Balance question: Hate

[Anu3bis 0]

We just finished a three-person game, one power, so this may not be as thoroughly tested as I'd like.

What is your impression so far on Hate?  I love the concept, but I think the balance is a bit off.

Here's the situation:

1) You have a few cards left.  Hate bets you don't have a rarer type of card...say, a reinforcement.  They toss one, and everyone without a reinforcement loses three ships of Hate's choice.  Unless you stack your bases even more than you used to for the Assassin, you're going to be losing bases a LOT.  Your only solutions are to knock out their power via Zap, or burn their home system to the ground, or keep one of each card in your hand, which isn't that practical. 

2) Morph.  Morph is considered a "type" (so far...no errata yet).  If Hate has one and tosses it for their power, everyone loses 3 ships of Hate's choice.

 

Here's what I'm thinking:

a) No card to match Hate's extortion?  No penalty.

OR

b) Lose three ships of your choice.  The penalty's already nasty, as it could cost you 6 ships in a turn, no need to make it cost you all your outside bases.

OR

c) Backlash.  Everyone tosses the card you told them to toss, Hate sees everyone comply cheerfully, turns to self-loathing and suffers a loss of three ships of its own.

[The Warp 23]

Hate is definitely a power that I think should be avoided in a 3 player game.  I wouldn't even relish the idea of seeing it in a 4 player game, but I would if I had to.  The only real balancing mechanism is seeing it rarely used in the game.  With 3 players, it could come up quite a bit.  Yeeesh.

On Hate's turn though, you can only lose up to 3 ships (it doesn't work per encounter on his turn... just his overall turn).

[slagbeast 0]

There are quite a few aliens that wouldn't  mind losing ships:

Warpish, Massochist, Zombie, Vacuum, some obvious ones.
Doesn't stop losing the bases but are least affected.

Just hope you are friends with the Healer

I like the newer aliens actually.
You really have to change your strategy on how to deal with them.
(Not that you didn't before, but even more so now).