I've searched for this and not found an answer.

There is one comment in the rulebook that ships go to the void if they are being moved and you don't have any other colonies, but what if you have colonies but four ships on each colony, do Zombie's ships stand aside waiting for a battle or space, or do they go into the void?

If Zombie's ships go to the void, then when do they come out? Do they come out as soon as I have the hyper-gate or room for them (eg. I have no room and lose four Zombie ships, so I put them in the void, but then it's my turn so those four ships come out of the void and onto the gate) Is that a correct reading of the rules?

This must be covered somewhere as I'm certain people run into this problem all the time but I couldn't find any threads on it.

Thanks for the help!

First I think we should clear up a couple of misconceptions:

1. What you are calling the "void" is actually the warp . (Void is the name of an alien power that is associated with removing ships from the game. Cosmic Encounter does not have a location called the "void", but if it did it would probably be the inside of the box, where things "removed from the game" go.) Anyway, what you want is the warp .

2. There is no limit on the number of ships you can have in each colony. Players don't have to wait until they have "room" for their ships; they just need a colony (any colony) to return them to.

The situation will never arise that Zombie is supposed to divert his ships from the warp to colonies but has no colonies to return them to. For one thing, it is extremely difficult for Zombie to get a large fraction of his ships into the warp. For another, if Zombie has no colonies to return his ships to then he also doesn't have the use of his power, so the whole question is moot.

The answer to your second question is, if Zombie does have some ships in the warp (most likely because he was zapped), they stay in the warp to be retrieved normally (the same way the other players release their own ships). Zombie's ability prevents his ships from entering the warp; it doesn't have any special ability to get them out faster if they do somehow get there.

I meant "Does Zombie go to the WARP if all colonies are full?" Sorry for the misprint

Thanks for the answer, but, woah. . . wait a second.

I just got the game and have apparently invented a huge rule that is nowhere to be found.

my rule: You can have no more than 4 ships on a colony

You are saying that there is no such rule? You can have 10 ships stacked up on a colony?

thanks for the help

There is no such rule, your Zombie player will be happy to know.

verbakint75 said:

As has been said, there is no such rule. In fact, Aliens like Amoeba and Disease are a *lot* weaker if they are limited to four ships on a planet.