Description

Exploring space. Grow your wealth. Become the richest.

In Star Pioneer you play intrepid pioneers seeking out new riches in the great expanse of unknown space.

You will explore new regions, trade with newly discovered inhabited worlds, search for mineral deposits and manufacture super commodities from strange new materials.

With some luck and careful strategy you will be become the richest pioneer in the galaxy.

The Basics

You start with 100,000 Galactic Dollars (GD) and your rocket on a map card. As you play you will lay down new map cards expanding the playing area. Most map cards will provide a new opportunity to earn money and you'll get some money just for exploring.

Planet map cards will let you trade one of 3 commodities; water, food and ore. By buying at planets where the price is low and selling at planets where the price is high you'll make a profit. Easy! But be warned that the prices are not fixed. When any player buys or sells, the price will go up or down due to demand. Additionally, prices have a chance to fluctuate on their own, this can happen locally on a single planet or galactically for a single resource. A good trade route won't stay open for long, but without risk there is no reward.

Planets also have resource points that let you buy resource cards. These are expensive long-term investments as you'll need two or more before you can make a profit from them. There are also only a limited number of resource points, so make sure you get them before your fellow players. The investment can be worth it as a good hand of 3 or 4 resource cards can win you the game.

Mineral Deposit map cards offer good earning opportunities for those feeling lucky. The smaller mineral lodes are easier to find than the big ones. You could spend several turns just floating in space looking at rocks before hitting the mother lode.

The player who reaches 1,000,000 Galactic Dollars first wins, so don't spare the rocket fuel and get earning if you want to be the best Star Pioneer!

(Rules Summary)

There are 24 hexagonal map cards, each divided into three lozenge-shaped movement spaces. There are 2 blanks, 4 wormholes, 8 planets, and 10 mineral deposits. In a four-player game, the starting map consists of two side-by-side planet cards.

The three Commodities on each planet (Ore (red), Food (green), and Water (blue)) have prices indicated by a correspondingly coloured die (1 to 6), in units of 10,000 GD. Additionally, each planet (except the starting one(s)) have D3 Resource Points (yellow), indicated by Resource tokens.

On a player turn, they first roll two dice. If the total is 7, reroll the Commodity prices of the closest planet(s). If a double was rolled, there is a 'Galactic Crash' of a specific Commodity (1-2 Ore, 3-4 Food, 5-6 Water). Reroll the Commodity price of the affected commodity on all planets.

Next, the player moves their ship, up to 3 spaces. Wormhole spaces are connected to all the other Wormholes on the map. If they explore (move off the map), they draw and place a map card, oriented as they wish. This earns the player 10,000 GD.

Finally, the player can perform one action (out of 3 possible ones).

The player could Prospect if on a Mineral Deposit space. These are rated from 1 to 5. When Prospecting, the player must roll greater than that number to find the mineral deposit. If unsuccessful, nothing happens. Otherwise, the player earns 50,000 GD times the Mineral Deposit's size, and the Deposit is marked as exhausted (black token).

The player could Trade if on a planet. A player's ship can carry up to 3 Commodity tokens. If the Commodity price is 2 or less, the player can only buy. Once the player has bought or sold, the price is adjusted. If the player sold, the price goes down 1 (but no lower than 3); if they bought, the price goes up 1 (but no higher than 6).

Finally, the player could buy a Resource Card if on a planet with remaining Resource tokens. The player pays 50,000 GD, removes one Resource token, and draws a Resource Card. You can only buy one at a time.

Resource cards are used to make Super Commodities. At any time during their turn, a player can reveal 2 or more Resource Cards to produce a Super Commodity. Its value is the sum of the base numbers on the cards multiplied by the highest multiplier on the cards. The Resource Cards are then discarded.

-description from publisher