Symbiote

Symbiote
Power of symbiosis
Has twice as many ships
FFG
Wild You may retrieve a ship from the warp during every regroup phase, not just your own.
Super Discard this flare at the start of any regroup phase to rescue all of your ships you choose, even ones in the warp, captured, or removed from the game. Place up to eight rescued ships on each of your home planets, even if you no longer have a colony on one or more of your home planets. Your ships coexist with any ships already there, regardless of any other game effects. This flare may not be canceled through any means.

Symbiote is an alien that has twice the normal number of ships. Using his power requires the player to use two different ship colors, and as such cannot be used if there is no unused set of ship.

In the original version of the Symbiote, his "extra" ship color did not count for establishing bases, so the player had to remember to use at least one of his "main" ships in each offensive challenge.

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Version: Cosmic Incursion

Game Setup: Choose one unused player color and take 20 ships in that color (16 in a 4 planet game), placing twice as many ships as usual on each of your planets. Your player color  is that of the planets you use. Do not use this power unless you have an unused player color.

You have the power of Symbiosis. You have twice as many ships as normal. Your power cannot be zapped, lost, stolen, or copied through by any means.

"The environmental extremes on the Symbiotes home world drove its two sentient species into a mutual interdependence. Now this exceptionally tough hybrid has discovered that the warp gives this two-in-one race a distinct advantage over its adversaries."

Strategy

Strengths	Weaknesses
Has more ships in the late game	Still limited to normal ship recovery

As Symbiote

The Symbiote grows stronger over time, compared with other aliens. As the game progresses, all aliens tend to lose ships at similar rates, making the Symbiote's ship advantage grow. For instance, if every alien has lost 10 ships to the Warp, then the Symbiote now has 30 ships remaining, as opposed to every other alien possessing only 10 ships. His competitors have to be careful about how many ships they send into a challenge at this point. He does not.

Against Symbiote

The Symbiote is still limited to 4 ships offensively, although later on Symbiote will be able to push a numerical advantage it is possible to wear them down. Saboteur will still reduce Symbiote's numbers; Human is able to match a ship strength of 4 regardless of how many ships they actually send; and Warrior will easily be able to outmatch the ship advantage in the late game.