Lunatic
Alert
Support
Resource
Type
Power of Insanity
Sponsors Enemies
As a leader, after commission, you may use this power to sponsor the enemy without being commissioned.
Legacy: Leaders may sponsor their opponent without being commissioned.
By their nature, most aliens are difficult for other aliens to comprehend, but none are so universally unfathomable as the deranged Lunatics. Though they claim they want to take over the Cosmos, they can often be found leading the charge against their own forces. No one is certain if they are possessed with true insanity or mad genius.
Leader: Commission
Optional
Wild Flare
When receiving backer bonuses, you may discharge this flare to both draft a pod and revive a ship for each bonus instead of gaining lucre.
Backward: Payoff
Super Flare
When not a leader, you may discharge this flare to sponsor both sides of an invasion if both sides commission you.
Not Leader: Commission
Modifications
- Minor tweak to the Wild flare. The original Wild flare lets you get both a pod and a ship from backer bonuses, as original Cosmic doesn’t use lucre. My version lets the user get immediate benefits from the bonus instead of delayed ones.
- Lunatic’s legacy lets everyone play as Lunatic, gaining additional benefits from losing at the cost of losing ships. Aliens that enjoy or don’t mind losing ships, like Vacuum and Zombie, can get some mileage from this one. Healer enjoys it too. Original Cosmic has no legacies.
Tips
- Lunatic is capable of hedging its bets by turning a guaranteed loss into only a half-loss.
- Lunatic can throw its encounter while putting some ships on the other side in order to gain some easy compensation. As the defender, it can use this to a net benefit, exchanging ships for pods without losing a base. As the invader, it would be an exchange of dominion for lucre.
- It is generally not worth throwing an encounter if Lunatic joins your side, as Lunatic cannot gain dominion using its power, whereas throwing an encounter to Lunatic will either cost you dominion or give Lunatic dominion.
- Lunatic’s power is a gamble, as it has a chance of committing ships to the enemy side only for them to be lost. The more ships Lunatic commits, the more it is gambling, same as as with a normal sponsorship.
Development Notes
- I like the simplicity of Lunatic’s theme, giving it the ability to do something that other aliens can’t by virtue of it being a crazy thing to do. What kind of crazy person would support their enemy?
- Mechanically, this power fits nicely in between other sponsor powers like Parasite and Yin-Yang. The focus on sponsoring the enemy prevents it from gaining extra dominion with the power, instead giving it the chance to gain additional lucre and protect its bases.
- Lunatic’s power isn’t incredibly strong, but it is highly resilient, for similar reasons as Spiff. By gaining extra lucre, Lunatic can restore its ships. By sponsoring enemy invaders, Lunatic can avoid having its bases wiped, even when losing.
- One question I needed to consider was whether Lunatic could commit its committed ships to the enemy using its power. I ultimately deemed that it could not, as it seems odd that committed ships could be so easily removed.