board effect cards for spaaaace

Mongoosedog,

One of the things I've used in my adventures, be they D&D or Serenity is the third-party (which I'm using loosely to define anything other than the main antagonist and protagonist in the story). So, in a Space Game (which, by the way, we'll have to compare notes, as I'm currently in the throes of designing and developing one, as well), I would offer the following two ideas as primers:

- Space Debris/Radiation: No Movement through this tile/hex/space for 'x' number of turns or suffer hull/computer/personnel damage

- Alien Encounter: Another race has been alerted to your presence and deploys ships/probes/etc to the location

Hope that gives you something to think about, moving forward.

Cheers,
Joe

Unless this is some kind of catchup mechanic, slowing down a player who killed off another player's big ships to prevent them from getting too far ahead, I don't think that there should be any negative effects at all. However, if it is, only having negative effects makes sense.

Ponder what the purpose of this "event deck" is in your game, and focus in on what you're trying to do with it. I don't think that this is a good time to induce another element of randomness that could potentially destroy your ship on the death of an opponent's ship, but that's my own personal interpretation.

Have you considered a "veteran" system, where destroying a big ship with another big ship grants that ship's crew experience? It could be kept track of on a card for that ship set to the side of the board that also details what each level of veteran status means for the ship. This would replace the event deck, methinks.

What about something like:

1) system malfunction: If the attacking ship is within X many spaces of the destroyed ship, then the player is limited in some way next turn...cannot move, cannot attack, shields down, etc. Maybe roll for randomness.

2) Gravity Burst: Maybe the explosion cause some gravity anomaly pulling the attacking ship (and maybe others) within X spaces 1 or more spaces closer to the destroyed ship.

3) Pressure Wave: The expansion of the matter from explosion pushes the attacking ship 1 or more spaces away from its current location.

Hope those ideas help spur other ideas. Good luck!