High Frontier 3rd Edition PBF/Vassal - Remember the Cant!

I do think the at wording means you have to be there, as it’s consistent with certain futures´ wordings (do an Op at a Lab, meaning clearly the colonist doing the op is at the site).

But I don’t want to be too much of a dick here.

Third edition living rules spell it out:

I3.7 Paleoconservatism Policy (all players but white). If the Politics Disk (B19) is on the “Paleoconservatism” space, players other than the white player cannot perform Research operations unless they control at least one[am] Lab[an] (I13.1.1).

  • All players may still take part in auctions, however.

Oh, and uh, my hand actually isn’t too full to do an auction. Forgot that rule already!

Ah, nice.

I concur with that ruling: controlling a lab is enough

I mean, it’s pretty hard to misinterpret.

Which means I might have to switch my policy.

Ok, after @Matt_W goes, somebody:

Decomission and free market the radiator in my Bernal.
Do and income op for 1WT.

Tomorrow night I will be able to take my turns normally again

Thanks everyone for interrupting your game to answer a very vague question.

I’ve been reading this thread while looking at the Kickstarter for v4

I look at the map and it’s fantastic and, clear to me - at least in principle - what it’s designed to do. I read the cards you’re posting screenshots of and get a general sense of what they’re for (and also really enjoy the content). What was least clear to me was what the actual game was.

I’m really close to backing the Kickstarter at this point.

Pros: fascinating design that hits the bullseye in terms of subject matter interest.

Cons: none of my other board games get played, why would this?

I’m also considering the v4 KS but my eyes just glaze over when trying to understand the rules. SpaceCorp 2025-2300 is probably more my speed at this point in my life. I too have more games than time.

It doesn’t need to get played. You can just look at the components and drool!

Joking aside, you can always play a forum game like this. Once v4 hits, if want another game (since the rules are cleaned up in some interesting ways).

I’ll expand a little bit to give you a sense of our goals.

Our cards are patents, once we acquire them through auction we keep them permanently (unless sold). We boost them to space and they become actual tech, but if they ever get decommissioned either voluntarily or involuntarily they go back to our hands and are available again.
There is a hand limit of 3, that if you exceed you can’t participate in auctions. As you saw the first part of the game was a series of auctions and not a lot of space stuff, there are variants that start you with some cards to shorten this phase of a “typical” game.

As to the cards themselves, one thing to note is they have another side and a spectral class, which is a letter C, S, V, M, D which corresponded to all the sites on the map. Once you build a factory at a site you can take the ET production action to produce the higher tech side of a card without having to pay to boost it. This is what Juan just did with his reactor and thruster.

So that informs you a bit as to why and where we go to sites, typically we want factories on sites that match the letters of cards we have. A “perfect” rocket has all the same letter (generally unachievable) and can be completely produced in space at one site. More typically you’ll have multiple sites and have to coalesce a rocket from them.

To build a factory, first you must prospect a site. That’s what the water droplets on the map or about, which indicate a minimum ISRU value of a prospecting card. If your prospecting card meets the minimum you roll a d6 and try to equal or less than the site’s mass. So my 5C site with 3 droplets needed an ISRU card (typically robonauts or crew) of 3 or less, and a roll of 5 or less. If successful you get a claim and put your disk on it reserving it for yourself to industrialize later. To actually build a factory, you have to decommission both a refinery and a robonaut together to convert into the factory itself.

As a general rule whenever you use a tech card in order to operate it you must also have it’s supports (reactors, generators, radiators). And supports of those supports. Cards in a stack can often share them if they need the same type, so that’s a big part of rocket design strategy.

Thrusters are for moving about the map. I won’t go into all the specifics obviously, but they have two most important numbers thrust and fuel steps. My Cemet NERVA thruster is a 7-4 so 7 thrust and consumes 4 steps of fuel per burn. Thrust determines how many burns you can make in a turn, but more importantly how big of a site you can land on, you’ve got to exceed the site’s mass generally.

You also hear us taking about labs which are factories on sites with a microscope symbol on them. These are necessary to promote cards to a purple side. Many of these purple cards have a future star on them, which are long term goal cards. The game ends when 3 of these have been achieved and then we tally VPs. These come from claims, factories, achievements (goal cards) and these future stars.

So early game is a lot of research auctions where players are trying to get a workable rockets, without going too broke and letting others have cards too cheap. Hopefully of similar spectral types so they can be produced at factories more easily.

Mid game (which we are just entering) is the gold rush. Initially of closer asteroid sites as we are doing now. As we ET produce black cards and use the asteroids for refueling stops we’ll push further out. This will be the bulk of the game. We’ll be trying to establish efficient factory locations and relocate our bernals (space stations) near them. This will also involve more colonists, which grant special powers and provide votes for the elections as we jockey over control of the politics disk.

Late game happens as we get labs, especially labs past the orbit of Neptune and we race to compete futures stars. Even more jockeying over politics disk and possibly some war and flaming carnage.

That’s a great game and one heavily influenced by this one. Full game of HF with all modules is obviously much bigger. Typically the sort of thing you might play at a convention or over several sessions, so yeah, it’s hard to get to the table. As you can see it works pretty well as a forum game.

OK sorry guys. The mountain was much busier (and fun) than I’d anticipated. It’s my birthday today and I’m leaving in 5 minutes to go have dinner with my gf, but I took the time to run my turn before I go out :)

PRC paid colonist to ET produce a generator and install it on my rocket.
Then my crew factory refueled my rocket.
My crew decided to stay behind on Lutetia and form a colony.
Then the rocket (no longer solar powered with my new high-tech generator) lifted off and dropped back down toward the inner system.

I don’t have time to do Juan’s turn, but I believe he posted directions for it up there^^.

No worries, glad you had a good time, and Happy Birthday!

Uploaded @Juan_Raigada’s turn per his posted instructions: Free marketing a radiator and performing an income op.

UN boosts their colonists and big fusion reactor. Colonists industrialize for a net 0WT. Posted a follow up log to fix explotation track and update everyone’s victory points.

Sunspot disk advances, welcome back to the BLUE SECTOR. Will NASA retain control of the political disk? He’s got a bunch of money but also a lot of boosting to do, especially if he wants to use Project Orion for landing somewhere (I’m guessing a Jovian moon might be in his sights).

Anyways, back to @JoshL

Sorry, out the door for game night! Will do my turn late tonight!

Ok, first I use my colonist to do a free market action to get rid of my extra robonaut for net 4WT.

Then I start an auction (I can do that now!) for a refinery, which comes with a generator:

NASA and the UN seem to have too many cards in their hands to bid. PRC has 7WT. I have 8WT.

I bid 0! vlog updated.

Sorry to do this, but I have to. PRC bids 6.

I don’t really believe you are sorry. And anyway, you’re right, it’s worth that. So I match 6.