RoboRally problem

[Bullgrit]

Those of you familiar with the board game, RoboRally:

What is the benefit of the Circuit Breaker card?

The card will automatically shut your robot down for the next round, for repair, when it has taken 3 points of damage.

But shutting down for the next round is something you can announce by choice anyway. Sometimes you don't want to shut down unless you've taken a lot of damage (like when cards get locked). But with this card, you loose the ability to make that choice, and you must miss a turn for repair whether you want to or not.

I got this card (randomly) last night in a game, and none of us at the table (4) could figure out how it could be a good thing. All the other ~20 upgrade cards are beneficial (or at least not a hindrance), so we thought maybe we were mistaken in our reading of the card -- why have ~19 beneficial cards and one hindrance card?

Because I had this "upgrade" card, I ended up shut down for two straight turns because the other players damaged my robot to 3 points a couple turns in a row. (It was especially frustrating to be shot up while powered down by the Circuit Breaker card, which just means I'd be powered down again the next turn.)

I can't think of any reason to want that "upgrade." It seems to be a total screw card. God forbid you end a turn with 3 damage in front of a factory laser (happened to another robot who fortunately didn't have the Circuit Breaker card) -- you'd never get out of the power down -- it's a recursive loop that effectively ends the game for you without your robot ever being destroyed.

Can someone tell me we're reading this card wrong? Or is it supposed to be a weird screw card?

Bullgrit

 

[prchamb]

Normally, you have to declare shutdown when you are programming a turn, then play the turn, then you are shut down the next turn. The slight "advantage" circuit breaker gives you is it shuts you down for the turn immediately after you take the damage. This way after taking damage you don't have to delcare shutdown, program the next turn, play the next turn then shutdown for the following turn. In short, it saves you a turn.

The biggest problem with circuit breaker is that 3 damage is too low. It just isn't necessary to shut down when you are still getting 6 cards. It's normal in this game to see bots with 3-4 damage programming to get to a flar or repair point. The second problem is you have little control over where you shut down. It's so easy in this game to unexpectedly pick up 3 points of damage which could force you to shut down in a very bad spot.

The are two options for fixing this card. The first, and most common, is to bury it with the Mechanical Arm at the bottom of your box and never pull it out of the box again. The second is to change the text to 5 points of damage, which makes a bit more sense for an auto shutdown. Of course, you still may end up shutting down in an inconvenient spot.

 

[Bullgrit]

Normally, you have to declare shutdown when you are programming a turn, then play the turn, then you are shut down the next turn.

Oh? That's not how we understood it. We thought you could declare at any time, but the shutdown didn't happen till your next turn (which could start immediately following the declaration). We'll look at these rules more closely.

Thanks for the response.

Bullgrit