I was playing as the Dervish.... Sam ... joined as an ally, then I said I am using my power to switch hands between the three of us involved in the encounter(Myself, defense and Sam). As soon as I indicated this he played a Force Field card to stop his alliance and withdraw himself.

That isn't a legal play. Since you have already announced the use of your power, the only actions that can be played now are actions that cancel or otherwise modify your power use. So he could play Cosmic Zap, or something that says "if a player is about to take cards from you," or something else specifically related to your power. But his Force Field is not a specific response and thus has to wait for the current action to finish.

In other words, Cosmic Encounter does not have an "action stack" like, say, Magic the Gathering. Responses to actions (and responses to responses) of course can stack up, but "top-level" game actions have to wait their turn.

Another Question. This one is about the saboteur. On the saboteur it says that you reveal your token when a ship "lands" on a planet with a token next to it. What constistutes landing on the planet? Obviously gaining a colony would but what about when a person is in the regroup phase and tries to put ships back onto a planet where they already have a colony? Does this constitute landing? What does it mean by landing. This must be more than just colonizing or else colonizing would have been the word used. What other situations might apply?

Another Question. This one is about the saboteur. On the saboteur it says that you reveal your token when a ship "lands" on a planet with a token next to it. What constistutes landing on the planet? Obviously gaining a colony would but what about when a person is in the regroup phase and tries to put ships back onto a planet where they already have a colony? Does this constitute landing? What does it mean by landing. This must be more than just colonizing or else colonizing would have been the word used. What other situations might apply?

Any time a ship is put on the planet, it is landing. Besides your regroup phase, more examples are putting ships on a colony after they allied with the winning defensive side, ships released by Mobius Tubes, ships placed on a colony after a successful deal, ships being swapped for each other by a flare (I cannot remember which one), and ships being returned after completing a tech card. There might be other examples I have missed.

I think a section on deals is important. Specifically, about whether or not specific stipulations on card or colony trades are mandatory.

My favorite interpretation:

During a deal, anything you agree to in a deal that has to do with card or colony trades is mandatory and must be carried out truthfully. When it comes to trading colonies or cards, you can only formally agree to something that you can actually fulfill.

For example, if I agree to give you "4 cards from my hand", I can give you any 4 cards because no specifics were given. If I say I will give you "one attack 40 and two attack cards higher than 17", then I must give you one attack 40 and two attack cards that are higher than 17.

As for colonies... if you agree to "colony for a colony" with no stipulations given, then seems like each player may form a colony anywhere the other player involved in the deal has ships, because no specific planet was agreed upon. But if you were to specify "you can have a colony on this specific planet" then that is where the ships must go

^ This seems to be the most widely used interpretation by experienced players, and it is the most fun. I recommend making it a more explicit part of the rules in FFG Cosmic by adding it to the FAQ so all players can enjoy these nuances.

Also, here's a FAQ question (that is somewhat related to deals but has other applications as well)

Q: When a card or game effect (such as a deal or a Flare card) allows me to "establish a colony on a planet" can I do so using any number of ships I like?

[some powers really, really like having huge stacks of ships on a planet. Seems to me like there is nothing in the rules to stop you from making a deal with a player, o establish a colony using 15 of your ships; and I'm not saying it shouldn't be allowed, it's a fun tactic, but in my experience it seems "off" to some people and should probably be ruled on in a FAQ]

Also, please errata the Remora in the new FAQ so that it can draw cards from the Rewards deck. It is too weak with the expansions but is easily fixed!

Another question about the Mesmer. It says that it can play any artifact card as any other artifact card. I think this must be clarified because technically this includes the defender rewards artifacts (omnizap, finder, space junk etc...) from the way i interpret it. This can mean that it is able to discard any card to do an omnizap. Obviously it would still need to remove ships from the game like the card says but to me this seems too overpowered. Now, if it can only use the original artifacts (mobius tubes, ionic gas, emotional control, force field, card zap, cosmic zap and plague) then that seems fair to me.

Actually the design intent is that Mesmer can manufacture any aritfact that exists in the official FFG Cosmic Encounter gameplay universe. It's strong, yes, but not broken. Rolling his own Omni-Zaps requires Mesmer to pay two different costs: the ship loss, and the loss of an artifact that could have been used for another purpose. Plus he had to have an artifact in his hand in the first place.

Strong aliens like this also have "soft disadvantages" that are easy to overlook, such as the fact that his hand is a magnet for theft and destruction. Compensation, Finder , Hand Zap , Angler , Pickpocket ... other players will be very motivated to torch and raid Mesmer's hand often. In fact, a smart Mesmer finds ways to use his gifts to help other players also, and thus benefit from the resulting allegiances.

Finally, his power is already very dependent upon luck of the draw. Sometimes Mesmer will have almost no power at all due to not drawing artifacts. Quartermaster will deny him artifacts consistently. These limitations require that there be other times when his power is scary-good, so that it balances out over the long haul.

I've owned Cosmic a couple years and can't believe this issue didn't come up until tonight!

- Can you choose to have an encounter on a foreign planet where you already have a foreign colony? What happens if you win?

What happened in our game is that some of us were in an "alliance" (hehe) and when each others' colors would come up, we would simply target planets where we already had a colony, thus not negatively impacting the player we had an encounter with. This seemed like a cheesy tactic, because it overrides the destiny deck's purpose of forced encounters, and doesn't require any negotiate cards to lead to a peaceful outcome.

The way we house-ruled it was that if you win, you simply add your ships the number already present in the colony.

I forgot to add that we made this tactic SUPER cheesy because we would ask each other to be defenders in these encounters, thus we would all draw extra cards as defender rewards in these harmless encounters.

Our game was still fun, but I have to admit that I was part of that alliance-of-cheese. It probably wasn't very much fun for the 2 people not involved.

- Can you make a deal to win a shared victory with someone? (i.e. trade for a 5th colony)

I told everyone no to this, but now I can't seem to find any justification. It actually looks like you can use a deal to trade for the 5th colony and win the game. Which seems double cheesy to me! My old group automatically played this way because we all found it so cheesy we couldn't believe it would be a rule.

The big thing that comes up in my playgroup is how to "randomize" the exchange of cards during compensation or the like. Some of us feel that you should be able to just pick from the opponents hand even if they have different card backs which could influence your decision in hand, such as the defensive rewards deck. The various cards that can hurt you when grabbed like the rifts or a -attack if you aren't a spiffy loser we feel adds a good decision making element to compensation like effects when choosing between the two card backs. The other half of our group maintains that it should be truly random using some kind of blind shuffle mechanism. It would be great to get an official ruling on this.

The big thing that comes up in my playgroup is how to "randomize" the exchange of cards during compensation or the like ... if they have different card backs ... It would be great to get an official ruling on this.

This is resolved on the Cosmic Dominion rulesheet. You get to see the card backs and can thus focus on cosmic-back cards or reward-back cards.

What does it happen if the Chosen changes his encounter card after his opponent has revealed a Morph card? The Morph will copy the new card or the original card played by the Chosen?

1) If the Pacifist reveals an N card and his opponent an Attack Card, can his opponent then play Emotion Control to change the result of the encounter into a deal?

2) Pacifist vs Chosen: the Pacifist reveals an N card and the Chosen an Attack Card. Can the Chosen use his power to change his card into an N? Or the Pacifist's power still works because it considers the original card revealed?

In this case, if the Chosen is the defender, can he use his power or the Pacifist's one triggers first and ends the encounter?

What does it happen if the Loser has declared an Upset and both the cards revealed are Morphs?

What does it happen if the Loser has declared an Upset and both the cards revealed are Morphs?

OH, I got this one. "A second morph card is included in the reward deck. It works exactly the same a the morph card from the cosmic deck. If both players in an encounter play a morph card, both sides lose all ships in the encounter and go to the warp. " Even after the upset id declared both sides lose.

As a new learning player, I was confused about the "start turn" rule on drawing cards when you have NO encounter cards. Initially it says on page 7 of rules book that you would in this situation, "reveal any cards remaining in hand, discard them, then draw a new hand of eight".

Then later under drawing new cards on page 15 it states, "the offense must play (if possible) or discard any non-encounter cards, and draw eight new cards and continue".

So clarification would be nice for a new player on this in the FAQ, as these are 2 different rulings for the same situation and in the latter ruling I wonder if the description should read. "The offense MAY play (if possible) or MUST discard ALL non-encounter cards..." as that seems to be the general consensus on the rule (see BGG) and yet it isn't entirely clear, to me at least, that this is the case.

Anyways, that's my couple of cents worth.

Wondering if there is any movement on this?

As a new learning player, I was confused about the "start turn" rule on drawing cards when you have NO encounter cards. Initially it says on page 7 of rules book that you would in this situation, "reveal any cards remaining in hand, discard them, then draw a new hand of eight".

Then later under drawing new cards on page 15 it states, "the offense must play (if possible) or discard any non-encounter cards, and draw eight new cards and continue".

So clarification would be nice for a new player on this in the FAQ, as these are 2 different rulings for the same situation and in the latter ruling I wonder if the description should read. "The offense MAY play (if possible) or MUST discard ALL non-encounter cards..." as that seems to be the general consensus on the rule (see BGG) and yet it isn't entirely clear, to me at least, that this is the case.

Anyways, that's my couple of cents worth.

It probably should be a suggestion, rather than saying "Must". Essentially, if at the start of your turn, you KNOW that you are going to have to discard your cards, you might want to play your Plague card if you have one, because it's your last chance to do so. You could not, however, play a Mobius Tubes card, because that comes during the Regroup phase, which means that it happens AFTER you draw your new hand. That's my interpretation, anyway.

I have a question -- I just taught a few people the game this afternoon, and this came up.

One player was Laser, and the opponent in his challenge was Trader. Laser clearly comes first -- so the other, and it forces the Trader player to set aside cards. Now if the Trader decides to trade hands, what happens to the cards that he was forced to set aside?

We did come up with a way of handling it, just so we could continue the game. But I'd like to know if there is an official ruling on this. What we did is we decided that the cards set aside do not count as part of the trader's hand, so he trades whatever cards he has left (if he has encounter cards left, because if he doesn't, he automatically loses the challenge immediately after the Laser 'blinds' him). Thus, those cards set aside return to the Trader's new hand. But I'm not sure that that is correct. That just happened to be how the players I was with thought it should work.

I have a question -- I just taught a few people the game this afternoon, and this came up.

One player was Laser, and the opponent in his challenge was Trader. Laser clearly comes first -- so the other, and it forces the Trader player to set aside cards. Now if the Trader decides to trade hands, what happens to the cards that he was forced to set aside?

We did come up with a way of handling it, just so we could continue the game. But I'd like to know if there is an official ruling on this. What we did is we decided that the cards set aside do not count as part of the trader's hand, so he trades whatever cards he has left (if he has encounter cards left, because if he doesn't, he automatically loses the challenge immediately after the Laser 'blinds' him). Thus, those cards set aside return to the Trader's new hand. But I'm not sure that that is correct. That just happened to be how the players I was with thought it should work.

Bingo

This question came up on StackExchange and while the rules seem pretty clear I wanted to make sure I had this right.

A system has only four planets for any reason. We'll say this is Red.

All four of Red's planets are occupied by Green.

On Green's turn, he draws Red.

Must Green have an encounter with Red even though Green is already on the planet? The rules say yes, but... well, I don't wanna.

If Green does not have to have an encounter, what happens instead? Draw new destiny? Or just move 1-4 tokens to the target planet for free?

Green still has to encounter Red.

So...

Still no FAQ update.

Was a time when this company excelled at product support.