Chef
Alert
Resource
Combat
Type
Power to Cook
Cooks New Encounter Pods
After any launch phase, you may use this power to scrap one ship and “cook” two pods in your cache together by shrouding them in your nexus. During upkeep, the cooked pods merge into one single cooked pod. You may either add the cooked pod to your cache or gift it to another alien in exchange for 2 boons.
If both pods in a cooked pod are attack pods, the cooked pod is an attack pod equal to their combined totals. Otherwise, the user can choose either pod to be the pod’s aur value when the pod is discharged. Cooked pods cannot be cooked.
Special Offer: 2 Influence – “Flash-fry” two pods in an alien’s cache. Immediately cooks the pods and adds them to the alien’s cache.
Legacy: Manifest the forge showcase if it does not exist. The showcase contains cooked pods instead of regular pods, created from random pods in the forge.
The iconoclastic Chefs are known for making outrageous dishes, ones that many consider dangerous and unnatural. Thanks to their uncanny ability to wreak havoc on an alien body, they may have discovered a recipe for Cosmic conquest.
Any: Launch
Optional
Wild Flare
As a leader, after arrival, you may discharge this flare. This encounter, you may discharge two attack pods from your cache as if they were one equal to the combined totals. If you do, you must reveal the pods without priming them before the opponent primes their pod.
Leader: Arrival
Super Flare
When cooking a pod, you may discharge this flare to draft a pod before cooking. If it is an encounter pod, you may immediately use it for cooking.
Any: Launch
Modifications
- Chef is my own original alien. It does not exist in classic Cosmic.
- The original version of Chef used a ship as a topping to identify a cooked pod, and cooked pods returned to normal after entering the exhaust. My digital format allows pods to be permanently modified without causing permanent damage to the game, allowing this restriction to be removed. Instead, a ship is simply scrapped to initiate the cooking, maintaining the same cost as before.
- Chef’s legacy replaces the showcase with cooked pods, increasing the incentive for aliens to pull from the showcase instead of the forge. This allows aliens to draft potentially more powerful pods, at the cost of other aliens knowing what they are. Aliens that need combat support and have ships to spare can take advantage of this one. Original Cosmic has no legacies.
Tips
- Each cooked pod Chef prepares can be incredibly powerful, but it costs Chef a ship to prepare.
- If Chef gifts a cooked pod to another alien, they can replace the topping they just lost and get a pod out of it, or they can go for two pods instead, allowing them to continue the cycle next invasion if both are encounter pods.
- Chef’s cooked pods are extremely vulnerable to compensation if Chef makes a lot at once. Be careful about overdoing it and making too many.
- Chef can use its power to get rid of unwanted attack pods and pawn them off on other aliens. Especially useful when Chef has some negative pods it doesn’t want to use.
- If you refrain from using one of Chef’s cooked pods, it will be unable to get its topping ship back. That ship is essentially captured until the pod is scrapped.
Development Notes
- With the way I modified Deuce, both it and Chef have the same flexibility when it comes to revealing feint pods alongside attack pods. Deuce has the advantage in that its “double pods” cannot be stolen, and it doesn’t cost a ship to create them. However, Deuce burns through its cache faster, as it always has to play two pods if possible, and it can’t easily dump its unwanted pods onto other aliens.
- Chef is also similar to Philanthropist with its ability to gift cooked pods to other aliens. Like Philanthropist, Chef is capable of doing this every invasion, but the pods it gives away are generally more powerful. Even gifting two 04 pods is the same as gifting an average 08 pod. Chef can gift two negotiate pods, but that could deprive Chef of all its negotiate pods.
- The power is one of the more complicated ones I made, making it a fitting red alert. The idea of combining two encounter pods into one makes for a fun game mechanic. I just wanted to make sure it is distinct enough from the similarly designed Deuce. One advantage Chef has over Deuce is that cooked pods apply at any time, meaning they maintain their use for non-combat purposes. Any events that require a unique “type” of pod can benefit Chef, as cooked pods are a unique type of pod, separate from attack, negotiate, artifact, etc.
- If Deuce gets a cooked pod with an attack and negotiate baked into it and uses its power to discharge it alongside a poison pod, Deuce can have its choice of three different pods to choose from after contact. Chef may have to be more careful about gifting cooked pods to Deuce.
- I still need to determine if boons allow one to draft pods from the dark forge, or if it makes lucre too worthless. With my current system, boons can only be collected by special powers, so it is possible it is acceptable.