I need ideas for mechanics to add

Hey Xane, welcome.

This might be a stupid question, but if the scope of your board game is so limited that it only allows for 6 combinations of actions, why not expand the scope of your game? And, I mean, a little repetition is okay, right? Also, couldn’t you expand things like an alien attack, so that they’d be different than just a fire? And couldn’t the consequences be different enough that it affects it differently?

That said, here are a few ideas: First, maybe make events that aren’t as catastrophic, but are less avoidable (basically, something that might give a penalty to the next roll, move something to a less convenient place, etc). Or, maybe make it that certain benefits cease to be available (such as there is something in the medical bay that shuts down, so unless you already picked up the first aid kit, it’s lost). Last, could an event ever be helpful (such as, aha, you discover an android helper in the closet, or even just get one turn of reprieve)?

More concrete ideas: Maybe the part of the computer that controls the doors glitches, so until you can fix it, it is harder to move from one area to another? If fighting one alien too simple, why not make 3 small ones? Poisonous gas leak (I mean, they’ll need that to extract minerals, right)? Space leach attaches to the side of the ship, requiring someone to need to space-walk to get to it? Depressurize the certain sectors (possibly killing all those who are there), and they are locked down? Solar flare causes glitches throughout the ship for X turns? Maybe the android robot you have goes bad (or you lose some other helper)? Horrible virus gets out somehow (thus crippling a crew member, and anyone who comes too close, until you bring something from sick bay)? Force field glitches create certain temporary walls, until they are switched off? Computer virus makes the panels less responsive until it is dealt with and fixed (thus, you could spend time fixing it, or ignore it until you have time, suffering penalties all the while).

Last thought, if you want to take it out of the realm of PURE cooperative, one character at random is taken over by the body snatchers, and must try to sabotage the ship (though maybe can be helped), though maybe you don’t know who it is.

Does this help, and if not, then am I missing something fundamental here?

Simon

Not necessarily. You could have one more card than there are players, raising the possibility that no one is the traitor.

You could also have different kinds of traitor, with different objectives. For example a criminal might want to steal something, but not to let the aliens destroy the base.

Just some thoughts to add:

Why not have the stations orbit deteriorate? Or possibly have a wormhole move the station back in time? This might get fiddly but it adds tension. The other thing I thought of was loss of gravity, items float from section to section and movement slows down.

Could this add some weirdness inherent in space adventures.

I thought of different roles to include secondary objectives. This gives the game the element of push/pull between the mutual conflict happening station wide, and the player's secondary goal (like Mutant Chronicles Boardgame):

SCIENTIST - goal is to keep science bay intact all other concerns are secondary (ignore crew, keep equipment powered/intact)
SECURITY SPECIALIST - kill all alien threats and recover the corpses for biological study (goes all attack)
CREW CHIEF - maintain order and don't lose any other crew (sacrifice to save others)
SPY- eliminate the enemy agent (select a token from a group that bear the portraits of all the other roles playing this game, this randomly selected role is an enemy agent and you must ensure that this agent meets with an unfortunate accident, not directly attacked)

And so on.

Well let's see damage types.

You could have the lights go out- this would slow movement.
You could have particular problems that need you have a particular object just to move through it. A gas mask for poisin, rubber boot for electricity.
You could have a section be weakend with a random shot of developing a hull breach on future turns.
You could definately use some sort of malicious space goo, that corrodes all these nessisary objects (power cells ect.)
Finally you could have some sort of goofy gas that makes movement erratic and unpredictable somehow. I've heard oxygen rich enviroments can do this.