Playing this Ship Phase was so much fun I couldn’t stop and went way past my “bedtime” :)  This definitely reminds me of playing Sid Meier’s Civilization, where I kept saying to myself, “Just one more turn“.  During the Ship Phase I kept saying,  “Just one more page“.

UPDATE: the wording for “rolling for bonus” in the four areas of the Ship Book was ambiguous … was I to roll all the Section Dice for all my sections (which is how I read it) … or should I only roll the dice for the section that is listed at the top of the divider page as the section resolving that page. Shea (on the Rahdo channel) interpreted this as rolling only the dice for the one section that was resolving that page (different that how I interpreted it). I sent in a question to Awaken Realms on this but have not received any reply or guidance on this.

OK … the reviewers have posted videos for Setup, Changes, Unboxing, Tutorial 1, Tutorial 2, Tutorial 3 and even a real game run through (after all five of the tutorials). But no one posted a run through for Tutorial 4 or 5 … so I will take on the task :)

However … this is not a VIDEO! It is better! You get to see everything (over 140 photos) and the words that go along with them … however, when you are done, you have a record of it to use as a resource and a reference. You can skim through to review or search to find a certain aspect of the game. That said … let the photo log begin!

IMPORTANT: I tried to include larger hi res photos when possible – so just click on any photo in this Photo Log to zoom in on the photo! Click a second time and you may be able to zoom in even more!

As you know the game actually is two games in one where you alternate between them as you play. Tutorial #3 was a planetary exploration mission, so we know that Tutorial #4 is going to be the Ship Phase that follows it!

If you read my Tutorial #2 Runthrough, you will remember that I only was able to go through about half of the Ship Book pages, and even then, the Tutorial made virtually all the decisions and choices for me! I may have been able to make 1 or 2 decisions on my own. The tutorial was telling me what to do most of the time :)  This time I am on my own, and as expected I hit a few snags trying to figure things out … but that’s to be expected since it is the first time playing the full Ship Phase PLUS it is a prototype and prototypes typically have misstated things, missing info and procedures in flux.

My Tutorial #3 Runthrough ended at Log 240 in the Logbook which ended with instructions to continue by going to Log 244!

Basically it is getting us hyped and ready to jump into the Ship Book … so let’s go … Ship Book here we come!

NOTE BEFORE WE BEGIN: if you agree with me that having more dice is a good thing, make sure you have the equivalent of 6 success tokens at the end of the Ship Phase when you can buy more dice. Each available crewmember can be assigned duty there to gain the equivalent in success tokens to match their rank level (ie, a rank 2 crewmember can gain the equivalent of 2 success tokens)

Arrival

Rule 1 – Mission Failure Check (not a failure)

Rule 2 – Clean Up Cards & Dice – This is where we are careful to keep each Section separate! The prototype (and apparently the final game box insert) has one long card tray divided into four back to back storage areas (one for each of the four Sections). This makes it a bit difficult to manage. Much better if each Section had their own storage container (thus I recommend getting the Section Boxes add-on.) Meanwhile I wanted to comfortably play the game without getting things mixed up, so I purchased four card and dice storage containers made by Gamegenic called Watchtower 100+ Convertible. It was perfect because they are available in the four colors needed for each of the Sections in the game! The divider cards for the standard size cards are a few mm too tall, but I can keep them slanted a bit to fit. [I plan on writing an article about this storage solution soon]

Return the Section cards and Section dice to the matching Section storage box along with any equipment cards that are specific to a Section:
The three equipment cards were Section specific so they go in the Section storage box along with the dice for that Section and it’s Section cards (see photo above with the dice drawer on top and open face card drawer on the bottom).

Leads tokens go back into the black bag. Time tokens and Turn tokens go into my nice storage compartment (I bought from Game Trayz)

All other dice stay in the main game storage drawer. Event cards, Mission cards, Global Condition cards and the five Discovery card decks go back into the main game storage trays [shown below is the Gamegenic Stronghold 200+ Convertible storage box which is good for the small card but can’t hold the divider cards for the standard cards). [except discovery cards earned during the game which were placed on the Lander tray]

Make sure we have saved

1. Planet Board with all Point of Interest (POI) cards, unclaimed Unique Discoveries (we found them all) and threats (none in that mission)
2. Crew trays with each assigned crew card and rank up card (one successful) and injury cards (none for us)
3. Lander tray with its modules, gathered Discovery cards and Unique Discovery cards (found both of them) and Success tokens (two for us)

Rule 3 – Awaiting Pocket – place it next to the Ship Book (we will be using it) – check if there are any Situation cards and if so resolve their “On Arrival” portions (then put them back into the Awaiting Pocket)

NOTE: At this point I need to point out something regarding SPACE … and this is NOT the galaxies and star systems space we are exploring … rather this is TABLE SPACE (or lack there of). In this prototype there is a significant overlap between the Mission Phase and the Ship Phase where you need almost everything for both phases out on the table at the same time. I hope Awaken Realms will find a way to totally resolve and clean up the Planet Mission Phase before having us take out the Ship Book and it’s Ship Status Panel dials because we ran out of room on our 33.5 inch square card table!

Debriefing

Rule 1 – Advance Crewmembers – crewmembers that met their Rank Up criteria move up a rank if enough success tokens were acquired during the mission. Science is the only section that met their criteria and because Theo was on the mission we only needed two success tokens (rather than the usual three). Since we earned two success tokens, Petra ranked up to level 2. All rank up cards from the prior mission are shuffled back into the rank up deck.

Rule 2 – Create Success Token Pool – we are supposed to have a place to keep all our success tokens earned on our missions that haven’t been used … I will just keep them in the main game storage drawer with the injury dice and danger dice:
Then we combine any success tokens just earned with those in our storage (in our case there were none in storage so we have just TWO of them)

Rule 3 – Switch Ship Duties – if playing with more than one player, pass ship duty tokens to your left.

Rule 4 – Refresh “Available Crew” – All crewmembers that are in the “Resting” Section area now become “Available” so move their crew cards into the “Available Crew” area. Available crew can be assigned duties in the Ship Phase and those assigned crew are then placed into the “Resting Crew” area … but each Section must retain at least ONE available crewmember to be available for a mission. It seems reasonable to utilize the “excess” available crew to duties during the Ship Phase… I will see how that turns out! Right now we have TWO available crew in each section! (so I could assign the extra crewmember in each section to some duty during this Ship Phase).

Rule 5 – Assignments – Any rank 3 crew can take on the “Ship Officer” assignment. This lets them (or rather you) advance one of the Attribute dials on the Ship Status Panel up by one (this is one of the four smaller dials)…. then they go into the “resting crew” area. We have no rank 3 crew at this time :(

Unloading

Rule 1 – Unload Unique Discoveries – look at each Unique Discovery brought back on the Lander. If it has a “Ship Phase” benefit, take it NOW, then slot it into it’s card slot:
Both our new Unique Discoveries have a “Ship Phase” benefit. #2 gains us the R05  Research Project (which I placed in the Awaiting Pocket) and #3 lets us bump our Morale dial up by 1 (so our Morale is now at +5)

Rule 2 – Gain Bonus Ship Upgrades – If we just filled any of our Unique Discovery card slot rows (with four cards slotted in a row) I gain the bonus listed to the right or left of that row. We only have 3 of the 4 in the top row, so we don’t gain any bonus.

Mission Archives

Rule 1 – Use “Ship Phase” Discovery Abilities – Radiating Crystal gives us +2 Energy Points and then we are to “discard” it … I’m guessing that this means “remove from the game”.

Our Energy Dial now looks like this:

Next I have Flickering Holoprojections, but it’s bonus is “Planet Phase” so I can’t use it now. But I also have Ultra-Duraable Ceramic Crust:

I gain the Ceramic Plating Production Project from this… so I put that card into the Awaiting Pocket. Note that we gain the new project PLUS we get to keep the discovery card in the card slot!

Rule 2 – Unload Remaining Discoveries – put any remaining discovery cards into the card slots

Rule 3 – Save Your Planet Board – [remember that this is almost sure to change – it is only a mock up for the prototype] Take out a blank “Planet Save” card and fill in the info about the current state of the planet: Planet Name (and if you scanned it prior to landing), the POI cards on each map sector, any remaining Unique Discoveries you did not find, any threats encountered. Here is my Planet Save card for the prior mission:
This is why you have to keep your Planet game board open on the table for all this time … so that finally you can “save” the details of what the planet is like in case you decide to return to it later. I suggested to Awaken Realms that they do this right at the end of the planetary exploration mission so that our table could be cleared off as we start the Ship Phase.

Gather all the cards from the Planet game board and store them behind the Planet Save card in Card Tray A (inside the game box where you store all the cards no longer needed after each mission).

Rule 4 – Close and Store the Planetopedia – FINALLY!

Medbay

Rule 1 – Install Upgrades – check the Awaiting pocket and slot any upgrade cards into the appropriate slot – we didn’t have any!

Rule 2 – Cleanup Uninjured Crewmembers – Any crewmember from the mission that is uninjured gets put into the Available Crew area of their Section storage box. We had no injured crew! Yay!

Rule 3 – Progress Crewmember Cards Through Slots – Move crewmember cards one slot to the right (ie, they are a little less injured after one cycle). If that would move them off the page then they are healed and you place their card in their sections Available Crew area.

Assign a crewmember to “therapy” – this allows you to move an injured crewmember one more slot to the right for each available crewmember that you assign to assist. Any assisting crewmember has their card placed into the “resting” area of their Sector box.

Rule 4 – Insert Injured Crewmembers – if any crew were injured during the prior mission they get slotted into a Medbay card slot. If they had 3 injuries their card slots into a Critical card slot. If they had 2 injuries it goes into a Moderate slot. If 1 injury into a Light slot. If there are no open slots of the correct “type” (there are 5 slots per type) then you must slot the injured crewmember into a slot to the left of that slot (it became a worse injury). If no slots are available to the left then the crewmember dies.

Rule 5 – Return All Injury Cards To The Box

Rule 6 – Perform Survival Checks – For each crewmember in a Critical Injuries slot roll 3 Injury Dice. If you roll two of the three drop symbols the crewmember dies.

Memorial Wall

Rule 1 – Memorialize Dead Crew – Sequentially place dead crew in slots for their section and apply any bonus listed for that slot.

Rule 2 – Store Crew Trays – Your crew trays should now be empty (remove any left over blue charge token cubes)

Save Spot

Skip this if you are going to keep playing the game now.

Rule 1 – If used, place “duty tokens‘ into the appropriate Section Storage box (the hex tokens that specify what each player in charge of – ex: Recruitment Officer). The First Player token and the Mission Failed token go back into the game box.

Move any Success Tokens from the Awaiting pocket into the Success Token pool (in the game box insert) – we had TWO success tokens from our mission! I am keeping the earned success tokens in the drawer with the injury dice.

Move any modules used on your Lander into the Awaiting pocket (such as our Heavy Armor Plating). Store the Lander tray and Awaiting pocket in the box.

Rule 2 – Take a photo of the Ship Status Panel dials (or record their settings) in case they are jostled

Rule 3 – Close and store the Ship Book

To resume play, take out the Ship Book and Awaiting pocket, open the book to the SAVE SPOT and continue play.

Bridge

Rule 1 – Check Awaiting – If there is an Objective card place it in the Objective card slot (and remove the card that is there). So we placed our O2 Objective card in the slot and removed the previous O1 Objective card (not sure what to do with it – maybe it goes in the “Removed from the Game” section).

If there are any small Ship Upgrade cards (numbered starting with the letter U … not the letter B Blueprint cards) place them in the Ship Upgrade slots. We had none, so our prior U05 Improved Solar Panels is the only Ship Upgrade slotted here at this time.

Rule 2 – Open Your System Map – open it to the current system (where you just had your planetary exploration mission). We are in the TOI-2 system now:
Now we get to choose where to go next! Looking at this INFO it seems that there are still three other places in the current system (in the list at the bottom of the page) but they are not available in the prototype. Next, look at the top left corner for places outside the Current System that we can go to. We have three choices:
In front of each choice is the energy cost for us to get there:
> 81 INF has 1 energy cost
> NU4 Ceti has 2 energy costs
> Eye of the Void has 2 energy costs (we would be returning to where we were in the first mission)

Rule 3 – Generate New Energy Points – we already gained two energy points from one of discoveries (see Mission Archives above). Now we look at the Generators attribute dial (the attribute dials are the small dials). It is set at +3 so we bump up our energy points by 3 and it now is set at 5 EP (2+3).

Rule 4 – Fly to a New Destination – It suggests looking at Log 900 to help us make our decision on where to go next:

Personally … I am finding this Ship Phase LOTS OF FUN … this diagram is a good example! It shows the routes that connect the various systems. There also is a square checkbox by some of the systems that indicates places that are available in this prototype. Now technically I can choose to go back to Eye of the Void (but there is no square checkbox there so it is not allowed in the prototype). Even if I could, just looking at the diagram I see that I would then HAVE to come back to TOI-2 before going anywhere else. So that is out. Next… I could go to 81 INF which is sort of in the center of the area of where we are. 81 INF has routes to 5 other systems, so that sounds good! However, looking down in the diagram we see NU4 Ceti. If we went to 81 INF first and then went to NU4 Ceti, would end up having to retrace our steps back to 81 INF before going to GYF-4 or TWI-5. It would seem more efficient to explore NU4 Ceti first and then go to 81 INF. However, it does cost an extra energy point right now to do this (2 EP instead of the 1 EP for 81 INF. However … looking ahead… step 6 instructs us to reduce the EP dial to zero (0) at the end of this process. We have enough energy points to both pay the 2 EP to go to NU4 Ceti and also to do 3 planet scans as well at a cost of 1 EP each … we will have to see what comes up! If we need more EP we also have four extra crewmembers who can be assigned to duties, thus gaining us more energy points (1 per crewmember so assigned)! FUN!!

1. Choose your next destination! We are choosing NU4 Centi:
   
   

   

   The cost to get there is 2 EP, so we move our Energy dial down 2 points so it now is at 3:
   

2. Next is an issue with the prototype … it forgets to tell you to ALSO pay the cost to actually LAND on the planet … in our case, 1 EP to land on NU4 Ceti C – “Matchstick“. So we pay that cost and bump our Energy dial down 1 to the 2 setting:
   
3. Now we get the chance to scan the planet before launching our lander. I like this option since it lets me know what dice symbols will likely be encountered the most on the mission allowing me to chose crewmembers that specialize in those symbols. So we take out the Landing Card for L2 Matchstick and insert it into the scanner:
   
   Remember to NOT look at the back of that lander card!!! We see that there are THREE available scans that we can take at a cost of 1 EP each. We only have 2 EP left so we can do two Scans (and then can decide if we wish to assign an available crewmember to gain us an extra EP). NOTE: we do NOT look at the briefing log (listed at the top of the back of the Lander card) until much later in this Ship Phase… actually, not until the very last page (Mission Launch Procedure)! We know that at the end of the Bridge portion of the Ship Phase we lose all our EP so we want to use up those 2 that we still have. Plus we might want to consider assigning one of our 4 extra crewmembers to help by providing us one extra EP to pay for the third (final) scan! Let’s do scan 1 and 2 first and then decide on who to assign to get us the EP needed for the third scan. You will see why I am waiting till after the two scans!  The first scan tells us what to expect on landing:
   
   This first scan informs us about landing conditions. For this planet we are advised that two of the three Lander abilities will be crucial:
   and
   So we should check our Landers “agility” and “sensors” capabilities:
   NOTE: later in the Ship Phase we will have the chance to build another lander… remember that each lander has DIFFERENT “capabilities” so if we use another lander we will NOT have these capabilities.Our Space Ranger has a level 3 for each of the three settings. Later when choosing and equipping the lander we might have options to beef up the sensors or it’s agility. At this point, I am seriously considering taking Samarth on this mission due to his PILOT skill which lets him reroll the Danger Die up to FOUR TIMES when landing!
   
   Samarth will allow us to have four bad rolls, and still end up with a smooth landing with nothing lost!
   Next we pay another 1 EP to do a second scan (so our EP is now at Zero):
   
   And here is the next scan result:
   
   This scan helps us in two ways. It warns us about the types of events we can expect to see on the planet:
   vegetation … and caves:
   The event chart in the Quick Guide Book expands these a bit. Caves can be caves, underground tunnels and structures. Vegetation can be forests, jungles, tundra, lush fields of plants. But what I like most from this 2nd scan is that it also advises us about what Section Dice symbol may be frequently needed as we progress on our mission:
   This DNA symbol is found on the green dice (so if we are able to buy another die, a green die with the DNA symbol on it would be nice). We also can check if any of our available crewmembers have a blank converter ability to change a blank die face into a DNA symbol. Yay … of the eight available crewmembers, one can convert a green blank into a DNA symbol. And it is PETRA!
   
   Our Rank 2 Science star! Go Petra! So, we definitely want to take her on this mission and if we gain an extra green die with the DNA symbol on it, that same die also has one “blank” side that Petra can convert to a DNA symbol for an added chance of success.
4. We now need to decide if we want to do that 3rd scan to advise us on which dice rolls will be significant in our coming mission. We have zero EP now, so if we want to do the scan we will need to assign a crewmember to the duty of gaining us 1 EP.  AND NOW you should see why I waited to see the 2nd scan results before choosing which crewmember to assign this duty, because whoever I assign CANNOT go on the mission. So I know that I can’t assign Petra … but now I also know that the OTHER available crewmember in the Science Section (Amir) would be perfect to use for this since it will not be possible for him to go on the mission because I can take only one crewmember from Science and I already decided we are taking Petra. So we move Amir into the “resting” area of the Science Section box and bump up our Energy to 1:
   
5. We now have enough EP to do that 3rd (and final) planet scan! So we pay the 1 EP and bump our dial back down to zero again:
   Then we pull the L2 Lander card up in the scanner to reveal the 3rd scan results:
   
   We now know two other dice symbols that likely will be required:
   computer … and also the squid:
   So, let’s check the available crewmembers to see if any of them have blank converters for these two symbols. YES! Theo in Security!
   
   PLUS he also lets us get by with one less Success Token for our Rank Up at the end of the mission.
   
   We are definitely taking Theo with us (along with Petra from Science and Samarth from Engineering). That means the other Available Security crewmember (Riku) CANNOT go on this next mission and is available for ship duties! This also is good to know that a red blank is good to have as well as that green blank (for Petra). But there is one more piece of information in that final scan result … it tells us to expect to see Category 2 Danger Die rolls:
   We can anticipate the possibility of losing supplies (with the triangle 3/8 chance) or a burnt injury  (with a square 2/8 chance) or even suit damage injury (with a circle 1/8 chance) … oh oh … there is a 6/8 chance of something bad every time we roll a Danger Die with category 2! That’s a three out of four chance of BAD! This may be an interesting (and rough) mission coming up!

Rule 5 – Close and Store Your System Maps book

Rule 6 – Install Ship Upgrades – we do not have any pending

Situation Room

Note: remember that our Morale is at +5 due to the discovery we made on our last mission!

Rule 1 – Check the “Awaiting…” pocket – if there are any Situation Room Upgrades slot them into the appropriate card slots (none for us yet).

Rule 2 – Resolve Imminent Situations – If any Situation card is in the Stage 3 slot, it would slide to the right (and go right off the page) so take out that card, flip it over and resolve the consequences listed at the bottom of the back of the card. NOTE: if you pay the Resource Points (RP) listed on the front of the card to take care of the situation prior to the card sliding to the right from Stage 3, you do NOT flip the card over and you do NOT have the consequences listed on the back of the card. (we have no situations at this time – yay). Thus it is good to resolve the situations rather than let them just get worse until we are faced with the consequences on the back of the card.

Rule 3 – Progress Situation Cards Through Slots – if there are any situation cards in Stage 1 or Stage 2 slots, slide them over one slot to the right. (ie, Stage 1 moves into a Stage 2 card slot). Once again, phew … we have no situations! (yet)

Rule 4 – Draw and Insert New Situations – draw two new Ship Situation cards and slot them into the appropriate Stage card slot as noted in the bottom right corner. Do NOT look at the back of the cards (if we pay to resolve them before they go “critical” we never will see the back of the cards). If your morale dial is at level 3 or less you must draw a third random Situation card. Our morale setting is +5 so we only get the default two new situation cards. It looks like one goal (of many) in the game will be to keep the morale setting at +4 or higher, otherwise we get another situation card each round (which is a 50% increase in new situations). Take a look at my new situation cards:
This one starts at Stage 1 so the RP costs are either 2 to scare away or 4 to catch them! Next one is this:

This one starts at Stage 2 (closer to going critical) and costs 3 to resolve in one of two ways!

Rule 5 – Generate New Response Points (RP) – add the number of Response Points as noted by the Morale dial setting. (in our case the Response dial is set from 0 to 5):

Rule 6 – Roll For Bonus Response Points (RP) – roll all your red and blue dice for all four Sections (making sure to keep them separate).  Set aside any exclamation point or blank symbols (not useful for this roll):

Any other symbols on any of the dice are GOOD and count towards your RP bonus based on the provided chart that is part of the FULL RULES on this divider page.

Here is how it went for me … plus you get to see my cool Gamegenic Watchtower section boxes that I bought (they have a drawer for the dice and tokens and player standee above the slide out drawer for the cards) … first I lined up my section boxes with dice drawers out to get ready for this!
(you also get to see my two player dice tower in front) … next I took out the red and blue dice from two sections making sure to roll them on opposite sides of my dice tower:
Then I set the dice I just rolled in front of the matching Section dice drawer with the good symbols that apply towards my bonus in front … then I rolled the red and blue dice for the other two Sections in the same way:
I now had the dice I just rolled set in front of each Section dice drawer with the bonus dice in front:
Then I slid the dice that applied towards my bonus out front a bit more so I could count how many I got:
As you can see … seven (7) dice in my roll apply towards the bonus RP!

Next I look at the RP bonus chart and the special rule on how to gain more RP:
I rolled 7 so the chart tells me I earned +3 RP. I add that to my Response dial moving it from 5 up to 8 (5+3):

If I had rolled 3 more “good” dice I would have gotten another RP bonus!

IMPORTANT NOTE: we “Roll for Bonus” four times in the Ship Phase. Each time the same two icons set aside the “bad” dice. Each time we “roll for bonus” the dice themselves are not giving us the bonus! The chart that is provided in the rules specifies the bonus we earned with our dice roll. Once we determine our bonus from that chart, the dice are simply put back into their matching Section Storage boxes. If we have any “extra” good dice beyond the amount used by the chart to earn us the bonus, those “extra” dice do not gain us anything and just go back into the Section Storage box at the end of this Ship Book divider page – see Rule 8 below.

But the small note below the chart is important. It says that I can assign an available crewmember to this duty and change one of the “bad” dice to a “good” die. I still have 3 available crewmembers, so I could do this to get that extra RP but looking at the RP that I need to resolve my new situations it seems I only need 7 RP. Perfect… the 8 RP that I have will easily resolve both situations! I can save the available crewmembers to help with one of the next areas of the Ship Phase (or better yet, to help me buy more dice)!

Rule 7 – Spend Response Points (RP) – spend your available RP on actions visible on the Situation cards. Note that the cost of these actions can vary depending on what Stage the card is at. There are three stages, so the cost is listed as three RP costs separated by a slash like this: 2/3/4 which means 2 RP if the card is Stage 1, 3 RP if Stage 2 and 4 RP for Stage 3.

My Stage 1 situation has two actions that I can take to resolve it:

1. 2/3/4 RP to scare the hackers away and shuffle the situation card back into the situation card deck (it then may appear again in a future round)
2. 4/6/7 RP to catch the hackers. This gives me a +1 Generator for my Energy dial plus the card is removed from the game.

I have enough RP to pay for the more expensive second option to catch them. This will bump up my energy generator to give me energy to not only travel to future systems but to scan the planets before I send out my lander! Since the card is still in Stage 1 the cost is 4 RP (if I wait till next round the cost would go up to 6 RP). So, I move the Response dial to down from 8 to 4 (8-4) AND I change the Generator dial, moving it up from +3 up to +4:
After that I remove the situation card from the game (without looking at the back of the card)

Next, since I still have 4 RP left on my dial, I can resolve the Generator Malfunction. However, I have to chose one of two ways (actions) to do this!

1. 3/3/5 RP as a Recon priority. This will bump up my Assembly Points (AP) by 2 but reduce my Manufacturing Points (MP) by 2. My MP is at zero (0) right now. Since this is a prototype it is not clear what the procedure is when an action would move a dial setting below its minimum. Does it just bottom out at the minimum and allow the action? Or does it prohibit the action due to not being able to reduce the setting the specified amount? Since the OTHER action will also have this same issue but with the Assembly dial, I think it safe to assume that the action IS allowed and the setting being reduced just goes to (or stays at) its minimum. If anyone has any comments about this, please contact me.
2. 3/3/5 RP as an Engineering priority. The cost is the same as the first option. However, what happens is reversed. The Manufacturing Points are increased by 2 and the Assembly Points are reduced by 2. And both actions end with shuffling the card back into the Situation card deck.

Making my decision! Manufacturing Points (MP) will go towards the Production Project in my Awaiting pocket to add Ceramic Plating as a Ship Upgrade and grant me Equipment. Assembly Points (AP) on the other hand apply to completing blueprints in the Hangar portion of the Ship Phase which allow me to construct another lander … or maybe I have to pay again to reuse my Heavy Armor Plating that is in the Awaiting pocket after being used on the lander in the prior mission (not sure about that … actually, it seems that the module should have just stayed on the Lander Tray). I have the three blueprints needed to construct the Pelican Lander which has very little armor and agility and fairly poor sensors but can hold more supplies and equipment on landing and can bring back more discoveries. As it’s lander card states, it is “vulnerable to any hazardous landings”:

I think I will go for constructing the Pelican Lander … So … I will choose to pay the 3 RP to resolve the situation as a Recon priority to get me the +2 bump in AP needed to construct a new lander! I now bump up the Assembly dial to level 2 (0+2), and check if I can reduce the Manufacturing dial (nope … can’t reduce it, so we leave it bottomed out at zero):
Then I finish the action and shuffle the card back into the Situation card deck.

Rule 8 – Return Section Dice to Your Section Compartment – once again, remember that the dice from each section stays with that section (do not mix them up). And remember that the red and blue dice are the ones that help give a bonus to resolve situations!

Research Laboratory

NOTE: we need to keep ALL the rules for this area in mind right from the start. We know that we will get 2 Science Points (SP) from our Research dial +2 setting. We know that we can roll all our green and blue dice from all four sections to get extra SP (and we have 15 of those dice). We know that some card slots give a discount. And we know that we can assign any available crewmember a duty here that allows them to change one of the dice that we roll to be whatever symbol we want. Now … step by step, rule by rule:

Rule 1 – Check “Awaiting…” pocket – if there are any Research Projects in the Awaiting pocket, slot them in an available card slot of your choice. This may seem like a minor choice, but each card slot has different bonuses and discounts that apply only to the Research Project card that is in that specific card slot! And there is one Research Project that I would like to complete if possible… so let’s look at the two Research Projects that are in my Awaiting pocket – R06:
and R05:
and also look at the Research Laboratory card slots (noting the breakthrough discount listed for each):

Two of the card slots seem interesting and may help finish a project in this same round!
This one gives a 1 SP discount if I roll an atom AND a compass AND a DNA. Looking at the dice currently in my four section drawers I do have one of each (and some  with the Vanguard logo which is Wild). So it is quite possible that the card placed in that slot could get a 1 SP discount.
Next the whole bottom row is interesting. Look at C-1 for example:

If we can complete one other Research Project in this round, this card slot will give us a 1 SP discount on the card in that slot!

And completing the project that is slotted into card slot A-3 seems do-able at no cost. It only costs 1 SP plus there is a 1 SP discount if I roll three Vanguard symbols (which is quite possible since I will be rolling 15 dice… I was looking ahead… hang on!)

Of the the two new Research Project cards that I have in the Awaiting pocket, one seems most interesting … R05 is both expensive (4 SP) PLUS requires 1 Mineral discovery card AND 1 Alien Tech discovery card (which I *DO* have, but I will lose them as part of the cost of completing this project)! Since this is the first Research Project that requires having (and using) two discovery cards, it seems likely that what we would get from it should be quite good. But no peaking at the back side of the card! That bright red warning is at the bottom of the card!
PLUS just above that warning it does give us a GENERAL IDEA of what to expect when completed and it is a whopping FOUR THINGS:

1. 1. Equipment
   2. Research Project
   3. Production Project
   4. Ship Upgrade

So, I’d like to complete the R05 project THIS ROUND if possible. Now, before we continue to Rule 2, I have to put the two new cards (R05 and R06) into card slots. I will put R05 (the one that I really want) into slot C-1 and hope that I can complete the project in A-3 at no cost to get the 1 SP discount! I will SAVE the nice B-2 slot for NEXT Ship Phase when we might have another juicy new research project! Finally, let’s put the R06 card into slot A-2 where it likely will stay until at least next Ship Phase.

Rule 2 – Generate New Science Points – my Research dial is at +2 so I up my Science dial from 0 to 2 (0+2).

Rule 3 – Roll For Bonus Science Points (SP) – roll all the green and blue dice from all four Sections (keeping them separated). Set aside those with a blank or an exclamation point symbol (bad dice). Count how many dice are left (the good dice) and use this chart to gain extra Science Points (SP):

I have 15 total green and blue dice between all four of my Sections. Here is what I rolled:

I got 5 Vanguard (wild) symbols. I needed 6 good dice to get +3 SP but only got 5. But this does give me +2 SP

Gaining +2 SP is not that great .. HOWEVER, it my roll matches the 3 Vanguard symbols requirement to get 1 SP discount for that top right A-3 corner card so it is now FREE (1-1). And completing that A-3 slot then gives me a 1 SP discount in the C-1 slot (which is the one that I really want to complete now). So that will only cost me 3 SP instead of 4 SP. And now I can pay that 3 SP and have 1 SP left to carry over to next round! But, remember that I also must discard the mineral discovery and the alien tech discovery (remove them from Mission Archives and out of the game) as they were part of the “cost”!

NOW for the FUN PART

We get to flip over the two Research Projects we just completed to reveal what we got!

R05 gave me:

1. Equipment card E19 Heavy Mining Laser (Engineering Section)
2. Equipment card E20 Defense System (Security Section)
3. Blueprint card B17 Multispectral Scanner
4. Research Project R09 Main Ship Armament

I now remove R05 from the game and place the B17 and R09 cards into the Awaiting pocket. I place the two equipment cards in their matching Section storage boxes as available to future missions.

Next we flip over the R02 card that we also completed to reveal:

• Goto Log 100 which then gave us:
  • U02 Ship Upgrade (Advanced Starmap)
  • [could have given us R07 Extreme Biome Survival IF we had already completed R01 – which we haven’t]
  • S11 Situation card is returned (if it had been discarded) and shuffled back into the Situation card deck

Rule 5 – Return Section Dice to your Section Compartments (make sure each Section gets their own dice back)

Manufacturing Complex
aka
Production Complex

It’s just a prototype, so this section of the Ship Book has TWO different titles!

at the bottom of the front of the divider page … then turn the page to see:

Rule 1 – Check Awaiting – look for two types of Production cards in the Awaiting pocket. Any Production Upgrade cards go into the Production Upgrade card slots at the top of the front of the card page. Any Production Project cards go into the Ready For Production card slots on the back of the card page.

There was one Production Project card in my Awaiting pocket – C07. I slotted it in the back side of the card page alongside the other two cards that were already there:

RULE 2 – Progress Projects Through Slots – move all project cards in both Queue 1 and Queue 2 to the right one slot. If any card moves off the page past Stage 3 it is complete so flip over the card and resolve the rules found on the back of the card. Then return the card to the game box (ie, removed from the game). This doesn’t apply to me (yet!)

Rule 3 – Generate New Manufacturing Points – gain the number of Manufacturing Points (MP) per the Production dial attribute. My Production is at +3 so I add 3 to my Manufacturing dial (which currently is at zero) so I set it to 3 (0+3):

Rule 4 – Roll For Bonus Manufacturing Points – roll all your blue and red dice from each Section keeping them separate from each other. Set aside dice with the exclamation point and blank icons (the “bad” dice). The remaining dice (“good” dice) earn you bonus Manufacturing Points. I rolled 7 good dice which gives me +3 MP per the dice chart:

This moves my Manufacturing dial up to 6 (3+3).

If I wanted more MP I can spend one success token to change one of the “bad” dice to a “good” die. I also could assign any available crewmember to duty here and change the number of “bad” dice to “good” dice that matches their rank (ie, rank 2 crewmember can change two “bad” dice).

At this point I am looking forward to gaining more dice for each section (which happens at the end of the Ship Phase during the Barracks section). I will need the equivalent of 6 success tokens to get more dice. I have two success tokens. Available crewmembers can be assigned then to gain the equivalent of success tokens equal to their rank, so I am hoping to use the Rank 2 crewmembers from Security and Engineering to gain the 4 additional success tokens. That means I have only 1 crewmember available from Recon now (I previously assigned the crewmember from Science). But I hope to use that Rank 2 crewmember in the Barracks section to rank up (train) a new recruit. So, I think I will stick with the 6 MP that I have on my dial.

Rule 5 – Spend Manufacturing Points – I can spend MP to move a Production Project card from a Ready For Production slot on the back of the card page to Stage 1 of a Production Queue on the front of the card page. I also can spend MP to “boost” (ie, rush) production.

I have three projects ready for production. Things I can gain are:

• Ship Upgrade (from C07 and C02)
• Equipment (from all three)
• Production Project (from C02)

I can’t move all of them into the production queue for two reasons. One – there are only two queues and the 2nd one is not available to me yet (needs an upgrade first). Two – I don’t have the MP for them all. So … since I only have ONE Queue available to me I choose to move C02 into Production Queue 1 mainly because it is titled “Improved Vanguard Systems” and I am hoping that it might upgrade my 2nd Production Queue for me!

It costs me 2 MP to move C02 into Production Queue 1. Looking at the bottom of the card it states that I am start at Stage 1. Now I have 4 MP left on my dial (6-2):

I can then use those remaining MP to boost production and rush it to completion right now! One boost goes to Stage 2. A second boost goes to Stage 3. A third boost completes it. So I need to spend 3 MP to boost this to completion right now. I move my Manufacturing dial down from 4 to 1 (4-3):

NOW … the FUN part … let’s see what we just manufactured by flipping over the card:

• Gain +1 Generators (which will give me more energy)
• Ship Upgrade U03 Quantum Network
• Production Project C04 Expanded Production Facilities (YES this might get us Production Queue 2)
• Blueprint B07 Perimeter Defense

The three cards all have the WARNING to NOT look at the back of the card until assembled or manufactured. Place all three cards into the Awaiting pocket.

Finally bump up the Generator level by 1 from +4 to +5

Rule 6 – Return Section Dice to Your Section Compartment (make sure they go back to the right Section)

Hangar

Rule 1 – Check Awaiting – if there are any Hangar Upgrades (Hxx cards) or Blueprints slot them into the appropriate card slots. The completed module B01 Heavy Armor Plating is in the Awaiting pocket being returned from the prior mission. It gets slotted into the second card page as a Completed Module. B07 and B17 are new cards and get slotted into Awaiting Blueprint card slots on the back of the first card page (joining the Pelican lander set of 3 blueprints).

Rule 2 – Finish Assembly – any single blueprint items that are in a construction bay are considered finished now. Any SET of blueprints is considered finished if all the cards in that set are there in the construction bay. Remove any completed blueprint (or set) and flip over the card(s) to resolve the text on the back of the card. Nothing was on this side of the cards page for me.

Rule 3 – Generate New Assembly Points – gain the number of Assembly Points (AP) equal to the current Production attribute (on the small dial). My Production is at +3 so I add 3 to the current Assembly setting of 2 and change the Assembly dial to 5 (2+3) [note that two different sets of dials are referenced here … the orange Production dial and the yellow Assembly dial]

Rule 4 – Roll for Bonus Assembly Points (AP) – warning – the dice you roll will also be used in Rule 5 so don’t change them! Roll all your green and red dice from all four Sections keeping them separate from each other. Separate the bad dice symbols (exclamation point and blank) from the rest (the “good” dice). I had 17 red and green dice and got this for my roll:

I rolled 9 “good” dice [remember the double Vanguard Logo symbol actually counts as two] which I compare to the dice chart to see what my bonus AP is:

Based on the chart I get +3 AP (just 1 short from 10 which would give me +4 AP)

Next, I could exchange a success token to change one of the “bad” dice to any symbol I want. I also could assign an available crewmember to help and based on their rank they would change the symbol on “bad” dice (ex: a rank 2 crewmember would change 2 “bad” dice). I want to save my success tokens and crewmembers to be able to buy more dice at the end of the Ship Phase, so I will stick with my +3 AP bonus. So, I add 3 to my current Assembly dial level of 5 and change it to be set at 8 (5+3).

Rule 5 – Spend Assembly Points – remember to save your dice roll from Rule 4 because some of those dice may get you a discount on the Assembly cost! The cost to move a card from Awaiting Blueprints into a Construction bay is listed at the top left corner of the blueprint card. Next check if there are any discount symbols at the top of the card. If you rolled ALL those symbols, you get a DISCOUNT! When applying dice for these discounts you can only use each die once. The same die cannot be used to get you a second discount, though you may have OTHER dice in your roll that will get you that 2nd discount!

I would like to build the Pelican Lander! There are 3 blueprints in the Pelican “set” of blueprints, so I need to move ALL THREE cards into the same construction bay. The cost for each of the three blueprints is 3 AP. Move one card at a time so that you can match the symbols at the top of the card with dice in your dice roll to get a discount remembering to not use any die twice.

Pelican 1/3 costs 3 AP and has 1 muscle symbol at the top. I rolled 2 muscles, so one of the muscles will grant me a discount on this card. I will slot it into construction bay A-1 which gives me a -2 discount for matching the symbol, thus my total cost is only 1 AP (3-2).

Pelican 2/3 costs 3 AP and has 2 muscles symbols at the top. I still have 1 muscle die left but also rolled 3 Vanguard “wild” symbols, so I can use one of them for the 2nd muscles symbol needed. Since I matched both symbols I get the discount. I will slot it into construction bay A-2 which gives ma a -2 discount. My total cost for this card is only 1 AP (3-2).

Pelican 3/3 costs 3 AP and has 2 muscles symbols at the top. I still have 2 wild Vanguard symbols left, so I can use them to match those 2 muscles thus getting the discount. I will slot it into construction bay A-3 and get that -2 discount. My total cost for this card is only 1 AP (3-2)

The total cost to move all three blueprints in the set to construct the Pelican Lander is 3 AP. I move my Assembly dial down 3 from 8 to 5:

If I want to get this done NOW I have to pay the BOOST cost for each of the 3 blueprints in the SET. The boost cost is 1 AP each so the total for all 3 blueprints in the set is 3 (1+1+1). I will pay that boost cost and move the Assembly dial down 3 from 5 to 2 (5-3):

After paying the BOOST cost for all three, the Pelican is now fully assembled so I can flip over the cards to see what it says on the back:

• Add the Pelican Lander card to the last cards page in the Hangar Bay
• Stack the three blueprint cards and slot them into one Awaiting Blueprints slot. You may need them again if you ever have to rebuild the Pelican.

At this point the other two Awaiting Blueprints have a cost of 3 AP and each needs 3 symbols to match for the discount. I can match TWO of the symbols on both of them but not the third (a little better dice roll and I might have gotten one of these into the construction bay to be automatically completed NEXT Ship Phase). Drat.

Rule 6 – Return Section Dice to Your Section Compartment – make sure each section gets it own dice back!

Hangar Page 2

If you want to use the same lander as the previous mission, skip this page.

Rule 1 – Store the Lander – place your current lander tray back into the box and move it’s module cards to the “completed” slots. This means my Heavy Armor Plating module should go into a Completed slot in the Hangar … but I already have it there. I need to check if I missed something in the rules or if they need clarifying.

Rule 2 – Choose New Lander – Pick an available Lander (ie, one that is already built) and get its lander tray out from the game box. This is your lander for the coming mission. You also may want to change the lander standee to match the lander you will be using (standees for 4 different landers were included in the prototype). I think I will switch landers and use the newly built Pelican in this next mission!

Rule 3 – Customize the Lander – place any completed modules available in the Hanger on the slots of the lander tray (which is now on your table).

Barracks

Rule 1 – Buy Dice – FINALLY the part I have been waiting (and planning) for! Each Section has the same number of dice. The dice themselves may differ, but the count of the dice each Section has is the same. Each time you add dice, you add 1 to each Section, thus they always have the same number of dice. The cost to add dice is paid in success tokens (or their equivalent). The total cost matches the number of dice each section currently has. Thus if each section currently has 6 dice, the cost to add one die to each Section is 6 success tokens.

When choosing the dice you buy keep these points in mind:

1. Each Section has a most favored and least favored color (ie, Security favors red the most and green the least)
2. Dice of each color can get you a bonus during the Ship Phase:
   1. You use red and blue dice to get bonus RP in the Situation Room
   2. You use green and blue dice to get bonus SP in the Research Laboratory
   3. You use blue and red dice to get bonus MP in the Manufacturing Production Complex
   4. You use green and red dice to get bonus AP in the Hangar
3. Red dice benefit you in the Situation Room (RP), Manufacturing Production Complex (MP) and the Hangar (AP)
4. Blue dice benefit you in the Situation Room (RP), Research Laboratory (SP), and the Manufacturing Production Complex (MP)
5. Green dice benefit you in the Research Laboratory and the Hangar
6. Dice with double symbols on them and no blank are guaranteed towards the bonus because they have no exclamation point nor blank symbol on any of the six faces of the die
7. If you used the Scanner on the planet for the next mission, it may have told you which specific dice symbols may be needed most frequently.
8. Look at for the “bracket marks” in the corners of a die – they tell you the symbol that is favored on that die

If you don’t have enough success tokens to buy dice, you can assign available crewmembers to get you a discount that matches their rank level. Example: a rank 2 crewmember will get you a discount of 2 (equivalent to 2 success tokens). In my case I have 2 success tokens and need 6 (I am short 4). I will assign Riku from Security who is rank 2 for this and get a discount of 2. I still need 2 more, so I will also assign Cho from Engineering who is rank 2 and get another discount of 2. So, the total cost of 6 was discounted by 4 making my total required success tokens at 2 (which I have).  You also can “sell” 1 of the dice from each Section to gain 5 success tokens but a Section many never have less than 5 dice. I will NOT be doing this!

So, Riku and Cho helped me cover the cost to add one die to each section (and have been moved into the “resting” area in their Section Storage box)! Now let’s decide what dice to choose!

Return the success tokens spent for this to the main storage area (ie, back into the main game as they no longer are mine since I spent them):

[I use a Game Trayz small container for this]

First, I know that there will always be at least 2 and maybe 3 new Situations every round, so red and blue dice would be nice (for the chance to get the bonus RP).

Next, since I fully scanned the planet where our next mission is going, I know that I will need DNA, Computer and Squid symbols. The DNA and the Squid are on green dice. The Computer is on blue dice.

Petra is on the mission team and can convert a green blank into a DNA

Theo is on the mission team and can convert a red blank into a Squid

Based on that criteria I think these would be good dice:

Petra (Science) can convert a green blank so the green die with two blank, one wild and 3 double symbol sides (that always include either a Squid or a DNA and one has both) is best for her:

I don’t want Security to have FIVE dice of the same color (red) so I will give Theo a green die with no blanks and no wild, but lots of DNA and Squid (this will also always be good towards a bonus in Ship Phase)

Recon favors green so I will give Galit a green die with no blanks (same as the one Theo got) so it will always be good towards a bonus in Ship Phase)

Engineering favors blue so I will give Samarth the blue die with no blanks but lots of Computer (this will, again, always be good towards a bonus in Ship Phase).

With these four dice, I am giving myself a guarantee of at least 3 in Ship Phase rolls, plus I am providing extra Squid and DNA and a bit of Computer for the upcoming mission as well. Let’s see how my logic pans out in real game play!

Rule 2 – Transfer of Dismiss Crewmembers – you can trade crew from one Section to another Section on a one for one basis. Rank 2 and 3 crew lose one rank when traded. You also can dismiss a crewmember by removing them from their rank sleeve and also from the game. I am not doing either of these!

Rule 3 – Draft New crewmembers – each Section has the option to add one crewmember. Pick 4 crewmembers from the deck at random and let each Section have one (or none). Or house rule: each Section choose one from all available crewmembers (more like real life where there is a large pool of available crew). Place new crewmembers into a rank 1 sleeve for the Section they are in. Since extra crewmembers can assist during some of the portions of the Ship Phase (the roll for bonus portion), it seems to be a good idea to get four more crew!

Here are the new crewmembers for my Sections:

Science: Sheryl Hayes

Engineering: Babs Lawl

Security: Ewald Maal

Recon: Jaromir Golubov (who will be trained up to rank 2 by Joppe)

Rule 4 – Train Recruits – any available rank 2 or rank 3 crewmember can train any rank 1 crewmember in their Section who then ranks up to rank 2. Both of them then go into the “resting” area of their Section box.

Mission Preparation

Rule 1 – Store Tokens – move any success tokens that you did not spend (in the previous Barracks section) into the Success Tokens slot in the box insert (or, in my case, back in with the dice in the white main game storage drawer) – but, also in my case, I spent them all so I don’t have to worry about this:)

Move the four duty tokens (that specify who does what for up to four players) in the appropriate Section Boxes (the matching one in each Section Box)

Rule 2 – Store Remaining Cards – other than the Scanner and the Lander card in it, move the remaining cards on the table into the Awaiting pocket.

Rule 3 – Launch! – perform the Launch Procedure on the following page

Mission Launch Procedure

NOTE: Only do this when you are ready to actually play the next planetary exploration mission because you will be setting up the crew trays with crew cards and dice on them!

NOTE: Technically this seems to now be shifting into the Planetary Exploration phase of the game, but we are still in the Ship Book so let’s continue just a bit longer!

Step 1 – Review the Landing Card – NOTE: only look at the scan results that you previously paid for! If you only paid the energy cost to do one scan, you may only review that one scan result now! An Even Better Note: you should have done this before buying dice and assigning crew to various duties (which put them in the “resting” section and unavailable to come on this mission).

Step 2 – Chose and Prepare the Away Team – actually you should have had this in mind throughout the whole Ship Phase. Any crewmember that you used for a duty in any of the portions of the Ship Phase are now “resting” and unavailable to join your mission away team! Better to keep in mind who you plan on including in the away team as you go through each portion of the Ship Phase. Now take out the Crew Trays for the Sections that will be part of the Away Team on this mission. You may choose only 1 crewmember per Section and must include at least two Sections. You may choose 3 or 4 Sections to be part of this mission if you wish, choosing 1 crewmember from each of the Sections. Place the crewmember cards on the Crew Tray for their Section and check how many blue charge cubes each gets (look at the bottom left of their crew card). For example, Petra gets to use her skill up to 3 times during a mission, so we would place 3 blue charge cubes into the narrow slot on the left of the crew card:

Next add the dice to the crew card for THAT Section (taken from the Section Storage box – this is why I recommend a separate box for each Section). Important Note: some of the dice slots on the crew tray are marked as only available to a Rank 2 or Rank 3 crewmember. You may NOT include dice in those slots if using a Rank 1 crewmember (or a Rank 2 crewmember for the Rank 3 slots).

Next get the Section card deck ready for each Section (these cards are in each Section Storage box). Once again, note that some of the Section cards are only to be included if the crewmember is Rank 2 or Rank 3. This is clearly noted in the top left of the cards. For example, in this prototype the Science Section has 13 Rank 1 Section cards, 8 Rank 2 Section cards and 2 Rank 3 Section cards. Since Petra is Rank 2 we can include both the Rank 1 and the Rank 2 Sections cards in the Science deck (but NOT the two Rank 3 cards). The rules say that the deck must have at least 10 cards however that is just a minimum and I am choosing to take all the available Section Cards for each Section. My Engineering Section Card deck will only have the 13 Rank 1 cards because Samarth is a Rank 1 crewmember. My Recon Section Cards deck will have just 16 Rank 1 cards because Galit is Rank 1. My Security Section Cards deck will also have just 16 Rank 1 cards because Theo is Rank 1.

At this point the table is setup with the crew trays (with crew card, dice and blue charge cubes) and the Section Cards decks.

Step 3 – Load the Lander – The Lander tray should already be out and have all the available modules chosen placed on it (see previous step). Now look at the Maximum Allowed Load for the Lander being used. This is in the top right corner of the Lander Tray. We are using the Pelican Lander this time which we just built and want to try it!

We can bring 10 supplies with us as well as 6 personal equipment and 6 mission equipment. Next review the profile abilities of the Pelican:

We have minimal Armor and Agility and poor Sensors. Good thing we have the Heavy Armor Plating to boost our Armor form 1 to 4. The Pelican requires rolling 4 Danger Dice on landing but our Heavy Armor Plating reduces the amount by 1 so we only need to roll 3 Danger Dice. And, fortunately, Samarth is the Pilot for our Away Team and he can reroll a Danger Die up to FOUR TIMES! However the Heavy Armor Plating reduces by 2 the amount of Supplies we can carry so instead of 10 we can only bring 8 supplies.

Next we look at all our available equipment and decide what to bring on the mission making sure it does not exceed the maximum allowed by our lander. We only have 3 personal equipment and 3 mission equipment so we can bring it all with us since the Pelican has a huge storage area (which also lets us bring back more discoveries as well).

The Medkit can be used by any Section but the rest are Section Specific (note the Section color stripe at the top of the cards as well as the Section logos in the top right corner)

NOTE: each crewmember may carry as many personal equipment along with them while exploring as they want, but can only bring ONE mission equipment along with them as they travel. We have two Engineering mission equipment and Samarth can only carry one of them with him while exploring. So I could just choose which one of the two to bring on the mission now … or bring them both and decide once we are there. Maybe he can go back to get the other one during the mission as well? I am not sure how this will work. But I chose to bring both onto the lander!

Since we can bring 8 supplies we place our blue marker cube on Supply 8 to show we have 8 supplies available. Our Lander now looks like this (including the Danger Dice that we will be using):

Step 4 – Strap In! – NOW is when we are to read the log entry that is listed at the top of the Lander Card (ie, NOT while using the Scanner). There will be different landing conditions each time we land which will be noted in the log entry which should also include a Danger Die results chart. For our mission we now read Log 417:

Log 417 gives us a five step landing procedure including a chart with results for Danger Die rolls. It asks us to determine how many Danger Dice will need to be rolled for the landing (I already calculated it to be 3) and to put that many blue cube markers on the Lander to track how many Danger Die have to be rolled. Originally I had just placed three Danger Die on the lander, but now I changed it to be 3 blue cube markers and set one Danger Die off to the side. My 33.5 inch square card table now looks like this:

I looked ahead a bit in the log book and see that I had set out the Planetopedia before it told me to … but I already knew where we were landing, so why not? Here is the Danger Die landing results chart for this planet:

Now … let’s land this baby!

1. Place one blue marker cube  on the Lander Tray for each Danger Die that I have to roll (aleady done)
2. Roll the Danger Die and discard one blue Danger Die marker cube (for us there are only 2 left now) … I rolled a triangle:
   
3. The chart tells us that is a Flash Fire result – either each crewmember gets a Burnt injury or we lose one supply (would have been losing ALL supplies if we didn’t have at least 3 armor) … but we are safe because Samarth is our Pilot and is rerolling that Danger Die (using one of his 4 blue marker cubes):
   Drat … another triangle roll. But Samarth is piloting us around it again (using his 2nd of 4 blue charge cubes) and rerolling that Danger Die:
   Square was rolled this time … that means there is turbulence. If we have Agility of at least 4 nothing happens (we don’t) so either we discard 1 random modification (bad) or each crewmember spends 4 dice (puts them into the spent dice pool … also bad). So Samarth uses another blue charge marker to reroll that Danger Die again (he only has 1 blue charge marker left now):
   Drat, another triangle (bad). Samarth has only one reroll left and is taking it now!
   Oh no … a square … and we have no more rerolls, so now we have to choose to either discard 1 random modification (we lose our Heavy Armor Plating) OR each crewmember has to place four dice into the spent dice pool. I chose to go with spending the dice! But that was only for the first of the three Danger Die rolls our landing required (the rerolls do not count toward that number). So here is our second Danger Die roll (and we cannot reroll it):
   YAY … a blank – one of two good outcomes. And then our final third Danger Die roll (with no rerolls left):
   Phew … our final roll was a BLANK which means “nothing happens”.
4. No blue Danger marker cubes left … So we now have landed safely and didn’t lose any supplies nor any modules plus nobody was injured. However each crewmember has only 3 dice in their available dice pool.
5. We now have to go to Log 419

We finally are going to roll the D10 die that was included in the game to determine our starting mission (either M40 or M42):

NOTE: there isn’t a clear point where the Ship Book ends and the Planetary Mission begins. It’s kind of a little bit of both overlapping for a bit and then it’s off and running with the Planetary Exploration. At this point the Log entries should help get our mission started. And then the Ship Book actually has two more pages that tell the players how to finish setting up the table for the planetary exploration mission (getting out the Event cards, Discovery cards, Mission cards, Global condition cards, the success token, the bag of leads etc.) That all seems a bit more like the Mission phase than Ship phase, so I will end this overview of the Ship Phase now and pick up where we are leaving off in my Tutorial #5 Overview!

So … watch for the next episode of ISS Vanguard where we, Petra, Theo, Samarth and Galit have a Mossy Inferno Adventure!

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