Rounds, Turns and Free Actions
SETI's five rounds, the one-main-action turn, every free action, cards and income, passing and what happens between rounds.
Overview of a round
The game lasts 5 rounds. The holder of the starting player marker takes the first turn; play goes clockwise and skips anyone who has passed. A round ends once everyone has passed; then all players take income and the starting player marker moves one seat to the left.
[Agencies] With organizations the game lasts 4 rounds — rounds 2 to 5 only (Space Agencies).
Your turn
Main actions
On your turn you take exactly one main action. All eight are printed on your player board:
| Action | Cost | Rules |
|---|---|---|
 Launch a probe | 2  | Launch a probe |
 Orbit a planet | 1 1  | Orbit a planet |
 Land on a planet or moon | 3 (2 with an orbiter there) | Land |
 Scan nearby stars | 1 2 | Scan |
 Analyze data | 1 | Analyze data |
 Play a card | the card’s cost | Play a card |
 Research a tech | 6  | Research a tech |
 Pass for the round | — | Pass |
Free actions
Besides the main action you may take any number of free actions — before, after or even in the middle of your main action. You can interrupt a main action with a free action, but not a free action with another one.
End of your turn
Once your main action and free actions are done, resolve any milestones you reached and any species discovered this turn. Then the next player goes.
Cards
Card anatomy
Every card in the main deck is a real or planned space project, and it can be used in one of these ways — never two:
- Main action — pay the cost (top left, in credits) and resolve the white effect. See Play a card.
- Free-action corner — discard it at any time on your turn for the benefit in its top-left
corner (usually ,
or 
). - Signal — its top-right corner is a sector colour, used when you discard it from the card row while scanning.
- Income — the bottom-right corner shows the income it gives when tucked (Increasing income).
The card row
Three cards lie face up beside the deck. Whenever you take a card from the row, refill it at once from the deck. A scan discards from the row instead and refills only after the whole scan. An empty deck is rebuilt by shuffling the discard pile.
Drawing cards
— take a card from the card row or the top of the deck.
— a random card: the top card of the deck, never the row.
— a card of that alien species (the face-up one or the top of its deck).
Hand size
There is no limit during the round; you discard down to 4 only when you pass.
Income
Your starting income card shows the income you get at the start of rounds 2–5: 3 ,
2 and 1 — plus the income of every card tucked beneath it.
Increasing income
When you gain 
, tuck a card from your hand under your starting income card. Gain its
income resource (bottom-right corner: 
, 
or
) immediately, and again each time you collect income. You may decline to
tuck. The first tuck happens at setup.
Publicity
Your publicity counter runs from 0 to 10; any publicity above 10 is lost. You gain it by visiting planets and comets, contributing to sectors, marking discovery spaces and placing data. You spend it on techs (6) and on buying cards (3).
Free actions list
| Free action | What it does |
|---|---|
| Place data | Move a  data token from your data pool into the computer and gain the reward it covers (Data). |
| Complete a mission | When a conditional mission’s condition is met, take its reward (Missions). |
| Free-action corner | Discard a card for its top-left benefit. |
| Buy a movement | 1 → 1 . |
| Buy a card | 3 → 1 from the row or the deck. |
| Exchange resources | 2 identical of credit, energy or cards → 1 credit, energy or card. |
Exchange resources
Two of the same resource buy one of any of the three: two cards from your hand for a credit, two energy for a card, and so on. A card bought this way may come from the row or the deck. Mixed pairs (a card and an energy) are not allowed.
Pass
Passing is your main action, so free actions are still allowed before it. Then, in order and with no more free actions:
- Discard down to 4 cards.
- If you are the first to pass this round, take the rotation reminder token off the end-of-round stack and rotate the solar system. (In round 5 you still rotate and discard the token.)
- Choose one card from this round’s end-of-round stack. Early passers choose from more cards; the last player takes one of the final two and discards the other.
After rounds 1–4 every player gets one end-of-round card. You may collect your income any time after you pass, to speed play up.
Between rounds
- Everyone takes income — the starting income card plus every tucked card.
- The starting player marker moves one player to the left.
- The rotation reminder token goes on the next round’s end-of-round stack.
Rules reminders
- Rotate the solar system before you choose a tech.
- Leaving an asteroid space costs one extra move.
- At 10 publicity, further publicity is lost; a full data pool (6) loses further data.
- Milestones are resolved between turns, never at once.
- The second-placed player in a completed sector keeps one marker there; a sector with only one player’s markers has no second place.