I had my first game today, against the Technovores, and station decks were constantly being scrapped, so we had a lot of recycling.
Anyway, from looking through the rulebook, it seems that new cards are dealt into a station deck at only three times:
If the last card in a Station deck is requisitioned during the Requisition Cards Event, if the last card in a Station deck is flipped during the Opposition Flip Event, and during Wrap-up.
Is that correct? The way I'm reading it is that if the Technovores scrap an entire deck during the Requisition Phase Event, no cards can be Requisitioned from that deck, and the Opposition won't flip any cards from that deck either, because it won't get refreshed until Wrap-up.
If true, that would finally make that part of Wrap-Up make sense to me. Wrap-Up says to refill all Station card piles, but since you're supposed to refill them whenever they run out of cards, I couldn't figure out why the rule in Wrap-Up was ever necessary.
Spiff's SotM site: www.spiffworld.com/sotm
I'd been wondering about that as well, and had just figured that there must be some card, somewhere, which plays/scraps Station cards outside of the times when you would normally refill them.
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Oooooh! A question that is stumping me! Exciting!
Yeah, I am not sure on this. Honestly, I have just been refilling decks instantly as they run out. If there are only certain times to refill, I should really review that part of the rules
EDIT
Ok folks, I reviewed the rulebook and here is my thoughts.
A Sectors empty station pile only refills during 2 events.
1) Requisition Cards Event (Requisition phase)
2) Wrap Up Event (Aftermath phase)
If a station pile would run out at any other time, it is not refilled.
If that is true, then the Neo-Elves just got a lot more awesome. Buy cards with their Boosts after the Req phase, and leave the piles empty. Then, no flips even if unengaged, can't be Overun, etc. Not to mention Uxshenti's Wrath grabbing a Tech after scrapping something in the Battle phase. She can potentially engaged two ships that round.
On the Other side, if all piles are empty and Uxshent's Wrath scraps a ship she doesn;t get anything.
The rulebook does say that the Sation cards are immediately refilled if empty during the Aftermath.
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
-Robert E. Howard, "The Tower of the Elephant"
Ok, so its not just the wrap up event. Its all the aftermath.
But is it only if the deck is emptied during the Aftermath? Or does a pile thats already empty at the start of the Aftermath refill? Would that only refill during the Wrap Up Event in that case?
Anyway, maybe its not possible to have an empty station deck by the time the Flip event occurs
Here is my theory, which has absolutely no official confirmation.
REQUISITION PHASE: Piles are refilled as soon as they are empty. REASON: I don't remember seeing anywhere, throughout the entire playtesting, that you are someway limited in buying cards.
AFTERMATH PAHSE: Piles are refilled as soon as they are empty. REASON: I don't remember seeing anywhere that cards wouldn;t flip for unenegaged ships because the piles were empty.
There are two significant problems with this theory: 1) It specifically says in the Wrap Up Event to refill cards. 2) We have a rule for how to refill piles if more than one pile is empty at once. Neither of these rules will apply if the theory is only the first two.
Therefore, while cards will always refill immediately, they won't during the Opposition Flips Cards Events. REASON: This is the most likely time that a bunch of cards from each pile will leave (and as mentioned before, it doesn't make sense to have this restriction on the Requisition Phase). However, if you refill the cards immediately, you can be left with a very strange situation. Once the first card is flipped and the pile empty, it will immediately get its five cards. however, if there are only five cards left, then the other piles won;t get any. Therefore, there should be an even distribution then
This actually comes up a lot. If you abandon a Sector early, it is not uncommon for all the cards to flip, and empty at the same time. If it did so, and you refilled the cards immediately, only one card would flip from then on.
There are still two issues to be resolved: First, do Station Piles only refill during the Requisition and Aftermath phase? It could be, but it might not. The rulebook only puts rules by the phase most likely to have that rule occur (removing Energy is mentioned during the Damage Event, even though it can happen anywhere). regarding cards, the only phases that cards get moved a lot are during the Requisition and Aftermath phase. However, through Boosts and Techs, not to mention Opp Icons, cards can be removed from the piles. Once again, I don't recall anywhere that there should be some restriction on using those abilties.
The second question is whether or not a pile is refilled immediatetly, or only after an action is resolved. The best example is using Black Market Contact with only one card in the Station. Would the pile get refilled immediately, and Tharendim gets two cards, or only one. Once again, I don't remember seeing any restrictions like this with buying cards.
Of course, this is only speculation, and we will wait and see what the official answer is.
EDIT: Yes, I do realize that players can buy cards so that one pile empties first and, possibly, putting all of the remaining cards in that pile. However, if it tried to have the same rules as the Aftermath, it would limit what cards you can buy.
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
-Robert E. Howard, "The Tower of the Elephant"
There is no way the mechanic is that complex.
This should be a pretty simple answer.
Honestly before this thread I had just refilled the decks anytime they emptied (after effects were resolved, so Black Market Contact could only take 2 cards if there were 2 cards in the pile when played).
I think you are putting too much stock in the rulebook wordings at this point. The rulebook also gives examples of not having enough station cards to refill the station piles and what to do, which is an 100% impossible situation to run into (the station scrap will never be empty. Its just not gonna happen)
Anyways, I got the answer for this from Christopher, and Paul posted it below. There was a key piece of information I was missing in my deductions. Station cards are ALWAYS refilled immediately when they run out. It doesn't matter what phase, or during an action (you will get two cards with Black Market Contrat).
Here is the key piece of information. Station decks only refill immediately when they run out, if there are no cards left, they don't get refilled when there are more cards. This is the purpose of the text during the Wrap Up. At this point, if there are any empty piles that couldn't refill immediately, then they get refilled during the Wrap Up.
It has happened to me a bunch of times, especally when turtling in a Sector.
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
-Robert E. Howard, "The Tower of the Elephant"
Answer time!
Any time a station deck runs out of cards, immediately refill it, as it says in the rule book, Page 8.
Why, then, does the next paragraph mention refilling decks in the Wrap Up Event?
That is because there is an edge case wherein the station scrap is empty when a station deck runs out. If it is, that deck cannot be re-filled immediately. Were it not for this rule, that deck would *never* refill, even if the station scrap fills up again.
“Many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.” ~Obi-Wan Kenobi
THis has me a bit stumped - and it might just be me that's not seen something, but you only use 5 cards pr slot pr sector, which gives you a max of 45 cards pr game. And the rest of the cards should be removed from the game at this point, or does the rest of the cards not delt out to each sector go to the station scrap? if it's the latter, that makes sense - but if it's not, then you can get into a situation where all cards are bought and nothing is in the scrap..
You deal three decks of five cards into each Sector, then put the rest aside - this is the Scrap pile (covered during hte "Setup" part of the rulebook, if I remember rightly). Any time a Station card is scrapped, it goes to the Scrap pile. Any time a Station deck (one of those decks of five) runs out of cards, you shuffle the Station Scrap and deal five more cards into the now-empty slot. I suppose you'd only run out if the game had a lot of players (I'm not sure what the maximum is - presumably five) and everyone was buying a million things and hanging onto them while the Opposition was turning up ships that weren't getting destroyed.
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The Setup part of the rules doesn't explicitly call that the Scrap, so I just thought any cards that weren't dealt out initially couldn't come into the game.
Hmm, I just checked and it does just say to "put the remainder of the card to one side", so it doesn't specify there that that's the Scrap...however, in the diagram just to the right, which shows the game's layout, it has that pile labelled as "Station Scrap". Both the Requisition and Aftermath phases refer to dealing from the Station Scrap if a Station deck runs out.
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Basically, I like writing stuff ;)
Yeah, the rules blow on this issue. That diagram was the only reason I could figure it out too.
Spiff's SotM site: www.spiffworld.com/sotm
For what it's worth, I just played my first game and had three station piles that I couldn't refill because I was out of cards for several rounds. And I was playing the sector that only has two station decks. And it was overrun, so there were only seven total station decks between the three sectors. So, yeah, that happens. I bought all the things.