Laser
Alert
Control
Type
Power to Blind
Blinds Opponents
As a leader, after arrival, use this power to “blind” your opponent until upkeep. For each of your committed ships, a random pod in the opponent’s cache is sealed in stasis until the end of upkeep. Aliens may not request resupplies while blinded.
Legacy: After arrival, each leader is blinded, based on their own committed ships instead of the opponent’s.
According to one old story from the Traders, the Lasers were recruited to the Eon 15 under the notion that they were living superweapons. After it was discovered their giant laser could only cause temporary vision impairment, they had to forfeit several of their home planets as recompense.
Leader: Arrival
Mandatory
Wild Flare
As an actor, after arrival, you may discharge this flare to scrap up to 3 pods from your cache. Your opponent shrouds the same number of random pods from their cache in stasis. No pods may be discharged in response to this flare, except to zap this flare.
Leader: Arrival
Super Flare
As a sponsor, after arrival, you may discharge this flare to use your power.
Sponsor: Arrival
Modifications
- Original Eon and CEO Laser forces the opponent to select a random encounter pod as their driver. My version is based around FFG Laser, which instead sets pods in stasis equal to the opponent’s committed ship count. My version uses Laser’s committed ships instead of the opponent’s, since it gives Laser a bit more agency as the invader and makes more logical sense.
- Original Super Laser could target either leader with its power. Changed to only be able to target the opponent, since the only purpose this serves is sabotaging your own fleet.
- Laser’s legacy inflicts minor blindness on every leader during encounters, making pods blank equal to the leader’s committed ships. Aliens relying on specific pods will need to commit fewer ships, weakening their fleet and making them more reliant on combat powers and sponsors. Aliens with larger caches can benefit more from this legacy, since they aren’t risking as much by committing maximum ships. Original Cosmic has no legacies.
Tips
- Laser can potentially force you to use a stooge if your cache is too weak. Keep your cache stocked with pods to avoid losing to it outright.
- With Laser in play, consider trading in your lucre for pods to increase your pod advantage as much as possible. The more pods you have, the more options you will have to defend yourself against it.
- Try to build up your cache as much as possible with boons and compensation. The more pods you have, the more options you have to use.
Development Notes
- Lasers are synonymous with the sci-fi genre, so it is only natural an alien themed around the concept of lasers would be created eventually. For Cosmic, it was rather quick. Laser is a member of the original Eon 15. It acts as a rather infamous control alien. Originally, as a leader, it selected a random encounter pod in the opponent’s cache and forced them to use it as a driver. Similar in concept to Author but much more restrictive and random. It doesn’t leave much room for strategy on either side. The power persisted into CEO Cosmic, with the computer deciding which pod would be played after the blinding. It fits the theme of blinding the player very well, but the thematic benefits don’t quite make up for the mechanical issues.
- Lasers have a wide variety of uses in both sci-fi and reality. In sci-fi, they are most known to power the weapon of choice. Laser guns and laser swords are ubiquitous in science fiction, so it would make sense for Laser to have some form of combat power. Instead, they chose to theme Laser around the aspect that causes it to damage one’s vision. In contrast to a light bulb, a laser has a single wavelength, which is a much more damaging light source to the human eye. As the power of a laser increases, the potential for eye damage also increases, and staring directly into it can be more damaging than staring into the sun.
- I really like the mechanical elegance of FFG’s Laser rework. Laser’s power scales the more ships the opponent has, creating a sense of risk and reward for the opponent to consider. Committing more ships means fewer pods can be used, and committing fewer ships means more pods can be used. My version uses an alternative version of risk and reward. Committing more ships grants the greater reward but also the greater risk since it risks more ships. My biggest issue with the design is the theme, since it seems rather odd for Laser to get more power from its opponent’s committed ships than its own. Whether using its own committed ships or the opponent’s, Laser only has agency to control how many pods it blinds as the invader, with the defender deciding either way as the invader. I prefer basing it on Laser’s ships for the imagery of Laser focusing its beam through more ships to increase its power.
- Laser’s power does not cause permanent vision damage, but the beam it provides is temporary, making it difficult to see which pod to use. The act of placing the pods in stasis is meant to be an abstraction, indicating that those pods cannot be seen. The original Eon power is much more thematic, since it perfectly captures the idea of a blind alien unable to distinguish pods from one another. However, it violates Edict 5 of my design philosophy, depriving another alien of all choice. The reworked design can still potentially deprive another alien of choice, but only if their cache gets sufficiently low on pods. Aliens have the option to prevent this from happening by the time Laser is the invader, so I don’t consider this a violation of the edict.
- Another way to look at this power is to interpret Laser’s “blinding” to be a euphemism for some kind of process that affects the system of enemy ships. Lasers can transmit data to computers, which can disrupt a system in many different ways. It could easily render certain pods unusable using a method that scales with the power of the laser.
- Originally, I was planning to change Laser’s power to work more like the original power, causing encounter pods equal to Laser’s committed ships to look blank instead of placing them in stasis. It would allow the pods to still be used but make it random what value they have. The primary issue with this design is that it is effectively useless with 1 committed ship, since opponents will always know what the blinded pod is via process of elimination. The potential fix would be to make it affect committed ships +1, which I thought seemed overly punishing since it specifically targets encounter pods. Aliens would need pretty large caches to be able to maintain agency, and not every alien would be able to do so. It would essentially be the original Laser for many aliens, which isn’t that fun to play against. Including support pods in the mix makes it easier to defend against the power.
- Laser wasn’t released in FFG until the Dominion Galaxy, the last of the aliens from CEO designed to work in a physical context. They altered the power to let the opponent maintain some agency against Laser. Instead of the pod being automatically chosen, the number of usable pods is restricted by the number of their committed ships.
- Laser definitely deserves its status as green alert. The power is incredibly simple to understand and use. It’s got nice matchups with other green alert aliens to help teach how matchups can affect the strength of a given power. Laser vs. Oracle comes to mind. It is amusing that Laser’s blindness does not blind Oracle’s future vision. Must be those extra eyes.