Major Rakal's Romulan Review #102: Oops!

(07/05/2000)

Aefvadh! The necessity of using different site cards to report your cards based on classification, staffing requirements, or "relation" to a personnel type makes using a Nor a little more complex than reporting everything to an outpost. But one key site card makes it all worthwhile because of its powerful downloading capabilities. That site is the hub of the station, controlling everything else...

Ops
Site, common
Any Nor; Ops Module
Compatible OFFICER-classification personnel may report here. Any player may, in place of their normal card play, download to an unopposed site on this station one card which may play there (if reporting a ship or personnel, must be of matching affiliation); player draws no cards that turn. Any Computer Skill personnel unopposed here may commandeer station.

Ops combines three distinct functions on one card. First, like most of the other sites, Ops allows you to report personnel of only one specific classification - in this case, OFFICERs. For normal reporting, the OFFICER must be compatible with the Nor. So if the Nor is Bajoran, and you have a Bajoran/Federation treaty in play, you could report OFFICERs of Bajoran, Federation, or Non-Aligned affiliation to Ops (regardless of which player controls the Nor, as long as it's still Bajoran).

The second function is what makes Nors so powerful. If a card can play to a specific site (including Ops itself), either because the site says it can or the card itself says it can, then you can download that card to the site in place of your normal card play. So you don't have to wait to draw the personnel you need, or play a Q’s Tent to get them from your Tent: just download exactly the personnel you need. There are some restrictions, of course.

• If the card is a personnel or ship, compatibility isn't good enough - only cards of matching affiliation can be downloaded with the Ops text. That means, in the example above, you can download only your Bajorans, because they are the only ones who match the station's affiliation. (Treaties only make cards compatible; they don't change or add affiliation icons, and a [Fed] personnel can never match a [Baj] Nor.)
• The site you want to download to must be unopposed. That means your opponent has no personnel or docked ships at that site. If he has a personnel in the Infirmary, you can't download a MEDICAL personnel or even a Hypospray to that site (but you could report the card there normally).
• Once you do that download, you may not draw any cards for the rest of the turn.
• The card you download must normally be able to play at that site without requiring any other card to enable the card play. For example, your Bajorans can report to The Emissary, so if The Emissary is in the Science Lab, any of your Bajorans could report to him there, regardless of their own classification. But that doesn't mean you can download a Bajoran CIVILIAN to the Science Lab, because a CIVILIAN could not play there if The Emissary wasn't there. Likewise, hand weapons may be reported to Ops if you have a Weapons Locker on Ops. But because they can't report to Ops without the Weapons Locker, they can't be downloaded to Ops.
• Note that you do not have to have someone in Ops to perform a download using the Ops text. Also, an opposing personnel in Ops does not prevent you from downloading to an unopposed site (but it would prevent you from downloading an OFFICER to Ops).

The final "function" is a liability to the owner of the Nor. In return for the incredible flexibility provided by the downloads, you pay with vulnerability to commandeering. If there is no Ops site on your Nor, you don't get downloads, but it also cannot be commandeered. Of course, even if you fail to seed Ops on your Nor, your opponent can always seed one there to open the door for his commandeering force. And if you're seeding Empok Nor so you commandeer it to make a Klingon or Romulan Nor, you need to seed Ops on it, because commandeering attempts (and the actual commandeering) take place in Ops.

You have several defenses against commandeering. If you are playing Cardassian, play Automated Security System on Ops (because it plays on Ops, it can be downloaded by Ops) and keep a Cardassian or two on guard there. Every turn the Automated Security System will select a personnel present and kill them if they are not Cardassian. So even if your non-Cardassian opponent kills off your personnel and commandeers, he'll have a hard time keeping any opposition there, making it easy for you to commandeer it back. Sisko 197 Subroutine will prevent your opponent from commandeering the Nor until he can amass 4 Computer Skill to nullify it. Finally, Intruder Alert! will let you capture your opponent's Away Team in your Ops if it's less than three personnel. The last two are both hidden agendas, which you can seed and then activate when your opponent tries to commandeer.

A couple of final notes on reporting and downloading to Nors in general. An often overlooked rule on reporting to Nors says that you can only report a card to any site on a Nor if the Nor also has at least one docking site. So whether or not you intend to report or dock ships at your Nor, you must include a docking site if you want to use any reporting text on the site cards. "Reporting text" includes the Ops downloads, because downloading a card just means fetching it from your deck or Tent and then playing (or reporting) it. Also, just because you commandeer a Nor with Dominion personnel and change its affiliation to Dominion doesn't mean you can report or download Gamma Quadrant cards to the Nor. When the reporting (normal or downloaded) is allowed by a facility or its site, you must still follow native quadrant restrictions.

The Major's Combos:

• Ops + Ore Processing Unit + Process Ore: If you're doing a lot of downloading, you won't get to draw cards very often. But ore processing will let you cycle unneeded cards out of your hand and replace them with card draws at the start of your turn, before you replace your card play with a download.
• Ops + Weapons Locker: Play your hand weapons straight to Ops (for free) so your Ops "guard" doesn't have to walk to the Security Office to pick them up.