Phew! We have a big update for you this week. Not only do we have an update on the icons (see previous blog post where we asked for help) but we also have adapted our card templates based on all the great feedback we got (see previous post about card templates). Most of your valuable comments came to us on other websites, forums and reddit pages, so please keep your feedback coming! (on this website or wherever it is you happen to be). We hope you will like what we have done with this latest revision.

New cards and templates

From left to right we have: Developments, Ship designs and Operations. Developments and Ship designs are similarly colored and styled because they represent “things that go on the map” when played. In other words, when you play a ship, the card will leave your deck and instead transform into a 3D model on the map. The same thing happens when you play a development, so the act of building things thins your deck indirectly. When a ship or development is destroyed or discarded from the board, it reverts back to a card and goes into your discard pile.

Operations, the right most card are a little different in that they are played, do something and then get discarded.

Let’s go a little deeper into each card type:

Developments

Most cards cost resources to play, which is in the top-left corner. The special indicators on the left-middle will show you important things like: this card is Unique (only 1 on the board allowed) or that it is an HQ (only 1 HQ per Sector).

Tech-level is a universal meter that lights up to tell you if the card is zero, one, two, or tech level three. Higher tech level cards can only be obtained in-game by researching them and are more expensive to include when building decks from other factions outside of your own.

The lower area holds important icons with values, victory points for this item, some possible troop bonuses, political influence points etc. All the values on this lower part of the card are values that will be accumulated together when totaling up a Sector’s value.

Rotating around to the bottom middle we have our special text, which could be literally anything we are willing to code and debug, and above that is a number that indicates the Structural points of the development (basically it’s life points). Naturally the card has a name, but also subtypes for triggering off of other combos; and last but not least, a faction banner (which has yet to be designed so it is just a solid color).

Ship designs

Below the resource costs on the left, Ships have a size indicator that is a symbol and beneath it a reminder of the movement cost of this particular sized hull. We see in this example a circle icon; which tells us this is a large (dreadnaught sized) vessel. Dreadnaughts cost a lot of energy to move, which is why the movement-activation cost of this card is 3 (indicated right below the green circle).

At the bottom we see a curious row of modules. Ships will almost always have several modules equipped, each module is a special ability of some kind, many of these abilities are attached to a numeric value of some kind, which is listed below. Unlike the other two card types you will notice that ships are purely symbolic, meaning there is no free-text field, just modules. Modules can be added, improved, changed and there will be an ever growing pool of new modules to adapt to your ship models. We will eventually do a whole post on just the modules themselves.

Above this we see two red and blue symbols. The large red number is this ship’s base Attack power and the smaller red number is its Retaliation: how much damage this ship does when fired at, in return. The blue number is its Hull, or life points. How much damage it can take before being destroyed and put back into your discard pile.

Operations

Many operations are played, do something and then get discarded. However some operations have a little red X on the left (like this one), which instead indicates that you play it once, and then it gets moved to the Void instead of your discard pile. For current intents and purposes moving it to the Void is like removing it from your deck for good.

Otherwise the card is fairly simple. The art is presented in portrait instead of landscape and with a full gradient bleed. A lot of text space leaves the future open if we felt like writing long complicated unending card text with missing punctuation (what do you mean that’s a bad idea?)

Other card types?

We just showed you 3 card types, but in actuality there are 3 more card types still to come:

Each deck will be built around a home world, with a special ability. This is your starting sector and drives your deck building. Every sector you explore is connected to a Sector card and a final card type are Mods. Which we won’t tell you much about right now, because we are only just getting to know one another, and you need to keep coming back for more, right?

Hey icons!

Oh yeah, our icons look different, as I am sure you noticed. Someone was also kind enough to point out that we spent an entire blog post talking about them but never mentioned what they actually meant! Ahem, yes so without further ado, here are the new icons along with what they actually are conceptually:

There are 3 base resources in the game: materials, research and energy. Or if you are a geek for science: matter, time and energy.

Generally, you will need materials to build everything, what do you make first? Research will require you to make difficult decisions between playing cards that cost Research, drawing new cards or buying higher-tech cards. Finally, Energy is used to not only create things but also to move elements around the map, or to activate certain abilities, forcing you to prioritize what is important.

Feedback? Next reveal?

So, are these new card templates nice? Did we finally make some good icons? What would you like us to talk about next? Here are some aspects of the game we could reveal:

Concept art for our alien race(s)

Concept art for our ships in progress

How higher technology cards are acquired in-game

How you construct your deck to play

Reveal information about Sector and Homeworld cards

Detail out how battles work

More about modules

A video demoing the Alpha in action with a real turn taking place?

…

Okay, I’m going to stop there because that’s already a lot!

Have a great weekend!

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