Rule book

Why you are here

Veyra is gone. The fleets that escaped its end crossed the dark for forty-one years and arrived, within days of each other, at the same cold red world: Rubra. (Read the full story.) A treaty keeps the peace. Everyone works to wake the planet: warming it, filling its basins with water and giving it air. Each fleet also builds colonies and stakes out land of its own. When Rubra is livable, the fleet with the most victory points (VP) is the one history remembers.

Your Viability measures how much your fleet has done for the planet. You start at 20. Each time you push Rubra closer to livable, it goes up by one. It pays you credits at the end of every cycle and counts as VP at the end.

Before landfall

1. Pick your ship. You are offered two flagships, each from a different faction. The one you pick sets your starting credits (shown on the card) and gives your fleet a lasting expertise. Some ships also order a first move, which you make on your opening turn.
2. Pick your Cargo Drop (if the game uses it). Choose two of four supply drops. They land right away, free, and give you a head start; a few add or take away credits, as shown on the card.
3. Stock your hold. Ten cards are offered. Keep as many as you like for 3 Cr each, paid from your ship's credits; the rest are discarded. Favour cards you can use in the first few cycles.

You can go back and forth between the three steps and change your picks until you press Done.

The cycle

Time on Rubra passes in cycles. Each cycle has three parts:

1. New cards. Each fleet is offered four cards and keeps any of them for 3 Cr each. With drafting on, you take one card from each hand of four and pass the rest on until none are left, then buy the ones you want. The first cycle has no card offer, because the opening takes its place.
2. Turns. Fleets take turns around the table, one or two actions at a time, until everyone has passed.
3. Production. Leftover power turns into embers. Each fleet then collects credits equal to its Viability plus its credit production, and one of every other supply for each step of production it has.

At the start of each new cycle, the first seat moves one place to the left.

Your turn

On your turn, take one or two actions; the same kind twice is fine. You can:

• Play a card from your hand: pay its cost and meet its requirement, if it has one.
• Commission public works (see below).
• Activate one of your cards. Each “Activate” works once per cycle.
• Grow a biome with 8 biomass, or stoke 8 embers to raise Thaw one step.
• Claim an achievement for 8 Cr once you meet its goal. It is worth 5 VP at the end, and only three can be claimed in a game.
• Sponsor a contract: the first costs 8 Cr, the second 14, the third 20. At the end, the leader in each sponsored contract scores 5 VP and the runner-up 2 VP. Only three contracts are sponsored in a game.

After one action you can stop early with Skip. Taking no action at all means you Pass: you sit out the rest of the cycle while the other fleets play on.

Public works

Projects any fleet can commission at any time, for credits alone:

Waking the planet

Three gauges show how close Rubra is to livable. Each step on any of them raises your Viability by 1:

• Thaw: how warm Rubra is, from −30 °C to +8 °C, 2 °C per step. Reaching −24 °C and then −20 °C gives +1 ember production each time; reaching 0 °C lets you place a reservoir.
• Breath: the air Rubra can hold, from 0% to 14%. Reaching 8% also raises Thaw one step.
• Reservoirs: nine basins wait to be filled, one reservoir tile each.

Some maps set lower limits. A full gauge cannot rise any further and gives no more Viability.

Claiming land

• Reservoir: basin spaces only. Fills one more basin on the reservoir gauge (+1 Viability).
• Biome: land, beside one of your own tiles when there is room. Raises Breath (+1 Viability while it can still rise) and is worth 1 VP at the end.
• Colony: where your fleet's people live, with domes, docks and labs. Land only, and never beside another colony. At the end, each colony scores 1 VP for every biome beside it, whoever owns the biome.

Building on a space collects the bonus marked on it (alloy, hyperium, biomass, cards…), plus 2 Cr for each reservoir next to it. A few cards place special tiles or use the two orbit spaces beside the planet.

Supplies

• Credits (Cr) pay for everything.
• Alloy covers 2 Cr per unit of a Structure card's cost. Hyperium covers 3 Cr per unit of an Orbital card's cost. Metal may overpay; credits never do.
• Biomass: 8 grow a biome. Embers: 8 raise Thaw. Power runs your cards, and whatever is left turns into embers at the end of the cycle.

Production is the small number beside each supply: what your fleet gains every cycle. Credit production can drop as low as −5; the others stop at 0.

Reading a card

• Cost (top left) is paid when you play it. A requirement (top strip), such as “Breath 4%+”, must be met before you can.
• Tags (round badges, top right) show what the card is about. Other cards, achievements and contracts count them.
• Kind (the side spine): a Project does its work once and stays in your fleet; an Ongoing card keeps working, or has an Activate you can use once per cycle; a One-shot happens once, and afterwards only its event tag still counts.
• VP (round medal, bottom right) is scored at the end. Some cards score for the resources stored on them.

The final count

Once Thaw, Breath and reservoirs are all full, the cycle is played out. Every fleet may then turn its biomass into last biomes, and the count begins:

• Viability
• Achievements: 5 VP each. Contracts: 5 VP to the leader and 2 VP to the runner-up. Fleets tied for the lead all score 5 VP, and no runner-up is scored; in a two-fleet game only the leader scores.
• Biomes: 1 VP each
• Colony tiles: 1 VP for each biome beside them
• VP printed on your cards

Most VP wins. If fleets are tied, the one with the most credits wins.

Game options

• Cargo Drop: the opening includes two supply drops.
• Drafting: cards are passed around the table instead of dealt.
• Fast start: every fleet begins with +1 production of every supply, for shorter games.
• Off-world stations (beta): stations in orbit where fleets build outposts and send freighters on trade runs.
• Maps: several built-in maps, plus your own from the map builder (members play them).
• Turn timer: when your time runs out, the game passes for you.
• Coach: explains what each step asks and suggests a move you can see on the board or play with one tap. Always on in the Tutorial (Play → Bots); turn it on in any unranked game from the in-game menu.