Porcupine
Alert
Combat
Destroy
Type
Power to Needle
Scraps Pods for Might
As an actor, during combat, you may use this power to scrap any number of pods from your cache. Choose whether your fleet gains or loses might equal to the number of scrapped pods.
Legacy: Actors may scrap up to three pods from their cache to add an equal amount of might to their fleet.
Despite their status as obligate herbivores, the Porcupines managed to take over their home planet through pain and fear. Having mastered aposematism, they will reward any predator foolish enough to challenge them with a nasty poke.
Actor: Combat
Optional
Wild Flare
As a leader, during combat, you may discharge this flare to display any number of pods from your cache. Add an equal amount of might to your fleet.
Leader: Combat
Super Flare
When using your power, you may discharge this flare to have each scrapped pod add or subtract 3 might to your fleet instead.
Actor: Combat
Modifications
- Porcupine’s legacy allows everyone to scrap three pods to gain an equal amount of pods. This legacy increases the value of sponsors and allows a simple means of cache pruning for every alien, especially those that can gain sponsors. Original Cosmic has no legacies.
Tips
- Porcupine’s power activates after drivers are discharged. It can use its power as a more reliable reinforcement pod, gaining a specific amount of power to defend against those reinforcements or turn a close loss into a win.
- Porcupine gains advantage from pods, regardless of what the pods are. Acting as the backward helps it to gain additional resources.
- Porcupine can easily dispose of poison pods without having to discharge them. However, it can use this fact to its advantage and surprise opponents by playing them.
- As Porcupine, avoid being wasteful with your pods so that you don’t require too many resupplies too quickly. Running out of free resupplies can make it difficult to preserve your power or dominion.
Development Notes
- Porcupine is designed to be a simple power with two primary functions. It can prune weak pods out of its cache and gain a little extra might in exchange. Its simplicity and utility makes it one of the more popular aliens from the Storm Galaxy.
- Thematically, I like the feel of Porcupine’s combat power in terms of its place in the animal kingdom. It’s not particularly strong, but it is annoying. It can keep all but the strongest predators away in most situations. It’s easy enough to imagine it siphoning the energy from the pods and using it to power its needles. Different pods use different aur as a base, but the energy contained to power each of them is identical. With combat pods, the aur acts as an energy multiplier when discharged, and Porcupine’s power discharges it without that multiplier.
- In contrast to Scholar, I elected to have Porcupine be the one to decide whether the might is added or subtracted. While this does potentially allow for sabotage, it is unlikely to make a difference. A late-game Scholar can effortlessly perform a sabotage to gain more wisdom, while Porcupine would need to scrap a large number of pods for little gain. It’s also more fitting to the theme that Porcupine is controlling its own needles while Scholar is giving advice that the leader chooses how to use.
- The only notable differences between Original Porcupine and mine other than the legacy are my rules regarding resupplies. In base Cosmic, aliens can gain as many resupplies as they want with no consequences. In mine, aliens get two resupplies for free and then have to give up a base for more. This rule is offset a bit for Porcupine by resupplies also starting with 2 lucre, giving caches 10 starting pods instead of 8. The precision of Porcupine’s timing and the value of the pods themselves allows it to be more conservative with its power. There isn’t much reason it needs to throw all of its pods out at once unless it is hedging against reinforcement pods. I think Benefactor puts a much harsher restriction on Porcupine than my base rule. If the alien is playing intelligently, they shouldn’t require more than three or four resupplies, which could be paid in 1-2 home bases.