Resources and Cards

The player board, the six standard resources and production, how to read a card, tags, resources on cards, and the red border.

Player board

1. Production tracks — your production of each resource
2. MegaCredits — money
3. Steel — pays for building cards
4. Titanium — pays for space cards
5. Plants — 8 make a greenery
6. Energy — used by cards, turns into heat
7. Heat — 8 raise the temperature

Resource cubes sit in the boxes; your player markers sit on the production tracks.

Production

A resource in a brown box on a card means production: move your marker on that track. A resource without a box is a one-off gain of cubes.

Icon	Means
	Gain plant cubes now
	The brown production box: raise or lower the production of what is inside

• Production has no upper limit. Past 10, leave a marker on 10 and start another.
• Only M€ production can go below 0, down to −5. Every other production stops at 0, and a card that would push it lower can’t be played.
• In the production phase you take cubes equal to each production; M€ income is TR + M€ production.

The six resources

MegaCredits

M€ is money: it pays for cards, standard projects, milestones and awards.

Steel

Steel pays only for cards with a building tag, at 2 M€ each. You may mix steel and M€; overpaying with steel gives no change.

Titanium

Titanium pays only for cards with a space tag, at 3 M€ each, the same way.

Plants

As an action, turn 8 plants into a greenery tile, which raises oxygen (Actions).

Energy

Many cards use energy, either as an action cost or as a decrease in energy production. At the start of each production phase all your energy cubes become heat.

Heat

As an action, spend 8 heat to raise the temperature 1 step (Actions).

Reading a card

1. Tag — the card’s categories
2. Starting conditions (corporations) — your starting M€, resources, production, and sometimes a fixed first action
3. Effect or action — the blue-ribbon box: an ongoing effect, or an action you may use once per generation
4. Flavour text — background only
5. Cost — what you pay to play it from your hand
6. Requirement — what must be true when you play it
7. Immediate effects — what happens once, when you play it
8. Victory points — counted at the end

If you are unsure what a card does, read the text in brackets.

Card types

The game has 17 corporation cards and 208 project cards (Cards & Components).

Card effects

• Effects (blue ribbon, no arrow) are always on.
• Actions (a red arrow) can be used once per generation: pay what is left of the arrow, get what it points to, and put a player marker on the card (Actions).
• An asterisk (*) marks an exception: read the text in brackets.

Tags

Cards have 0–3 tags. Tags have no rules of their own: other cards, milestones and awards count them, and building and space tags let you pay with steel and titanium.

Tag	Name	What it is about
	Building	Construction on Mars; pay with steel
	Space	Space technology; pay with titanium
	Power	Energy production or handling
	Science	Scientific knowledge; some cards require science tags
	Jovian	Infrastructure in the outer solar system
	Earth	Activities on Earth
	Plant	Plants and other photosynthesising life
	Microbe	Microbes for specific purposes
	Animal	Animals; these cards usually score VP
	City	Places a city tile
	Event	A one-time event; red card, face down after play

Your tags are the ones on your corporation and your face-up green and blue cards. An event’s tags count only while it is being played.

Resources on cards

Animals, microbes and other card resources live on cards, not on your player board. A card can hold a resource only if it uses it, in an action or for VP. If a card gives you such resources and you have no card to hold them, you lose them but may still play the card.

Red border

An icon with a red border can target any player, you included.

Removed resources go back to the supply; you get them only when the card says steal.