AlexChurchill/SpaceDogsbodyPlaytests

14 Feb

• Lots of problems that should be fixed by making the upgrade stations reliable sources of most common upgrades.
  
• Laser making pirates just ignore you isn't quite right. Have a 1 in 6 chance of getting caught?
  
• Asteroids could replenish faster.
  
• People like the pirate movement rules, the trading post, and the way booster works.
  
• Cash could be a resource to be spent.
  

21st Feb

• Derelict Ship is far too swingy.
  
• Nobody was banking this game.
  
• Curious tourist may be too good.
  
• Cash-in-bank could be secret.
  
• Some elements of the geography could be fixed.
  
• 30-cash endgame may be too soon?
  
• Buy prices could come down.
  
• Yellow asteroids could have different replenish rules: one tile per turn rather than when mined.
  
• When Pirate Lair is explored, it should make a pirate.
  
• Would like some kind of balance mechanism to allow players to cope with strategies that turn out too good
  
• Could people pay cash to someone else's Tourist to steal him? Lets players set value of a tourist...
  
• Upgrade slots down to 2?
  
• Douglas wants some mechanic whereby if two people try the same strategy, it becomes less profitable for both of them.
  

28th Feb

• Tourist strategy is too dominant, especially over missions.
  
• With 2 Tourists and 1 Luxury Cabin, do you get 4 or 3 per turn? Played 4, should be 3.
  
• Could remove the bonus cash from luxury cabin entirely.
  
• Upgrades on ship could be worth some points/cash.
  
• Should also score points for resources on board ship at end.
  
• Could make game end only trigger when someone has 30 in the bank??
  
• Want more interaction, more ways to disrupt one another's strategies. Tempt was meant to be that but not really working.
  
• Pirate Lair very nearly got destroyed.
  
• Douglas was getting raided a lot early on - his score was about 4 after about 4-5 turns when others had ~10 - but tourists were too strong; he won at 31 vs 27ish, 23ish, 18ish.
  
• Game was closer than people thought.
  
• Could let everyone start with a tourist instead of an upgrade? - Or even have an initial auction for which tourist people get, after people see the board layout!
  
• Geek should give far more.
  

6th Mar

• Reputation board broadly went down well. Numbers may need tweaking. Especially the Freelancer track: fulfilling missions is just really hard. End stats: Douglas 6 Merchant, Alex 2 Freelancer, Douglas 1 Sherriff, Douglas 3 Hacker, Andrew 6 Hacker for the win.
  
• D6 for laser (5/6 they raid you with 0 lasers, 1/6 with 1, 0 with two lasers; destroy has 5/6 chance of working) seemed to go down well.
  
• Douglas's nefarious idea of sitting in the Market taking alternating buy & sell actions looked terrifying, but actually didn't seem to serve him that well.
  
• Two people got 6 upgrades.
  
• Rulings for Hacker track: You can't overbuild Engineering Bays at all.
  
• The limited numbers of upgrades no longer seem like a good idea. I made more token e-Bays.
  
• I worried that Curious Tourist was still too good, but then spent quite a while haemorrhaging money with 20+ onboard cash and a dogged pirate following me.
  
• Commercial Stations in the red zone make people want a reminder card with the costs of all the techs on.
  
• Once again suggestion of having a built-in spare bed. But then nobody would buy Spare Bed ever. Still, as it is the passengers never ever get used because the tourists consume all your beds. Maybe just abandon the concept of beds entirely, and let any cargo space work as a passenger/tourist space?
  
• Jolly Roger needs to be max once per turn.
  
• Business Cards are too expensive.
  
• Mad ideas: vary number of actions with number of players in the game?  2p,3p,4p=>2,3,4? or 5,4,3??
  

27th Mar

• Redesigned tiles are fun, and definitely make missions a lot more achievable. Alex was close to winning by hitting point 4 on the Freelancer track.
  
• Scores: Edwin 43 (Sheriff 6 Hacker 1 - Laser, Laser), Alex 30 (Freelancer 3 Hacker 1 - Drill, Spare Bed), Vitenka 29 (Merchant 7 Hacker 1 - Cargo Bay, Drill), Douglas 20 (Hacker 1 - Spare Bed, Luxury Cabin).
  
• Sheriff 6 = instant win ($25 track, $18 for 6 pirates). Merchant 6 = instant win if at least 3 of your 9 sales are top tier resources ($25 + 9 sales at $1-$3 each). Freelancer 4 is probably instant win ($15 track plus 4 mission rewards of around $5). Hacker 6 isn't quite instant win unless you have the Geek, but you'll have a heck of a ship and you ought to be able to do something with it.
  
  • If the person who gets the free laser goes straight for buying a second laser ASAP, they may be able to get to the Sheriff 6 a bit too quickly. I might like to make it that Sheriff 6 isn't quite instant win, you need some small amount of other cash too.
    
• Game had a number of fun moments. Hitting a payoff point on the rep track always feels good; Vitenka did one Sell action for a total of $21.
  
• Need cheat sheet of red-zone improvement costs.
  
• Nobody bought business cards even though they're just 1 diamantium now. Could come down to 1 cylium. Nobody's bought either kind of advertising or the Jolly Roger yet, but they've not had much chance.
  
• Nobody banked this game either, which I'm not too happy about. Nobody bought any resources but someone considered it, which I'm fine with.
  
• Accidentally played with two yellow warpgates, but it worked just fine. (Meant there was only 1 Hermit target but that worked out okay.) More warpgates seems to be good. Needed a rule for warpgate onto Sirius Minor: I ruled you can then move one more space.
  
• Needed a rule for what happens when a pirate tries to spawn but there's already one at the Lair: I ruled that it sits there waiting to spawn until there isn't one at the Lair.
  
• Geography is good (slingshot is good, warpgate 2steps are good). Things making geography more relevant/interesting are also good. Making people have to get $40 in the bank to trigger game end might make geography more relevant. However if onboard cash still counts for determining winner, could end up with nobody willing to end the game because the trek to the bank would take long enough.
  
• Not sure resources on board ship being worth cash at the end is sensible. It's fiddly and doesn't seem very relevant.
  
• For the first time a Passenger got carried: the Hermit, to a Debris field which Alex mined out and then left the Hermit there.
  
• Tourist strategy really didn't pay off this time. The Reputation board payoffs have dwarved tourism a bit. I think this may not be a problem; tourists can enhance a strategy rather than be one in themselves.
  
• Still want to try variation with bidding on an initial tourist.
  
• Some of the mission cards want tweaking.
  
• Delightful comment: "It's fun. Publish it as it is. It's better than 90% of what's on the market, although not as fun as the top 20% of what's on your shelves."
  

3rd Apr

• Played with the initial tourist auction. Douglas liked it. qqzm and I didn't.
  
  • It tells you what strategy to go for right from the start.
    
  • It does counterbalance any imbalances in the tourists.
    
  • This was qqzm's first game. He said he preferred the sound of having an initial tech.
    
• People got about 8 turns. Game is over too quickly. Mainly fault of the Reputation track.
  
  • Sheriff track in particular is pretty quick to get going and very hard to stop.
    
  • Although destroying the Lair should have worked and we just didn't realise quick enough.
    
• Vitenka said Drill is too expensive. But one got bought and used.
  
• The Trading Post and Mineral Retail both saw use as sources of high-tier minerals before red zone was explored.
  
  • As a corollary: starting off with some cash makes a lot of difference if you want to buy a resource.
    
• Consumerist seemed weak, although don't change him yet. Rock-lover seemed weak at first but paid off quite a bit.
  
• I fear the game may be best without Spare Beds, letting tourists / passengers live in a normal cargo hold. Replace initial Bed with initial Luxury Cabin.
  
• People disagreed on whether needing to get cash back in the bank would be a good idea.
  
• People commented on how "Fun enough to repeatedly playtest" was a good sign.
  

• Add cheat sheet: new section of doc.
  
• Bank Window doesn't charge for deposits.
  
• Add initial Advertising Space.
  
• Reworked Mission cards as above.
  
• Destroying Pirates now gives you a red resource tile, not $3. Sheriff track still works as it did.
  
• Instead of initial cash, when game end is triggered, finish the round: each player goes until start player.
  
• Try auction for initial technology, not tourist.
  
• Target cash: was 30, then 40 when rep track arrived, then 50 with 10-16 initial; take it up a little. Players start on 5 cash for auction; target is 50.
  

• On the "more interaction, more ways to disrupt one another's strategies" front: action, drop a parasite drone in a space: other players taking an action there pay you 1 cash. Perhaps everyone has a drone, has 2-3 different uses of which this is one?
  

17 Apr

• Played to 50 cash, initial auctions for techs, and finish at end of round. Everyone crossed the winning threshold in the same round!
  
  • Final scores: Edwin 51, Alex 55, Andrew 60.
    
  • Reputations: Edwin Hacker 4. Alex Hacker 4 Freelancer 2 Sheriff 6. Andrew Hacker 4 Freelancer 4, first to both. So reputation income was Edwin $10, Alex $40, Andrew $30.
    
  • Edwin went "cash for existing": 2 Tourists, 1 Luxury Cabin and Advertising Space meant he got $4 at end of each turn, $5 if he mined or explored.
    
  • Game ended Round 11, so everyone had 33 actions: income between $1.5 and $2 per action.
    
  • At one point, Hacker scores were 3/3/3. Nice tension.
    
  • Alex got 2 Lasers, Andrew 1, Edwin 0. Edwin banked once he was paying 2 to pirates.
    
  • Alex got $21 in the last round: mission for $7 + $5 Freelancer points, Advertising Deal for $4 plus $5 Hacker points. Andrew won by making a final delivery to Station Zeta for $10 Freelancer points.
    
  • Game ended with 4 red tiles still face-down.
    
• Luxury Cabin says "passengers", not just tourists. This was unintentional, but seemed fun so we kept it. Andrew got a little income from Hermit and another Passenger.
  
• Requisition missions have the drawback that you can just claim them without any intention of fulfilling them. But that's probably fine.
  
• Mixture of randomness (mission cards, available tiles, red-zone tile locations) and predictability seems good.
  
• Bank Window could be better in the red zone.
  
• Jolly Roger should let you steal $2 not $1, but perhaps only once per turn. Alternatively those figures sound like 1/10 onboard cash might be fine.
  
• Drill could let you mine 3 times, or as many times as you have cargo space for? That'd also power up Cargo Bay a little.
  
• Auction for initial Upgrade worked fine. I think it'd still be fine to just get them randomly though. It is quite an overhead at the start.
  

21st Apr

• First 2-player game. Works fine!
  
  • Found the Lair on Round 3.
    
  • Rachael trounced me. Game ended round 11 again, and scores were 61 to 30. Rachael had Hacker 6 and Geek, Alex Merchant 5 Hacker 3.
    
• Rules clarifications (to add to rules doc):
  
  • Pirates don't slingshot.
    
  • Pirates ignore number of lasers when choosing targets.
    
  • You can explore, look at the tile and what's dealt onto it, then decide whether to use booster to keep moving in that one movement action.
    
• Formatting tweaks:
  
  • Mission cards need blue arrows indicating the applicable actions.
    
  • Lose the red arrow from Lair, and change "3+" to ">=3".
    
  • Typo on Consumerist.
    
• Merchant track 5 is a natural and irritating place to get stuck.
  
• Geek could go back to $2 reward?
  
• "Geography can feel a bit mean: the things you want are too far away".
  

22nd Apr

• Rachael thrashed me again:
  
  • Round 11 end yet again.
    
  • Rachael $53, Sheriff 4 Hacker 4.
    
  • Alex $22, Freelancer 2 Sheriff 1 Hacker 1.
    
• Rules clarifications:
  
  • How does retail work?
    
  • Consolidate victory conditions: no need for forced game-end.
    
  • Can Pirates target someone in a Dust Cloud? Flavour says no.
    
  • Can you use Drill to get an Asteroid's Cash and resources in the same action? I think so.
    
• 1 laser was useful even though she was aiming for double laser.
  
• She found it "unexpected" that certain upgrades are only at certain Stations.
  
• Debris is too confusingly similar to but different from Asteroid Belt.
  

24th Apr

• Felt like a slow game. Ended on round 12, not 11.
  
  • Alex: $52, Merchant 3, Hacker 6.
    
  • Andrew: $40, Hacker 5 Sheriff 1 Freelancer 1.
    
  • Vitenka: $27, Freelancer 4 Hacker 1. Next turn would have got $12.
    
  • Andrew had this silly turn: Start with Geek on board at Omega. Build Double Laser. Kick out Geek for Thrill-seeker. Attack Pirate. We wondered if the rules could somehow let him get the Geek's payment even though Geek wasn't on board by the end.
    
• Players' cash does feel very exponential. All the investments pay off at the end, and you need to time it right to get yours.
  
• Fantastic tweak proposed to Business Cards (which have still never been bought): rather than cash, they make it so fulfilling a mission gets you an extra Freelancer reputation point.
  
  • Also discussed a fiddlier idea where they can go in a cargo slot. If I want to going there then maybe I should just unite cargo & upgrade slots to 4-5 and be done with it.
    
• More discussion of the idea that when buying upgrades, you could pay cash instead of one of the resource tiles. It would have to be a lot of cash: $4-$5.
  
• Decided it would be a very bad idea to let all yellow stations sell all yellow upgrades, but we could let all yellow stations sell E-bays.
  
• Warpgates' cost could be $1 flat. ( Or 1/100 of cash rounded up - I.e. $1 or $0 if you have none at all.)
  
• There should be more unpredictability to the red tiles. Have more than 10: each game include Zeta, Omega and the Lair, but randomly choose the other 7 from a pool of 10-12, including some more bad ones.
  
• All the $1 spaces are rarely worth it and I don't know whether it's worth having them on the board.
  
• People asked for a scanning action. Could allow an action "Look at all face-down spots adjacent to you".
  

• Pirate Bar. One Pirate Raider appears here when turned face up. If all 3 on the board, you choose one that gets teleported here. Offers one mission.
  
• Tollbooth comes back.
  
• Junkyard offers one of each type of resource tile.
  
• Red asteroid with 1 yellow space as well (that does replenish).
  
• Mineral buyer who pays $2 for every kind of resource (because yellows are scarcer up in the red zone and reds are more plentiful). Offers one mission.
  
• Corrosion field: when you enter the space, discard a red resource tile from your ship and gain a random yellow tile instead.
  
• A red copy of Trading Post.
  

1st May

• Slow game: round 13 finish.
  
  • Stuart could have won on round 12, but only realised a turn later.
    
  • Scores: Rachael 49 - Freelancer 6 (powered by Business Cards), Hacker 1
    
  • Alex 51 - Hacker 4, 2 Beds
    
  • Stuart 54 - Freelancer 2, Hacker 2, Sheriff 5, Merchant 3: a scoring level on all 4 tracks!
    
  • First game with the larger pool of red tiles. Stuart went looking for some asteroids but took him a long time to find any, although there were actually 4 in the pool. If the pool is just 1 or 2, that could be bad.
    
  • Banking happened and was very relevant. Rachael suffered from banking too much and having pirates take the resources she needed.
    
  • The red resources Stuart got from destroying pirates were useful, valuable, but did successfully encourage him to move around.
    
  • We got through every Mission card! Reshuffling worked fine, but I might want to consider printing a few more.
    
• Business Cards definitely work, and make Freelancer a viable strategy. Rachael did come last, but all of us misplayed at various times and she definitely could have won.
  
• Some quotes: "I had fun flying around blasting things", "There's not much to tweak except really minor things", "Feels like there's no point in the Merchant track when there's other things to do".
  
• Engineering Bay anywhere = good. Other upgrades only in one spot also = good.
  
• Cosmetic issues:
  
  • Something should say somewhere what you get for destroying a pirate.
    
  • Something should say somewhere you can't have more than 2 of any upgrade.
    
  • A,B,G vs alpha,beta,gamma is fiddly.
    
  • The font on the cards may be too small.
    
  • Rules should say pirates don't take package tokens.
    
  • Pirate Bar reads too much like Pirate Lair: rename to Cantina.
    

• Suggestion that the second of any upgrade could cost more than the first, by $2 or similar. I don't really see why though.
  

• I do like some unpredictability in the red tiles, but I have some worries:
  
  • Certain strategies might be doomed from the start. Merchant in particular will be very variable according to whether there's a reseller or not. But the asteroid quantity will be very variable too, which affects upgrades that need red resources, most obviously as Luxury Cabin and Double Laser but also simple Drill, Booster and Business Cards.
    
    • One solution would be to increase the size of the red area to 3x5, making the board 6x5. Then every (or almost every) red tile would be there somewhere. Pros: More to explore; almost every tile you want will be there, although maybe a long way away. Cons: More overhead of board layout; may not address the issue if targets are too far away; would increase the need for scanning.
      
  • Mineral Reseller is clearly useful. Might it be too good? Someone with just a laser (to ignore pirates) can go: mine, mine, mine, fly, sell, fly: gaining 6 cash and 5/10 in rep; do that three times to get 18 + 25 cash = 43. Another 6 cash from anywhere (such as another iteration) will win. Yow. Doesn't work with passengers / tourists unless also cargo bay. Drill makes it scarily quick turnaround. Booster makes it work on almost any geography. Definitely need to give this a try and see if it's too good.
    
• Rather than give players the short-range scan option, I could add a long-range scan action at one particular site, like Planet Dishwater (reconcepted as an Observatory or some such).
  
• Booster is great as a starting upgrade but never gets bought. I suspect this is because the starbon is a hard-to-come-by red resource. People could buy it, but very expensively; or trade for it, but with what? By the time anyone can buy it it's halfway through the game and the booster has lost half its value. This is especially a problem because the Freelancer track really needs a booster. So I could take down the cost to, say, two Cylium. I don't think that'd break anything because space for upgrades is just as much at a premium as red resources: anyone taking an early Booster is giving up the cargo transport space for some other upgrade. I'd like to see it viable to buy early Booster but not dominant, and I think this would achieve that.
  

• As a more radical alternative, also prompted by how it sometimes feels frustrating that you only have room to carry resources for one major upgrade: I could change the costs of all the upgrades from A + B to A + $N. Booster costs Cylium+$3, Bed costs Cubon+$1, Cabin costs Starbon+$3, etc.
  
  • This would make onboard cash matter a lot more. It might make it easier to get set up with the ship configuration you want earlier - as long as you find a source of early cash!
    
  • It would radically alter the dynamic of the game though. I could consider trying it, but certainly not switch for definite until after several playtests.
    

• Pro: Warpgates would get used more.
  
• Con: People would bank less.
  

• Carrots: reward people for having little cash on board? Or even more directly, reward people for banking...
  
  • Bank Window: let the deposit action also give you two steps' movement? Instead of on warpgates? Could also add more red tiles to increase speed of getting around.
    
• Sticks: Cost people for having lots of onboard cash, either for doing things they want to (warping) or in other penalties (pirates).
  
  • Could add 1/10 cash charges to other things, but people would probably just not use them. Unless it's still worth doing even so, in which case it's a strategic discovery opportunity...
    

• Another thought. There are a few ways in which the current system of resource tiles is pretty unwieldy: most obviously the Mineral Retail, but also distributing all the resource tiles onto asteroids at startup and after mining. I could move away from randomised tiles into more predictable five colours of cube. One yellow asteroid has "Mine: Take a Green or a Brown", one "take a Green or a Red", one "a Brown or a Red". When destroying pirates, on a 2 you get a Red, 3-4 Yellow, 5-6 Blue. Trading Post might need to change. But that would provide a gameplay experience that's significantly less fiddly, less random (which may not be a good thing) and requires less specialised components (the two bags).
  

7th May

• Added Observatory. It got used, to find Reseller.
  
  • Alex: $57, Merchant 8 Hacker 4
    
  • Rachael: $47, Freelancer 5 Hacker 2
    
  • Drill at 3 resources is very powerful. I used it 7 times (5x 3 resources, 2x 2).
    
• Add to rules:
  
  • Keep a discard pile for each bag. Stick them all back in when bag empties.
    
• Lazy missions are fiddly to remember if you pick them up on action 3.
  
• Upgrade idea: a Safe to hide your onboard cash in?
  

12th May

• Final scores:
  
  • Alex $28, F3 H3: initial Laser, but undecided strategy
    
  • Matthew $45 F2 H4: initial Ad Space, Laser, Cargo Bay
    
  • Sebi $56, M6 H4: initial Cargo Bay, Drill, Bed for Clara
    
  • Matt $60, F1 H2 S4: initial Bed (mainly Calvin) replaced with Luxury Cabin (Tom), Double Laser: only player without an EBay
    
• "Not much to do at the start except mine"
  
• "With Calvin and a diamond and a star, going searching for Zeta seemed natural"
  
• People particularly liked: exploring; reminder cards; mission icons; "Spare Bed" (though flavour dubious); Ad Deal as a late game "VP-scumming" option; reputation board (though numbers may want tweaking); pirate movement.
  
  • "Pirate movement is the most interesting & unique thing about the game."
    
• People thought Pirates don't do enough. They're inevitable but just a minor nuisance. You don't go out of your way to avoid them.
  
  • "Make them slower but scarier." They take 50% of your money kind of scary.
    
  • Perhaps try: Any action in a space with a pirate -> pay pirate tax. Moving onto a space with a pirate -> pay pirate tax too. But each player moves just one pirate not all of them.
    
  • Want Lair to be scarier too. Treat it as having a virtual pirate there all the time.
    
• Visual tweaks:
  
  • If upgrades were colour-coded to which station they come from, it'd be easier to tell at a glance where you want to go.
    
  • Put cards landscape on tiles not portrait.
    
• One player wanted more distinct geography / geometry. Doesn't like the way there are so many routes between spots.
  
• Upgrades:
  
  • There are "just better" red versions of two yellow upgrades: Bed -> Cabin, Laser -> Double Laser. Could do the same with Booster -> Warp Drive (lets you take the Warp action from anywhere); and make current Drill the red version "Double Drill", with a cheaper single-drill version.
    
  • Could let Drill be "Mining Laser" which has some defensive value (escape pirates on 4-6 or 5-6).
    
  • On the absence of EBays at red stations: two players like it, one doesn't.
    
• Strategies:
  
  • Want there to be a viable strategy for most/all combinations of rep tracks, or even of upgrades.
    
  • Freelancer and Merchant track fight for your resource tiles.
    
  • Could there be Missions that encourage you to go sell something, or even go shoot something? One yes vote, one no vote.
    
  • They like how "Bed or not" is a viable choice either way round for almost all strategies.
    
  • Don't like how Sheriff or not is a very binary choice. Once you have two lasers, you go shooting, automatically. (Although next game Vic didn't, and nearly won anyway.)
    
• Banking:
  
  • Would happen more if there were more spaces to do it. Add a Bank option to Station Omega (and rebrand Omega->Pi, Zeta->Omega).
    

13 May

• Scores:
  
  • Rachael $65, M9 F2 H1
    
  • Alex $33, M2 F2 H1. I seem to be really bad at this game. Maybe I just always try to leave the most fun/effective things for other players to do.
    
  • Vic: $58, M3 F4 S1 H2.
    
  • Susy: $49, M3 F1 S2 H4.
    
• Lots of things people liked. They claim it's approachable even to people like them who aren't strategy gamers (?!).
  
  • "My main comment is that I want to play it again!"
    
• Didn't feel pirates were insufficiently nasty.
  
• Upgrade idea: Portable Bank Window. Lets you take an action to Bank at any time.
  
• Reseller + Drill + Merchant is just too strong.
  
  • Reducing initial Drill to 2 resources not 3 might help, but even with no Drill at all it's still mine-mine-mine-fly-sell-fly for 11 cash.
    
  • Reseller does lots of good things for the game - enough that I'm considering making it an always tile like the Stations - but it is a problem how it interacts with Merchant track.
    
  • Could limit Merchant track to 1 step per sell action? But that makes it so obviously gameable (encouraging splitting your sell actions).
    
  • Could limit Merchant track progression but /only at Reseller/. Either max 1 or max 2. Or half rep.
    

• Booster: change to cost Cyl Cyl.
  
• Warp Drive at Pi, costing Cyl Star. |> Warp to any Warpgate; No cost.
  
• Cashpoint at Omega, costing Star. |>Transfer cash either direction.
  
• Alter tiles: Landscape cards.
  
• Add cards to deck of 33 (most "producable" number). Tentative plans:
  

  - +2 Tourists -> 7
  - +2 Requisition -> 5
  - +3 Shortage -> 10
  - +1 Package -> 5
  - +1 Passenger -> 6 = 31
  - +2 Tech Request: give us one of your upgrades for $5 = 33. 
  - Also increase Clara's bonus to $2; perhaps standardise every bonus except Calvin's at $2? 

• Reseller gives half Merchant rep rounded up.
  
• Add Bank Window functionality to Pi. Add something to Bank Window.
  
• Recolour upgrades.
  
• Lair counts as having a virtual pirate there all the time.
  

• Find a way to add pirate-destruction reward to reminder cards.
  
• Replace most card text with icons.
  
• Make space tiles black.
  

• Make Pirates slower & scarier.
  
• Combine reminder cards and ship boards.
  
• Remove bags & make Asteroids deterministic.
  
• Other upgrades have partial interaction with pirates: Mining Laser, Safe etc.
  

• Hacker + Freelancer: Hacker sets you up well for Freelancer via beds, boosters, and of course Business Cards. They somewhat compete for resources, but not too bad.
  
• Hacker + Merchant: Again, some competition. Getting set up for Merchant takes some upgrades, and Drill / Cargo Bay naturally set you up for doing both of these. Fine, I think.
  
• Hacker + Sheriff: Some hacker points are necessary for Sheriff. Nothing really necessary beyond lasers though. But Sheriff gives you resources which you have to spend somewhere. Not bad.
  
• Hacker + Income: Ad Space and Luxury Cabin will both give Hacker points; and also, once you've got the income you'll want something else to do, and be short of upgrade space and/or cargo space, so naturally get more Hacker points. And of course Gary makes this very scary. Fine.
  
• Freelancer + Merchant: Not good: a bit too much competition for resources. Might happen with cargo bay & drill I guess.
  
• Freelancer + Sheriff: A bit odd. Blasting pirates doesn't really lend itself to fulfilling missions. Could add a mission "Destroy the pirate closest to this space!", but it adds a lot of rules. Someone doing this is either a defensive double laser with occasional blasting, or a primary sheriff giving away the resources they win.
  
• Freelancer + Income: Somewhat compete for upgrade slots. But could probably work okay. Henrietta pushes this.
  
• Merchant + Sheriff: Absolutely: it's what Sheriff pushes you towards with the red tiles. Mostly if there's a convenient Reseller.
  
• Merchant + Income: Plausible. Merchant has more Tourists than many tracks, with both Gertie and Clara.
  
• Sheriff + Income: Also works great. Tom and the red tiles for Luxury Cabin make this work great.
  

• Gary & Tom down to $2 bonus.
  
• Initial Drill down to "Mini-Drill" (2 rather than 3).
  
• Combine reminder cards & ship boards.
  

• Retitle Sheriff -> Vigilante!
  
• Could redistribute the board to be concentric layers rather than rows. Would need yellow & green concentrating down to 9 and red expanding to 16 - or could have just the corners unknown, making 13 / 12.
  
  • One option: Each corner contains one economic tile (station / reseller / etc), one anomaly (Dust Cloud, Vortex, etc) and one mineral source (asteroid). But then if you find economic & mineral you know to avoid the anomaly...
    

• Is it a problem that goldfish mine-sell can max out Merchant on turn 7-8? Perhaps not as that's just 35 cash - though it's another 12 with Clara or Gertie. Hmm, maybe so.
  
• Maybe not much of a problem given that sometimes Hacker seems overly dominant, sometimes Sheriff does and sometimes Merchant does!
  

• Pirates still not scary enough. But I don't think I want them to be much scarier.  Solution: more of them. Have Pirate Lair visible from the start, and produce on each round of the start player's turn from the beginning. Maximum is number of players. Slower to catch people at first, but that's probably a good thing! And fills up the board with pirates pretty quickly, which I think is what I want...
  

• Explosives Cache hasn't come up either game despite me forcing it.
  
• Visible Pirate Lair is good & I'm inclined to keep it.
  
• Deterministic resources I'm in two minds about. It does change things a bit. There's still a lot of randomness, but it's mainly now in the tile layouts, and a little in the mission cards. It does reduce fiddliness.
  
• Pirates still don't feel very scary, but did cost me $6 or so and force me to get a defensive laser.
  
• Mining Isolene to sell is too easy.
  
• The game is very explosive. Half the points are scored in the last two turns. Chiefly at fault is the Reputation track payouts.
  

• Mini-Drill restricts you to two different things. Drill allows at most two the same.
  
• Spare Bed -> Spare Beds. Can carry any number of passengers (each in a different cargo bay).
  
• Explosives are a little bit too good. Don't know how to tone them down.
  
• Should maybe make Mineral Retail not have a mission slot on it, as Industrial Shortages are very quick to fulfil there.
  

• It's tempting to plan a strategy around an upgrade that's only available at Station Pi or Omega and then not find that station. The randomness in how easy it is to find the red stations is too much.
  
• Exploration is very random: sometimes people hit horrible red tiles, sometimes great ones. But I do want it to be both risky and rewarding to explore.
  
• I keep wondering whether the reputation payouts are too high. Problem is, reducing them would reduce the VP income for Vigilante and Hacker relative to Merchant and (especially) Freelancer.
  
• I also keep wondering if Merchant might be dominant if someone really focused on it... or sometimes it seems Hacker is too powerful... then at times it seems Freelancer is too strong... and sometimes Tourists are an absolute powerhouse... Which I think means it's actually all pretty well balanced :P
  
  • But Merchant's playstyle is so mechanical compared to other strategies: mine, fly, sell, fly, repeat. Also, Merchant can win without ever going to a red tile. Not sure if I want that possibility or not.
    

• Someone wondered if the board is too modular. The proposal was made to separate the tiles more precisely: Warp Gates only appear in rows 1, 3 and 5; at least one red station is always in row 4; the Dust Cloud is more relevant in row 3, so force it to always be there; etc.
  
• Similarly, mission cards could come from decks more precisely matched to the areas they're found in.
  
• The $1 on asteroids is pretty unnecessary. Could make it an automatic reward for the first player to move there.
  
• A simpler alternative to the lazy missions rule: if a mission appears with the symbol of the space it's on, discard it and redeal.
  
• People thought the reputation payouts were very powerful (as indeed they are). Perhaps could make the top of each one a little further out (payouts at 2, 4, 7).
  
• Too many negative red tiles discourage exploration. Vortex is pretty harsh... perhaps it could start with a tile on it? Maybe even a Diamantium and a Starbon.
  
  • The red tiles do want to be more exciting. Problem is, Stations Pi and Omega are pretty necessary, we need at least 2 red asteroids as sources of diamantium / starbon for the late game, and with the Lair that's already half of the red tiles known. I want Warp Gates too,
    
• Could encourage exploration by putting $1 on each face down tile. But that does rather duplicate what Calvin does. It's also very Terra Prime, and I'd rather not adopt more mechanics from that game unless there's no other option.
  
• Players want a way to force pirates away from their space.