wing. That's why it completely makes me think of that transition. It turned out to be a piece of cake and most people enjoyed it after the fact. There are always salty dogs, though.

I didn't realise it was that recent! I'm used to 40k having mission scenarios as the default all the way back to 2nd edition, and kind of assumed that WHFB had been the same...

As to scenarios - I agree. The Armada mission cards are good examples - superior positions, for example, rewards a corvette/raider force for doing what it should be doing anyway (shooting enemy heavy capital ships in the backside) and gives them bonus points for doing so, which are pretty good at making up for the fact that they're unlikely to actually do enough damage to kill a star destroyer (especially with it's dial nailed to Engineering commands and Motti in charge!) over the course of a game, and that engaging the ship broadside on (or, god forbid, with its forward guns in play) is basically suicide.

1 hour ago, heychadwick said:

Overall, many people like the idea and want it.

Real XWM is what I would call it. Even the video games had missions; you didn't just fly around blasting things.

1 hour ago, Derpzilla88 said:

I'm not opposed to the idea of Mission cards in X-Wing at all, and scenarios with alternative win conditions are always fun to play out. Brainstorming ideas for casual/kitchen table play works for me.

However, the counter-argument I've always seen (and the one I tend to agree with) with mission cards in X-Wing is "why focus on the mission when I can just blow up all my opponent's ships before they gain any/enough mission victory points? ". If my opponent is paying squadron points (per the OP's example of how missions might work and be included in a squad) and I show up with a full 100 point squadron list without missions, it's going to be that much easier for me to destroy my opponent's entire squad before they get any mission victory points to help equalize their own disadvantage.

Well, then, you would be one of those players that doesn't take missions. And that is not true if the mission put you at a disadvantage in some way. Like, for example, KILL EVERYTHING is not the endpoint of the game.

1 hour ago, Azrapse said:

Missions could affect both player with environmental or passive effects, perhaps making a "destroy all" approach less effective.

Which, IMHO, would broaden list building options because there is no longer one and only one focus to play.

45 minutes ago, VanorDM said:

Yeah that was a tournament I played in and one guy put the intel agent on the Phantom which was docked with the Ghost, which was flying with Biggs. So missions like that have to have something in them to prevent easy wins.

In that case something like 'The intel agent can't be on a ship that's docked to another ship' could fix the problem.

Nothing that couldn't be fixed with a time-honored errata

I like the idea of missions but my problem would be this, as long as kill all enemies is a win condition alpha strike lists would ignore all objectives and kill as quickly as possible. Think when torp boats ruled the skies, who cares if you had to take out 3 satellites you were dead by turn 3. Crack swarms would also be a terror of speed, although harder to implement and more of a gamble.

The kill them all win condition must be removed or missions mean squat, like winning by squad death in a mission scenario actually loses you X points so a MOV win might actually be given to you opponent if they managed to take enough of your stuff out but stayed on mission.

I am still a big fan of, how should I put it, global condition cards. Think the arena in ff7, you have a deck kinda like planechase for mtg and you flip it at the beginning and it would have some global affect on it. Like say all missles and torps have guidance scrambled because of a nebula -2 red dice to attack or some such.

You could also then spend a pilot action to flip a new card or maybe just add a further card to the list to a max of like 3 cards. Things like this will shake up the meta more than anything because you never know what advantage might be taken from you so being an eggs in one basket list would be foolish.

39 minutes ago, LordFajubi said:

I like the idea of missions but my problem would be this, as long as kill all enemies is a win condition alpha strike lists would ignore all objectives and kill as quickly as possible. Think when torp boats ruled the skies, who cares if you had to take out 3 satellites you were dead by turn 3. Crack swarms would also be a terror of speed, although harder to implement and more of a gamble.

The kill them all win condition must be removed or missions mean squat, like winning by squad death in a mission scenario actually loses you X points so a MOV win might actually be given to you opponent if they managed to take enough of your stuff out but stayed on mission.

It's important to separate the win condition of a squad wipe (killing all the enemy ships), from the points gained by killing enemy ships. Lots of times in missions, it is easy to create scenarios where it is not in one side's interest to attack the other player's ships, and this generally makes for boring games. X wing at its core is a dogfighting game; good missions play to that strength and encourage players to engage one another. One good way to do that is to award points for killing enemy ships, in adddition to objective points.

1 hour ago, LordFajubi said:

I like the idea of missions but my problem would be this, as long as kill all enemies is a win condition alpha strike lists would ignore all objectives and kill as quickly as possible. Think when torp boats ruled the skies, who cares if you had to take out 3 satellites you were dead by turn 3. Crack swarms would also be a terror of speed, although harder to implement and more of a gamble.

The kill them all win condition must be removed or missions mean squat, like winning by squad death in a mission scenario actually loses you X points so a MOV win might actually be given to you opponent if they managed to take enough of your stuff out but stayed on mission.

I am still a big fan of, how should I put it, global condition cards. Think the arena in ff7, you have a deck kinda like planechase for mtg and you flip it at the beginning and it would have some global affect on it. Like say all missles and torps have guidance scrambled because of a nebula -2 red dice to attack or some such.

You could also then spend a pilot action to flip a new card or maybe just add a further card to the list to a max of like 3 cards. Things like this will shake up the meta more than anything because you never know what advantage might be taken from you so being an eggs in one basket list would be foolish.

Huh. Global conditions could be interesting... Have like a random condition card drawn at the beginning of the match... Change rocks to ion clouds, large scale jamming (munitions accuracy)... Yeah, I like that one. It's relatively simple, impacts both players equally (in theory) so could be done...

2 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

Nothing that couldn't be fixed with a time-honored errata

If we were to play that mission again, I'm sure we'd do something to address it... I don't remember anyone feeling like they were cheated out of a win, because while it was cheesy, it was completely within the rules of the mission and frankly brilliant, it was also something no one else thought of.

It says something about that player that he felt worse about it then anyone else did at the end... I don't' think he expected it to be quite that effective.

3 hours ago, LordFajubi said:

I like the idea of missions but my problem would be this, as long as kill all enemies is a win condition alpha strike lists would ignore all objectives and kill as quickly as possible. Think when torp boats ruled the skies, who cares if you had to take out 3 satellites you were dead by turn 3. Crack swarms would also be a terror of speed, although harder to implement and more of a gamble.

The kill them all win condition must be removed or missions mean squat, like winning by squad death in a mission scenario actually loses you X points so a MOV win might actually be given to you opponent if they managed to take enough of your stuff out but stayed on mission.

I think it can be set up so that not ever mission grants victory with an alpha strike win. That way, you have to take the same list not knowing which missions you will have to do. It means an alpha list would have the advantage in some missions, and utterly not in the others. It is also match dependent.

10 hours ago, heychadwick said:

I think it can be set up so that not ever mission grants victory with an alpha strike win. That way, you have to take the same list not knowing which missions you will have to do. It means an alpha list would have the advantage in some missions, and utterly not in the others. It is also match dependent.

Or a mission that establishes an environmental effect that affects both players that makes full ordnance squadrons less reliable, and encourages a more mixed approach.

Affected by Interdictor Gravity Well :
When attacking with (torpedo) or (missile) secondary weapons, the defender may cancel one attack die result.
Immediately after a bomb token is deployed, before checking for any condition that would make the token detonate, the owner of this card must perform a 1 straight maneuver with that token towards any direction.

If you take a 100 point "kill em all" torpedo squad with no mission card, then obviously you would just try and kill as quickly as possible because that's all you have to get points.

It's not therefore your mission - you're just trying to kill your opponent, but with your target priority skewed because ideally you're trying to stop me completing my mission in the process.

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Think when torp boats ruled the skies, who cares if you had to take out 3 satellites you were dead by turn 3

Taking that as an example - this is not a question of "it doesn't work in any way" but one of "where is the balance point?" - there must be a theoretical point of balance where the payback for essentially ignoring the torpscouts and punching through or evading them to hit the satellites becomes an equally or even more attractive option.

You (as a player without a mission card) never lose the "get points for killing your opponent" criteria. In fact it's your only criteria.

Your opponent (as a player with a mission card) however, has additional rules and criteria. If one of those rules is "don't lose automatically if wiped out", he's still needing to kill ships and satellites to get points, but he can afford to lose all of his squad, and can still win if he's done well enough at the mission. The downside is that he needs to, because he'll lose a straight up fight, because he doesn't have a full 100 point squad.

Is total points scored still a thing tracked at events?

If so, then I think the "capping both sides' score at 100" remains important.

Completing a mission could give you points (but then you're pushing past a cap of 100 points) or alternatively, a mission completion could reduce your opponent's final score.

Consider a theoretical "interceptors dive into torpedo scouts, ignore them, vaporise the satellites and then get torpedoed in the back". This is not intended to be balanced numerically, just a mental exercise to see where effects come into play (actual numerical values can be tweaked up or down as required to balance difficulty):

• The Scum player has 3 jumpmasters with umpty-ump torpedoes and upgrades, to a total of 100 points. No mission card, no special rules.
• The Imperial player has 3 (non-unique) Royal Guard Pilot Interceptors, with the stuff they normally have. She's got generics not Soontir Fel et al because the remaining 10 points have been used to buy the "Destroy the satellites" mission card. This card includes the following rules: "Whilst the game ends if you have no ships remaining, you do not automatically lose", "fail this mission if you destroy no satellites" and "for every satellite you destroy, reduce your opponent's final score by 30*".
• In the subsequent game, the torpedo scouts kill all three TIE intereceptors. They manage to kill one jumpmaster before they die.
• In a normal game, this would be 100-33 to the scum player, because the Imperial player has lost all her ships.
• Because of the mission, whilst the game still ends when interceptor #3 dies, but you then go to work out points to determine who's won.
• The Scum Player has killed 90 points of ships
• The Imperial Player has killed 33 points of ships
• If the Imperial Player has destroyed no satellites, she has failed the mission, and the scum player gets the points for the mission card as if it was a ship he'd killed. This makes it a 100-33 win for the scum player.
• If the Imperial Player has destroyed 1 satellite, she has succeeded (partially) in the mission, and the scum player gets no points for the mission card, making it 90-33. In addition the satellite token reduces the scum player's score by 30, making it 60-33. Still a scum win.
• If the Imperial Player has destroyed 2 satellites, she has succeeded (partially) in the mission, and the scum player gets no points for the mission card, making it 90-33. In addition the satellite tokens reduce the scum player's score by 60, making it 30-33. Close, but an imperial win.
• If the Imperial Player has destroyed 3 satellite, she has succeeded (totally) in the mission, and the scum player gets no points for the mission card, making it 90-33. In addition the satellite tokens reduce the scum player's score by 90, making it 0-33. A serious imperial win.
• Yes, in the last case the scum player wiped out his opponent and ended up with 0 points. But whilst his own victory conditions aren't changed (kill everything, receive it's points value), he clearly made little or no effort to stop the Imperial player completing hers.

* Yes, all right, it's extreme, but I'm just trying to make sure it's a simple example!

Let's get 6-10 objective cards worked out and start play testing. I'm on Vassal with same username as here. I'd be down for trying out these objectives.

Im not a fan of paying points for them. I like the idea of bring 3 cards and your opponent chooses one. That's your objective. Both sides have objectives.

4 minutes ago, BlodVargarna said:

Let's get 6-10 objective cards worked out and start play testing. I'm on Vassal with same username as here. I'd be down for trying out these objectives.

Im not a fan of paying points for them. I like the idea of bring 3 cards and your opponent chooses one. That's your objective. Both sides have objectives.

For people willing to stay close to the standard format, while not minding letting the other person spice up their own game with missions, i would propose these mission cards to be added to the pool:

Supremacy:
Be the one to score most points in 75 minutes.
For each ship your lose, subtract its total squad point cost from your tally.
Your large ships count half their total squad points if they go below half their total hitpoint count.

And two other similar cards with slight variations that remain close to standard.

6 minutes ago, BlodVargarna said:

Let's get 6-10 objective cards worked out and start play testing. I'm on Vassal with same username as here. I'd be down for trying out these objectives.

I'd like to see something started. I'm not on Vassal, but I've got an open minded playgroup on Tuesdays.

Thoughts on mission types - it is harder to balance mission types when both sides have 100 points, without adding a fair amount of extra balancing on scoring. That, I suppose, is the advantage of global environment which just blanket hits the standard 100 point battle with random elements.

mission cards would totally open up the design space.

I also thought about the idea that each player brings three face down mission cards and then your opponent chooses one. That mission becomes your opponent's mission.

This creates more uncertainty (which missions will my opponent place?!) and doesn't allow you to build a list around a known set of conditions.