Cryo
Alert
Resource
Type
Power to Deepfreeze
Preserves Pods for Later
As an actor, after arrival, you may use this power to “deepfreeze” one pod from your cache. Shroud that pod in your nexus and draft one pod.
If your nexus has eight or more pods, you may scrap your cache to claim all pods in your nexus.
Legacy: Pods in exhausts are not exhausted during upkeep. If an exhaust has 8 or more pods, its owner may claim one pod and exhaust the rest.
The Cosmos is a cold, cold, place, suited to be ruled by a cold, cold alien. At least, that’s the opinion of the Cryo, masters of the ice and snow. With their organic refrigeration practices, they’ll bring forth a winter that not even the vacuum of space can match.
Actor: Arrival
Optional
Wild Flare
Whenever you receive a resupply, you may discharge this flare to place any support pods in stasis first.
Any: Any
Super Flare
When using your power, you may discharge this flare to add a pod from your nexus to your cache after deepfreezing one. You may scrap this flare to scrap your cache and claim all pods in your nexus.
Actor: Arrival
Any: Any
Modifications
- Cryo’s original power is the power to “preserve.” Changed to “deepfreeze” to be more on-point with the theme.
- Minor modification to Cryo’s super flare to have its activation make sense with my system. The original doesn’t require scrapping the flare to gain the cache at any time. I figured the former effect makes the latter mostly redundant, except for an emergency situation. It seems more interesting this way.
- Cryo’s legacy prevents pods from being exhausted after discharge until much later, while also providing a delayed Clone effect. Aliens that can scrap many pods at a time like Merchant and Porcupine can greatly benefit from this legacy. Original Cosmic has no legacies.
Tips
- Cryo’s power allows it to store pods without going minus, making it incredibly useful at maintaining cache advantage.
- Cryo can use its power to either save good pods for later or dump bad pods out of its cache, where they won’t get in the way. The versatility helps it to become very flexible, and it makes it more difficult to gauge how good Cryo’s cache will be when it pulls it from the freezer.
- Cryo isn’t the fastest when it comes to emptying its cache, but being able to dump pods and gain new ones makes it less dependent on resupplies.
- Cryo’s ability makes compensation less effective against it, as it will likely be storing its best pods in the freezer for later.
- Cryo only uses its power when participating in an encounter, meaning it will want to sponsor other aliens as much as possible. To starve the cold, avoid inviting Cryo too much.
Development Notes
- A “deepfreeze” is a freezer used for food storage. The verb form refers to putting something in a deepfreeze, which fits well with the idea of freezing your pods and storing them for later use.
- When it comes to alien design, Cryo’s main point of comparison is Miser, and was a major influence on my Miser redesign. I needed to make sure both powers provide a unique service in the realm of cache preservation, without stepping on each other’s toes. From the outset, the two are opposites. Miser starts with a lot of pods and loses them slowly over time. Cryo starts with normal pods and gains them slowly over time. Miser favors shorter matches, while Cryo favors longer ones. In terms of pod preservation, Miser is the superior customer. With the ability to preserve every pod when its cache is targeted, Miser will guarantee that nothing is ever taken. However, this is both a strength and a weakness, as it also means Miser will never lose its bad pods. Cryo’s flexibility allows it to isolate its good pods away from its bad to make sure when it does get targeted it doesn’t eat too big of a loss.
- On a similar note, Cryo’s power goes from cache to nexus and back again, while Miser goes from nexus to cache and back again. Miser slowly gains access to its nexus over time, while Cryo gets the whole thing at once after slowly dripfeeding pods into it.