Symbiote

Alert

Support

Combat

Type

Power of Symbiosis

Gains Might from Allies

As an actor, during combat, use this power to increase the might of your ships by 1 for each ally in your fleet.

Legacy: During combat, sponsors add 1 additional might to their fleet for each sponsor in the fleet.

While the Symbiotes’ power is impressive and noteworthy, most aliens only see them as a disposable power boost, to be used and abused. Without much power to wield independently, they often need to let themselves be used so they can ultimately be the abusers in the end.

Actor: Combat

Mandatory

Wild Flare

As a sponsor, during approach, you may discharge this flare to add 10 to your fleet’s might this encounter.

Sponsor: Approach

Super Flare

After using your power, you may discharge this flare to double the might of your ships.

Actor: Combat

Modifications

Original Symbiote simply starts with twice as many ships, with a setup clause to make it so. Changed to a completely different power due to the existence of Horde and Roach, as well as the inability to zap original Symbiote.
Original wild Symbiote flare lets you retrieve a ship from the warp during any warpfall. Changed it to be a sponsored combat boost, activated before pods are selected so both sides can react to it.
Original super Symbiote can perform a full reset of ships and home bases, placing 8 ships on each of its home planets, even if the ships were captured or vaporized. It is also a nuclear super flare, which I look to avoid in my design.
Original Symbiote is a green alert alien.
Symbiote’s legacy adds additional might from sponsors, making sponsors more substantial in determining the winner of an encounter. The effect compounds, meaning fleets with more sponsors get a more significant bonus and creating a “rich get richer” dynamic. 1 sponsor adds 1 additional might, 2 sponsors add 4 total, 3 adds 9 total, etc. Original Cosmic has no legacies.

Tips

Symbiote is relatively powerful and flexible as a combat power, capable of contributing as either actor or leader. However, unlike aliens like Warrior and Virus, it can’t achieve high numbers by itself. It needs allies in order to gain power, which can mean very high or low totals across the match.
All of Symbiote’s power comes from working with other aliens. Symbiote lives and dies by its ability to invite and get invited to as many encounters as possible. It also needs to win to keep up its power.
While it is tempting to join Symbiote at full force for an easy win, it can also be tempting to side against them in full force for an easy win, to keep them from dominating the match. The outcome will depend on how many aliens fall into the trap and side with Symbiote. One sponsor for a Symbiote with 4 ships gives it 8 base might. Three makes it as tough as full-power Macron.
Symbiote is the sort of power that can more easily win as part of a team than solo. In a scenario where everyone needs one dominion, Symbiote would struggle to get its last foreign base solo, as compared to teaming up with three others to attack one target.
Though Symbiote can be a major power player, the timing of its power makes it a huge zap magnet. If you have a zap to wield against it, strongly consider using it if you get dogpiled.

Development Notes

In a standard 5-alien match, Symbiote can get up to 3 allies at once, adding 16 might from Symbiote’s ships alone, before the encounter pod even comes into play. This is as strong as defensive Macron, and it can apply to any of Symbiote’s encounters. On the flip-side, Symbiote can end up with no allies and essentially have no power.
Super Symbiote is capable of providing its own power, getting 16 might from sending 4 ships instead of 0. Symbiote can still win an encounter without allies, as the -4 potential might difference is only a small disadvantage (similar to Observer.)
If Symbiote gets two wins to start out with everyone else on its own turn and gets invited the next two turns for two more easy wins, it’s already one dominion away from victory. However, it’s unlikely for the same enemy to be chosen as defender 5 times in a row. All of their charges would need to be used consecutively, plus the two wilds. This does mean, theoretically, that it’s possible for Symbiote and three others to have a full alliance, taking down a target alien entirely. It makes me wonder if it should be impossible to win by gaining 5 dominion in a single system. Or at the very least, making it so aliens only have 4 planets in a system, with 5 ships per planet in a 5-alien match. Of course, that would mean you could still win with all dominion in one system with a 4-alien match, and having 3 planets messes up the deactivation/elimination rule. Since the odds of this happening are very low, requiring both player and destiny cooperation, I think I’ll leave it as-is for now.
The concept for Symbiote came from my original idea for Observer, to have no might but double the might of allies. I decided to make it more explosive, taking the design space of an alien that gains combat power from having more allies, either as leader or sponsor.
My original plan was to make Symbiote another Virus that takes advantage of allies instead of being designed to go solo. Originally the idea was for Symbiote to have its ships gain might equal to its allied ships, but this seemed too oppressive as an actor. I don’t like the idea of Symbiote being a leader-only power, and a sponsor-only power to mirror Parasite didn’t seem useful enough. Instead, I made the power more moderate, capable of reaching Macron’s full power at best while also being able to use that power more often, at a tradeoff of being more dependent on other aliens.
Since my Cosmic allows up to 8 aliens in a match, Symbiote can potentially get 6 allies at once, making its ships 7 might each. Of course, anyone with 6 allies is probably going to win anyway, but a number that high could reasonably compete with some of the heavier hitters like Warpish and Villain.
One of my major issues with original Symbiote’s theme is how little there is to compare with Parasite, but my version of Symbiote makes a nice foil to it. Parasite is a support-type alien that acts on its own, while Symbiote is a team player. No one wants Parasite on their side while everyone wants to be on Symbiote’s side (in theory), which is highly evocative of real parasitic/symbiotic relationships. Symbiote’s power works as leader or sponsor, whereas Parasite’s only works as a sponsor, also reflecting Symbiote’s nature as a team player. A match with both Symbiote/Parasite can be an interesting one, as Parasite’s ships subtract 1 each but also add 1 for each of Symbiote’s ships, meaning Symbiote can at least make up for Parasite’s penalty.
The timing of Symbiote’s power does make it a little awkward, since your number of ships is decided before seeing how many allies you will have. Committing 4 is risky, since you will end up with no combat support if no sponsors bite.
In terms of comparables, Symbiote can be put up against support combat powers Cavalry and Sapient. Cavalry provides extra power through encounter cards, making it dependent on pods and more variable, with an average bonus of 6-8 as support only. Sapient starts out weak but gets stronger as the match progresses, getting stronger faster when losing. Unlike those, Symbiote scales based on the number of total aliens in the match, though in a standard match it can max out at 12 power. It makes the overpowering effect of a teamup even more potent, taking advantage of allies regardless of how many ships they commit.