Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-454133-20180416001423/@comment-454133-20180416005329

I store my Upgrade and Pilot cards differently from everyone else I've seen. Most people seem to settle on binders, with pages of 9 or 16 sleeves (double-sided). This is very pretty, and if you like to build your list by browsing your cards this way, it also shows & browses well. What I don't like is it's far from compact, and once you have your first 6 bazillion cards, you end up having to buy and store a lot of binders and pages. And if you need to add new upgrades, you could be up for shifting a bunch of cards down in the pages to make room and keep the order you want. My method is substantially uglier and more grossly utilitarian, but I like it for its compactness and ease of access. Also I'm a frick'n weirdo. BTW all my cards (except duplicate uniques) are in sleeves since I've found they last a lot longer, and they're easier to handle. But this makes them a lot thicker so space starts to become an issue, especially as I collect new expansions -- remember to allow for growth! Eventually I may remove unnecessary stuff from this box to free up more space for upgrades, or move on to a new container.

Upgrade Cards

Upgrades are stored upright in alphabetical order, with separators indicating where each letter starts. I don't separate by upgrade type, except for munitions that go into my main components box (for even easier access), and epic-only upgrades which are condemned to the rarely used epic-only storage container.

Munitions are stored separately because I often proxy cards by just printing out the list or having it on my phone (so I don't have to pull out all the cards on casual night), but I'll occasionally pull out the missile/torp/bomb so I have something to fiip over when it's used. More and more I've been not using them either though (it's easier to proxy and use tokens to count uses left), so with time I may move them back to the main card box. Condition cards are stored with munitions for the same reason, and see even less use since they have tokens and most players know what they do (and the list builders print that info out too).

When I go Upgrade hunting because I'm not proxying (e.g. at a tournament), I have my list planned out on a Fleet Builder and I just need to alphabetically hunt down each card in the list. This is reasonably quick since I know where everything generally is in the alphabetical order. I should probably get a larger box or make room for upgrades though, since they're not loosely packed anymore (and looser packing makes it easier to thumb through them).

Pilot Cards

Pilots are separated by faction, then stored alphabetically by ship name. I generally order them further by pilot skill, but I'm a bit lazy about enforcing this order.

Each faction is split into two stacks for space, and each bundle of cards is tucked into a U-Shaped piece of lined notebook paper -- because that was easy, utilitarian, and beautifully lazy. This glamorous storage method makes it trivial to pull that lump of cards out of the tall container -- just grab the ends of the paper and lift. This also keeps the card stack from buckling and spraying everywhere! If you've ever had that happen to you, you know exactly why I've done this. ;)

Duplicates

When you buy an expansion more than once, or you participate in store tournaments, you start to accrue duplicate unique cards that you basically can't use. I frequently give these out to new players when I meet them, but I still have a whole bunch. They're condemned to live out their existence in the bottom-right of the container until they find a new owner. I may start storing them somewhere else to make room for more non-duplicates though.

Extra Sleeves & Misc Crap

Unused upgrade card sleeves and plastic bin separators are in the upper-right. Extra pilot sleeves are wedged in with my scum pilots, since I have fewer of those and so have space in that section. All of this could be moved elsewhere to give me more room, which I may do soon. The next wave of ships will probably make things too tightly packed for maximum effectiveness, so it may be time to rearrange again.

So that's how I store my cards! Please post your storage method.