To add new mechanics to Directive: Invasion!

When the Mars kickstarter was going it gave Directive: Invasion some downtime. And whenever something I'm working on has down time I will, without fail, find something to add to it.
One of these new mechanics will definitely be added to the main game, the other... well, I haven't decided yet.



The new mechanic that is definitely going into the game is the easiest to understand, you just have to look at the new player boards.

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Still not final design

You will notice there is now a second ability, marked with a lightning bolt.  This is your Powered Ability and, as you might guess, you have to power it on.

Added to the world tiles are new Power Plant hexes, representing solar farms, nuclear power plants, hydroelectric dams, etc. If you land an outpost on them you begin siphoning power to help fuel your ground forces. This causes 2 effects for as long as you control a Power Plant: You gain your Powered Ability & Your forces are worth more victory points when killed.

This means when you control a Power Plant you instantly make yourself a bigger target, as killing your troops will get others higher scores and might just knock you off that power plant in the process.

Not to mention that Power Plant hexes are limited, and there is likely more players than Power Plants in play.

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The other idea I had was for Alien Superstructures. These would be giant, player built objects that grant no victory points, but give very strong abilities to whoever controls them. Examples would be The Monolith, that allows you to swap upgrades every turn, or the Space Elevator that allows troops to freely teleport between Outposts.

However, they are not cheap to get. First you need a Monument.

Monuments are located on the large world tiles, which each player gets 1 when placing tiles. They are worth a high amount of points if you have a troop on them at the end of the game, or they are worth an average amount on points if destroyed by your orbital lasers, just to make sure others can't hold it.

To build a Superstructure you must first control a Monument, then use your action to build it. These means you lose out on the points you could have earned by holding the Monument in hopes that the Superstructure will give you a advantage.

This has ended up being mixed in play tests. People like the idea, but greed can outweigh the desire for the superstructure, leading to Monuments being destroyed for quick points more often then not.

This idea needs more testing, to be sure, but I think it could add a nice extra to the game. It just might have to wait until the first expansion