SETI: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence

Play five rounds, taking turns clockwise from the starting player. Each turn has exactly 1 main action: Launch, Orbit, Land, Scan, Analyze, Play a Card, Research or Pass. Free actions are allowed only on your turn, before, after or during the main action, including resource exchanges, movement and entering data. Exchange 2 of the same resource—cards, credits or energy—for 1 card, credit or energy; do not mix two types as payment. There is no hand limit during a round; publicity is capped at 10.

Launch costs 2 credits and places a probe on Earth; normally you may have at most 1 probe on the solar-system rings. As a free action, each energy buys 1 movement into an orthogonally adjacent space, never diagonally; leaving asteroids costs 1 extra movement. At a planet other than Earth, a separate main action costs 1 credit and 1 energy to Orbit, or 3 energy to Land, reduced to 2 energy if any player already has an orbiter there. Figures moved to the planetary board do not count toward your probe limit. Landing on a moon requires technology or an effect, and each moon holds only 1 lander.

Scan costs 1 credit and 2 energy and needs no probe. Mark 1 signal in Earth’s current sector, and discard 1 display card to mark 1 signal in either matching sector; perform these in either order and use acquired telescope technology. Signals replace data left to right, adding it to your pool. Excess signals still count toward a majority even without data to take. After the main action, resolve completed sectors: most markers wins, with the later-placed marker breaking ties. Second place leaves 1 marker when the sector resets; the winner’s record marker does not count toward its next majority.

Your data pool holds at most 6 tokens; discard excess immediately. Only on your own turn may you freely enter pool data into your computer from left to right, immediately gaining covered-space rewards. Analyze is a main action costing 1 energy and requires a full top row. Remove all computer data, including the bottom row but not your pool, then mark the corresponding life trace. Technology adds bottom-row spaces, but those need not be filled to Analyze.

A card can be paid for and played as your main action, tucked for income through another effect, or discarded for its corner free action; use each card for only one purpose. If its effect grants an action such as Launch or Scan, do not pay that action’s basic cost again. Conditional missions may be completed on your turn while their condition is met. Triggerable missions count only events after being played, and one trigger covers only one reward circle. Tucking an income card gains its resource immediately and again between rounds.

Research normally costs 6 publicity. First rotate the solar system, then take technology you do not own and its immediate bonus. Card-granted technology waives publicity but still rotates the system. Rotate discs 1, 2 and 3 in a repeating cycle, one sector counterclockwise each time. Probes may move with a disc or be pushed, gaining normal visit publicity. When a species’ three discovery spaces fill, finish the turn and resolve milestones before revealing it, reading its rules and setting it up. Discovery does not end the game early.

Passing is a main action. You may still take free actions on that turn, then stop free actions and resolve these steps in order: discard to 4 cards, rotate the system if first to pass, and choose 1 end-of-round card in rounds one through four. After passing, take no further turns that round. Once everyone passes, gain starting and tucked-card income and move the starting-player marker left for the next round. The first pass still rotates in round five, but there are no end-of-round cards or next-round income.

After reaching or passing 25, 50 and 70 points, choose an unchosen gold scoring tile between turns and occupy its next available rank. You cannot mark the same tile twice, and going around the score track again does not retrigger milestones. After everyone passes in round five, score played end-game cards, gold tiles and any additional species scoring. Income gold tiles exclude resources printed on your starting income card. In multiplayer, highest score wins and ties are shared.