Are the terms of a deal EXPLICITLY RESTRICTED to one or more of the following categories:

• granting a single colony on a planet you already occupy
• giving cards from your hand
• specialized use of your power where indicated (such as Zombie's regeneration)

If a stated aspect of a proposed deal does not fall into one of the above categories, is it an invalid term and cannot be offered?

 Perhaps this has already been answered elsewhere, but can the Vacuum, with his super, remove a colony of the Zombie?  And if Zombie has 4 foreign colonies with 1 ship each, and vacuum loses 4 ships, can the super remove all 4 of those colonies?

Here's a big ol' list of questions that I though up in the space of an hour. Some of these questions I already know the answer to, but I think they're a good idea to have in a FAQ.

If Wild Sorcerer or Wild Reincarnator is played in a multi-power game, how many powers are affected and who chooses which ones (if not randomly)?

If Healer heals someone, are their ships removed from the Warp or stopped from going to the Warp? (Asked because, if ships are sent to the Warp and then healed, Remora could cling and get ships every time Healer heals.)

Can Healer act before Zombie evades going to the Warp?

Is there an official ruling on Zombie vs. Void other than the standard timing rules?

If ships are sent to the Warp during Reveal, does Warpish update his total accordingly? (My guess is yes.)

Why does Gambler say "Do not use with Sorcerer"?

Can Vacuum use its power on itself, and if so, can it cause an infinite loop?

If you attempt to play a Flare but it gets Card Zapped (or for some other reason it is stopped from being used), does that count against a player's limit of one Flare per encounter?

Can a player use Wild Amoeba to increase his ship count if he has no ships as the defense?

Can Will attack Blue on Red's planet even if Blue has no colony there? (I'd say no, but the text doesn't specifically say.)

Can you research and reveal a Tech at the same time? (So, if the Tech needs 2 ships, could you place the 2nd ship on the Tech and reveal it in the same Regroup phase?)

If Warrior gets zapped, does he still earn experience? (He doesn't need to use his power to earn experience, but once he's zapped, he loses his power for the rest of the turn.)

If you get Force Fielded, are you then affected by Grudge?

If you must lose ships that aren't in the current encounter (such as Grudge), what happens if you have no ships outside the encounter?

If you have no ships outside the encounter, can you still invoke effects that require sacrificing a ship from outside the encounter (such as Wild Void) by sacrificing one that's in it?

Can Fido pick from any encounter cards discarded in the encounter (such as those lost by the Plague), or must he pick from the ones that were actually played?

Does Human's zap-him-to-win beat Pacifist's play-an-N-to-win? (I would rule yes.)

If the Omega Missile destroys a planet, do you still need three home colonies to retain your power?

If Warrior draws his own colour and reclaims an empty home planet, does he collect experience?

Does Hate have to be zapped before he chooses which card to discard?

If Super Amoeba oozes all of his ships out of an encounter as an ally, is he considered to have allied in the first place (for effects such as Grudge and Wild Mutant)?

Why must Spiff's total be "10 or more less", instead of using his power when he "loses by 10 or more"?

If Pacifist must play an N when Loser calls upset, does he get compensation? (I would say yes.)

If a power such as Calculator, Mirror, or Tripler affects a card, does an M copy the card's value before or after the modification? If the power is used in Reveal and gets zapped, does the M take on the card's original value?

If an encounter card is altered by something other than a power (such as Wild Pacifist), does an M copy the alteration?

Does the defense choose which ships die to Gluon Mines? Can allies be removed from an encounter completely because of them, and are they considered to have allied in the first place? (As Super Amoeba above.)

If Sorcerer switches cards, which card does Clone or Filch take?

Can Filch take Gambler's unrevealed card, and if so, can he notify the table whether the truth was told?

If a Flare that can be played at any time changes hands, can it be used a second time in the encounter by the new owner?

If Vulch gets zapped, does he get the Zap that zapped him? (I would say no, since he loses his power for the rest of the encounter.)

Does an M count as an attack card if it duplicated an attack card? (For the purposes of Cudgel, for example.)

 Someone already explained this for me awhile back, but it would be good to have in the FAQ:
How does Gambler interact with Oracle since one forces reveal and one refuses to reveal?

 How is the situation between Mirror and the Morph card resolved.  Does the Morph have the numerical value of the card, or does it have the mirrored value?

If Anti-Matter's flare is used to prevent another flare being played, is that flare kept in hand? Also, does it count against that player's limit of one flare per encounter?

Here's a question for you- which came up in last night's game:

What order to cards go into the discard pile?  Normally this doesn't matter, but the Fido flare was in the game, and it calls on forcing a player to draw the top card of the discard pile... several times the two encounter cards hitting the pile were very different (the 40 and a Negotiate went in one time). 

I'd be WAY more interested in taking this FAQ project a step further...

Put all the stuff regarding game rules into a .pdf file so that we can print it and have it handy during game sessions. This should be like an Official Advanced Rules. This manual could then be updated frequently when game rules issues are raised and solved. Games like Magic The Gathering did something like that and it's great.

Having this advanced manual and making it official would be great for two reasons:

First, it would help us, that love the game, have a deeper understanding of the rules.

Second, it would minimize the number of house rules for a more satisfying game play. It would help in three areas:

- It can be messy sometimes playing with people with different house rules...

- Some (new) players think the use of unwritten/unofficial house rules as a way of "making it work you" on the spot if they're not all mentioned prior to game start.

- People that criticize the game for having vague rules and needing too many house rules to solve situations.

(I re-posted because I couldn't edit my last post...)

I'd like to suggest the creation of an official advanced rules for Cosmic Encounter. The basic manual can be a little vague and simplistic sometimes. As you can see in the forum and also throughout the history of this game, there are a lot of situations that are open for personal interpretation because of the almost endless possible situations. You can start with all the current information in the forum with regards to the rules into a .pdf file so that we can download, print, and have it handy during game sessions. This rules manual could then be updated frequently when new issues are raised and solved. Magic The Gathering card game has something like this and it works great.

Having this advanced manual and making it official would be great for two reasons:

First, it would help us, that love and play the game, have a deeper understanding of the rules to avoid stops during game play where we have to discuss and decide how to handle a certain scenario.

Second, it would minimize the number of house rules we need to make when we don't know how to handle a situation. There's nothing wrong with house rules and they've been part of the game forever but when you have too many I see three problems:

- It can be messy sometimes when playing with people from a different group that use different house rules...

- Some (new) players think of the use of unwritten/unofficial house rules as a way of "making it work you" on the spot if the house rules are not mentioned prior to game start.

- People criticize Cosmic Encounter for having vague rules and needing too many house rules to solve situations. The majority of people I can't convince to play this game complain about this.

Please give some thought to this suggestion...

 I think there has been an unofficial ruling regarding a flare that is played not being in your "hand", and therefore not being vulnerable to being discarded/taken as consolation/other card loss.  My question is this:  after you play a flare, at what point does it re-enter your hand?  The next phase of the encounter?  Resolution?

Does the Qax have to be re-researched when given, or can it be re-played as soon as the next encounter?

If Reincarnator loses Citadel, are the citadels discarded or not? (No one would be able to activate them if they stayed, but the cards wouldn't go into the discard pile.)

Do Clone, Filch, and Fido have any precedence over each other? (I'm guessing Clone has precedence since he keeps instead of discarding, while Filch and Fido can only claim discarded cards.)

Can the Omega Missile be re-used repeatedly in a very long game to eventually deprive a player of all his home planets? (Yes, it's purely hypothetical, but so is the Cosmic Quake in a way.)

If the Genesis Bomb is used twice in a game, does the second user simply move the planet to his own system, keeping all previously-placed ships on it? Can the Lunar Cannon and the Prometheus be "stolen" in the same way?

Do you have to reveal what card you take from the discard pile when you use the Delta Scanner?

Can Parasite ally with the defense even if the Energy Cloak is used? (Since the Energy Cloak only stops invitations, not allies themselves.)

Does Super Chosen have to be played before or after he looks at the cards he's drawn?

Can Observer, as an ally, lose ships outside the encounter? (Such as Grudge or Wild Void.)

If Spiff's total must be "10 or more less", why does his Super Flare say "lose by 5 instead of 10"? (I think I got 'em there.)

If the Qax forces Ameoba to ally, can he then play his Super and escape?

Does the Qax force Macron to bring 4 ships?

If two players make a deal to win the game, and Tick-Tock discards his last token because a deal was made, does he win alongside them? (This happened in a recent game and I ruled that, yes, Tick-Tock becomes part of the shared win.)

Is there a limit to how many ships Zombie can liberate at once as part of a deal? (I'm guessing no.)

If Shadow draws a Wild Destiny, can he kill one player's ship and then attack someone else? (Most likely yes.)

If the offense draws more than one destiny card, does Shadow pick off one ship for each card, or one ship for whichever card the offense uses? (I rule one ship per card.)

Can Human be zapped to win if both cards are Ns?

Not so much a question as a concern:

Masochist needs to be banned from being in a game with Tech, he doesn't seem beatable at all when he can place all his ships into Tech and constantly Negotiate. It is easy to stack all ships on one planet and win the game by using your Tech to send your remaining ships to the Warp with no colonies left. I have yet to lose a game with Masochist and Tech.

 If trader is used to trade hands; then the wild sorcerer is played and trader is the power switched to the player who's hand was originally traded; can the 2nd player then trade hands back.

Basically is the limit on power use once per encounter per player, or once per encounter for the table - baring powers like Healer, Remora, Zombie, etc.