I'd like to close a few loopholes that allow for some un-thematic shenanigans. I hate making changes to a tightly balanced game, so before I did, I thought I'd ask some of you who've had experience playing the game for your insight. By changing these rules for thematic reasons, am I missing some key mechanical consideration that justifies them as necessary evils, or do you think the changes should work? Also, if you think I've misinterpreted the theme of said shenanigans, please say so!

First, a change to Starbuck's "Expert Pilot" Ability :

" Expert Pilot -- If you are piloting a viper at the end of your Move Step, you may take 2 actions during your Action Step (instead of 1)."

Now Starbuck can't expertly pilot her way through two Press Conferences.

Second, regarding the " activate up to [X] unmanned vipers " text found on the Command location and Apollo's CAG Ability:

"... activate up to [X] different unmanned vipers."

Now controlling vipers through Command feels more like a chess game, Apollo feels more like a team leader than a mentor/instructor, and the rules (at least to me) more accurately reflect a plain reading of the text.

If there are any reasons why either or both of the above two changes might introduce more problems than they solve, please let me know. Thank ye!

While I don't mind the change for Starbuck (making her more sucky than she already is), I have problems with the latter. A Viper activation is a very precious commodity - and Lee has his strength just because of it. As I said in the other thread - there is a reason for this rule, and the reason is that you NEED these Viper activations *DESPERATELY*. I can make a game winning difference if you have on Viper guarding your civilian ships with two Raiders clocking in.

I strongly advise against changing this ability just because it fits nicer into the background.

Anything that makes it harder for the humans to win is to be avoided. They have a hard enough time already.

James

I don't think they'll be game-breaking. Maybe just wait until you start seeing a fair share on human wins, then implement them.

I would rather change the text to "you are allowed 2/6 viper activations", as clarified by the designer.

I agree that would weaken the humans too much.

Thanks to everyone for your advice!

I agree that it's a bad idea to make it even more difficult for the humans to win. That said, I still can't shake the problems I have with Apollo's "Super Peptalk" ability. I recognize that many of you are comfortable prioritizing game mechanics well above theme, and you're probably shaking your heads at someone who's clearly willing to risk an already delicate balance in the interests of theme. But please try to understand, even if you can't agree: The idea of Apollo making some unnamed rookie a better pilot than Starbuck is like nails on a blackboard to me! Moreso because it's really the only black mark I see on an otherwise perfect game.

Also, I don't understand how any character's ability could be "*DESPERATELY*" needed when, at least in theory, the human players don't "*DESPERATELY*" need any specific character. I'm not trying to be flippant; this is honestly one of my justifications for nerfing a strong character. Put another way, as long as I don't make Apollo worse than Starbuck, I haven't made it any more difficult for the human players to win than if they decided to run Starbuck instead of Apollo .

I'll defer to all of this wisdom, however, and leave things unchanged for the moment until I have a better feel for the game's tight balance. Again, thanks for your help!

Just keep in mind that peoples opinions are just that, opinions. Play it as it feels best for you and your group of players. Any game should be about having fun and if theme is more important to your fun factor then by all means, house rule all you want

If you want to theme-up Apollo's ability a little bit without nerfing it to heck, maybe put a limit of 2 activations of any single viper. So, he can still pep talk a squad of three to shoot twice (or perhaps more likely, move/launch and shoot once) without having one particular rookie pull 1.5 times Maximum Firepower.

If you force him to activate six different vipers, most of those actions are going to be launches (which is fairly boring). Not to mention if the abilitiy isn't used early in the game, he's likely to not get full effect as there will be some vipers damaged.

Now that I think about it, I don't think anyone has ever actually used the CAG ability in my group, even though we would allow one viper to act six times. And Apollo has been present in roughly 1/3 of our games.

Ah, I like that idea a lot. I think I'm still going to hold off on making any changes at all until we play for long enough, but if I do change Apollo's ability, I think that's the one I'll go with. Thanks!