Preface: We are the loyalist press. The Planets Magazine is the fanzine for Planets, and people don’t play Planets much outside the Planets Nu website. If the site goes away, we probably go away too. For us to take a strong position against Nu policy is unusual. We did so with the initial League design, and, with regret, we’re doing so again now.
Remember Westerns? Back in the 50s, you could tell the good guys from the bad ones because the good guys wore big white hats. The Lone Ranger had a mask on, but you could tell he was a good guy because of his hat, which was bigger and whiter than anyone else’s. Tonto (Spanish for “stupid”, and don’t think we missed that) never wore a hat. Obviously, he was only good because the Lone Ranger was with him.
In Planets, we’ve got the same code: there are White Hats and Black Hats. The Black Hats are the bad guys, and the White Hats are the good guys. The Bird Men are sneaky and therefore EVIL, which means we hate them and they never get good advantages. The Robots are the villains so we want them to lose. The Empire calls themselves Eternal, but we left Evil in the name because we want to justify always hating them.
And the Federation gets Enhanced Recycle, because they’re GOOD. They’re enlightened, inclusive, and we always cheer for them because they’re the GOOD guys; never mind that they’re expansionist, militaristic conquerors like everyone else in the game.
Enhanced Recycle, in case you missed PsyDev’s article, is so horrifically overpowered it’s disgusting. He recently finished a melee with over 1200 Priority Points; he earned them by building and then recycling the same ship every turn and generating more points than one could by blowing it up in the Merlin Build Control that everyone else has to use — all while recovering 100% of the minerals. It’s the perfect reason to never play anyone other than the Feds in Campaign (or to never play Campaign, which is my choice). This advantage alone dominates the Queue; it puts the Federation so far above the other races that there’s no sense even playing anyone else.
Not that there really ever was anyway; Super Refit has always been an overwhelming advantage in the proper hands. Add in Quantum Torpedoes (which cost lots of money, but Guess Who? has a tax advantage) and they can kill most starbases without loss. The Feds have the broadest torpedo-based ship list in the game and thus can use Priority Points far more efficiently than most other races, especially now that so many of their vessels are available at a discount.
Unlike the Robots and Empire, of course, because they’re EVIL. They’re obviously icky, and the Federation are the Good Guys wearing the White Hats.
What? Don’t you watch Star Trek?
NOTE: The development team at Planets Nu made no reply to a request for comment.
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