Vacuum and Vacuum super flare

By Gesmi, in Cosmic Encounter

I have a question about Vacuum power.

1) Can he send to the warp any ships from any player? Even the players that were not in the encounter? It is weird because the Vacuum flare card says: "You may choose which opposing ships are lost...." That suggest that it can usually be used only on opposing players/ships.

2) A question from the FAQ topic, but i cant see answer anywhere. Can I use the super flare power with vacuum to remove ships from foreign colonies, thus reducing other players foreign colonies numbers?

Vacuum's power applies to any player; it doesn't say opposing players. While the Wild and Super powers are usually related to the power in some way, the idea of the Wild flare is to be a weaker version of the original power, so you shouldn't read into it too much.

Yes, the Super Vacuum can choose ships from foreign colonies. What a beast!

But Super Vacuum can choose only opposing players ships to the warp as the super flare says?! He cannot use the super flare againts other players than the opposing one. Is that right?

No, Vacuum (and Super Vacuum) can pick any player. The use of the word "opposing" is a bit odd here, since it could either mean "your opponents in the current encounter" or "opponents in the current game" (i.e. anyone else).

The word "opposing" is for the Wild flare. If you are not Vacuum, you can use his flare to choose which ships your opponent loses (I think), and opponent is definitely a player on the opposite side in a particular encounter, not any player; otherwise, it would say any player.