Robotic factory - first round of changes

 Following the first virtual playtest I made some changes.

I swapped some of the cards in starter deck for cards with extra use cost and stats. This should make the choice of starting army more varied.

In hotseat I also tried to salvage the one deck system by providing extra stored research at start and making expensive cards cheaper by adding use costs. I will need to play more with this system.

Hotseat testing showed that the original shield is probably too powerful. I will need to either change the rules or make it more expensive or make distortion weapon cheaper. The power level of ballistic missile also did not feel right.

Feedback after first round of changes felt more positive. One common concern was that division for armour and shields is not fun and also requires keeping too much state in assembly area. Also it was recommended to get rid of any duplicates in starting deck.

Another suggestion was to start with body pre-deployed to mitigate first shuffle randomness. This one felt useful so I am keeping it.

Also game needs a way to keep important cards in hand. I consider a rule to allow keeping 2 cards in hand. You draw two less next turn and gain 1 stored research.

Robotic factory - first virtual playtest

 I joined virtual playtesting discord group some time ago and last Sunday I finally got my prototype in tabletop simulator to testable state. I had 2 players listen to the original version of rules and play a few turns and got a few more ideas for rule adjustment to try.

One conclusion was the need to speed up the pace of the game. Also it confirmed my suspicion that advanced deck must be split. Suggestion for guaranteed supply of mobility utilities was raised. But perhaps the main lessons was about organizing playtests.

One playtester was obviously eager to explain his choices as he played and followed what I would call the intended strategy. The second player was more silent and played strategy that was intended to be suboptimal.

During the feedback phase the second playtester told me that my attempts to suggest a strategy almost every turn were unwelcome, borderline rude. This was a surprise to me. I was asking "have you considered preparing to invade neutral territory earlier?" as a prompt to share his decision process. He felt it I was coercing people to play the game in less fun way. Lesson for me, if I want playtesters to share decision process in real time I must ask this explicitly. But maybe big part of the reason second playtester was so annoyed is that his idea of ignoring army for a few turns and just teching to build a robot with massive firepower (which he obviously saw as more fun) simply did not work.

Also I must learn to be optimistic. Originally I asked for 150 minutes, than I doubted that my prototype is mature enough to play several turns and changed it to showcase and play one turn with 70 minutes. At the end prototype was mature enough to be played for several turns and lengthy feedback phase so people who initially committed for 70 minutes had to stay for 150.

I also received much useful advice on TTS on editing player hand zones, on using thick cards instead of tokens whenever possible, on manipulating grids and snappoints.

And once again let me thank my playtesters for providing valuable feedback and boosting my confidence.