Manual — New Frontiers: The Starry Rift

CONTENTS

8 empire mats, numbered 9-16
2 “large” development tiles
12 “small” development tiles
2 extended development mats
(to hold new and old developments)
13 world tiles
1 replacement Galactic Trendsetters tile (see note at right)
2 expansion action tiles (gray)
8 goal tiles (gold)
8 penalty chips (red hexagons): 2 @ −8, 2 @ −6, 6 @ −3
12 credit chips (rectangles): 2 @ 10, 2 @ 5, 8 @ 1
1 solo mat and So Close chip
these rules
SETUP & PLAY

Set up the game normally, replacing action tiles and adding the new goals (if used), large development tiles, and the
appropriate number of small development tiles. Set the penalty chips aside with the 10 VP chips for use in final scoring.
Play the game normally, except as noted below:
Xeno worlds
4. Xeno military worlds are antagonistic to all empires. Xeno worlds can not be settled with pay-for-
military powers, such as those provided by the Contact Specialist, Uplift Researchers, or Rebel Cantina. A player who draws or selects a Xeno world need not place it in their empire but, instead, at the end of that Explore
or Settle action, may return it to the bag. Once a player places an explored Xeno world in their empire, they may not
discard or return it in any future action. If goals are being used, Xeno worlds may not be stockpiled via the Exploration
goal.
If a player places a Xeno world in their empire and does not conquer it by the end of the game, that player takes a
penalty chip, as shown on the world’s explored side, before discarding it. Penalty chips are negative victory points,
subtracted from a player’s total VPs.
xeno counts as a keyword for the Faction Tolerance goal. There is no additional bonus for having all 6 different
keywords.
Military vs. Xeno worlds +3. Some tiles provide specific Military versus Xeno Worlds. Add this to the player’s
Military when attempting to conquer a Xeno world. Explore. 8, not 7, tiles are now drawn from the bag when using this expansion (due to the increased number of tiles in
the bag). See the replacement Explore action tile.
Chart Galactic Goals. 5, not 3, goals are drawn and 4, not 2, goals are returned when using this expansion (due to the
increased number of goals). See the replacement Chart Galactic Goals action tile.
TOM LEHMANN
Expansion
As empires expand into the Starry Rift, they encounter the Xenos, a violent xenophobic race.
Historians scour the Alien Archives for information on how to defeat them. Meanwhile, on a
ravaged Uplift world, a flexible Uplift race develops Bio-Terraforming technology.
Before your first game, carefully remove the mats,
developments, worlds, action tiles, goals, credits, and
penalty chips from their frames.
Replace the development mats and the Explore and
Chart Galactic Goals action tiles with the new versions.
Add the 13 world tiles to the bag.
First printing owners: replace the misprinted Galactic
Trendsetters tile (whose Consume icon did not match
its text) with the corrected tile.
All owners: use only 1 Galactic Trendsetters tile.
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BONUS
+1 priority
draw 5 goals, keep 1
face down, return 4
flip face up any previous
face-down goal
CHART
GALACTIC
GOALS
1
SOLO PLAY

6 solo campaigns are provided, each consisting of 4 games with different
win conditions. You must win all 4 games in a row, satisfying a different
condition each time, but you may do so in any order.
During each game, you play one empire attempting to satisfy a win
condition before running out of time. Two “dummy” players select action
tiles on their turns, removing VP chips or colonists from the common
supply, but they do not build empires or score.
Campaign Setup. Pick a campaign to attempt. They are listed in
increasing difficulty. Choose to play either “Short” 10 round or “Long”
12 round games and put the solo mat with that side showing nearby.
Short games tend to produce empires similar to those at the end of
multi-player games, while long games have tougher win conditions
for the player who enjoys “running their engine” after building it.
Game Setup. Set up a 2-player Starry Rift game, modified as follows:
• Use goals and the Chart Galactic Goals action tile.
• Put one of your disks on the second space of the priority track. Use
your other disk to mark the current round on the solo mat.
• Choose colors for the dummy players and place one disk of each
color on the priority track’s third and fourth spaces.
• Randomly select an empire mat. Choose which side to use. It will
start with 1 of the 24 colonists in the supply.
• Begin the first round as first player with 3 credits.
Play. Do 10 (short game) or 12 (long game) rounds, unless any normal
game end condition results in the game ending after an earlier round.
Take your turns normally, except if you choose Send Diplomatic Envoys
as either the second or third player in a round, you also gain 1 credit (put
one on this tile as a reminder). Dummy players do nothing on your turns.
A dummy player on their turn chooses an action tile as follows:
• If the Produce tile has 2 credits, the dummy player chooses Produce;
• if the dummy player is last, it chooses Send Diplomatic Envoys (if that
tile is available);
• otherwise, you choose any available action tile for the dummy player.
Tip: Picking dummy actions that benefit our empire is a major part
of the solo game.
A dummy player does only the bonus of the action tile it selects and only
the adjust priority, take 1 VP chip, take 1 colonist, or remove credits from
the Produce tile parts of that bonus. It does nothing else. Then, you do
that tile’s action (without a bonus) for your empire, resolving the rest of
the tile normally (check remaining colonists, return explored tiles, etc.).
Thus, the only things a dummy ever does on the actions it selects are:
• Settle: remove 1 colonist from the supply.
• Trade, Consume: remove 1 VP chip from the supply.
• Produce: return any credits on the Produce tile to the supply.
• Send Diplomatic Envoys: remove 1 VP chip from the supply and gain
top priority on the priority track.
• Chart Galactic Goals: increase its priority by 1 position.
• Develop or Explore: nothing.

VPs (short) VPs (long)
55 Great Victory 70
40 Colonizer 50
7+ colonies
40 Builder 50
2 9-cost developments
40 Satisfied Populac 50
7+ colonies
The first campaign, showing its VP thresholds
for short versus long games. In later campaigns,
a few win conditions will also differ.

Priority Track Setup (the player is red)
Campaign Setup Changes
• Prestige (#5): begin each game with the
Exploration goal already in play.
• Mastery (#6): after doing all other
game setup steps, choose to use either
Improved Logistics or Terraforming
Robots on the development mat.

Example: At the start of this round, the Produce
tile had 1 credit on it, so the player could
choose any action for the blue dummy and
chose Explore. If the player (red) doesn’t choose
Produce or Send Diplomatic Envoys, then
the green dummy will choose Send Diplomatic
Envoys, removing a VP chip from the supply
and becoming first player for next round.
The Produce tile will then have 2 credits on it,
so green must choose Produce, returning those
credits to the supply.

No goals are drawn
if Chart Galactic
Goals is selected by
a dummy player.
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Scoring. At the end of the round in which the game ends, score and mark any one campaign win condition that you haven’t previously claimed. If you can’t, you lose the campaign.
Some win conditions (Great, Triumphant, and Epic) require only that your score equal or exceed the listed number of VPs. Other conditions require you to equal or exceed a VP threshold and to meet or exceed various listed requirements: # of colonies, developments, goals, or VP chips, # of tiles with certain keywords, having the listed Military, etc.
Mark off a condition by placing a spare VP chip beside it. If you do a campaign over several play sessions, write down which conditions you have marked off before putting the game away.
If, after 4 games, you have marked all 4 different campaign conditions, you win the campaign. Congratulations!
SOLO VARIANTS
About the Worlds
The bag has 73 worlds: 34 military and 39 non-military worlds. defense
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

colonists goods kinds
types 1 2 WF Prod. “gray” N R G A any
military 23 11 15 8 11 4 5 8 6 -
non-military 24 15 12† 24 3* 13 11 6 5 1*
*1 gray world has the Alien keyword
†1 Rare Elements production world gains a good when settled
keywords Imperium Rebel Uplift Xeno VP range “?” bonuses
military 4 13* 7 8† 0-9 Rebel, Uplift
non-military 5 - 7 - 0-6 Alien, Imperium, Uplift
*2 Rebel worlds also have the Uplift keyword
†1 each of Xeno worlds has Alien, Uplift, or Imperium keywords; 2 have Rebel
Make it Easier: “So Close”
Setup. Add the −3VPs / −1# So Close chip to the VP chips used to mark a campaign’s win conditions.
So Close chip
Once per campaign if you fail a VP threshold, VP chip requirement, or a requirement measured in VPs by 3 or fewer VPs or if you have exactly 1 fewer than the listed number of a required item (such as worlds with a specific keyword), instead of losing the campaign you may use the So Close chip to mark that condition as a win. Once used, the So Close chip is not available for any remaining games in that campaign.
Examples: In Long Campaign #2, you end with 62 VPs and 4 UPLIFT colonies and use the So Close chip’s −1# side to mark Uplift Emissary as a success by reducing its 5+ UPLIFT colonies requirement to 4.
Instead, if you had ended at 57 VPs and 5 UPLIFT colonies, you could use its −3VPs side to meet Uplift Emissary’s 60 VP threshold.
The So Close chip cannot be spent to reduce non-numeric or non‑VP requirements such as Peace Envoy’s Contact Specialist or No Military requirements. For requirements listing multiple items, such as Domination’s various keywords, it can reduce any one of them by 1.
The So Close chip cannot reduce a listed number requirement involving VPs, such as 2+ goal tiles that each need to score 8 VPs to just 1 goal tile, but it could reduce how many VPs one of these goals would need to score.
Make it Harder: “Gauntlet”
Do all 6 campaigns in order without ever failing. To help deal with a single instance of bad luck, you get 1 So Close chip (see above) for the entire 6 campaign series. If you can succeed without it, you have truly mastered the galaxy.
Good Luck!
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GALACTIC PRESTIGE
VPs for 9-cost developments
2 5 8 1 2 3+ 9. 9. 9.

CONSUMER ECONOMY
VPs for VP chips (not stockpiled VP chips)
3 8 7 12+

COLONIES
VPs for colonies (including home colony)
3 5 8 6 7 8+

MILITARY DOMINANCE
VPs for (not temporary or specialized) Military
3 8 6+ 9+

ALIEN TECHNOLOGY
VPs for Alien tiles (including home colony)
2 5 8 2 4 5+
ALIEN tiles
ALIEN tiles
ALIEN tiles

UPLIFT RACES
VPs for Uplift colonies (including home colony)
3 5 8 2 3 4+
UPLIFT
UPLIFT
UPLIFT

INDUSTRY
VPs for Novelty and/or Rare Elements colonies (including home colony)
2 5 8 3 5 6+

CONTENTED CITIZENS
VPs for stockpiled VP chips (which score)
2 5 8 3 5 7
may stockpile some or all VP chips gained from Consume powers

GOAL TILES

CREDITS

Game design, development, and rules: Tom Lehmann
Original graphics: Wei-Hwa Huang
Cover and tile illustrations: Martin Hoffmann, Claus Stephan
Graphics and production: Martin Hoffman
Solo Game Inspiration: Eric Kaminsky
Special Thanks: Wei-Hwa Huang, Eric Kaminsky, and Don Woods
Playtesting and Advice
Chris Dawe, Dave Dickie, Chris Farrell, Eddie Hagiwara, Colin Harden, Rob Helbing, Bryan Howard, Wei-Hwa and Trisha Huang, Eric Kaminsky, Jason Levine, Barry Maurer, Melissa and Will DeMorris, Larry Rosenberg, Brian and Michael Shuster, Alex Simmons, Ken Simpson, Marissa Smith, Noah Stern, Steve Thomas, and Don Woods

If you have comments, questions, or suggestions, please write to us at:
Rio Grande Games, PO Box 1033
Placitas, NM 87043, USA
RioGames@aol.com
www.riograndegames.com

© 2023 Tom Lehmann
© 2023 Rio Grande Games
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