On Mars

Each round has a Colonization phase followed by a Shuttle phase. In turn order, each player performs one main action and optionally one executive action before or after it. Main actions are restricted to the current location’s side, although special travel effects can change location. Executive actions must be unlocked and their crystal costs paid; a matching scientist can make an advanced-building action free.

A red-colonist icon requires a colonist from Living Quarters on an action slot. With 3–4 players, pay one crystal or send an additional colonist to the Working Area for each other player color already there. With 2 players, count every colonist already there, including your own. If ordinary action slots are full, first move all colonists of the player(s) with the most there to their Working Areas, then calculate the cost. The scientist/contract action has a one-slot-per-player exception and does not clear automatically.

Resources enter Storage immediately, with a per-type capacity equal to your built shelters plus one. Minerals can usually substitute for other resources, but never for crystals or specified delivery-contract resources. Newly gained crystals wait below the Depot and cannot be spent that turn. Move them into the Depot at the start of your next turn, returning any excess beyond its available slots.

Construct within a bot’s building zone: its hex or an adjacent hex. Joining buildings of the same type requires the matching technology at a level at least equal to the number of existing buildings being connected, including indirect connections. A standalone building must be exactly two hexes from an existing building of its type and not adjacent to another of that type. Other players’ non-shelter technology may be used; its owner chooses a free development of the used technology or one oxygen at the end of your turn. Shelter technology is private.

Construction yields matching resources equal to the resulting complex size, or one for a standalone building; shelters yield crystals instead. Building a mine requires a colonist from Living Quarters on it. Generators, water extractors, greenhouses, and oxygen condensers advance the Life Support System. Construction meeting current needs earns rewards; when all four tracks reach the colony marker’s row, update colony status at turn end, refill supplies, and update blueprints as instructed. The first two updates also score Progress cubes.

Upgrade a matching building in a bot’s building zone using an owned blueprint and one mineral. A level-3 blueprint requires a building in a complex of at least three. Advanced buildings provide executive actions and production when traveling to orbit. Welcoming a ship costs one plant and one water, moves a ship to the Hangar, and grants two colonists or one colonist plus one bot. Total ships removed from the Depot cannot exceed colony level; discarding ships does not reset that cumulative limit.

The Shuttle advances along its track, stops moving at colony level 4, and makes one final trip at level 5 before being removed. Travel is free only when it actually departs that round and you travel in its direction; otherwise discard a private ship from your Hangar to travel. Traveling to the colony first places a Discovery tile, then retrieves colonists from colony action slots and the Working Area. Traveling to orbit first produces with your advanced buildings and miners, then retrieves colonists from orbital action slots and the Working Area. Choose an empty destination turn-order space and optionally gain its benefit; staying does not award the benefit again.

At the end of the Colonization phase, reaching the end of the Remaining Missions track triggers the end. Finish the current round, then play one more round without its Shuttle phase. Colony levels 3/4/5 reduce the required completed missions to 2/1/0. Final scoring includes Progress cubes, 3 OP per Hangar ship, Living Quarters after retrieving workers from your current side’s action slots and Working Area, technology, advanced buildings, scientists, and contracts. Unbuilt level-1/3 blueprints lose 3/5 OP. Break score ties by crystals, then advanced buildings, then Progress cubes; remaining ties share victory.