How to Play New Frontiers: The Starry Rift

Game Objective

In New Frontiers: The Starry Rift, empires expand into the Starry Rift and encounter the Xenos, a violent and xenophobic race. Historians scour the Alien Archives for information on how to defeat them, while on a devastated Uplift world, a flexible Uplift race develops Bio-Terraforming technology.

The objective of the game is to expand your empire and deal with the Xenos. In solo mode, the objective is to win a campaign, which consists of 4 games with different victory conditions. You must win all 4 games consecutively, satisfying a different condition each time, but you can do so in any order. During each game, you try to satisfy a victory condition before time runs out.

Setup

Before your first game, carefully remove the mats, developments, worlds, action tiles, goals, credits, and penalty chips from their frames.

1. Replace the development mats and the Explore and Chart Galactic Goals action tiles with the new versions.
2. Add the 13 world tiles to the bag.
3. If you own the first printing of the game, replace the misprinted Galactic Trendsetters tile (whose Consume icon did not match its text) with the corrected tile. All players should use only 1 Galactic Trendsetters tile.
4. Set up the game normally, replacing the action tiles and adding the new goals (if used), the large development tiles, and the appropriate number of small development tiles.
5. Separate the penalty chips along with the 10 VP chips for use in final scoring.

Solo Game Setup

Choose a campaign to attempt. They are listed in increasing order of difficulty. Choose to play "Short" (10 rounds) or "Long" (12 rounds) games and place the solo mat with the corresponding side visible nearby.

Set up a 2-player Starry Rift game, modified as follows:

• Use goals and the Chart Galactic Goals action tile.
• Place one of your discs on the second space of the priority track. Use your other disc to mark the current round on the solo mat.
• Choose colors for the "dummy" players and place one disc of each color on the third and fourth spaces of the priority track.
• Randomly select an empire mat. Choose which side to use. It will start with 1 of the 24 colonists from the supply.
• Start the first round as the first player with 3 credits.

For the Prestige (#5) campaign: start each game with the Exploration goal already in play.

For the Mastery (#6) campaign: after performing all other game setup steps, choose to use either Improved Logistics or Terraforming Robots on the development mat.

Game Flow

The game is played normally, except as noted below. In solo mode, the game lasts 10 (short game) or 12 (long game) rounds, unless any normal end-game condition results in the game ending after an earlier round.

The "dummy" players in solo mode select action tiles on their turns, removing VP chips or colonists from the common supply, but they do not build empires or score.

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, they choose Send Diplomatic Envoys (if that tile is available).
• Otherwise, you choose any available action tile for the "dummy" player.

A "dummy" player only performs the bonus of the action tile they select and only the parts of adjusting priority, taking 1 VP chip, taking 1 colonist, or removing credits from the Produce tile from that bonus. They do nothing else. Then, you perform the action of that tile (without bonus) for your empire, resolving the rest of the tile normally (checking remaining colonists, returning explored tiles, etc.).

Thus, the only things a "dummy" does in the actions they select are:

• Settle: removes 1 colonist from the supply.
• Trade, Consume: removes 1 VP chip from the supply.
• Produce: returns any credits on the Produce tile to the supply.
• Send Diplomatic Envoys: removes 1 VP chip from the supply and gains top priority on the priority track.
• Chart Galactic Goals: increases their priority by 1 position.
• Develop or Explore: nothing.

No goal is drawn if Chart Galactic Goals is selected by a "dummy" player.

Actions and How to Play

Refer to the manual for details on this section.

Xeno Worlds

• Xeno military worlds are antagonistic to all empires.
• Xeno worlds cannot be settled with "pay for military" powers, such as those provided by Contact Specialist, Uplift Researchers, or Rebel Cantina.
• A player who draws or selects a Xeno world does not have to place it in their empire, but instead, at the end of the Explore or Settle action, may return it to the bag.
• Once a player places an explored Xeno world in their empire, they cannot discard it or return it in any future action.
• If goals are being used, Xeno worlds cannot be stockpiled through 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 explored side of the world, 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). Refer to 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). Refer to the replacement Chart Galactic Goals action tile.

If you choose Send Diplomatic Envoys as the second or third player in a round in solo mode, you also gain 1 credit (place one on this tile as a reminder).

End of Game and Scoring

In solo mode, at the end of the round in which the game ends, score and mark any campaign victory condition you have not yet claimed. If you fail, you lose the campaign.

Some victory conditions (Great, Triumphant, and Epic) only require your score to be equal to or greater than the listed number of VPs. Other conditions require you to be equal to or greater than a VP threshold and to meet or exceed several listed requirements: number of colonies, developments, goals, or VP chips, number of tiles with certain keywords, having the listed Military, etc.

Mark a condition by placing a spare VP chip next to it. If you do a campaign over multiple game sessions, make a note of which conditions you have marked before putting the game away.

If, after 4 games, you have marked all 4 different campaign conditions, you win the campaign. Congratulations!

VP Scoring

• Galactic Prestige: VPs for 9-cost developments.
• Consumer Economy: VPs for VP chips (not stockpiled VP chips).
• Colonies: VPs for colonies (including home colony).
• Military Dominance: VPs for Military (not temporary or specialized).
• Alien Technology: VPs for Alien tiles (including home colony).
• Uplift Races: VPs for Uplift colonies (including home colony).
• Industry: VPs for Novelty and/or Rare Elements colonies (including home colony).
• Contented Citizens: VPs for stockpiled VP chips (which score). You may stockpile some or all VP chips gained from Consume powers.

Tips for Winning

Refer to the manual for details on this section.

Solo Game Tips

• Choosing "dummy" actions that benefit your empire is an important part of solo play.
• To make it easier: the So Close chip can be used 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 less than the listed number of a required item (such as worlds with a specific keyword). Instead of losing the campaign, you can use the So Close chip to mark that condition as a win. Once used, the So Close chip is not available for the remaining games in that campaign.
• To make it harder: in Gauntlet mode, you attempt all 6 campaigns in order without ever failing. To help deal with a single instance of bad luck, you receive 1 So Close chip for the entire series of 6 campaigns.