HIGH FRONTIER

A game of space exploration for 1 - 5 players includes Expanded Game

By Philip Eklund Copyright 2010 Sierra Madre Games Co. Living Rules: Updated Nov 16, 2011

CONTENTS
[1.0] Introduction [2.0] Components [3.0] Set-Up [4.0] Sequence of Play [5.0] Operations [6.0] Spacecraft Move [7.0] Winning the Game [8.0] The Expanded Game [8.7] Expansion Scenarios [8.8] Example Basic Game Mission to Luna [8.9] Chambers Freighter Fleet Variant [9.0] Eric Schiedlers Easily Missed Rules [9.3] Game Scale [10.0] Chad Marletts Basic Strategy Guide [11.0] Eric Schiedlers Expanded Strategy Guide [12.0] Joe Schlimgens Frequently Asked Questions [13.0] To Pluto & Beyond Map and Scenarios

HIGH FRONTIER

SIERRA MADRE GAMES CO.

6/4/2012

HIGH FRONTIER
A GAME OF EXOGLOBALIZATION
Copyright 2010, Sierra Madre Games Exoglobalization: "The elimination of government-enforced restrictions on exchanges across the Earth as extended to extraterrestrial resources and facilities, creating an interglobal marketplace."

NUMBER OF PLAYERS. Two to five players, each representing a political entity.

2.0 COMPONENTS
2.1 COMPONENTS LIST (Basic Game) 1 This rulebook 1 Basic game map (inner solar system) 1 Placeholder Sheet (2.5) 5 Crew cards (2.6B) [must be cut out of the Placeholder Sheet]. 5 Player Mats (2.4). 52 Transparent Disks (clear, red, & blue) for water tanks (WT) & indicators. 30 Opaque Disks (in five colors) for claims and outposts. 18 Black Disks for failed mines. 30 Cubes (in five colors) for ET factories, colonies and freighters. 10 Rockets (in five colors). Rockets location and fuel level (5.4B). 24 Cards. Patent blueprints (2.6A) for thrusters, robonauts, & refineries. 1 Six-sided die (1d6), for prospecting (5.6) and hazards (6.4E, F). 2.2 MAP FEATURES There are 3 kinds of spaces: burns, intersections, and site hexes. A. BURNS. A red circle is called a burn. It costs fuel per 6.2B to enter it. B. INTERSECTIONS. There are two kinds of intersections: Hohmann (cross) and L-Point (circular). These represent interplanetary elliptical orbits and Lagrange points respectively. Turning at a Hohmann intersection costs fuel per 6.3. C. SITE HEX. A black hexagon is called a site hex. A rocket enters here per 6.4A to land on a world. A site hex specifies size, spectral type, hydration, science, and sometimes (expanded game) border color (see legend on basic game map). D. HELIOCENTRIC ZONES. The maps are divided into concentric zones, centered on Sol. Each is named after a planet: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Ceres, Jupiter, and [expanded map] Saturn. Each zone lists thrust modifiers for solar-powered rockets (6.1A). E. ROUTES. The lines between burns indicate the routes. Seven of these routes have special colors and are marked with a signpost (5.4E). These routes are suggestions only, and have no special rules. 2.3 PLAYER FACTIONS A. FACTIONS. Each player is a distinct basal societal unit (BSU): world organization (purple), national government (white), socialist regime (red), worker union (green), and private entrepreneur (orange). B. FACTION PRIVILEGE. Each faction has a special privilege: NASA Launch Fee (white player). Receive a 1 WT bonus from the pool after any player (including self) boosts one or more cards. Shimizu Research (orange player). You may participate in a Research Operation regardless of your hand size (5.2A). ESA Powersat (green player). A power-beaming satellite in GEO allows you to increase the thrust of any rocket (but not freighter) by one for the turn, during its thrust modification phase (6.1). Chinese Territorial Claims (red player). You As free actions during your turn, you may perform actions designated as felonious: claim jumping (6.4B), crew decommission (6.7B), and water theft (5.5C).

Contact: phileklund@aol.com
See the High Frontier Living Rules in the Files section of the HighFrontier Yahoo Group. http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/HighFrontier/

Also see the download section of www.sierramadregames.com

1.0 INTRODUCTION
In the near future, nanofacturing techniques will allow incredible new materials, such as carbon buckytube whiskers, to be built atom by atom. But they can only be built in the zero-gravity and high-vacuum conditions in space. Various private and government enterprises race to establish a buckytube mechanosynthesis factory on a suitable carbonaceous asteroid. To do so, they accumulate tanks of water in orbiting fuel depots, to be used as rocket propellant. Also needed are remote-controlled robonauts to do the grunt work. The key to success is water in LEO (low Earth orbit). At first, water will be expensively upported out of the deep gravity well of Earth. Eventually, it will be mined and transported from Luna, the moons of Mars, or other nearby hydrated objects at about half the velocity increment (or 2.7X less fuel). Extracting resources at the work site is called In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU). Whoever develops ISRU technology able to glean water from space rather than Earth will gain the strategic high ground to make money through exoglobalization. Note: Terms being defined are listed in bold. Terms that are defined elsewhere in the rules are italicized. Easily missed rules have a black backdrop. The rocket bullet indicates a rule used in the expanded game only. HIGH FRONTIER SUMMARY. Design and build rockets to prospect and industrialize promising sites in the inner solar system. Your rocket must be researched, boosted, and loaded with fuel. For fuel (actually propellant), a rocket uses water tanks (WT), which also serves as the games currency. Each rocket has a thruster card specifying its thrust (number of burn spaces you may enter each turn) and fuel consumption (fuel steps per burn). Fuel is also spent to land/lift off of worlds. You may decommission your rocket in space, which frees you to build a new one in LEO. OBJECTIVE. To win, send crews or robonauts to prospect sites on the map. Then build an extraterrestrial (ET) factory by transporting a robonaut and a refinery to a successfully prospected site. Each ET factory awards victory points (VP) according to its Resource Exploitation Track. The game ends when a player who has built 3 ET factories or 2 space ventures pays 5 WT, or when a specified number of ET factories are built. The winner is the player who has the most VP. Note: While this is a competitive game, there is great freedom on the deals that can be made with other players. See 5.9. CONTENTS. Sections 1 - 7 describe the basic game. Section 8 adds the expanded game, purchased separately. Section 9 is background science and technology behind the cards.

Chinese War Declaration. You As a free action during the start of your turn, you are allowed to move the politics from anarchy to war per 8.6.

HIGH FRONTIER

SIERRA MADRE GAMES CO.

6/4/2012

Note: If a crew is present at a site, either as a card (2.6B) or as a colony cube (6.7B), the PRC cannot claim jump or steal water there. UN Taxes (purple player). Receive a 1 WT bonus from the pool after any player (including self) places a for each claim disk (5.6B) or establishes an ET factory cube (5.7A) placed by any player (including self). No tax bonus for claim jumping (6.4B)

Raygun. Prospect all adjacent nonatmospheric sites. Buggy. Re-roll a failed attempt, or prospect multiple sites along a road. Missile. May act as a thruster. F. SOLAR POWER. If the sun symbol appears on any card used by the thruster, modify the thrust per 6.1A.

UN Cycler.* You may [expanded game] grant passage of any spacecraft through the radiation belts of Earth without a radiation roll (8.3C).

G. SUPPORT TRIANGLES [expanded game]. Support cards (8.2) with one of these triangles, if used by a thruster that needs them, modify either the thrust or fuel consumption, as indicated. H. RADIATOR ORIENTATION [expanded game]. Each radiator (8.2A) lists a different mass on each end of the card. During boosting (5.4) or production (5.8), play it on your mat in one of two orientations: with either the heavy or the light end uppermost. Once boosted, a heavy radiator can be freely reoriented into its light version, but not vice versa. Reorientation adjusts the dry mass (6.7A).

Note: Privileges dont transfer if the crew card is traded (5.9A). 2.4 PLAYER MATS A. ACCELERATION TRACK AND ROCKET DIAGRAM. The row labeled from 1 to 12 is the Acceleration Track. The field of spots is the Rocket Diagram, used to track fuel supply (5.4B). B. WATER TANK ORBITAL DEPOT. This area stores your WT (clear disks). Each is a 40-ton water tank in low Earth orbit (LEO). Fuel Tank Liquidation. Each fuel tank = 1 WT. As part of any move or operation, you may freely convert fuel tanks in your rocket at LEO into WT, or vice versa. Adjust your fuel figure (5.4B) accordingly. 2.5 CARD PLACEHOLDER SHEET A. PATENT SLOTS. This sheet holds slots for three patent decks. The top card of each deck may be examined but not removed (to see the other side or the next card), until you put it up for auction (5.2). B. RESOURCE EXPLOITATION TRACKS. The four disks here track the victory point (VP) value of each ET factory. 2.6 CARDS A. PATENT CARDS. There are three types of Patent cards: Thruster, Robonaut, & Refinery. White and Black Sides. The white side of a patent shows a product built on Earth; the black side shows an improved product built in space. A card won in a research auction goes into your hand (2.7A) on its white side, and is flipped over only after you build your first ET factory (5.7B). B. CREW CARD. Your crew card identifies your color and faction privilege. This card follows all the rules of patent cards. Remember: Since the NASA, PRC, and ESA crew cards have a thruster triangle (2.6D), they may be used as a thruster. C. CARD DATA. The data in the white box (left) are for the basic game, and in the red box (right) are for the expanded game. Mass. [basic and expanded game] Product Letter. (5.7B). Radiation-hardness (expanded game). Resistance to combat damage, solar flares, or radiation belt passages. Support Cards required (expanded game). The example data field shown in the rules requires an x reactor, plus one therm of radiator cooling (8.2A). D. THRUSTER TRIANGLE. Cards with this icon act as a rocket motor. Afterburner. (See 6.1A). Solar-Power (See 6.1A) Thrust (See 6.1A) Fuel Consumption (See 6.2B) E. PLATFORM & ISRU. These icons allow refueling and prospecting.

2.7 CARD HANDS AND STACKS A. HANDS. Patent and crew cards are initially held in your hand. These cards are placed face-up on the table to the right of your mat. They are open for all to examine. There is no hand limit (but see 5.2A). B. STACKS. Cards in play are kept in the three stack slots on your mat. The first, the LEO stack, contains cards at LEO. The second, your outpost stack, is for cards stored somewhere on the map. The last, your freighter stack, is for returning crews (6.7B) or shipments of factory product from an ET factory (5.7B). Rocket Stack. Your fourth stack, the rocket stack, is kept face-up to the left of your mat. All the cards in your active rocket are held here. Limits. Stacks can be created or combined at the start or end of your turn (4.0) per 5.4A (boosting), 5.8 (ET Production), 6.7D (outpost), or 8.3D (jettisons). (Exception: see 6.7D coalescence). You may only have one of each type of stack. If you boost or build a second rocket stack, you must decommission (6.7) your old rocket stack, or convert it into an outpost per 6.7D. Note: You may have multiple stack types during movement, as long as at the end of your turn you only have one of each type of stack. For example, a big rocket stack arrives at Mercury, too heavy to land for free, even by switching to a 96 afterburning crew. The refinery becomes outpost #1, while the crew & robonaut land for free. On its next turn, the crew lifts off to pick up the refinery, and the robonaut remains as surface outpost #2. On their next turn, the crew & refinery may land and build a factory.

3.0 SET-UP
3.1 BASIC GAME SET-UP A. ASSIGNING FACTIONS. Each player chooses, or is assigned randomly, one crew card. Your beginning hand (2.7A) is this single card. Unused crew cards are set aside. First Player. Randomly assign one player to go first. B. PLAYER MATS. Each player faction receives a Player Mat. Starting Funds. Place four clear disks (WT) in your Water Tank Orbital Depot (2.4B), the hex area on your Player Mat. Each clear disk = 1 WT (water tank), the games currency. Faction Cubes, Disks, and Rockets. Put the 6 cubes, 6 disks, and 2 rockets of your color anywhere on your Player Mat. Note: You are limited to this number of cubes, disks (except black disks are unlimited), and rockets. If you are out of disks and need a new one,

HIGH FRONTIER

SIERRA MADRE GAMES CO.

6/4/2012

you may withdraw one of your claim disks (the vacated site must be reprospected to be claimed again). See 5.6B. If you need a cube, you may withdraw one of your glory cubes (place a black disk on the glory site so nobody else can claim the glory). See 5.7A and 7.1. Important: Your WT, hand cards, and stacks are free for anyone to examine. C. PLACEHOLDER. The 24 patents are separated into 3 categories (thrusters, robonauts, and refineries). Shuffle each category and stack them white-side up in the three slots indicated on the Placeholder Sheet (2.5A). Resource Exploitation Tracks. Place a blue disk in the start spot of each of the four Resource Exploitation Tracks (2.5B). D. DISK POOLS. The disks and cylinders are placed into pools for easy access. WT are gained and discarded into these pools. 3.2 EXPANDED GAME SET-UP The expanded game uses the basic game set-up, plus: A. POLITICAL & SUNSPOT DISKS. One blue disk starts on the Start dot (center) in the Space Politics, and another starts on the Start dot (uppermost) in the Sunspot Cycle (8.5A). Both diagrams are on the expanded map. B. SUPPORT DECKS. The expanded game has three extra patent decks (generator, reactor, and radiator), which are shuffled and placed white-side up in the slots provided on the expanded map. C. BUSTED MINES. If playing with fewer than 5 players, roll a 1d6 a number of times = [5 X], where X = the number of players, and consult the following table. If a site is rolled one or more times, place a black disk on its site hex, showing it cant be prospected: 1 = Mercury, 2 = Venus, 3 = Luna, 4 = Mars (all three sites), 5 = Ceres, 6 = Hertha [all on the basic map]. 3.3 SET-UP FOR A SHORTER GAME For a shorter game, after set-up per 3.1 or 3.2, each player draws one card from each deck at random into his hand. Thus [expanded game} each player gets 6 extra cards.

Initiate Auction. Examine the top card of each deck and choose one to auction. This card is placed in the middle of the table so all can examine both sides and bid on it. (They can also examine the freshly exposed top of the deck drawn from, to see which card is next in line for auction.) Auction Process. Eligible players may openly bid WT for the card. They may freely increase (but not decrease) their bids. The minimum bid is zero. Auction Results. When no player is willing to increase his bid, the auction is closed. The card is awarded to the high bidder. If the high bidder is the phasing player, he pays his WT to the pool. If the high bidder is another player, he pays the WT to the phasing player. Ties. The phasing player wins ties if his bid is tied with another. If two non-phasing players are tied, the phasing player decides between them. Support Cards [expanded game]. If the auctioned card lists supports (8.2), the winner gets the top card from each category deck (generator, reactor, or radiator) listed. Support cards are free. Note: A player wins only the auctioned card plus its supports, not supports of the supports.

Example [expanded game]: The UN bid wins the cermet NERVA thruster in an auction. This card lists a support: a reactor n. The UN player takes the top reactor card. Unfortunately, this is a reactor x, which doesnt support the cermet NERVA. So he sells the reactor next turn on the free market for 3 WT. A. BID LIMITS. A player with more than three hand cards (not counting crew cards or black cards) may not bid in or initiate a research auction. Exception: The Shimizu (orange) player may initiate or bid in an auction regardless of how many cards in his hand. 5.3 FREE MARKET OPERATION This operation lets you pick a white card in your hand to sell for 3 WT. Return the card to the bottom of its relevant deck. Sale of Space Products. Alternately, you may decommission (6.7) a black card in LEO to receive WT equal to the VP value of the cards product letter, as shown on the Exploitation Track (2.5B) (8, 5, or 4 WT). 5.4 BOOST OPERATION This operation plays one or more crew or white cards from your hand to the rocket or LEO stack (2.7B) on your Player Mat by discarding 1 WT for each mass point (2.6C) boosted. This represents moving payloads into low Earth orbit (LEO). NASA Fees. If any player boosts one or more cards, the NASA (white) player earns 1 WT from the pool per 2.3B. Black cards. Black cards are built at ET factories, and cant be boosted to LEO. Radiator Mass [expanded game]. When boosting radiators, see 2.6H. A. MAP FIGURE. If you are starting a rocket stack, place a rocket figure in LEO start (2.2B), and a second figure on your mat per the next paragraph. B. DRY MASS. Set your fuel figure upright on the Rocket Diagram (2.4A) in the row corresponding to the rockets dry mass. (the combined mass of all cards in the rocket stack). Set it in the far left spot of the row, marked with an exclamation point (!). This shows your rocket is dry (no fuel).

4.0 SEQUENCE OF PLAY

On your turn, calculate your dry mass and modified thrust and move your rocket and freighter (if any) per Section 6, and then select an operation per Section 5. Then proceed to the next player clockwise. Experimental Jim Gutt Rule: During a player turn, allow movement, 1 Earth operation (Income, Research, Free Market, or Boost), plus one Space Operation (Prospect, Refuel, Industrialize, or ET Production). Note: It is helpful to have an object to pass around, so that everyone can tell whose turn it is. A cool rocket or celestial object would be nice.

5.0 OPERATIONS
During this phase, choose an operation to perform. The 8 choices are Income, Research, Free Market, Boost, Prospect, Refuel, Industrialize, or ET Production. 5.1 INCOME OPERATION Draw 1 WT income from the pool. Each clear disk is 1 WT, each red disk is 5 WT, and (only if necessary) blue disks are 10 WT. 5.2 RESEARCH OPERATION (Auction) This operation initiates an auction for a patent. The winner adds the card to his hand. Conceptually, he now owns the patent to build that product.

HIGH FRONTIER

SIERRA MADRE GAMES CO.

6/4/2012

Maximum Size. You are limited to a dry mass of 15. Fuel does not count toward dry mass. Important: If your dry mass changes, see 6.7A. C. LEO FUELING. As part of any operation or moveAt any time before or after your movement phase, you may fuel at LEO. Each WT discarded to the pool adds a tank of fuel per 2.4B. For each tank of fuel added, move the fuel figure to the right until it reaches the next jagged black column. These columns are labeled Tank #1, Tank #2, etc. Note: Cards and WT may be freely interchanged between your rocket and LEO stacks. See 5.9. Only full tanks can be converted into WT when unloading rockets. If there is a partial tank move the fuel figure to the left until it reaches the next jagged black column before unloading. Each tank is 1 WT. Example: A rocket has a Hall Effect thruster (mass 2), a crew (mass 1), plus a Kuck mosquito robonaut (mass 0) in cargo. Its dry mass is 3. Loaded up with one fuel tank, it has 5 steps of fuel, as shown. Remember: Refueling will often decrease your modified thrust indicator per 6.1A, since your wet mass is increasing. Experimental Rule (WT as cargo): You may load WT onto your rocket stack as cargo. For each WT loaded, place 1 clear disk on your rocket stack, and increase the dry mass by one. You may convert WT cargo into a fuel tank or into a WT at LEO as if refueling at LEO (above). Rockets can use the Site Refuel operation (5.5A or 5.5B) to add WTs as fuel or cargo in any combination. This applies to atmospheric refueling (6.4F) and dirt refueling (8.3E). D. TERRESTRIAL PRODUCTION. You may freely flip a black card in your hand over to its white side without cost, so that you can boost it from Earth. If you later wish to build its black side again, retool your factory to add the product per 5.7D. E. SIGNPOSTS. If taking the red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, or violet routes, check the signpost to see how many impulses there are to arrive at your destination. This number multiplied with your fuel consumption (2.6D) equals the fuel steps you will need. Also indicated is the lander fuel possibly needed (6.4C). Gravity Assist. If the numbers of burns in the basic and expanded games differ (due to slingshots 8.3A), they are listed separated by a slash. Note: The number of burns listed assumes a stop at every Hohmann intersection, to take advantage of the free rotation at the start of each move. Example: A rocket with an output of 3 2 takes the orange route to Mercury. It will need 7 X 2 = 14 steps of fuel for the 7 impulses, plus 10 steps of lander fuel. No ship can carry more than 21 fuel steps, so this trip is doomed. 5.5 SITE REFUEL OPERATION This operation extracts water from a site, and loads it into your rocket as fuel. This adjusts the fuel figure per 5.4C. For fueling at LEO, see 5.4C. A. ISRU REFUEL. If you have a crew or robonaut at a site, gain a number of tanks of fuel equal to one plus the sites hydration (number of drops), minus your ISRU rating (2.6E). Sites never run out of water (fuel). Optional: Each crew or robonaut at a site can extract water with a single Site Refuel Operation. These units cant share supports (8.2B). If this rule is used, the Divining Nubot ability listed on the Santa Claus refinery card subtracts one from the ISRU of all units collocated with the card.

B. FACTORY REFUEL. As part of this operation, if your rocket is at a factory site, you may add as many tanks as the rocket will hold (up to 8 tanks). No ISRU unit is needed. Factories never run out of water (fuel). Example: An unfueled rocket with an ISRU of 3 and a dry mass of 3 sits on Mercury (hydration = 3). By performing an ISRU refuel operation, it gains 1 + 3 3 = 1 fuel tank, which lowers its modified thrust by one. If a factory is present, it gains up to 8 tanks, lowering its modified thrust by two. C. WATER THEFT. It is felonious (2.3B) to refuel from the factories or outposts of other players without their permission. 5.6 PROSPECT OPERATION A. REQUIREMENTSCHOOSE CARD. Choose a card with an ISRU (2.6E) at the start of this operation. Your rocket stack must have a card with an ISRU (2.6E)This ISRU must be less than or equal to the hydration (2.2C) of the site. The site must not have been previously prospected (indicated by the presence of a disk). B. PROCEDURE. Roll 1d6. Prospecting is successful if your roll is less than or equal to the site size (2.2C). Therefore, it is always successful for sizes 6+. Claim Disk. If successful, place a disk of your color (to show the claim). If unsuccessful, put a black disk on the site hex, which permanently prevents further prospecting or industrialization. (But rockets can still perform the ISRU refuel operation here.) Remember: The UN (purple) player gains 1 WT per 2.3B if a claim disk is placed. Raygun Prospecting. If you are prospecting with a raygun (2.6E), you may prospect any number of adjacent site hexes (where each intersection, burn, and site counts as a space). Exceptions: You may fire over Hazard spaces (i.e., L-points and burns with a skull (6.4E) may be skipped over). Your raygun cant fireYou cant fire into an adjacent hex with an atmosphere (Venus, Mars, Saturn, and Titan).** Example: A raygun (ISRU = 0) on the HEO for the Koronis Family may prospect ten asteroids in one operation! This includes the asteroids in the Karin Cluster. Roll separately for each prospect. Buggy Prospecting. Using a buggy allows two attempts for a successful prospecting roll with one prospect operation. Alternately, if on Mars, Europa, Io, Ganymede, Callisto, or Titan, you may prospect all the hexes linked by the dashed yellow line (indicating a "buggy road") with one prospect operation. Example: A buggy prospects Dresda. The roll is a 3, which fails because Dresda is size 2. But a second roll of 2 succeeds and places a claim disk. Assaying Smelters. Certain refineries (as listed on the card) improve the ISRU rating or prospecting roll, if carried by the stack doing the prospecting. 5.7 INDUSTRIALIZE OPERATION To build an ET factory, take a refinery and a robonaut card to a site with a claim disk and decommission them [plus their supports (8.2B) in the expanded game]. This adjusts the rockets dry mass (6.7A). Any refinery, regardless of its product letter, can industrialize a site. Crews cannot be decommissioned to industrialize a site, but see 6.7b. A. FACTORY CUBE. Industrialization places a cube of your color on the claim disk, to indicate the new ET factory.

HIGH FRONTIER

SIERRA MADRE GAMES CO.

6/4/2012

Note: If you are out of cubes to build a factory, you can withdraw from your other glory cubes per 3.1B (colony, glory, space venture, or freighter).. Note: A claim can have 1 factory. Certain refineries, as listed on the card, add an extra cube if used its card is consumed to industrialize a claim. A claim with more than one cube is a space colony (6.7B). Each extra cube represents crew. Remember: The UN (purple) player gains 1 WT per 2.3B if a factory is built. B. CHOOSE FACTORY PRODUCT. As part of this operation, you may choose one card to be the factory product. It must have a product letter (2.6C) matching the Spectral type (2.2C) of the site. If this card is on your Player Mat, decommission it. Put it into your hand (2.7A) so that its black side faces you. This represents unbuilt product. C. LOWER EXPLOITATION TRACK. Find the Resource Exploitation Track (2.5B) with a product letter (C, M, S, or V) matching the Spectral type of the factory site. Decrease this track one step. If you industrialize a Type-D world, pick one of the four Exploitation tracks to decrease, and select a card with that product letter to be the factory product. (This decision is permanent. The factory type cannot be changed later, not even by retooling.) Example: The UN player decommissions a refinery and robonaut to build a factory on Luna. He adds a purple cube, lowers the S Resource Exploitation marker, and flips a hand card of product type S to its black side. D. RETOOLING. Industrialization can add a new factory product by flipping over a white hand card to its black side. For each spectral type (C, M, S, or V), you are limited to one black card per factory (counting cards in your hand and in your stacks of that type). So if this operation takes you over the limit, flip a black hand card of the correct type to its white side. Note: A black card is not associated with a particular factory. So a black V card may be built at any of your V factories per 5.8. 5.8 ET PRODUCTION OPERATION This operation builds (for free) the factory product (5.7B) at your factory. plays Choose one black card from your hand and play it into one of the a stack slots (2.7B) at the factory on your mat. This builds the factory product (5.7B) at the factory. This card must have a product letter (2.6C) that matches the factory type (C, M, S, or V). If you have more than one such black card, choose one. This card is either addedUse the card to the stack, or can initiateto start a stack, or add to an existing stack: If a rocket stack: place a rocket of your color on the site hex of the factory. If an outpost stack: place a disk on the site hex (stacked on the claim disk). If a freighter stack: place a cube next to the claim disk at the site. Only one card is allowed in this stack, either a crew card per 6.7B or a black cardhere, a black card indicating the freighter cargo (6.6). Example: The UN player from the previous example decides to build and ship his first lunar product. He plays his S black card into his freighter stack slot, and places a purple freighter cube on the mapnext to his lunar claim disk. 5.9 DEAL-MAKING (Not an operation, may be done anytime) A. BUYING AND SELLING. You may exchange WT, claims, factories, cards in LEO (white side and crew only)*, or promises for future services or actions as terms of a deal. These services can include use of the ESA powersat or the UN cycler (2.3B). White hand cards can be swapped as

part of a deal, as long as the number of white cards for each trader remains unchanged.All cards for sale may be examined beforehand. Important: WT (as fuel) or white cards may be transferred from your rocket to the stack of any cooperating player in the same space at the end of your move. B. EXPERIMENTAL TRADE CARDS. To play this option, download and printout the four HighFrontierTradeCard pdf files from www.sierramadregames.com website. These files are copies of the 48 white cards in the game. Cut them into 48 cards, which will be known as trade cards. These cards are green in color. Trade cards represent the rights to build a second copy of the patent, and are subject to all patent card rules, except as listed below. Trade Card deals. When a patent card is researched (5.2) for the first time, the winner receives both it and its corresponding trade card. Support cards (8.2) awarded in an auction also come with the corresponding trade cards. Example (expanded game): A player winning the bid for a generator with reactor and radiator supports gets three patent cards, plus the corresponding three trade cards. If, however, the reactor trade card is already held by another player, the winner only gets the trade cards for the generator and radiator. Special. A trade card never counts towards bid limits (5.2A), and has no black side. It cannot be used in a free market operation (5.3). Trade Card Deals. A trade card can be freely sold or given to other players. Espionage Felony. As a felonious operation, a player expend his operation to steal one or more trade cards in the hands of other players by paying 1 WT to the pool for each one.

6.0 MOVES
During this phase, compute your modified thrust, and then move both your rocket and your freighter (if any) in any order. 6.1 ROCKET MODIFIED THRUST (Acceleration) Your modified thrust** sets how many burns you may enter per turn, and how big a world you can land on without lander fuel (6.4C). It is calculated before your rocket moves, and is applied for its entire move. Use a blue disk in your Acceleration Track (2.4A) to show your modified thrust for the turn. A. THRUST MODIFIERS. Your rockets thrust is the first number in the thruster triangle (2.6D). Add or subtract the modifiers listed below to obtain the modified thrust. Wet Mass Thrust Modifier. The modifier used is shown in the waterdrop icon in the top row of the Rocket Diagram, depending on your fuel figure position at the start of your move. Exception: If you lift-off (6.4D), expend ascent stage lander fuel BEFORE computing your wet mass thrust modifier for the turn. Example: A sail built on Mars lifts off with 8 tanks of fuel. Subtract 10 steps for lift-off (just over 2 tanks left), then compute the wet mass modifier for the turn. The sails modified thrust is 2 1 = 1.

Thrust-Modifying Supports, Some reactor and generator cards have a thrust modifier in their support triangle (2.6G). This applies only if your thruster (or one of its supports) needs the card as a support.

Solar Power Modifier. If your thruster or its support has the solar icon on its triangle (2.6D, F), your rocket loses thrust the further from the sun it travels, according to the modifier listed on the zone (2.2D) it starts its move in. (Apply this modifier only once, even with multiple solar components.)

HIGH FRONTIER

SIERRA MADRE GAMES CO.

6/4/2012

ESA Beamed Power. As part of a deal (5.9A), you may get power from the green player or from a player with a built ionosphere lasing refinery. If so, add one to your thrust for the turn per 2.3B. Open-cycle Cooling. The afterburner icon on many thrusters signifies that you can dump coolant into the exhaust to increase thrust and get rid of heat. This option increases your thrust by one for the turn, and [expanded game] satisfies one therm (8.2A) of cooling during movment. This option costs fuel; decrease your fuel figure the number of steps listed on the icon. Immediately adjust your acceleration disk up one step, plus another step if your wet mass modifier improves due to the fuel burn. Example [expanded game]: A rocket uses a vortex-confined thruster (1 therm) and a D-T Tokamak as a support (2 more therms). This rocket has but a single 2-therm radiator, however, and thus must use opencycle cooling every move the thruster is used, to keep from melting down. This increases the thrust (from 6 to 7), at a cost of an extra fuel step. B. MOVEMENT REQUIREMENTS. To move, a rocket stack must have a working thruster with a modified thrust of at least one. Exception: A rocket with no thruster may enter hazards (6.4E, F) in a dashed aerobraking path as long as it doesnt enter a burn. Example: A rocket with a dry mass of 6 and one tank of fuel is transport class (wet mass thrust modifier of -1). Using a thruster with a thrust of 1, its modified thrust is 1 - 1 = 0. It cant move with zero thrust, so it jettisons one step of fuel to bring it to scout class [using expanded game rule 8.3D]. This class has a wet mass modifier of 0, allowing it to move. Dry Rocket. Except for sails (6.5) and freighters (6.6), a rocket with no fuel may not move any further. Exception: You may enter or leave an aerobrake hazard (6.4F) with no fuel. 6.2 SPACECRAFT MOVE A rocket move takes your rocket figure from space to space, along connected routes, until you choose to stop or land. You may enter a burn or change direction in a Hohmann only if you have enough modified thrust and fuelit lands, chooses to halt, runs out of fuel, or has insufficient fuel or acceleration to enter a burn. A. PROCEDURE. In your rocket stack, choose one card with a thruster triangle (2.6D) to be your thruster for the turn. Compute its modified thrust per 6.1A. This is the maximum number of burns per move. Each burn costs fuel per 6.2B. Intersections cost no fuel to enter. Hohmann Pivots. If you move through a Hohmann intersection (2.2B), you must go straight through without turning, unless you pay the turning penalty specified in 6.3. If you begin your move on a Hohmann, you may move in any direction, regardless of the direction moved last turn. Stacking Limits. You may freely pass and share a space with other rockets, freighters and outposts.

Example: The NASA crew has a (terrible) fuel consumption of 6, representing its SSME chemical engines. It must move its fuel figure 6 steps to enter each burn! Example: An ion drive thruster (output 2 ) expends half a step for each burn entered. If it enters one burn in a turn, half a step is expended, which is rounded up to one step to the left.

Fuel Economy [expanded game]. Some space-built reactors have a triangle (2.6G) that halves or quarters your fuel expenditure, if used in support of a thruster.

C. COASTING. You may continue to move after entering your maximum number of burns, if not dryou have a thruster (6.1B) and dont Hohmann pivot or enter another burn. See examples on pg 24.

Dry Slingshot. You may gain slingshot bonuses or land while

coasting. 6.3 HOHMANN PIVOT (Brachistochrone) If during your move you wish to make a Hohmann pivot, you must burn fuel equal to entering 2 burns. These burns count against acceleration (6.1). See the examples on pg 24. Turning is free in circular spaces (Lpoints and burns). 6.4 ROCKET LANDING AND BLAST-OFF A. LANDING PREREQUISITES. Entering a site hex lands on a world. To do so, you must satisfy two conditions: You must spend enough lander fuel (6.4C).

Synodic Comets [Expanded Game]. If the site has a colored border (2.2C), the Sunspot Cycle sector must be the same color per 8.5C.***

B. CLAIM JUMPING. To claim jump, land on the claim of another player, and immediately replace the claim disk with one of your color. Your rocket must have a crew, and the site must not have cubes or be defended by crew. Claim jumping is felonious (2.3B). Note: It is not a felony to merely land on another players claim or factory. Example: Both NASA and PRC have rockets on Enkes comet. NASA prospects successfully, placing a white claim disk. On his turn, the manned PRC rocket feloniously decommissions its refinery and robonaut to industrialize the claim, replacing the NASA disk with a red disk and a red cube. C. LANDER FUEL PENALTY. If you enter or leave a site hex, you must move your fuel figure to the left a number of spots equal to the sites size. This simulates fuel used by a chemical lander going to or from the surface. This penalty costs fuel only, and does not count against your acceleration. Direct landing. You may avoid burning lander fuel, for landings and liftoffs, if you have a modified thrust (6.1A) greater than the sites size. Signposts. The lander fuel required for a trip is shown on the signposts (5.4E). The number in the lander silhouette is the number of fuel steps needed, assuming the thrust is too low for a direct landing. Example: A rocket with a modified thrust of 3 lands on Nysa (size 3). Its fuel is decreased three steps. On its next turn, it reduces its dry mass (by dropping off a refinery on Nysa), which increases its modified thrust to 4 per 6.7A. It can blast-off without burning fuel.

Advanced Maneuvers [expanded game]. As part of your move, you may perform one attack (8.4) and one or more advanced maneuvers (8.3). Each flyby (8.3A) may be entered once per move.

No U Turn. You cant reverse direction during your move. B. FUEL CONSUMPTION. The right-hand number in the triangle (2.6D) is the thrusters fuel consumption.* This is the number of fuel steps expended for each burn entered, rounding up any fractions at the end of the move.

HIGH FRONTIER

SIERRA MADRE GAMES CO.

6/4/2012

D. LIFT OFF. A rocket on a site hex has three options for exit: 1. Ascent Stage Lander Fuel. Burn lander fuel per 6.4C to exit and continue moving. Per 6.1A, burn this fuel before calculating modified thrust. Lift off is free if modified thrust is greater than the sites size. Note: You may not take an aerobrake path (6.4F) when lifting off. Note: The burns between the martian locations should be used only if your rocket has a modified thrust greater than 10, so that you can lift-off and land without expending lander fuel. If your thrust is 10 or less, make a suborbital hop along the dashed yellow line per the next paragraph. 2. Suborbital Hop. If a world has sites joined by a dashed yellow line per 5.6B, you can hop to one of them them if fueled. Unless your modified thrust is greater than the size, pay the lander fuel penalty (6.4C).by expending a number of steps of fuel equal to the worlds size. If your rocket or outpost stack includes a buggy, you can drive the stack along a dashed yellow line without fuel. 3. Decommission the rocket stack per 6.7. E. CRASH HAZARD. When entering a crash hazard L-point (marked with a skull), roll the die. A 1 = spacecraft decommissioned (6.7). F. AEROBRAKE HAZARD. When entering an aerobrake hazard Lpoint (marked with a parachute), roll the die. A 1 = rocket decommissioned. Aerobraking. If you follow an aerobrake path to land on a site hex, you avoid burning any lander fuel (6.4C). (But still must burn fuel for entering burns.). Sails. A sail card entering an aerobrake hazard is decommissioned, even if it is not the thruster being used. Example: A sail spends its 1 burn to enter the Mars HEO (highly eccentric orbit). It then coasts to the aerobrake hazard. The sail card is decommissioned, but the rest of the stack parachutes onto Marsthe Hellas Basin. Atmosphere Scooping. A rocket carrying the Atmospheric ISRU Scoop refinery [plus its supports, in the expanded game] may perform aerobrakes without risk. If ending its move on an aerobrake hazard, it may then perform an ISRU Refuel Operation, which adds as many tanks of fuel as the rocket can carry. You are scooping and liquefying the atmosphere to use as propellant. Note: If starting on an aerobrake, you may move to land, return to space, or linger. G. FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION. You may avoid making a crash or aerobrake hazard roll by paying 4 WT before the roll. (Represents a software upload.) 6.5 SAIL MOVEMENT Two thruster cards are sails, huge gossamer films propelled by the sun (solar photons, solar wind, or solar magnetic field). Sails move as a rocket with a fuel consumption of zero. The only fuel needed is lander fuel (6.4C). Note: Sails modify their thrust per 6.1A. See the example on page 24. Example: A sail with a mass of 1 takes on cargo with a mass of 6. The total dry mass is thus 1 + 6 = 7. Place the fuel figure in the empty position of the 7 dry row (its flying without any fuel). If it has a thrust of 1, it would be fully loaded, since it cannot take on any more mass or fuel without going into freighter class, which modifies its thrust to less than 1.

A. ATMOSPHERIC DRAG. If a sail aerobrakes (6.4F), decommission its sail card. 6.6 FREIGHTER MOVEMENT A freighter is a cube representing a factory product card (5.8) or crew (6.7B) with a steam engine.* It moves as a rocket with a modified thrust of one and a fuel consumption of zero; see the example on page 24. A freighter cant land except at a factory. It cant aerobrake or slingshot. A freighter It may only lift off a site hex of size 1 or a site hex with a factory (for free). Freighter fuel is not tracked (assume it reaches its destination dry).

A freighter rolls per 8.3C when entering a radiation belt [expanded game].

A rocket may merge with a freighter if the rocket starts or ends its move on the freighters space. Modify dry mass per 6.7A. 6.7 CARD DECOMMISSION You may decommission (return to your hand) one or more cards freely as part of any of your operationturn. This includes crew. Decommissioning also occurs during free market, industrialization, hazards, flares, radiation belts, and combat. Decommissioning returns cards to your hand, where they can be reused. A. DRY MASS ADJUSTMENT. If cards are added or subtracted from your rocket stack, the mass gained or lost affects your dry mass (5.4B). This takes effect on your next move. Move your fuel figure to the row corresponding to the new dry mass, keeping the number of tanks constant. If the fuel figure is on a spot that is between fuel tanks, it must follow the dashed line when moving to its new dry mass row as shown. DROPPING OFF CARGO Example: Your rocket, with an initial dry mass of 4, has a fuel figure positioned as shown. It drops off cargo with a mass of 2. The fuel figure moves up to the new dry mass of 2, following the dashed arrow, as shown. B. CREW DECOMMISSION. It is felonious (2.3B) to voluntarily decommission crew anywhere except at your ET factory or LEO. Space Colony. Decommissioning crew at any factory adds an extra cube at the site to represent a Space Colony. You may do this multiple times, to make the colony bigger. Each cube is worth a VP per 7.1. A colony cube may be converted into a crew card in a rocket or outpost stack at the site. Rescue Pod. If a stack is decommissioned except for crew, convert it instantly into a freighter (6.6). Move the crew card into the freighter slot (decommission any card there), and put a cube on its map location. C. RADIATOR DECOMMISSION. If a heavy radiator is decommissioned, reorient it to its light version per 2.6H instead of returning it to your hand. This rotates the card 180 and adjusts dry mass per 6.7A. Light radiators are decommissioned normally. D. OUTPOST. You can convert your rocket or freighter into an outpost by exchanging its figure for a disk and moving the cards into the outpost slot. Each full tank of fuel or ISRU fuel (5.5A) can be converted into a clear disk stored at the outpost. An outpost and fuel can be converted into a rocket per 5.4B,C.. All fuel is lost, and the cards are moved into the outpost slot. This frees you to build a new stack elsewhere. You can convert an outpost into a (dry) rocket by replacing its disk with a rocket figure. Outpost Disk. Mark the outpost location with a disk of your color. If at a site, stack the disk on the claim disk.

HIGH FRONTIER

SIERRA MADRE GAMES CO.

6/4/2012

Coalescence. At the end of a rockets move, it can merge with any cooperating stack. A rocket can drop off outposts at any point of its move, which adjusts dry mass at the end of its move. WTs at Outposts: A rocket may deposit or pick up WTs at an outpost at the rate of 1 WT per FULL tank of fuel (fractional tanks are lost). WT may be dropped off in this way either as cargo or when the rocket is decommissioned. When dropping off fuel as cargo, the fuel marker is moved to the left on the rocket diagram to the new tank # position. It is felonious to steal water from the outpost of another player. An outpost can add to its supply of WTs with the ISRU refuel operation (5.5A). Example: A rocket whose fuel marker is between tank #2 and tank #3 on the rocket diagram drops off a single WT at an outpost. 1 WT counter is placed at the outpost and the rocket's fuel marker is placed on the tank #1 position on the rocket diagram. Its dry mass remains unchanged.

2 Player Game. Game ends as soon asat the end of the turn when 4 factories are built. 3 Player Game. Game ends at the end of the turn when 6 factories are built. 4 or 5 Player Game. Game ends at the end of the turn when 7 factories are built. A. PAYING TO END THE GAME. If a player has 3 ET factories built, or cubes in at least 2 space ventures (7.2), he may end the game by spending his whole turn paying 5 WT.

B. FINAL REGIME. The phasing player automatically initiates an election auction (8.5B) at the end of the expanded game.

7.0 WINNING THE GAME

7.1 VICTORY CONDITIONS At the end of the game, every cube or disk of your color on a map site awards 1 victory point (VP), regardless if its a claim, colony, or factory. (Remove all outposts and freighters prior to scoring.) Additional VP are awarded as follows: Each ET factory (1 or more of your cubes on your claim) awards the VP listed on its Resource Exploitation Track (2.5B). Each cube on a Space Venture (7.2) awards the VP indicated. Glory. The first to land a crew on Mars, Mercury, or any science site, and safely decommission them in LEO ,without using a rescue pod (6.7B), places a cube in the Glory Arena (+3 VP ea.). The first to return crew from any site, additionally places a cube in the any site space. Note: No claim is needed for glory. Max 1 cube per glory space. Note: The heroism star is found in the Glory Arena of recent edition maps. If you feel that you have accomplished something heroic, you may call for a vote on that turn. If the majority of players agree that you have earned it, place a cube on this star, worth 3 VP. Science Sites. Each claim at a microscope icon is +2 VP.

8.0 THE EXPANDED GAME

8.1 EXPANDED GAME COMPONENTS (purchased separately) 1 Expansion Map. 1 Thruster Patent Card (The touchy metastable helium rocket). 9 Generator Patent Cards. Two kinds: electricity, or pulsed power. 7 Reactor Cards. Three kinds: neutronic, burst plasma, or exotic catalysts. 7 Radiator Cards. Each provides one to three therms (^) of cooling.

8.2 SUPPORT CARDS Some cards list support cards (reactors, generators, and/or radiators) in their red data field (2.6C). The card cant be used (for movement, prospecting, refueling, industrialization, etc.) without these support cards. The support cards themselves also will often need supports. If you have a choice of supports, only one can be chosen. Important: When industrializing a site in the expanded game, you will need to decommission not only the refinery and robonaut cards, but also all of their supports, and also all supports of those supports. With the exception of radiators, which dont even need to be present during industrialization, since the nightside of the site itself acts as a radiator. Example: A rocket stack contains a refinery, the generator needed by the refinery, and a robonaut that requires a radiator. The site is industrialized by decommissioning the refinery, robonaut, and generator, even though no radiators are present. Note: You may research support cards in the same way as for other patents (5.2). A. OVERHEATING. Some cards indicate a number of therms (the thermometer icon) of radiator cooling required to keep from overheating. For instance, if your rocket stack altogether needs 3 therms of cooling, you will need one or more radiators that add up to at least 3 therms. Important: Heat rejection is necessary only if the card is in use. If in a turnphase, a thruster system does not move, or a robonaut system does no prospecting or refueling, then they dont need radiators that turnphase. Note: A radiator can be boosted in a light or heavy variant, per 2.6H. RememberNote: Afterburning provides 1 therm of cooling per during movement (6.1A). Example: The Free Electron Laser robonaut needs the two supports shown. For its generator, it carries the In-Core Thermionic, which itself needs a reactor (either o or n) plus another three therms of radiators. The Pebble Bed Fission reactor is added to the stack, plus a heavy Ti/K heat pipe, and a heavy bubble membrane (each able to reject two therms of heat). The complete robonaut stack has these five cards: 1 robonaut, 1 generator, 1 reactor, and 2 radiators. Its dry mass is 8.

Space Government [expanded game]. If the political disk (3.2A) is on a spot of a player color, it awards him the VP indicated.

Tiebreaker. In case of ties, the one with the most WT wins. 7.2 SPACE VENTURES The first player to claim three S, V, or M sites (and pay the WT listed), instantly places a cube in the corresponding zone in the map corner. You may remove glory cubes if necessary for this. Space Tourism allows you to perform any two operations per turn instead of one. Space Elevator allows you to use the route marked space elevator between LEO and L2.** Note: D worlds cannot be used for space ventures. Endgame example: The red player ends with claims on the V worlds of Mercury, Vesta, and one of its moonlets. He also has a factory on Mercury, which is worth 8 VP on the Exploitation Track. He has 3 disks and 1 cube on the map, plus a cube (worth 7 VP) on Space Tourism. His total is 8 + 3 + 1 + 7 = 19 VP. 7.3 THE END OF THE GAME

HIGH FRONTIER

SIERRA MADRE GAMES CO.

6/4/2012

B. SHARING SUPPORTS. Thruster, robonaut, and refinery systems may share gGenerators, reactors, or radiator supports may be used by one system during the movement phase, and another during operations. For instance, a single pulse generator may serve both a robonaut thruster during movement and a robonaut during prospectingand a thruster. ExampleNote: A fuel cell generator (e output) can power an electric thruster during a move, and an electric robonaut during the subsequent prospect operation. If on the next turn, the robonaut plus an electric refinery are consumed to industrialize the site, the fuel cell is decommissioned as well to power both of themDuring industrialization (5.7), a robonaut plus refinery are decommissioned, plus the supports they need. (Except that radiators arent needed during industrialization, see 8.2). If the robonaut and refinery each need the same support (for instance an e generator), you need only decommission a single support, which serves both. C. FACTORY SUPPORTS. An ET factory provides electricity, pulsed power, and up to three therms of support to all collocated cards. (This is useful during combat.) 8.3 ADVANCED ROCKET MANEUVERS A. SLINGSHOT. A rocket or sail that enters a flyby L-point can perform a slingshot maneuver, giving it a number of free Burns (6.2A) up to the planets slingshot rating. These are used during the remainder of its move. For instance, after entering the Earth flyby, you may go an extra two burns that dont count against your acceleration and cost no or fuel, and may be used even if radiation kills your thruster. See example on page 24. The Venus flyby bonus may only be used during the blue sector (8.5B). B. MOON BOOST. Entering this flyby gives you one extra burn for no fuel or acceleration cost, just like a slingshot. C. RADIATION BELT. Four worlds (Sol, Earth, Jupiter, and Saturn) are surrounded by a purple dashed line indicating a radiation belt*. When entering a radiation belt L-point, find its radiation level by rolling 1d6 and subtracting the spacecraft modified thrust (6.1). All cards in the stack with a rad-hardness (2.6C) lower than this modified roll are decommissioned. This may halt the spacecraft on this spot; see example 8.9. Example: The green route to Enceladus passes through 7 radiation belts. Solar Active Year. If the sunspot disk (3.2A) is in the red sector, add 2 to the radiation levels of all radiation belts. UN Cycler. The UN (purple) player may make any spacecraft he designates immune to the radiation effects of the Earth belt. Sail Bonuses. Sail cards are immune to damage from radiation belts and solar flares. The Mag Sail receives a +1 thrust bonus for each radiation belt L-point it crosses in a move. Each L-point gives 1 boost/turn maximum. Example: A rocket with a modified thrust of 2 moves from LEO to GEO, crossing the Van Allen belt. A 4 is rolled, so the radiation level is 4 2 = 2. The rockets solar panels (rad-hard = 1) are decommissioned, and without power, its electric thrusters stop working. Having failed to reach GEO, the stack may be left in HEO as an outpost, or else entirely decommissioned. {Note: D and E below may be used in the Basic Game} D. JETTISONS. By jettisoning fuel or, cargo, or WT cargo, your rocket decreases wet or dry mass and so improves its modified thrust. Cargo Jettison. If you jettison a card, it is decommissioned. Decrease the stacks dry mass by following the procedure of 6.7A. Propellant Jettison. You may jettison water by simply moving your rockets fuel figure to the left the desired number of steps.

E. DIRT AS PROPELLANT. The dirt bucket icon on a thruster card allows a rocket to use regolith (space dirt) as propellant. A rocket with this icon can do the ISRU refuel operation at any site hex, adding as much fuel as it can carry, regardless of ISRU! Phileas Fogg Tactic. Besides regolith, these thrusters can use decommissioned cards as fuel (the machinery is ground up and fed into the engine hopper). Each mass point adds a tank of fuel. This may be on the fly as part of the spacecraft move operation. Regolith collected by mass drivers and other dirt rockets is treated as water for all game purposes. F. INITIATING COMBAT. If the political disk is in war (8.6), your (nonfreighter) stacks may each initiate combat per 8.4 at the end of your movement phase against other cohabitating stacks or factories. Interception. Also during war, your stacks or ET factories may initiate combat against any spacecraft which exit your space during their movement phase. This includes interception of spacecraft which pass through the space you occupy. If such spacecraft are operational after the combat, they may complete their move normally. See the example on page 11. 8.4 COMBAT PROCEDURE Combat may be initiated per 8.3F, and proceeds as follows: (1)The defender attacks first with each of his rayguns per 8.4A. (2)Attacker attacks with each of his rayguns per 8.4A. (3)Defender may attack with any or all of his missiles per 8.4B. (4) Attacker may attack with any or all of his missiles per 8.4B. (5)The player with the higher modified thrust (if any) may attack with any or all of his buggies per 8.4C. Note: A robonaut cant attack if any of its supports are decommissioned. LEO security zone. No combat is allowed in LEO. Crews in rescue pods (6.7B) cant attack and have a rad-hardness of 0. Certain cards, as noted on the card, have special combat rules. A rocket carrying the Project Orion reactor or the n-6Li microfission thruster is immune from missiles (it can launch fission bombs towards anything that approaches, and has a shield designed to survive nuclear blasts.) Mass driver or MPD T-Wave thrusters may attack as robonaut rayguns rolling 2d6 instead of 1d6. A. RAYGUN ATTACK. Choose a single card in the defending stack, or factory cube, and roll 1d6. If the result is greater than its rad-hardness, it is decommissioned. B. MISSILE ATTACK. Roll 2d6 and apply the sum against each card in the stack, or against each factory cube (see below). A sum greater than its rad-hardness (2.6C), will decommission cards or discard cubes. Any missile card used to attack is decommissioned! Kamikazes. A missile needs no lander fuel to attack a site hex, assuming its rocket stack is entirely consumed in the attack. (This is because missiles do not need to make a soft landing.) Missile crews are allowed to make suicide attacks; see Year 25 on page 11. C. BUGGY ATTACK (Piracy). Roll 2d6. The buggy attack succeeds if the sum is greater than 8 if an opposing crew is present on the space, or 6 if an

10

HIGH FRONTIER

SIERRA MADRE GAMES CO.

6/4/2012

opposing robonaut is present or if the target is a factory, or 4 if there are no opposing crew or robonauts present. If the attack succeeds, choose a white card from the target stack to steal to your stack, or a black card or crew to decommission. If the target is a factory, remove one cube (see 8.4D). Factories with more than one cube are considered crewed, see 6.7B. Note: A buggy may not attack unless the modified thrust of its rocket stack is greater than the modified thrust of its opponent. Both players recalculate their thrust as if they were beginning their move for this. They may use afterburners (6.1A) or jettisons (8.3D) to improve their modified thrust. D. FACTORY COMBAT. Each (non-freighter) cube on a factory fights as a robonaut raygun with a rad-hardness of 8. Factory Destruction. If all factory cubes at a site are lost, the factory is destroyed, and the appropriate Resource Exploitation Track goes up one step. If the owners retooling limit (5.7D) is exceeded in his hand as a result, he immediately flips a black card in his hand per 5.7D. Example: Project Orion lands on a 2-cube factory at an M site. The defending cubes fire first, targeting Orions missiles. But one missile survives, rolling a 9 which removes both cubes (but not the claim). The M factory product reverts to its white side, and the M resource Exploitation Track is lowered increased one step toward START. Factory Capture. If a factorys last cube is removed by a buggy attack, reinvert its factory product card per the preceding bullet, but do not adjust the exploitation track. Instead, remove and replace its claim token and last cube with a disk and cube of your color (demonstrating that you have captured the factory). You may later perform an industrialization to establish a new factory product The previous owner retains the product card, but adjusts his hand per the previous bullet.

Red: Solar Flare/Coronal Mass Ejection. Roll 1d6 for radiation level, which affects all stacks outside a planetary radiation belt (8.3C) or site hex. The radiation level is locally modified by adding the heliocentric zone modifier (2.2D), and the result is compared to the rad-hardness (2.6C) of all cards in each stack. Any cards that have a rad-hardness less than the roll are decommissioned. Note: Map spaces surrounded by a radiation belt, such as LEO, as well as the radiation L-points themselves, are considered inside the belt and protected from flares. C. SYNODIC COMETS. A site hex with a border color (2.2C) cannot be entered unless the Sunspot Cycle is in the same color. (This simulates synodic planetary alignment and launch windows.) 8.6 SPACE GOVERNMENT The Space Government* (expanded map) is divided into the 14 13 spots listed below. With the exception of anarchy and war, all these spots reward VP to the player indicated, if the political disk (3.2A) is there at the end of the game. Centrist. This is the start location, and has no special rules. Anarchy (3 spots). All players are allowed to commit felonious actions (2.3B).The PRC (red) player may move a political disk in anarchy into an adjacent war spot as a free action at the beginning of his move. War (3 spots). All players are allowed felonious actions and combat Militarism. No players may perform the free market operation (5.3) Egalitarianism. During an income operation (5.1), take 1 WT from a player who has more WT than you, instead of from the pool. Antinuke. No reactor patents are allowed in the hands of any players. Discard them to the bottom of the reactor deck. Nationalism. Only NASA (white) may perform the income operation (5.1).

Map]

8.5 SUNSPOT CYCLE & EVENT TABLE [Expanded Game

A. SUNSPOT CYCLE. This diagram (on the expanded map) is divided into three colored sectors. Immediately following each 1d6 event roll, advance the sunspot disk (3.2A) one step clockwise. Optional: If this moves the sunspot disk into the start spot, an Election Year event (see below) is triggered immediately. B. EVENT TABLE. If your rocket enters one or more triangle burns (2.2A), roll once on the following table after spacecraft move but before operations. Freighters do not trigger event rolls. 1 or 2. No Event. 3. Glitch. You The phasing player must decommission one of your his cards that is in a non-LEO rocket stack without a crew card, if any. 4. Pad Explosion/Space Debris. Each player with stack(s) in LEO decommissions his heaviest card. If tied, the victim chooses one. 5 or 6. Special Event. The event depends on what color sector the sunspot disk is in; see the Sunspot Cycle. Blue: Election Year. An election auction is held per 5.2, except that the winner always pays WT to the bowl (never to the auctioneer) and is allowed to move the political disk (3.2A) to an adjacent spot (8.6). The phasing player decides how ties are settled. Yellow: Budget Cuts. Each player (starting with the phasing player, then clockwise) discards a white hand card (if he has any) to the bottom of its corresponding deck.

Paleoconservatism. Only NASA (white) is allowed to initiate a research auction (5.2). Capitalism. During an income operation (5.1), a player receives as many WT as the number of factories he owns. Note: An election per 7.3B is automatically held at the end of the game. 8.7 EXPANSION SCENARIOS A. SPACE RACE (2 to 5 players). The winner is the first to land a crew on Titan, and return them to LEO (in a rescue pod or rocket). B. ALIEN INVASION (3 players). The red player is an alien race based on Titan. The two human players must find a way to cooperate against the vastly superior aliens. Titans. The Titan player has no crew card (thus is vulnerable to glitches). Research. Research auctions are conducted like election auctions (8.5B) with the winning bid always going into the pool. The Titans must use the black side of its cards researched. Titan Water tank orbital depot. Titan boost operations and WT start in the LTO (Low Titan Orbit) burn instead of LEO. War. All players can attack and perform felonious actions (2.3B). Factories. No factories allowed on D worlds or any of Saturns moons.

11

HIGH FRONTIER

SIERRA MADRE GAMES CO.

6/4/2012

End of Game. The game ends if the Titan rocket enters LEO, or if the Earth rocket enters a site hex on Titan. Victory Conditions. Each player gets 1 VP for each S factory (military base) and 5 VP for an outpost with at least one operational robonaut in the Rabbithole L3 point in the Mercury zone. C. HERMES FALL SOLITAIRE GAME. The Earth is threatened by the binary asteroid Hermes [expanded map], which has been calculated to impact in 19 turns. You must decommission a refinery (or mass driver thruster) plus its supports (except radiators, see 8.2) on both of them, before the sunspot disk enters the yellow sector for the fourth time. (It enters the yellow sector at the end of turns 1, 7, 13, and 19. The refineries represent mass drivers that gradually deflect the path of the twin asteroids away from Earth. Prospecting is unnecessary.). Note: Travel is always possible from Hermes a to Hermes b, and vice versa, regardless of sector. Revised Sequence of Play. Set-up per 3.2 as any faction. 1. Move your rocket or rockets. You may have up to two. 2. Pick one operation. For research, pay 2 WT to buy a card off the top (comes with supports per 5.2), or 1 WT to buy one unseen off the bottom (does not come with supports). Ignore bid limits (5.2A). 3. Make an event roll and then advance the sunspot disk one step. Election Event. Instead of elections, this event removes the top card of one of the six stacks from the game. Roll 1d6 to see which one. New Privileges. The Shimizu privilege is to pay an extra WT during a research operation to advance a hand card to its black side (which can be boosted at LEO in this variant.). The UN privilege is to start with 10 WT. He also has his cyclers (8.3C). The PRC starts with extra cards per 3.3. The other two privileges are unchanged (as per 2.3B). 8.8 EXAMPLE BASIC GAME MISSION TO LUNA Year 1: Launch of Lunar Mission. After years of research, the PRC pays 4 WT to boost his crew, a mirror steamer (output 34), and a cat fusion robonaut (ISRU = 2, mass = 3). Dry mass = 4. He adds 3 tanks of fuel. Year 2. Cis-lunar move. The rocket stack burns 8 steps of fuel to move to the lunar L1 point (2 burns at cost of 4 steps each). Year 3: Lunar Landing. The PRC uses his crew (output 96) to land. They spend 2 afterburning fuel steps, which raises the thrust to 10. Since this is greater than the size of Luna, no lander fuel is spent. During prospecting, the PRC robonaut automatically claims Luna. Years 4 to 8: ISRU Refueling. Five turns add five tanks of fuel. Year 9: Return. Leaving the robonaut behind as an outpost, the rest of the sack (dry mass = 1) lifts off. Using the 34 mirror thruster, a modified thrust of 2 is enough to enter the two burns for a return to LEO in one year. The rocket expends 9 steps of lander fuel to lift off, plus 4 steps for each of the two burns. It enters LEO with a step of fuel. The crew is decommissioned to gain a 3VP glory cube at any site. 8.9 FREIGHTER FLEET VARIANT (J. Chambers) This variant allows: 1) freighters to carry water and cards up to mass 4, and 2) players to have up to three outposts and freighters. Note: Instead of using disks for outposts and cubes for freighters, you will need tokens scavenged from other games to represent freighters and outposts. There should be three for each player color. Modify the Factory Refuel Operation (5.5B) to include freighters and outposts. A factory refuel can load up to four tanks of water to a freighter

(its maximum capacity) or add 8 tanks to an outpost, if the freighter or outpost is at the factory site. Modify the ET Production Operation (5.8) to include freighter production. An ET production can generate a freighter token, placed next to the claim disk, but without placing a card in the corresponding freighter stack. If you already have the maximum number of freighters allowed in play (3), decommission one of your existing freighters, or convert it to another stack type. Freighter Capacity. You may place any card on a freighter stack up to its maximum mass of 4, including crew cards. However, loading crews into freighters is felonius (2.3B). Each tank of water on a freighter is considered one mass. At the end of a freighters move, you may add or subtract water and cards from other cooperating stacks as a free operation. 8.10 FAST 2-PLAYER VARIANT (Scott Muldoon) Quick Start: Use the Shorter Game Setup from 3.3, i.e. each player draws one card from each patent deck at random into his hand during setup. Downtime: You may forgo your entire Move Phase to collect 1 WT. This means you may not move any rocket or freighter(s). Research: As in the Hermes Fall Solitaire Scenario (8.7C) there are no auctions. When you research, either pay 2 WT to buy a card off the top of a patent deck (comes with supports per 5.2), or 1 WT to buy one unseen card off the bottom (does not come with supports). However, bid limits (5.2A) are still in place.

9.0 Eric Schiedlers Easily Missed Rules

a) Remember the re-rolls for buggy isruISRU's. Notice that this takes odds on a comet from 16.7% to 30.6%. It's strange that buggies can roam on comets...but.....this game is REAL! b) It is clear that a Sail can not use the benefit of generators that power other parts of the stack. This greatly limits where a sail can travel in this solar system. This is consistent with (g) below. c) A solar flare does not affect stacks on a site hex (or inside a radiation belt). I knew about the radiation belt exception but it also applies to site hexes. d) A factory provides both types of electrical generator support plus three therms of radiator cooling to ALL cohabiting allied cards, including during combat. Thus, you can support a lot of stuff at a factory hex almost indefinitely. Seems to allow for great flexibility for missions. e) The MAG sail (only, not the other sail cards) receives a +1 acceleration boost if it flies through each radiation L-point on the boundary of a radiation belt! Nice bonus. It is a black card. This makes for a powerful sail in the later stages of the game. It makes for a very nice Mercury trip with crew, etc. etc. f) The reactor card modifiers are NOT applied if the thrust card does not need them as support. This explicitly allows you to switch to a lander crew vehicle without paying a thrust penalty on certain cards in your stack. The rules specifically mention REACTORS in 6.1.A. They do not mention the Generator and Radiator cards. But it is assumed in 2.6.G to be the case that it applies to all three types of support cards. A friendly ruling on this makes many missions easier, like a Moon mission. g) A lot of 9/6 thrusters can't land on the large site hexes if they are carrying too much mass. Large rocket stacks usually have wet mass modified thrust -1. That's why a lot of factories will take 2 trips to large planets and certain asteroids are easy for factories.

12

HIGH FRONTIER

SIERRA MADRE GAMES CO.

6/4/2012

This also makes Chinese claim jumping to be time consuming certain locations will require the Chinese to make 1 trip to jump the claim and a 2nd trip to bring the factory. The solution is the +2, +4, and +8 modified thrusters. But the ESA beamed power bonus of +1 becomes a powerful solution here. This series of effects of various rules as listed under this paragraph (i) is not really in debate, it just must clearly be understood in order to effectively plan missions. 9.3 GAME SCALE Every turn is one Earth year. Every Crew card is an eight-man crew with life-support. See crew glossary entry. Each mass point is a quadecaton (40-tonnes, or 40,000 kg). Fuel consumption is inversely proportional to a rockets specific impulse in seconds as follows: 6 = 4.6 km/sec (460 sec Isp), 4 = 10 km/sec (1000 sec Isp), 2 = 20 km/sec (2000 sec Isp), 1 = 40 km/sec (4000 Isp), = 80 km/sec (8000 sec Isp), = 160 km/sec (16,000 Isp). A thrust of one is 0.75 kN (750 Newtons, or 169 lbs., the weight of the game designer on Earth!). Each additional point doubles this. An acceleration of one is 0.38 milligees or 0.38 cm/sec 2, and each step more doubles this. A size one world has a surface gravity of 0.75 milligees, and each additional step doubles this. Size 1 worlds have the following diameters based upon density: comet nucleus 52 km (only Centaur comets approach this size), S-type asteroid 22 km, M-type asteroid 14 km. Beamed power emits a 60 MW laser beam. Generators produce 60 MW e of electricity. Reactors produce from 650-2000 MW th of thermal energy, either in neutrons, pions, or plasma jets. Each therm generates 120 MW th of heat. (Subscript e = electricity, th = thermal). Each burn requires a delta-v (velocity change) of 2.5 km/sec. Each brachistochrone is 5.0 km/sec. A solar flare die roll of 1 is an M1 flare with an X-ray power density of 10-5 Watts/m 2. Each point more is 4 times this. Thus, a die roll of 6 is a X95 (Carrington-class) flare with a power density of 10-2 Watts/m 2. Equipment with a rad-hardness of 1 can withstand a total ionizing dose of 4 X 10-7 krad (Si) without failing. Each point more is 4 times this. For example, equipment with a rad-hardness of 5 can survive a Mrad of dosage. These numbers are actual industry ratings. Solar insolation is 1.38 kW/m 2 at 1 AU (1 AU = Earth-Sol average distance). Maximum sailing thrust is 12.2 N/km 2 from photon pressure at 1 AU, or 0.002 N/km 2 (2 nPa) from solar wind dynamic pressure. These values are in the Earth zone. Each zone closer to Sol doubles them. Each water tank (WT) is a 40-tonne bag with a diameter of 4.25 meters. Some rockets use hydrogen as propellant; 40-tonnes of LH 2 or slush hydrogen is held in a cryo-tank cylinder 7.5 meters in diameter and 16 meters long, including active refrigeration for zero boil-off. Phil Eklund, phileklund@aol.com Sierra Madre Games, 2010 www.sierramadregames.com

and 3 are missile. If you play the quick start and get a random robonaut, your first claim/ET factory might be dictated. Otherwise, pick a robonaut aligned to your chosen target. 2A. Missiles Robonauts: The missiles are ISRU 2/3/3 and all act as inefficient thrusters. The missiles obviously have to be landed to be useful and allow only one prospecting roll, so this effectively limits there usefulness to size 3 or greater sites (unless you are lucky) with two or three water drops.The 9-6 can land on Luna, but doesn't have enough ISRU to prospect there; kind of an odd card to use. The two 5-4's seem to have good targets at hertha, eichsfeldia, and minerva. 2B. Buggy Robonauts: These are essential for the isolated size 1 sites to give you a decent success chance (khufu, deimos, phobos, phaethon, olijato, aneas, etc. They are almost required for Mars - why go to the trouble of landing on Mars and not claim the whole enchilada? 2C. Raygun Robonauts: These mass the highest, but they are the keys to the asteroid families and they do not have to land to prospect (unless the site has an atmosphere). A raygun robonaut has the only 1 ISRU in the white cards. 3. Refinery: These seem to be pretty interchangeable in the basic game, other than mass (two 3's and five 4's). I assume you would pick one or the other based mostly on it having a black side that matches the type of ET factory sites you will go after. 4. Thrusters: Excluding black-side considerations, some of the thrusters seem better than others. The 1-0 sails are useful for earth or inner sites, but those are a little limited. The 3-1 and 5-1 (expanded card) are quite useful. The 3-2, 5-2, and 4-3 are not very efficient and fairly heavy. The 3-4 solar thruster seems tricky to use, but it does weigh 0. The 7-4 would seem only to be useful on a few targets as a lander (size 6 vesta and ceres). I could see some bidding wars developing over the thrusters, as 'thruster denial' might be a valid early game tactic. 5. Crew: NASA, ESA (w/ beamed power), and PRC can go for glory with a Luna landing. All of their ISRU ratings are poor, so only a few sites could be claimed. You can decommision crew at an ET factory to form a colony for VP - the only one-way trip you can really plan with crew, other than the PRC player. Note that the PRC crew must be present to claim jump, and other player's crew prevents this. 6. ET Production/Retooling: Note that having a white card in your hand matching your new ET factory's spectral type when you build it saves you a turn so that you don't have to Retool later. 7. ISRU Refueling: You don't have to have a claim to refuel at a site. This could come in handy at deimos, since it is difficult to prospect, but easy to land on. 8. Aerobraking: Don't forget that you don't have to use any lander fuel to land after aerobraking. Of course, taking off again is another story. 9. Failure Is Not an Option: Paying the 4WT to avoid making a crash or aerobrake roll seems like a tough call. A one just seems 'so' unlikely, but ultimately you have a lot more riding on the mission than 4WT. I guess the call would be if you are ahead in VP or not; if you are ahead, you should probably play it safe. 10. Space Ventures: Aiming for a three-of-a-kind M, V, or S set of claims would seem to be a decisive VP edge. The space elevator does not appear to be likely in the basic game - three M sites plus 7WT might be a bit tough before the game ends due to the number of ET factories.

10.0 Chad Marletts Basic Strategy Guide

So far, the hardest part about High Frontier is figuring out what to do at the start of the game. Below are some thoughts after 2 games at a convention. Concepts that should guide strategy that may not be clear from a quick read through the rulebook: 1. Resource Exploitation Track: Each ET factory of a given spectral type has a VP value (or WT value for a product) that goes down in value as the number of factories increase. Depending on the board situation, you need to break the monopolies of the leader, and try to get some of your own. 2. Robonauts/ISRU: Of the 9 white robonauts, 2 are buggy, 4 are raygun,

11.0 Eric Schiedlers Expanded Strategy Guide

These are strategy ideas for the expanded game (all expanded rules, cards

13

HIGH FRONTIER

SIERRA MADRE GAMES CO.

6/4/2012

and both maps). These apply to 3-5 player games. The solitaire and 2player games probably are a bit more tactical. These strategies are presented in order of importance (my opinion). 1) Reduce Mission Cycle Time It doesn't matter what you do, you have to complete missions (successfully or unsuccessfully) as quickly as possible. You can't get anything useful to advance you on VP's or the later stages of the game until you complete a mission. You can only really have one mission going with one rocket stack. Other players are doing the same process of trying to get their next mission off the launch pad. Your decisions should focus on getting this time between missions down to a minimum. I like to think of my mission cycle as the time between boost operations. I only want to boost once per mission because I lose the opportunity of gaining 1 WT in income (or more) for each turn that I boost. But you likely have to boost for each mission because you often decommission cards on the previous mission that you will use on the next mission. It's a convenient method to track your mission cycle time; you may find others. 2) Take Winning Risks As in many games, a strategy with a slight degree of risk is more likely to win than a conservative strategy that takes no risks. Of course, reckless risks are to be avoided. You are more likely to lose if you take more risks (because of higher mission failure), but you are more likely to win if your risks pay off because they will lock-up valuable points. 2a) Example: Because of an event roll, I lost a mission that was taking a crew to try to win the "any site" victory point spot. Another player was going to complete a round trip to Mars on the next turn and gain 6 VPs (3 for Mars and 3 for first to "any site"). I lost the mission, but it was worth it because I would have split 6 VP's with a player instead of losing them all. Being down 6 VP's placed me an entire mission cycle down - hard to recover, so the risky mission I threw out to steal VP's was worth the risk. Had I waited until my mission was "safe" and "risk-free" I would have lost the 3 VP points anyway, putting even more pressure on a potential "riskfree" mission to have a huge payoff. 3) Find Income Sources It takes forever to get any useful amount of money at 1 WT/turn. I've had games where I went broke even after I hoarded 35 WT before making my big missions, so getting money is always an issue. BTW, buying a card at auction for 1 WT and selling it the next turn for 3 WT is also a net 1 WT/turn. 3a) In the expanded game, you get support cards listed on the patent card up for auction. That means auctions are worth 3, 6 or 9 WT in card value. Bet accordingly, but still remember that it takes turns to make the cards turn into cash. 3b) Make deals for cash when possible. The cash is often worth more than blocking other players. Examples of deals are to sell water at one of your factories, selling your special power, have people buy you off from your evil powers (if you're the PRC or in anarchy/war). Look for 1 WT deals in as many places as you can. Most people will think it's cheap; and for each 1WT you will be up one turn and they will have to make up that turn. 3c) Offer deals or cards, but try not to offer WT. Of course, offer WT when you feel that you can get quid pro quo for it later. 3d) Start juicy auctions. If a few players are drooling over certain cards that come up (especially the patent cards with two support cards) start that

auction and try to get 3+ WT from them. It's probably not worth it to get just 2 WT, because you could have gotten 1 WT instead of running the auction and now they got patent cars without spending a turn (they saved 1 WT). 3e) DON'T let players get cards for 0 WT, period. Keep WT in hand and space to bet in your hand. Delaying a mission one turn for this is only rarely deadly. You'll be one turn ahead on your next mission anyway. 3f) Fast freighter cycles of black cards can make you $$$$$!! 4) Get Free Operations If I buy at an auction that another player has initiated, I saved having to use an operation. If a player sells me a patent card, I saved having to use an operation. If a player sells me a stack of water at a factory, I save several operations of refueling. Look for free operations, as they directly reduce the all-important mission cycle time. 5) Have a black card plan If you start one or two factories and you know what black card you will produce at them, and plan accordingly, you will crush your opponents. Black cards are powerful, but not if they just sit there - you need to have a plan to really make use of them. I want to point out that it's more important to have a crushing plan for your black cards, and get that plan going, than to worry about how many victory points your factories will be worth at the end of the game. The end VP value depends too much on the actions of other players, and random events. Turn your awesome black cards into solid VP's from space ventures that won't drop in value. 6) Salt away WT for elections There's the final election in the game worth up to 5 VP's. Either crush your opponents with a huge lead or win this final election. Also, influence the election in the middle of the game so that the nasty effects of politics don't hurt you. I don't try to work too hard to try to win the 5 VP's for myself; I just like other people not to have the special advantages and 5 VP's. 7) Use the free decommission rule to make missions feasible All players can perform a free decommission at any time during their turn (except only the PRC player can decommission crew - but then an election pushes this to anarchy/war and all bets are off). That means that not everything has to make the full trip (both one-way and round trips). Drop mass when you can! Plan to drop mass and fuel! Use multiple thrusters to jigger the mass/fuel effects! You can even drop everything but a thruster and crew card. As they limp back home you can plan your next mission. Let's say that you want to take a refinery to Mercury. If you take the mass 3 refinery that does not need a support generator or reactor and a sail card, then you have a mass 4 rocket stack. If you take 10 units of lander fuel, then your modified thrust is 0, you can't move. You add a thruster to the rocket stack, plus a bit more fuel, to make the 2 burns to get you into the Venus +1 modifier zone for the solar sail. Drop the thruster and your sail and refinery make it to Mercury. Now, you'll need to get a robonaut there to build a factory, but the example above is the basic idea for planning missions with a planned decommission enroute. 8) Have a small mission going if planning a huge mission. A two-card rocket stack (or a one card robonaut/thruster rocket stack) can do something, anything! An efficient thruster and a crew card can try and claim glory points. This is not always an effective strategy if you are about to launch a mission, or are planning a medium-sized mission. But if you

14

HIGH FRONTIER

SIERRA MADRE GAMES CO.

6/4/2012

are thinking of building a Monster rocket stack to take over Saturn or Jupiter, for example, you'll have the time to have a small mission going. 9) Learn to use the patents you have; or, don't fall in love with a card or a mission. No card is perfect for every mission. No mission is always great; it depends on the stage of the game. No card is awesome unless combined with another complimentary card. No single purchase will get you through the whole game. 9a) Don't play with players who don't like to trade and just hoard cards. If you do get stuck with a player like that, take missions that have event rolls or combat to knock cards out of their hands. It's not super efficient, but you'll likely be rich and make them go broke while you take the time to rip the cards from their hands. I must add that I haven't played with hoarders for the following reason: basically, if they are smart, they will trade with you because their cards won't get them through the whole game either. 9b) Space ventures require multiple (or huge) missions, so work these in depending on the flow of the game. 10) Pay attention to the solar cycle, but in a particular way. Yes, the solar cycle affects several rules. But if players have no missions launched then it WON'T move. Since a 5-6 has to be rolled to trigger the solar cycle event anyway, then at certain times in the game you can make reasonable bets that the events won't happen for a long, long time. Don't get stuck on the wrong side of an election or waiting for just the right solar cycle. On the other hand, take advantage of it when you can. I guess what I'm saying here is get a sense of the pacing of the solar cycle, so you can take advantage of it as it moves along. I've had some nice missions work because I paid attention of the Venus fly-by, for example. 11) Don't be afraid to make deals How often have you desperately needed your ship to have one more thrust for the turn? Make a deal with the ESA, and you've got it. Need a robonaut that is powered by exotics and masses exactly 1? Talk to Shimizu, they've likely got something stored away in their databases. Need money now for that software upload? NASA always seems to have extra cash laying around. For Victor Caminhas brilliant ratings of High Frontier basic & expanded cards, see: http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/686375/impressions-of-thehf-cards-expansion-rules

(type `V'). However, the card you choose to be the factory product must have a product letter that matches the site's spectral type. Q: The signpost from LEO to Mars lists three burns, but the colored path requires three burns and a Hohmann transfer (two more burns). Shouldn't the signpost list five burns? A: Signposts list the minimum number of burns required to reach the destination. They do not list the Hohmann transfers because the rocket may stop at each transfer orbit and change directions at the start of the next turn without spending any burns. Q: If I have multiple factories with the same product letter, how do I keep track of which product goes with each factory? A: To simplify bookkeeping, products are only associated with factories by product letter. Therefore, if you have multiple factories with the same product letter, you may produce any of those products at any of those factories. Similarly, you may retool by flippling any card in your hand matching a product letter of any of your factories. If you exceed the limit of one black card per factory per spectral type, you must flip one of those black cards to white while it's in your hand. For example, if you have two `S' factories, two black `S' products, and retool another `S' product, you must flip one of your previous `S' products back to white (and may need to decommission it first). Q: When industrializing, can I use a crew card instead of a robonaut? A: No. To simplify bookeeping, a single factory cube is considered unmanned, two factory cubes are a manned factory and protect it from water theft. Q: How do I do Apollo-style moon mission? A: The scale of the game does not support such short-term, small-scale missions. Q: Is it realistic to land on a site without spending any fuel? A: The lander fuel penalty simulates the chemical boosters used to land or lift off. If the rocket's thrust is high enough it does not require the boosters. You are still spending fuel, however, because the number of burns leading into and out of a site match the delta-V required to land on or lift off of that site. Q: Should Sol have a slingshot value? A: To answer your question directly, rockets can gain a delta-v advantage by thrusting close to Sol. And they can gain a delta-v advantage by simply flying close to Sol, if their intent is to leave the solar system. So perhaps Sol should have a slingshot value.

12.0 Joe Schlimgens Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What makes a valid rocket? Does a rocket need a crew? A: A valid rocket is any number of cards, regardless of type, with a total dry mass of no more than 15. In particular, a rocket does not require a crew (but a crew will protect the rocket from glitches in the expanded game). However, to be able to move, a rocket needs a thruster and enough fuel to get it to its destination, and possibly the means to return. In the expanded game, the thruster may require additional support cards such as reactors or generators in order to operate (and the support cards may require support cards). Q: In order to build a factory, do you have to decommission cards with product letters that match the site's letter? A: No. The product letters of the refinery, robonaut, and support cards decommissioned to industrialize are irrelevant. For example, in the basic game you could build a factory at a type `M' world by decommissioning a Basalt Fiber Spinning refinery (type `S') and a Kuck Mosquito robonaut

When making a flyby, there are TWO effects that are significant: gravity slingshot and the Oberth effect. (You got to love those crazy German scientists.) The science note on page 8 footer describes the first, the "gravity slingshot" effect. (Thanks to the email correspondence with Professor Nathan Strange of NASA for describing both effects).

The slingshot effect describes the momentum transfer between a spacecraft and a planet (as the most useful example in game terms). For instance, by passing in front of a oncoming planet, the planet may speed up, and the spacecraft slows down, conserving momentum. Notice that this effect does

15

HIGH FRONTIER

SIERRA MADRE GAMES CO.

6/4/2012

not depend upon the rocket engine, so it works for unpowered or ballistic vehicles. Also notice that this effect does not help the spacecraft with respect to the gravity field of the planet used in the slingshot. A slingshot by Earth does not help effect a capture by Earth, for instance.

Note: The zig-zag paths to sites in the outer solar system represent Hohmann intersections for each zig. 13.1 The Red Giant (Supermap Scenario) After a long (!) dark age period*, Earth-based astronomers of a future species discover that Sol is about to flash into a Red Giant. This will engulf the planets out to Mars and make the inner solar system uninhabitable. To survive this crisis, the factions prepare to colonize the outer solar system, which will then become habitable. A). Bright Future Sun. As Sol burns up its nuclear fuel, it becomes brighter. Therefore add +2 to the solar thrust modifier of each heliocentric zone. (Environmental concern. This additional flux is more than enough to boil away the oceans and turn Earth into another Venus. The future species will have had to deal with this.) B). Desiccation. All sites out to Saturn are one less in hydration due to solar heating. C). Victory Conditions. VP are not awarded for any Glory, Claims, or Factories except at sites in the Uranus zone or beyond. VP are also not award for Space Ventures. Space government VP is unchanged. D). The New Earth. Each colony is worth 3 VP, but only if it is the Uranus zone or beyond. *Our sun will expand into a red giant 5 billion years from now.

But the second effect, the Oberth effect, describes a multiplier if one thrusts close to a planet as opposed to farther away. This is because if you are discarding propellent by expelling it, you gain an energy advantage if you expel it at low altitudes than at high altitudes. To give a terrestrial analogy, suppose you are at the base of a mountain that you have to climb. You are carrying a liter of water. You should drink it all before your trip, at the lowest altitude, and sweat it off during the ascent, rather than haul it to the top and then drink it.

The Oberth multiplier does not violate conservation of energy. Remember that whenever your rocket thrusts by expelling propellent, some of the energy goes into moving the rocket and the rest into moving the propellent. (Swimmers have the same problem, wasting as much energy moving water backwards as moving the swimmer forward. Joggers have it easy, direct momentum transfer with the planet Earth.) If you thrust your rocket at periapsis, more of the energy goes to moving your rocket and less "wasted" into the propellent.

Unlike the slingshot, the Oberth effect only works for rockets, not sails or ballistic spacecraft. Also, the Oberth does help the spacecraft with respect to the gravity field of the planet or star. So you could use the Oberth for a Sol close approach to help within the solar system.

The Oberth is most effective for high burns, high thrusts, and fast speeds. (The delta-v multiplier is equal to the square root of one plus twice the escape velocity divided by the delta-v burn.) It is not so good for electric rockets, which can only manage a trickle of propellent expulsion when zipping by planet periapsis. A chemical rocket on the other hand can gush out propellent rapidly at the lowest possible altitude, so it theoretically gains a larger advantage. The problem in the High Frontier scale is that, for the industrially-interesting large spacecraft and reasonable mass ratios considered, a chemical rocket cannot achieve a very high burn before it runs out of propellant. Thus it too is handicapped from taking advantage of the Oberth.

13.2 The Grand Tour Supermap Scenario (Andy Graham) International politics is driving and era of space exploration where publicity around science discoveries and Glory are the main drivers in setting space budgets. The game proceeds as normal with the following changes to end game and victory points calculation. This scenario could to take a while to play out depending on how it is tackled. End Game: The game ends when there is at least one claim in each heliocentric zone and the requisite number of claims on deep-space science sites. Two in a two player game. Three claims in three or four player game. Four claims a five player game. Space ventures and Factories have there normal in game effects but don't count for End of game conditions in any way. Victory Points: When calculating victory points only consider Glory, Claims, Colonies,Space ventures , Science Sites and Deep Space Science Sites. Each claim is worth 1 VP Plus the Magnitude of the Heliocentric thrust modifier For example a Claim at Mercury 1VP+2=3VP where as a Claim at a moon of Uranus would earn you 1VP+5VP=6VP So more distant claims are worth more. The bonus for claims on science sites and deep space science sites is unaffected. Additional each player can only count 1 claim in each Heliocentric zone for victory points. But science sites and deep space science sites are exempt from this limit. Factories can be built as usual and have the normal in game effects but they don't count for Victory Points Rules for Glory and politics are unaffected.

The gravity slingshots in the game crudely approximate both the slingshot and the Oberth effects. I left it off of Sol because the slingshot would not be effective for reaching anything in the solar system, and the Oberth gain is marginal for most all the rockets in the game. But for interstellar flight being considered in a future expansion, both effects become more significant assuming antimatter-powered starships. I am considering a case where a spaceship starting at a TNO drops into a close Sol approach for an interjection to the stars, if any brainiac out there can help me I would be most appreciative.

13.0 To Pluto & Beyond Map

A poster map that extends the High Frontier playing field out to the Kuiper Belt is available at www.zazzle.com/high_frontier. This map uses all the same rules, with the addition of a new icon, the Insterstellar Science Site. This icon is worth 10 VP when claimed, and two such claims (by any player) ends the game.

13.3 Triple Era Supermap Scenario (Andy Graham) The game is broken down into three scoring stages reflecting different eras

16

HIGH FRONTIER

SIERRA MADRE GAMES CO.

6/4/2012

in exploration of the Solar System. These can be playable either as a series of linked scenarios played one after the other or individually in sequence. If played as a part the full Trilogy scenario then ignore the setup stage for the subsequent scenario stages and game just carries on from where the other scenario stage left off. In stage 1 Exploration and space ventures are the focus of the game. In stage 2 the development of factories and exploitation of space are the aim. And lastly in Stage 3 the exploration of the whole solar system and the colonisation of space are the main goals. The victor of the game series is the player with the highest total score for all three game stages. In case of a tie the player with the most deep space science sites wins. If still a tie then the winner is the one with the most colonists. The basic or expanded rules of play can be used. When setting up for a game using basic rules ignore cards from the expanded game that are listed in Italics. Stage 1 Exploration and development Map: Only the basic game map is required though the expanded or full map can be used as well to give players a wider range of places to go. Setup: Players start with a crew module on earth and 4 water tanks in your water depot. The standard quick start option may be used if agreed by the players. Alternatively the players may chose a rocket from the preconfigured list below using the following method. All player roll a die [re-roll on a tie] the player with the highest roll has the first choice of Rocket from the list below. The player clockwise of the highest player choose next and so on. Rocket one, Hall Thruster, Cascade Photovoltaic Generator Rocket two, Photon Heiliogyro Rocket three, Nerva Thruster, Dual-mode Fission Reactor Rocket four Photon Kite Sail Rocket five, Mass Driver Thruster, Flywheel Compulsator Generator Rocket six, Mirror Steamer If desired any or all of these quick start cards can be traded in for two water tanks each before the game starts. Which ever method is chosen all setup cards for stage one start on Earth and will be required to be boosted. Scenario rules: At this stage of the trilogy Players may not build factories and hence no black cards will come into play during this stage. Optional rules: Early technology:- no cards with Fusion in the name are allowed in this scenario stage. Early technology:- Boosting a rocket into LEO costs one extra water tank regardless on the mass of the cards boosted. This effect ends when the first space venture is built or at the end of stage one. Game End: Game is played until the required number of space ventures are built. For a two player game this is two space ventures. For a three to five players this is three space ventures. For this scenario it is possible for different players to build the same space venture. Though each player may only build the same space venture once.

Scoring is based on the following using the normal scoring numbers. Glory for stage 1 can be claimed for Mercury, Mars, Any Science site, Any site _____________________________________________________ Stage 2 Industrialisation and exploitation Map: This game stage may be played with the basic game map only but it is preferable to have the expanded or full map. Game setup [Stand alone game] If played as a part the grand exploration scenario then this game just carries on from where the other scenario left off after scoring the first stage. If played as a stand alone game then the players have different starting points depending selection chosen. Each player starts with a Crew card and a rocket in LEO, a claim and six water tanks in your water depot. All player roll a die [re-roll on a tie] the player with the highest roll has the first choice of Rocket from the list below. The player clockwise of the highest player choose next and so on. Rocket one, Hall Thruster, Cascade Photovoltaic Generator plus place Claim on the following location . Mars Hellas Basin, Rocket two, Photon Heiliogyro, Photon Tether Rectenna Generator plus place Claim on the following location Luna [Earths moon] Rocket three, Nerva Thruster, Dual-mode Fission Reactor, Amtec Thermoelectric Generator, Ether Charged Dust Radiator, plus place Claim on the following location Minerva Rocket four Photon Kite Sail, H2 O2 Fuel Cell Generator plus place Claim on the following location Demos Rocket five, Mass Driver Thruster, Flywheel Compulsator Generator plus place Claim on the following location Ceres Rocket six, Mirror Steamer, Sterling Engine, SS / NaK Pumped Loop Plus place Claim on the follow location Mars North pole Then starting from the last player to pick a rocket and going anti clockwise each player pick a Robonaut from the list below. The Robonaut does not come with any required support cards. Tungsten Resistojet Flywheel Tractor Solar-pumped MHD Excimer Laser Neutral Beam Met Steamer Free Electron Laser If agreed by all the player the quick start rules can be used instead of the above. If desired any or all of these starting card can be traded in for two water tanks each before the game starts. Scenario rules: Players may build factories. Once a factory is built you may chose to remove your claim marker without affecting the factory. This will allow you to claim additional sites above what the base game allows. Colonies should be marked with small coins [or similar tokens] rather than claim counter to allow unrestricted colonisation of the solar system. Each factory is allowed to have up to four colonies attached to it. Optional rule: Early technology:- no cards with Fusion in the name are allowed in this scenario stage. Game End:

17

HIGH FRONTIER

SIERRA MADRE GAMES CO. water tanks each before the game starts.

6/4/2012

The game ends when a certain number of factories have been built depending on the number of players. For a two player game four Factories. For a three player game six Factories For a four or five player game seven Factories Scoring is the same as in the standard game except for Glory, which is scored as shown below, and space ventures which score no points for this stage of the game [Though they can still be built and have the normal in game effects]. Glory in stage two may be gained for each of the following. [Any moon of Jupiter, Io, any moon of Saturn, Venus]. Note actual moon required not Trojan moon __________________________________________________Stage 3 Exploration of the outer solar system Map: The full poster map is required for this game due to the victory conditions. Game setup. If played as a part the grand exploration scenario then this game just carries on from where the other scenario left off after scoring the second stage. If played as a stand alone game then the players have different starting points depending selection chosen. Each player starts with a crew card and a rocket and refinery in LEO a Factory and eight water tanks in your water depot. All player roll a die [re-roll on a tie] the player with the highest roll has the first choice of Rocket from the list below. The player clockwise of the highest player choose next and so on. Rocket one, Hall Thruster, Cascade Photovoltaic Generator plus place Claim and Factory on the following location . Mars Hellas Basin, Rocket two, Photon Heiliogyro, Photon Tether Rectenna Generator plus place Claim and Factory on the following location Luna [Earths moon] Rocket three, Nerva Thruster, Dual-mode Fission Reactor, Amtec Thermoelectric Generator, Ether Charged Dust Radiator, plus place Claim and Factory on the following location Minerva Rocket four Photon Kite Sail, H2 O2 Fuel Cell Generator plus place Claim and Factory on the following location Demos Rocket five, Mass Driver Thruster, Flywheel Compulsator Generator plus place Claim and Factory on the following location Ceres Rocket six, Mirror Steamer, Sterling Engine, SS / NaK Pumped Loop Plus place Claim and Factory on the follow location Mars North pole Then starting from the last player to pick a rocket and going anti clockwise each player pick a Robonaut from the list below. The Robonaut does not come with any required support cards. Tungsten Resistojet Flywheel Tractor Solar-pumped MHD Excimer Laser Neutral Beam Met Steamer Free Electron Laser Shuffle the refinery cards and deal one to each player. The refinery does not come with any support cards. If agreed by all the player the quick start rules can be used instead of the above. If desired any or all of these starting card can be traded in for two

Scenario rules: Players may build factories. Once a factory is built you may if you wish remove your claim marker to claim additional sites without affecting the factory. Colonies should be marked with small coins [or similar] rather than claim counter to allow unrestricted colonisation of the solar system. Each factory is allowed to have up to four colonies attached to it. Colony modules: Additional colonies can be boosted to LEO and added to any rocket in LEO. They have the following characteristics. Mass 1, Rad Hardness 4, carries 8 colonists and their equipment. There is no card for this just add a colony token to the rocket stack. One rocket can take multiple colonies subject to the normal limitations for mass and thrust The game is played until the first player claims two Outer system science sites or until there are a total of 40 colonies established at factories on the map between all players. [Note: 300+ people is considered the minimum number of people to make a sustainable population pool with a sufficiently diversity of genetic variations for the long term] Scoring is the same as in the standard game except for the following changes. Glory in stage three may be gained for each of the following. [Any moon of Uranus, any moon of Neptune, Pluto or any of its moons]. Note actual moon required not Trojan moon Although both space ventures and factories may be use in the game as normal they score no points for this stage of the game.

18