Core Space chat

My current campaign is solo and I have no one to share war stories with. So I'm sharing here.

I finished up the third scenario in Black Star Rising. This expansion comes with three linked scenarios that all form a larger narrative where you're trying to sabotage a corporation developing technology that splices human DNA with the setting's robot antagonist Purge.

I succeeded, despite an extremely difficult situation. This scenario has Purge and company employees out to get you, while you deliver and arm a bomb in the enemy station. Once armed, you have five turns to return to your ship and exfil.

Alecia, my techie who planted the bomb, was cut off. A ton of Purge randomly dropped in between her and the exit, including an Assassin and the strongest base game Purge, a Live One. I ended up trying to take a detour and hoof it around the long way.

Meanwhile, my crew freed a prisoner on the map who then joined my team. While this prisoner was trying to scrounge up equipment, my captain and veteran Chit were holding off Purge and workers, minding the doorway to my ship.

Luckily, the company workers prioritize disarming the bomb so their toughest dude, a huge alien guy, started making his way towards the device. This ran him right into that cluster of Purge. He took down the assassin and a harvester and really formed a bulkhead separating their flow from me. Some stragglers were coming towards me from other entry points, but they were easily dealt with.

Unfortunately, time was running out. I had to abandon Alecia on the map because we were out of time and the bomb was going to explode.

Normally when you leave a crew member behind (typically because they are KO'd), you either have to run a follow up extraction mission which gives your extracted people a momentary breather before heading back in with a map that's in a similar game state, or you roll on one of two charts.

The first is a teleporter which has some funky results. It's a little more unpredictable and wild and I rarely use it. A roll of a one results in the crew member permanently dying.

The other chart is basically them trying to escape. The results vary from being apprehended by the security forces and paying bail, the person being taken by the Purge and experimented on, or them being delayed and missing your next mission.

With this scenario you have to extract using the teleporter, basically representing you beaming them off the ship just as it's blowing.

I rolled a two. Alecia arrived back on my ship, but she was physically changed. I had to shuffle the spare trader boards and select a new crew member randomly. This was Alecia's new body. She retains her experience (Career Points in the game) and equipment, but I can rejigger her skills and it of course affects her base stats like health and native abilities. I drew Ellen, which means her health dropped by one and her passive skill switched.

I enjoyed these three missions immensely in Black Star Rising. Opening up Wanted Dead or Alive now which is one of the expansions I've most anticipated (Bounty Hunters are introduced). I believe Bounty Hunters were first conceived for the new First Born stuff, but this expansion brings them into regular Core Space.

Also, the three missions in Black Star Rising are solo/coop centered. A standard Core Space mission works for solo I'd say 75% of the time (although I often find myself wanting to make sure Gangers/Security enter play to spice up the environment in absence of another player), with the other 25% working a little better if you run a competing crew and just make obvious best decisions for them.

But these solo focused missions are great. Bodes well for First Born.

I got out the Core Space rule book today and will be re-reading it. It's time to get back in.

Thanks charlest, I like reading them!

Just opened my first born boxes,

First impressions are the minis are hardly GW quality but they look pretty good!

I beat the tutorial mission today. The purple AI die for the Firstborn is really great!

Tainted Grail is on my table for soloing at the moment, trying to finish up my campaign of that before next week when I will have workers in the house for a bathroom remodel, probably won't get to dive into First Born until after that.

I really like the Insane God mini. Had to use the hot water trick to straighten the legs, but it's an impressive figure that is able to step over walls (I believe the temples in First Born are supposed to have massive ceilings, and the walls don't extend all the way).

The poses and styling of the miniatures have certainly gotten better over time. I really like the big dude in the main crew, also love most of the NPCs sculpts. There looks to be some great ones in the Trading Post 5 expansion as well.

I've noticed lots of little things doing just cursory glances through the material. For instance, the ability to dig and mine materials at the risk of attracting a worm sounds neat. I really like how the standard equipment is not found as loot so you don't have to empty the item bag between scenarios to shop. That's a big quality of life improvement.

That’s the one thing I struggle with, having not played a ton of Core Space yet. Organizing and constructing the loot bag is a giant pain. This might be heresy but finding tiny chits in crates is way more work than drawing from a loot deck.

That's true. The chits do keep a trader's table footprint very small.

One thing I will occasionally do is not fill the chests prior to play. When searching, I will just randomly draw the loot then.

This only gets tricky if there is a rare item or two randomized in. In that case, I roughly estimate the probability the item is in the chest I'm searching and then roll a die.

For instance, if I search a crate with two small items, and there are four such crates on the map, I roll a one in four chance on a die that one of the two small items in the current chest I'm searching should be drawn from the rates. One in three on the next crate I search and so on.

That only works when soloing or if everyone agrees, but it's less hassle.

Hands covered in superglue. Most of the base KS edition terrain done.

Most of it comes together nicely, only a few shallow cuts in some of the complex tiny punch out vuts led to ripped cardboard layers. The little chests are a rough little glue job too.

Quick question---a bunch of the character cards and enemy cards have punch out spots that have icons and such on them. Is the idea I shouldn't punch them out? I figured I'd leave them be for now and that if I punched them out I'd keep it since it obviously has game utility---is it like a default characteristic until something gets put in there?

Yes, exactly. If there's an icon there you gain the benefit as long as you're not wearing armor. Armor tokens go in that slot.

I'd recommend leaving them unpunched as digging around and trying to find the correct token at a later date is slightly annoying, particularly if you get some crew expansions.

Reading the rules this morning having completed my base game construction... I'm very into how rules light the core action system is. Single roll attack resolution, simple movement,, two actions a turn... Basically all the complexity is introduced modularly by the items and associated icons and the skills and skill tree.

Do you all play with the squares or do you do minis game ruler measuring?

Squares all the way. I don't think a tape measure would add anything other than frustration.

I do a hybrid when playing solo or with people who are fine with the looseness.

Squares when there is not any action and precision isn't important (particularly for enemies and NPCs far from people to save time), and then measuring when shit hits the fan and engagements are underway.

Squares for everything is mostly fine though.

The light complexity of the central system is certainly appealing. It makes the layering on of NPCs and expansion material relatively easy.

I could see doing measuring solo---would make the cover system and LOS a little bit more granular. I find those two things a little loose in the system---"what percentage can you see" to decide cover benefits when you are in a square system is a bit weird because it also tells you that you should consider every part of the square completely filled if memory serves for LOS.