Mission Red Planet

Fight for control over the regions of Mars to gain more money than everyone else.

From BGG:
With technology rapidly developing and the human population growing, Victorian-era Earth is in dire need of fuel, land, and other natural resources. Fortunately, automated probes sent to Mars have discovered celerium, an ore that can be combusted to produce ten thousand times more power than a steam engine, and sylvanite, the densest substance ever found. More incredibly, the probes found ice that could be used in terraforming the planet, bringing the idea of colonizing Mars even closer to becoming a reality. As the head of a mining corporation, these minerals and ice found on Mars could make you unfathomably wealthy – if you can reach them before your competitors. You have ten rounds to send your astronauts into space, occupy the planet's most resource-rich zones, and harvest as much celerium, sylvanite, and ice as possible. At your command is a team of nine professionals. Each has a unique skill set, from helping your astronauts traverse the Red Planet to blowing up spaceships before they launch. In each round in Mission: Red Planet, players start by secretly deploying one of their character cards, with this card determining both when they place astronauts on the spaceships awaiting launch to Mars and which special action they take during the round. Each spaceship has a specified destination, and until an astronaut sets foot in a region, no one knows which resource they'll find. Players collect resources (worth points) three times during the game, and they each have a secret mission card that might grant them additional points at game's end. During the game, players might acquire an additional mission or a research card that changes the value of what awaits on Mars. The 2015 edition of Mission: Red Planet features the same gameplay as the original 2005 edition, but it includes: Components for up to six players instead of five Special two-player variant rules New action cards and revised mission and discovery cards Mars' moon Phobos as a new zone that astronauts can explore before possibly returning to the planet itself

Setup

- Construct the launchpad by connecting a number of docks equal to the number of players.
- Shuffle the ships and place one in each dock. Unknown destination cards should be replaced.
- Randomly place one astronaut on each ship. Color closest to the left is the starting player.
- Randomly place resource tokens face down on Mars and Phobos. There should be one left over.
- Separate out mission cards and deal 2 to each player. Choose 1 and put the other back in the deck. Shuffle the discovery and action cards into the mission deck.

Game Round

Choose Character
- Each player secretly chooses a character card from their hand.
Resolve Character Effects
- Count down from 9 to 1. Players play their cards when their number is called and resolve the effect. If two or more players are tied, start from the starting player and go clockwise around the table. If a ship does not yet have a destination, the first player to enter it picks a location plaque from the pile.
  A ship automatically launches once it is full.
Land Launched Ships
- Land launched ships in their specified zone after all players have played their cards. If the resource tile there is face down, flip it over.
Draw New Docket Ships
- Fill all empty spaces with new ships.
Assign New First Player
- Whomever was the last to resolve their card’s ability becomes the new first player.
Advance Round Track
- Move the turn gauge one step.

Production Phases

The sections with 1, 2, and 3 dots are production phases. Each zone with a face up resource produces tokens of its type equal to the number of downs shown on the dial. Tokens are distributed to the players with the majority of astronauts in a zone. If tied, tokens are distributed evenly with any leftovers staying in the zone for the next time. If there are no longer any astronauts in a zone, nobody claims the tokens.

Reveal Discovery Phase

When the dial hits the atom symbol, all discovery cards on the table are flipped over. These cards are resolved when the dial hits the space that matches the icon in their lower-right corner.

Final Scoring

- Players reveal their mission cards and determine if they’re completed.
- The player with the most Ice tokens gets the Ice Monopoly bonus mission card.
- Points from completed missions + value of collected point tokens +/- discovery bonuses.

Discovery Cards

When a player draws a discovery card (through the Scientist action) they must immediately play it to an outer zone on Mars. A zone may have more than one card.

Phobos

Phobos behaves like all other zones of Mars except that it is not adjacent to any other space and cannot have discovery cards assigned to it.

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Credit:	Keith Rudolph
Version:	1.0