Raptor
Alert
Destroy
Type
Power of Ferocity
Wild and Dangerous
Setup: Vaporize one of your planets, along with all ships on that planet.
As an actor, after arrival, use this power to force each alien in the opposing fleet to scrap pods from their cache, following the timing rule. If the opposing fleet does not scrap at least as many pods as your committed ships, destroy all ships in the opposing fleet.
Legacy: The winning leader must either ravage their cache equal to the number of losing enemies or win peacefully.
Having lost the evolutionary arms race on their home planet, the Raptors spent millions of years being hunted for sport and locked in zoos. With their survival instincts honed, they now viciously claw their way through the Cosmos to escape the endangered species list.
Actor: Arrival
Mandatory
Wild Flare
As a leader, after losing an encounter, you may discharge this flare to force your opponent to either ravage their hand for each of your committed ships or let you rebound your ships.
Leader: Encounter
Super Flare
When using your power, you may discharge this flare to force the opposing fleet to scrap four pods, regardless of how many committed ships you have.
Invader: Contact
Modifications
- Raptor is my own original alien, so it cannot be found in base Cosmic.
- Raptor’s legacy makes aliens much more dangerous to defeat violently, since doing so requires ravaging your cache. Aliens that have trouble building up pods may struggle to defeat their enemies with this legacy.
Tips
- Raptor gets the most out of its power by committing four ships. This also gives it the most losses if it loses, which can be dangerous due to its naturally lower ship count.
- Raptor’s power is mitigated the more sponsors you have. Cooperating with other aliens can lessen the impact of the power, compared to dealing with it yourself.
- Aliens with unwanted pods can take advantage of Raptor’s power to get rid of several of them quickly.
- The only surefire way to avoid Raptor’s bite is to get Raptor on your side.
- The worst case scenario is when Raptor has more ships than you have pods, making you incapable of stopping its power. With no no pods to play, it means that Raptor is capable of forcing you to negotiate.
Development Notes
- One main issue with Raptor’s design is that it can easily result in someone dumping their cache and immediately receiving a resupply, making the effect near-worthless. The core idea behind Raptor is meant to be that it’s much harder to take on when you don’t have any sponsors, and the aliens with the most committed ships have the most to lose. I think this is more important against the invader than the defender, which supports the idea that resupplies can only be requested in your home system.
- Raptor starting with 15 ships instead of 20 (or 12 instead of 16) ties in neatly with it being an endangered species. The question was whether Raptor should vaporize one on each planet or a whole planet (as with Ace). The former means that invading Raptor will mean Raptor has 3 ships on each planet, utilizing part of its power instead of going at full power. I prefer Raptor to be at full power at the start, only weakening when it moves its ships to other planets. 15 ships means Raptor can only lose 2 4-ship encounters before being in the danger zone, ensuring it does not end up too oppressive.
- One major question of the design for this alien is whether it should function as a leader or actor. As leader-only, aliens don’t have to worry about dealing with it potentially every match. I get the impression that leader-only would be too weak, requiring ravaging caches instead of scrapping pods. For that reason, I will stick with actor-only.
- Raptor is one of my custom aliens that I have playtested, though not with my own custom Cosmic rules. What I like most about it is the psychological aspect. Will aliens side with Raptor to leverage its use against stronger aliens or side against it to prevent the effect from being too oppressive?
- I’m also wondering if yellow or red alert is a better fit for this alien. It only destroys pods, so it doesn’t take that much to understand. On the other hand, with its power potentially getting use every invasion, it can be somewhat oppressive if you don’t know how to deal with it. I settled on yellow for now, since I think it’s manageable enough at lower-level play.