Is there a limit to how many times a player can use defensive cards to counter a specific attack (other than the number of cards in his hand)? For instance, can a player use an ECM card, have it countered by an ECCM card, and then play a Reinforce Shields card? Or (more extreme case) can he play a WW, have it nullified by a tractor beam, play ECM and have it nullified by ECCM, and then use shield reinforcement?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, October 14, 2003 - 10:14 am: Edit

You can use all the cards you have.

By Frank DeMaris (Kemaris) on Monday, October 20, 2003 - 10:22 pm: Edit

Never mind, I finally checked the online rules update and found that my question was answered over two years ago. Amazing what you can find when you take the time to look. Robert, you should take a look at it, it's one of the last questions and you can get to it from the starfleetgames home page.

By Bill Schoeller (Bigbadbill) on Tuesday, January 13, 2004 - 03:46 pm: Edit

SVC - Are you saying the Hydrans will have disruptors and drones???

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, January 13, 2004 - 05:21 pm: Edit

Pretty much. Otherwise, the two decks cannot be combined as the odds on drawing useful cards would be too low. Wouldn't function.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, January 14, 2004 - 10:39 am: Edit

A lesson in printing economics 101.

Printing cards is hellaciously expensive.

Most decks are printed in 110s. We print in 132 but this costs only about 1% more. So printing 110 instead of 132 doesn't save any money.

Absolute minimum print run is 3,000 decks (of 132). Maximum sales potential is probably just under 3,000, and that over several years. So if we printed 3,000 decks, split them into three identical piles, resulting in 9,000 decks, when (in 2016) we close the company and retire, we'll have 6,000 of these mini-decks we get to throw in the dumpster.

So, the hard rock bottom is 3,000 decks of 132.

I'm very reluctant to consider the idea of a deck that only works with deck 1; i.e., the product has a sticker that says "must have deck 1 to play" as this really hurts sales potential; many stores won't even consider buying it even if they bought and sold deck 1. Stores that never bought deck 1 won't buy it, of course.

So, where does that leave us to go?