A major concern for this expansion is that the airlock is basically a free and easy way to root out Cylon players.

In exchange for a piddly morale hit you can airlock a couple of key people and easily rule out their being a Cylon.

Well... not exactly.

Let's look first at the cost of using the damn thing. From what we have seen so far the most likely route to execution on demand will be the actual airlock space. Well what does it take to use it?

We've got a 12 difficulty check where Politics, Tactics, and Treachery will count positive in the check.

Let's think about that. 12 may not seem like a whole lot, but you've got a number of factors working against you here. First off skill checks are going to be much harder in general in this expansion. You now have six colors of skills, not five. In this case we have a check where only half the colors are going to help us. One of those colors is going to be of a kind which humans don't draw regularly (Treachery) and is also a kind of skill card which only goes up to a three in value. This means even if you have the misfortune of being saddled with Treachery, you're not likely to make a huge dent in this check with High Value cards if you're using this as an exscuse to dump Treachery cards. The other two are of types which are very commonly needed on skill checks, so you're now draining all your good cards for passing tests on this endeavor.

Now as far as passing skill tests go, here is the biggie that people are most often forgetting about: Investigative Commitee is being changed. Now at this stage we don't know how it will be different, but it certainly won't be the same. So now we can no longer micromanage skill tests and ensure we pass on the nose with no waste every time it matters.

Uh, oh. Suddenly that 12 value test where half the card types count against you isn't looking all that insignifigant anymore.

So now let's see what is completely involved in airlocking. A player is going to have to use up a perfectly good turn activating this damn thing. He's then setting up a huge card drain on the group for not only the valuable Tactics and Politics cards needed to pass, but also for the player who is getting airlocked who now has to dump his whole hand of cards.

Oh, and the airlocking player STILL has to draw a Crisis card on his turn. So now you've made the entire group Skill Card poor for the next rotation of turns, which will ensure that the group is probably going to bomb quite a few Skill Tests for the foreseeable future.

Here is the best part. What resource are you going to lose most often on these Crises whose Tests you're now failing? Why that would be Morale. And what was the resource we just voluntarily lost by Airlocking an innocent human? Why that would be Morale. Double ouch.

And so what do we get in exchange for all this madness?

We've ruled out one fraking player as a Cylon for just one half of the game, because oh crap, he gets another Loyalty card in the Sleeper phase!

Oh, here is another post I made about the Airlock on the FFG forums when this site was down:

Why the Brig is not obsolete in Pegasus

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?e...

I was thinking about this and I came to the following conclusion:

If you execute a Cylon, he doesn't get a Super Crisis, but he still gets to take his turn right away when the rotation gets around to him.

If you put him in the Brig however he has to waste a whole turn doing nothing but revealing himself.

I believe that having to waste a whole game turn would honestly be far more damaging to a Cylon player than the loss of his Super Crisis card, so if I was pretty damn sure of someone's status as a Cylon I would rather send him to the Brig than Execute him.

If I was on the fence about their Status however, I would probably go for the execution to see loyalty cards.

The more I think about the execution, the more I think I see what Corey means by the "it's a trap" comment. There are many variables to take into account which could make the execution balanced the way it is...

How many days/hours/minutes/seconds before gencon and people starting to tell us more about the last Cylon leader, hidden agendas and new crisis cards?

Yeah - I've no doubt that the execution mechanic will be balanced... but I'm more worried as to whether it will be fun and/or thematic. One of DC's arguments is that the Brig will still be used if you're sure of a Cylon's guilt, whereas the Airlock will be used if you're not sure... WTF??

Another down side that noone else is mentioning is that if the player you execute has Treachery cards that he has to discard along with his hand, a revealed Cylon will be waiting with some Sabotage cards to play on those as they are discarded.

=][=

Funny, no one believed it when I said it:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/430275

Also, if I understand the change to Resurrection Ship correctly, they don't even really lose the crisis; they can choose to spend the free turn you just gave them to harvest one. (Admittedly, I still haven't seen the ACTUAL Cylon Locations texts, so I could be wrong).

I think what it's really going to come down to is this:
If you've got a known Cylon hanging out to hose you with their once-per-game, space em. Otherwise, let them chill in the brig.

Resurrection Ship: Action: Draw a Super Crisis Card.

Note that it's a hazardous location -- you can't move there voluntarily.

So an executed Cylon could use their free turn to get the SC back, or skip it to just go to Caprica or play with the Cylon Fleet if there are more immediate threats.

On the other hand, at least playing treachery cards into a skill check (if it's not reckless) is one of the safe ways to get rid of them.

Did someone actually upload a picture of the new Cylon Locations somewhere? Where did you find that info InfoCynic? Not disputing it, I'd just like to see the rest.

It's in the rulebook, under the component descriptions.

Well there is obviously all sorts of usefull things you might be able to persuade them to tell you about the Cylon plans.

But yah it is kind of weird.

And you guys actually managed to READ any of that?


EDIT: The card image, not the rulebook...

I like this precision!

The text of the locations is readable, and the Resurrection ship especially is very clear since there is not much text.

I still get the feeling that at least one of the Cylon Agendas might require that they get at least one person executed. If that is also a Cylon Victory then you just gave them a reason to totally destroy you from now on :P

The changed locations for those who can't read small text:

Resurrection Ship (restricted):
You may only draw 1 Skill Card during your Recieve Skill Cards step.
Action: Draw a Super Crisis Card

Human Fleet:
Action: Look at the top card of the Crisis or Destination deck and place it on the top or the bottom of that deck. Then draw 2 Skill Cards of different types (they may be from outside your skill set) or infiltrate Galactica.

Caprica:
Action: Play your Super Crisis Card or draw 2 Crisis Cards, choose 1 to resolve and place the other on the bottom of the deck. *
*No Activate Cylon Ships Step
(I only just realised that the other is placed on the bottom and not discarded, so you can't see if the Cylon Leader is being helpful)


It is possible that the picture in the manual is earlier than the actual thing so it could be slightly out of date.

The other thing is that Caprica says to play "your" Super Crisis Card which implies you only get 1, but the Resurrection ship clearly lets you draw more and the manual even mentions putting the Super Crisis Card into your "hand".

I think executing a Cylon is still good, they discard ALL cards meaning they can't stock up on nasty cards, and if they do decide to stay and get a Super Crisis card they only draw ONE skill card if they remain in the Resurrection ship.

Did they change the rules for the brig?? You can do everything but move in the brig. A cylon in the brig can scout, give executive orders to his supposed teammate, use his special abilities, use quorum cards to brig a human, encourage mutiny, etc, etc. Actually, when I'm playing Roslin as a cylon I never reveal, her special ability is a tad better than the caprica location since you can choose a card with cylon activation but no jump prep plus I get to draw my entire hand which makes it very easy to deplete the yellow deck of investigative committees. Then a try to get out which makes the humans waste cards.

You may have missed that you don't draw crisis cards in the brig. That simple fact makes it a poor choice for a known Cylon to stay in the brig.

Not necessarily, especially with the Caprica change.
This is especially true for Boomer.

A cylon Boomer can look through two destinations during her turn (launch a scout and use Recon). Compare that to Caprica which lets you look at two destinations... The difference is that the brigged Boomer leaves the crisis for someone else to draw whereas the revealed Boomer plays it immediately.

However, the brigged Boomer's crisis gets all of his symbols resolved. The Caprica Boomer will ignore the ship activations but still cause the jump track to move! This is very bad!

Finally, her once per game power is pretty much a game-winner. As soon as an absolutely critical skill check comes up, you automatically fail it and Galactica explodes!


Obviously many other characters have ways of causing harm from the brig (even without getting to draw a crisis). I'm just giving an example. Get creative! They'll be wishing they had executed you instead.