Saboteur
Alert
Destroy
Info
Type
Power to Booby Trap
Booby Traps Planets
Setup: Manifest two “decoy traps” and one “bomb trap” per alien in the match. Shroud each trap on a different planet in any system.
Whenever ship(s) land on a planet with one of your traps on it, use this power to detonate the trap. If it is a decoy, return the trap to your nexus. If it is a bomb, destroy all ships on the planet and return the trap to your nexus.
At the start of any orientation, you may either place a trap from your nexus onto any planet or swap two traps from any location.
Legacy: Each alien gains one decoy trap and one bomb trap and places each on a different planet in their system. When ship(s) land on a planet with a trap, the trap is detonated and vaporized.
Masters of subversion and surprise, the duplicitous Saboteurs claim to have taken the Cosmos hostage. With ninja-like skills, these pyromaniacs can plant an explosive anywhere. When they go off, they’re quite the spectacle. When they don’t…not so much.
Any: Any
Mandatory
Wild Flare
As a leader, during approach, if you share a planet with your opponent, you may discharge this flare to take your opponent’s base hostage, preventing those ships from jumping until the end of upkeep. If you lose the encounter, destroy the hostage ships.
Leader: Approach
Super Flare
After detonating a decoy trap, you may discharge this flare to scrap a negotiate pod and treat the decoy as a bomb.
Any: Any
Modifications
- Saboteur’s legacy gives every alien a bomb and decoy to deploy wherever they want. With 4 aliens, it makes 8 of the 16 planets potentially dangerous. With 5 aliens, it makes 10 of the 20 unsafe. The more aliens after 5 reduce the number of “safe” planets. Will can benefit from this legacy, as it can always avoid having to target a planet with a trap. Original Cosmic has no legacies.
Tips
- Saboteur can use its power offensively or defensively. Booby trapping three of its own planets can funnel other aliens to two specific planets, staving off deactivation and elimination
- Saboteur is the only one that knows which traps are decoys and which are bombs. This makes it one of the only invaders that other aliens can trust will not attack a planet with a bomb on it.
- By booby-trapping an entire system, Saboteur will make every encounter unsafe, and that alien will be unable to stack up their home bases without risking those bases.
- Saboteur can use its swapping ability on two decoys to trick players into thinking at least one of the two is a bomb.
- Generally, there are not enough planets to avoid all of Saboteur’s traps for an entire match. When attacking a planet with a trap, avoid investing too much in it. Saboteur can take advantage of this weakness to get an easier win if defending. Or it can throw the encounter if you are attacking a bomb.
- It can be worth Saboteur detonating its own bombs in order to get them in its nexus and open the door to more mind games.
Development Notes
- With 5 aliens in the match, Saboteur gets 10 decoys and 5 bombs, covering 15 planets. Since it can swap or place each orientation, it can effectively maintain this coverage throughout the match, unless invaders keep getting multiple encounters. The 12/15 starting traps lets Saboteur completely cover 3 systems at the cost of leaving the other 1-2 completely clear. With more aliens after 5, Saboteur gets less coverage.
- Saboteur only gets 4-5 bombs active at once. The rest are all duds. Saboteur needs to employ psychological warfare in order to make use of its power, making it an engaging and dangerous alien. Adding decoys back in is mostly pointless unless the others forget which is which. The real mind games begin when Saboteur has both decoys and bombs in its nexus. Any bomb from then on it places back into the match is a potential danger until the bomb is revealed again.
- The relationship between Saboteur and Citadel is similar to that of Miser and Cryo. Saboteur starts with coverage and loses it over time. Citadel starts with no coverage and builds it up gradually. It takes 15 invasions for Citadel to potentially have Saboteur’s starting coverage, but Citadel’s coverage is much more meaningful. 2/3 of Saboteur’s coverage is smoke and mirrors, acting merely to deter invaders.
- For the legacy, I made it so each alien places traps in their own system. It makes the most sense thematically that unprofessional non-Saboteur aliens can only booby trap their own systems, and it also creates an interesting dynamic that’s different from the regular power. Since each system has two traps, if one is revealed, the other will be known.
- Saboteur, like Mind, is another alien that can benefit players who pay attention and remember past information. However, it doesn’t require any player to remember past information, since Saboteur can check its own tokens any time.
- The original design for Saboteur in an earlier version of Cosmic was called “Terrorist” and employed a system of writing down where the real and fake ones are instead of using physical tokens. This removed the “real” and “decoy” system and made every planet potentially unsafe. There could also be multiple bombs on one planet, meaning detonating a bomb doesn’t make it safe. It definitely works as a variant if the Terrorist can hide a map of which planets the bombs are on in its nexus, but I don’t like it as the main power. It makes every encounter a potential waste, making the entire match much more luck-based than about risk/reward. It does capture the feeling of a minefield quite well, however, with Saboteur acting as the one that can navigate without problems.