Booster
Alert
Resource
Destroy
Type
Power of Speed
Loses Pods From Launch
An an invader or sponsor, when you commit ships to the gate, use this power. If you commit one or two ships, scrap the same number of pods from your cache. If you launch three or more ships, draft a pod and then scrap one pod.
Legacy: Whenever an alien commits three or more ships to the gate, that alien must draft a pod and then scrap one pod from their cache.
After the invention of the FTFTL engine, the Boosters were the first to cross the vast distance between the Venture and the Prime Galaxies to make contact with the Federation. Their remarkable speed led to dozens of more aliens joining the race for Cosmic dominance, and they wish they got a bit more credit for it.
Invader: Launch or Sponsor: Arrival
Mandatory
Wild Flare
As an actor, after arrival, you may discharge this flare to target another alien who is a sponsor and ravage one pod in their cache for each of their committed ships.
Actor: Arrival
Super Flare
As a sponsor, after arrival, if you committed three or more ships, you may discharge this flare to draft one pod for each of your committed ships and then scrap the same number of pods from your cache.
Sponsor: Arrival
Modifications
- Originally the power of Escape Velocity. Booster was originally a promo alien released separately during a convention called Escape Velocity, and the power was named after it. I simplified the power name to match my one-name power rule, repurposing the original power name for Lightning.
- Booster’s legacy provides a means of resource gain that will almost always be beneficial. At worst, you gain a pod you don’t want and can scrap it. At best, you gain a pod you want and scrap a pod you don’t. The only time the legacy will have a downside is when you draft a pod you want and don’t have a pod you want to scrap, but it is still advantageous to take the option than not. Since it requires committing at least three ships, aliens will need to take a greater risk in invasions to see this benefit. Aliens great at retaining their ships like Zombie can better match pod drafting aliens like Kamikaze. Macron possibly dislikes this legacy the most, since they can’t benefit from it. Original Cosmic has no legacies.
Tips
- Booster can manage the size of its cache by choosing the number of ships to commit. If it has weak pods, it can scrap them to get closer to a resupply. If it has enough strong ones, it can commit three or more to gain a new pod.
- Booster needs to properly manage its ships to manage its cache as well. If it ends up forced to commit one or two ships, it will also be forced to scrap a pod whether it wants to or not.
Development Notes
- Booster was released a few years in advance of Cosmic Odyssey, making it the first official alien in the Venture Galaxy. I thought this fact would make it interesting if Booster was the alien to arrive to introduce the Federation to FTFTL (Faster than Faster Than Light) travel. It’s technology that is so fast it allows aliens to reach galaxies they haven’t seen yet, discovering new aliens deemed worthy to join the Federation. Booster was able to use this technology to reach the Federation in the first place.
- The Boosters canonically have the fastest ships in my Cosmic. Mechanically, this means that they move so fast that it causes part of their cache to be left behind. If they have enough thrusters, they can go so fast that they can blast through the forge and draft a pod. It’s interesting to imagine that their engines heat up the pod such that it crafts the raw aur into a pod. It highlights just how hot the forge must be for crafting pods. It might even be powered by the energy of a star. Since Booster’s power is mandatory, perhaps it is not even using the forge to create a pod. Perhaps the heat it generates is able to create a pod on its own.
- The gate in FFG Cosmic is known as the “hyperspace gate”, a piece of technology capable of sending a fleet of spaceships across a system of planets in the blink of an eye. Hyperspace is well-known from the Star Wars as being the key to rapid interstellar travel between planets. My version of the gate also makes use of hyperspace but just shortens the name to give it more prestige. I imagine that Booster’s ships with their FTFTL engines are capable of tapping into the true power of the gate and going even faster. However, it would be incredibly difficult and dangerous to go so fast that you breach a target planet’s defenses, and going so fast would make it even harder to land on the target planet. So instead, Booster uses its power to blast away part of its cache and snatch a pod from the forge if they get enough thrusters behind them.
- I find it impressive that such a simple power is still able to be created with nearly 200 other predecessors, and still has its own unique playstyle and is not strictly superior or inferior to another alien. The ability to scrap pods every time you act as an actor can be considered worse than Porcupine since it lacks the combat power, but Porcupine has no inherent ability to gain resources outside of requesting resupplies. Cryo’s power is quite similar to Booster’s, being able to prune its cache of one pod and draft a replacement as an actor. However, it doesn’t get the first half of Booster’s power that lets it scrap up to 2 specific pods at once without replacing them, making it worse at pruning its cache to gain resupplies. In terms of mechanics, none of these powers are concerned with how many ships they commit in regards to their power. They don’t have Booster’s flexibility when it comes to using either aspect of its power based on the number of committed ships.. They also don’t have the downside of being forced to use the power based on the number of ships committed.
- Booster being a mandatory power is significant for keeping the design interesting. If Booster doesn’t have enough ships to commit three, it will have to scrap at least one pod just to commit ships to a fleet. Due to the timing of my Cosmic, resupplies can still be requested before arrival, so Booster could empty its cache, commit one ship and scrap nothing, then request a resupply before taking off. Original Booster can’t do this, since resupplies have to be requested at the start of the invasion. On the contrary, Booster could end up having to end its invasion prematurely due to its power. My version can use it to quickly gain a resupply when it has one or two pods left as an invader.
- While Lightning is as fast as light, Booster is about two degrees faster than light, making them a better fit for the power of Speed. In the field of rocketry, a “booster” is used to refer to the first stage of the rocket that provides the initial acceleration. The term “escape velocity” refers to the minimum amount of speed required to escape the gravitational pull the planet you are departing from. My Booster goes so much faster than the needed escape velocity, and it doesn’t need to reference the convention that Booster released during.