58 C

Instructions

Press A when hovering over an item to automatically return it to its supply pile. Press D to roll attack dice. Hit Spacebar to exit the dice screen. Hold S to make the mouse stick to any pieces it is touching. You can let go and the ships stay on your mouse until you click. DON'T DO THIS ON SUPPLY PILES! This is most useful for moving multiple ships from one square to another, as it takes less time to separate them than it would take to move each one individually. This game is about strategically building your force of spaceships and taking territory from your opponent. You can win either by controlling the required number of fully built and uncontested space stations (4 for 2 players, 3 for more than 2 players.) or killing all enemy flagships. When an enemy flagship is destroyed, all their ships are removed from the board. Setup: Each player starts with 5 ore and 5 metal, which is automatically placed on the board. Take turns placing stars and asteroids. There are rules for doing this: No stars on the same square as another star. No asteroids on squares with stars. Less than 4 asteroids on any square. Stars and asteroids can’t go in the corner squares. Once all the stars and asteroids are placed down, each player rolls 20 attack dice. The player who rolls the most hits chooses their starting square first. Players can only start in one of the corner squares. They place their flagship and 2 of their frigates on that square and the other players do the same on other the other corners. Ships: Frigate 1 attack die $2 Moves twice as far, can build stations and gather ore. Destroyer 2 attack dice $5 Attacks with 3 dice from a square next to the target. Cruiser 4 attack dice $8 Ignores 1 attack hit each time it is attacked. Flagship: Same as a cruiser but can’t be produced during the game. How to Play: First, roll dice to see who takes the first turn. The highest rolling player goes first. Proceed taking turns clockwise until somebody wins. You can make a single action each turn. Turns are about as fast as you can think, like in chess. The following is the list of possible actions: Move Ships: Move any number of ships to a square or from a square. You can’t move diagonally. Cruisers and destroyers move 1 square but frigates can move either 1 or 2. No more than 5 ships from your fleet can share a square at the end of your turn. Frigates cannot move through enemies during a single turn. Attack: Roll attack dice either for all the ships in one of your squares or all your ships that can attack a target square. Except for destroyers, ships have to be in the same square in order to attack. Any target that’s hit is returned to its supply pile. Destroyers cannot attack diagonally. Mine Ore: [CAN’T DO IF YOU SHARE ANY SQUARES WITH ENEMY SHIPS] Gain 1 ore per frigate sharing a square with an asteroid (your frigates only, obviously!). Frigates can’t share asteroids with each other or vice versa. It has to be 1:1. Example: 2 asteroids & 1 frigate in a square: that square produces 1 ore. You can gain ore from multiple squares at a time. Refine Ore: [CAN’T DO IF YOU SHARE ANY SQUARES WITH ENEMY SHIPS] Gain 1 ore for each asteroid on the board with one of your frigates at it. Each frigate can only mine 1 asteroid at a time, so you’d have to have 2 to take full advantage of a square with 2 asteroids, etc. Build Ship: [CAN’T DO IF YOU SHARE ANY SQUARES WITH ENEMY SHIPS] Pay metal to build a ship at one of your space stations. You can’t build at a station that already has 5 ships at it. Build Station Module: [CAN’T DO IF YOU SHARE ANY SQUARES WITH ENEMY SHIPS] Pay 1 ore and place a space station module on a space with a star and less than 3 modules. 3 modules make a whole and usable space station that you can build ships or refine ore with. Only frigates can build space stations, so one has to be present at the star to build. PRO TIPS Make good use of your flagship to ward off frigates during the early game. You only really have to start being overly cautious with it when your opponent has built up more forces. Collect lots of ore at once so you don’t waste time moving ships back and forth from asteroid fields. Build enough frigates to have a high ore income, but keep tabs on how many actual warships you need and don’t get caught out. Don’t mine more ore than you will be able to refine and use. Stealing an enemy space station is almost invariably preferable to building your own. Bait the enemy off their space stations so you can steal them without having to fight a costly battle. Don’t get baited off your space stations. Keep some units in flexible positions where they can support multiple important points within a turn or two. This saves you the money of reinforcing both positions without leaving a weak point.