As you may have heard, The Ninja Scot and Dr. Telek R'Mor have decided to do a one-page review of every card in Holodeck Adventures.  That's right, all 131 cards!  Better set aside lots of reading time for this…  (DTRM is doing evens and TNS is doing odds)  The opinions, of course, are those of the authors :-)

I like missions that are Fair Play proof but are also worth more then thirty-five points. Assist Cooperative, Answer Distress Signal, and Salvage Operation are now joined by Transport Colonists as fairly simple missions that can be boosted to fairly high point values.

The base skill requirements of Diplomacy, Honor, and INTEGRITY>40 aren’t too difficult. The Diplomacy and Honor together are found on enough personnel (notable Delta Quadrant personnel are Motura, Chakotay, Decaren, and Karr) that it isn’t too difficult to get it out, but watch out for the INTEGRITY>40 bit and a Lack of Preparation forcing you to bring in at least six or seven personnel in the attempt. Beyond that, the span is decent and it has the typical disadvantages of being a planet (namely the threat of a massive wall/Denevan or Crisis/Chandra/Alien Parasites).

Where the card truly shines is the fact that it’s not too difficult to boost it up to forty points. Five different personnel (and four different personas) from the Delta Quadrant can boost the score: Tuvok, Vorik, Kes (Voyager), Kes (Borg), Tanis, and Nimira all have the needed Mindmeld or Empathy. Surprisingly, none of them are able to add on any Honor or Diplomacy to help complete it, though Tuvok, Vorik, Kes (Voyager), and Nimira do have decently high INTEGRITY.

The other card that shines when used in conjunction with Transport Colonists is Liberation because it lets two of your sources of Empathy (Tanis or either Kes) report for free to it. In addition, if the Equinox is seeded in orbit, feel free to drop free (yay, puns) Voriks and/or Nimiras on it. Like always, the Array/Liberation can easily supply almost any Delta Quadrant deck with free reports and card plays. Got to like it.

In conclusion, I’m glad I’m done with missions. They’re fairly monotonous as a whole (though, not nearly as bad as the cursed support personnel that this set is loaded with). You have to play with missions (but not with those stupid support personnel, thankfully), but it seems that unless it’s something creative or interesting, it’s just being rammed down your throat. As a bit more of a whole on missions: the basic philosophy of choosing missions should be skill redundancy. The reason Assist Cooperative, Answer Distress Signal, and Secure Station are so useful is the fact that they’re not only easily solved by one or two personnel, but also the skills needed to solve (or the type of personnel) are already present in most decks to pass dilemmas. The problem with Transport Colonists is that you sort of have to go out of your way to stock your deck with Empathy and/or Mindmeld. Don’t get me wrong, Kes and Tuvok are good personnel, but they’re support personnel: to rely on their skills to complete missions is risky. I like this mission, but it will probably take the awards for the Seventh Mission ™: I’d run it if there just weren’t better options.

Combo(s):
Transport Colonists + Sarek = One of the skills, bonus points, and high INTEGRITY