StarShot

Goal of the game

Each player captains a pirate ship. Every round you secretly plan three Actions from a hand of cards, then all ships carry them out together, one player at a time. After six rounds, the player with the most victory points (VP) wins.

You score VP by:

• Shooting enemy ships, with a bonus for destroying one.
• Raiding planets while they are vulnerable. Only one planet is vulnerable each round, and the last one, at the centre, is worth the most.
• Carrying Cargo to the end of the game.

A ship that is destroyed scores nothing at the end, so staying alive matters as much as shooting.

Components

• The game board: a large hexagon of hexes with the planets and six starting seats marked (see Setup).
• One ship mat per player, with spaces for the draw and discard piles, the shield, speed and VP, and the three Action stacks.
• One ship standee per player, which shows position and facing on the board.
• Tokens in six kinds: Red, Green, Blue, Yellow, Purple and Life Support.
• Damage markers for destroyed tiles.
• One 10-card base deck per player, in the player's colour.
• Three cover cards per player, marked Overdrive on one side and Sealed on the other.
• The shared Desperation deck (44 cards).
• 17 Purple ability cards.
• Two six-sided dice (2d6) for attacks and one twelve-sided die (d12) for damage.

Base deck (each player, 10 cards)

Your ship

Your ship has 15 tiles. The Bridge is its core. A token on a tile switches on that tile's ability. Every token is also armor: the first damage to a tile with a token knocks the token off, and the tile survives.

Tile	Token ability
Bridge	Never holds a token. If it is destroyed, your ship is destroyed.
Cannons (3)	After you declare an attack, before the roll, flip any number of ready Reds: +1 to the roll each.
Engines (3)	Flip at any point in your turn during an Action: move 1 hex straight forward.
Armor (2)	Armor only.
Cargo (3)	+1 VP at game end, if your ship survives.
Life Support (2)	Armor only. If both Life Support tiles are destroyed, your ship is destroyed.
Kyber Lab	Gives you one Purple ability. If the token is knocked off, the ability is gone.

A flipped token still counts as armor. Flipped tokens ready at the end of each round.

Tiles stay in play only while they connect to the Bridge through intact tiles. The lanes and tile connections are listed in Ship lanes.

Setup

1. Reveal Purples

   Shuffle the 17 Purple cards and reveal 4 face up.

2. Place tokens

   Each player places 5 tokens on their ship: at most one per tile, never on the Bridge. A token on the Kyber Lab takes one of the 4 revealed Purple abilities. Several players may take the same one.

3. Decks

   Each player shuffles their 10-card base deck onto the draw space of their mat, takes their 3 cover cards and sets their shield to 1 charge and their speed to 0. Shuffle the Desperation deck and place it in reach.

4. Seat the ships

   Place each ship on its starting seat, facing the way the seat points. With 4 players use seats 1–4, as shown below. With 3 or 2 players, use the seats the board marks for that player count.

5. First player

   Choose a random start player. Turn order goes to the left (clockwise).

Round overview

The game lasts 6 rounds. Each round has these steps, in order.

1. Orders

   Everyone draws cards, then secretly builds 3 stacks, one for each Action. See Orders.

2. Action 1

   Starting with the start player and going left, each player reveals and runs their stack 1.

3. Action 2

   The same, with stack 2.

4. Action 3

   The same, with stack 3.

5. Planet raids

   Every ship on the planet that is vulnerable this round scores. See Raiding planets.

6. Cleanup

   Discard played cards, ready tokens, and pass the start player to the left. See Cleanup.

Orders

Draw

• Draw 5 cards, or 6 while your shield is down.
• Draw 1 fewer for each Overdrive you made last round, Hyperdrive included.
• If your deck runs out, draw what is left, shuffle your discard pile into a new deck, and finish drawing.

Build three stacks

• Build 3 stacks, one for each Action. Each stack holds 0, 1 or 2 cards, in the order they will run, top first.
• Cover each stack with its cover card. Show Sealed for a stack that runs once, or Overdrive for a stack that runs twice. Any stack may be Overdriven, even a 1-card stack, and all 3 may be.
• For each Desperation card, decide now which face you will play.
• Cards you do not use are discarded.

You do not pick attack targets now. You choose them when the attack happens.

Overdrive

An Overdriven stack runs twice, in the order A, B, A, B. The price is next round's hand: draw 1 fewer card for each Overdrive.

• Moves happen each time.
• Attacks still merge into one attack (see Actions), but every Aim and Power-Up bonus counts once per copy.
• A Desperation card's chosen face applies to every copy.

Hyperdrive is a Desperation card. Play it in place of your stack 3 cover: that stack's cards run three times, and you draw 1 fewer next round.

Example: one round of orders

You drew Cruise, Snap Shot, Careful Shot, Drift, and a Desperation card. You build three stacks. Each row shows the cover, then the stack's cards from top to bottom, then what happens on your turn in that Action.

Action 1 · Sealed

1. Move 2 (you may turn first).
2. Attack at no bonus.

Speed afterwards: 2.

Action 2 · Overdrive

1. One attack with +2 Aim (Careful Shot counts twice, but it is still one attack).
2. Move 1.
3. Move 1 again.

Speed afterwards: 2. Next round you draw 1 fewer card.

Action 3 · Sealed

1. Move 2 onto the vulnerable planet.
2. Attack.

The Desperation card is played on its back face, Multi-Task. Speed afterwards: 2.

With Drift on top of stack 2 instead, it would play as Move 1, then the attack with +2 Aim, then Move 1. The attack happens where the first Attack card sits.

Actions

In each Action, every player takes a turn in order, starting with the start player. Everyone gets a turn, even with an empty stack.

On your turn, turn over your cover and run your stack's cards from top to bottom.

• All Attack cards in a stack merge into one attack, made where the first Attack card sits. It adds up every Aim and Power-Up bonus in the stack.
• Aim and Power-Up cards do nothing unless the stack also has an Attack card.
• You may flip Green tokens and use flip abilities at any point in your turn.
• At the end of your turn, set your speed (see Speed).

Movement

• Your ship always faces one of the six hex sides.
• A Move card may first turn one side left or right, or stay straight. Then the ship moves exactly that many hexes forward.
• Drift may also make a U-turn before its 1-hex move.
• A move that would leave the board stops at the edge. The rest of that move is lost.
• Ships pass through each other and may share a hex. Nothing blocks movement or shots.

Attacks

There are no firing arcs and no line of sight: you can shoot any enemy ship on the board. Distance and speed make it harder.

• Range is the number of hexes to the target. A ship in the next hex is at range 1.
• Speed is the number on the target's speed track.
• A roll of 12 always hits.

Order of an attack

1. Declare

   Choose any enemy ship as the target. Flip any ready Red tokens, +1 each.

2. Defend

   The target plays any defensive abilities.

3. Roll

   Roll 2d6. On a hit, check the target's shield, then deal damage.

Speed

Keep your speed in the Speed box on your mat, from 0 to 5 (up to 7 with the Redline Purple). Everyone starts at 0.

• At the end of your turn in an Action, set it to how far your played effects moved you that turn, up to 5. Count what the effects say, not where the ship ends up.
• Every move counts: Move cards, every Overdrive copy, Green tokens, Spin Gyro (1), and Desperation movement.
• Evasive Shot adds 3, even though it moves nothing. Each Overdrive copy adds 3 again.
• Turns and U-turns count 0. A move that stops at the board edge still counts in full. NightJammer counts 0. An empty stack sets speed 0.
• Speed carries over from your last turn, across rounds, until you set it again.

Shields

• Every ship starts with 1 shield charge. It never recharges.
• When an attack hits you while you have the charge, spend it. That one attack is cancelled, however much damage it carried. Later attacks hit you normally.
• The attacker still scores 1 VP, and you gain a Desperation card.
• Once your shield is down, you draw 6 cards a round instead of 5 at Orders.

Damage

• A hit deals 1 damage, plus 1 per Power-Up.
• Roll a d12 for each point to pick its lane (see the arrows on your mat and Ship lanes).
• The outermost intact tile in that lane takes the point. If it has a token, the token is knocked off. If it has no token, the tile is destroyed.
• Destroyed tiles are skipped; the point goes on inward. If every tile in the lane is gone, that point is lost.

Cut-off tiles

After damage, any tile that can no longer reach the Bridge through intact tiles is lost, with its token.

Destroyed ships

A ship is destroyed when its Bridge is destroyed, or when both Life Support tiles are. Remove it from the board. Its player scores 0 at the end, unless they hold Escape Pod.

What a hit is worth

• The attacker scores 1 VP per hit, shielded or not. An attack that destroys a ship scores 3 VP in total.
• The target gains one Desperation card for each attack that hits its shield or damages it (knocks off a token or destroys a tile), unless that attack destroys it.
• A hit where every point is lost on empty lanes scores nothing and gives no card.

Raiding planets

• A planet is 7 hexes: a centre hex and its 6 neighbours.
• Planets are numbered 1 to 6. A planet is vulnerable only in the round that matches its number, and only a vulnerable planet can be raided. Ending a round on any other planet scores nothing.
• Planets 1–5 each appear twice on the board. Either copy counts.
• Planet 6 is the board centre and appears once.
• After Action 3, every ship on the vulnerable planet scores 2 VP (rounds 1–5) or 6 VP (round 6), and gains a Desperation card. Several ships can raid the same planet.

A raid feeds you a Desperation card for next round, but Overdriving to get there shrinks next round's hand. Plan ahead.

Cleanup

• Played cards go to your discard pile, Desperation cards included.
• All flipped tokens ready.
• Take back your cover cards.
• The start player passes to the left.

Game end

After the round 6 planet raid, each surviving player adds up:

• VP from hits, kills and planet raids,
• +1 for each Cargo token still on their ship.

Players whose ship was destroyed score 0, unless they had Escape Pod. The most VP wins.

Ties: the player with the most tiles left wins, then the most tokens left. If still tied, the players share the place.

Desperation cards

You gain a Desperation card when an attack damages your ship or hits your shield, and when you raid a planet. Take the top card of the Desperation deck and put it on top of your own deck, so you draw it next round. When the Desperation deck runs out, no more cards are gained.

Every Desperation card has two faces. When you play it, choose one:

• Front face: Move 2 (with the normal turn) or Power-Up (+1 damage, only with an Attack in the stack). Turn the card to show the half you play.
• Back face: the stronger effect printed on it.

Either way the card stays yours. It goes to your discard pile at Cleanup and comes round again when you reshuffle.

Back faces (44 cards)

Card rulings

Multi-Task. If an earlier card in the stack is already an Attack, the merged attack happens there, before the move. Overdrive doubles the move; there is still one attack.

Reconfigure. You may discard any of your own tokens, ready or flipped. Decide when you declare the attack, before you flip Reds. A discard is not damage: nobody scores VP and nobody gains a card. With Overdrive, each copy may pay its own token, so up to +2 damage (+3 with Hyperdrive). If there is no target, you do not discard.

Oblique Aim. Choose the side once, after the hit. For each damage point, roll one of the attack's six-sided dice in place of the d12. Left is lanes 1–6 (the d6 as rolled), right is lanes 7–12 (the d6 + 6). Every damage point of the attack, Power-Ups and Overdrive included, rolls on that side. Each side reaches only its own Life Support, so one Oblique attack cannot destroy both. With Scatter Shot, choose a side for each target.

Vampiric Shot. Any token the attack removes from an enemy counts, including tokens lost when tiles are cut off. You gain at most 1 token per attack. Place it ready on an empty, intact tile of a removed type on your own ship (never the Bridge). If you have no such tile, you gain nothing.

Purple abilities

Four of these 17 cards are revealed each game. A token on your Kyber Lab gives you one of them. There are two kinds:

• Flip Flip the token to use it. It readies each round and still counts as armor.
• Passive Always on while the token is on the tile.

Ship lanes

Each damage point rolls a d12 to pick a lane. The lanes are numbered clockwise around the ship, starting at the tail, as the arrows on your mat show. The first tile listed is the outermost.

Six lanes end at the Bridge. Lanes 3, 5, 9 and 11 run through the Kyber Lab and out the far side, so a hit there can cut a whole section of the ship loose.

Tile connections

The right side mirrors the left.

Quick reference