While typically performed between planets, you can also trade resources with other players, as long as you’re in the same system.

Many Events and Missions involve combat, but you can also engage in combat with fellow players. You can also sabotage or support another player’s Event or Mission goals by joining their battles.

Split into two categories of Jobs and Commissions, these are your primary method for earning income and favor. Some missions will also give you some lore or background of the scenario not included anywhere else.

The primary game board, also referred to as the space map or the Main Board, is 30 x 40 inches (76.2 x 101.6 cm). It uses a modified hex map, similar to those used by tabletop strategy games. However, instead of the typical approximately 1 inch hexes, ours are 0.625 inches tall—because if we didn't shrink it, the game would be even more massive. But also, making the grid smaller than that made things much less playable. Five-eighths of an inch turns out to be the sweet spot.

The Kintaro Event comes with 4 Player Consoles, measuring approximately 18.5 x 7.5 inches (about 47 x 19 cm) when deployed. The Player Consoles are where players will place and manage their Ship card and details, Directive, Missions, Events, Cargo & Passengers, Equipment, and more.

Due to the mass amount of wealth each player can accumulate, tracking this is done using a dial-based tracker instead of bills and coins. This tracker is separated into 3 areas: Ones, Thousands, and Millions, each with 3 dials for the ones, tens, and hundreds positions.

The Kintaro Event includes dice for commodities, hit conditions for all the various weapons, and to determine the effectiveness of sensor jammers.

While these cards are by far the simplest in appearance—consisting almost entirely of text—they are among the most important in the game. Directive cards provide each player's win conditions, and will sometimes pit players against one another. One player, as shown in the above example, may be pursuing a life of piracy, while another may be looking at a life of service. This can easily put them at odds with one another, and may even provide directions on how they should behave when encountering another player.

This deck is also as yet incomplete, due entirely to the absolute necessity for balance.

Every player starts the game with a basic shuttlecraft, but can later upgrade to larger, more powerful ships. These are represented on the player's console by a card, and on the board using a standee. Player ships come from one several decks: Starter Ships, Commercial Shipyards, Solar Alliance Shipyards, or Centauri Union Shipyards. Player ship standees come in purple, cyan, pink, and yellow, while NPC ships are represented in green (not pictured).

It should also be noted at this point that I am using AI-generated artwork for much of what I've done with this. Please see the related question in the FAQs section for more information about why.

As previously mentioned, there are a total of 11 card decks. Of those, the Starter Ships, Fighter Ships, Training Missions, and Directives do not reside on the board. Every other deck has a place on the board, for easier access throughout the game.

Ships — used for non-player ships (NPCs) that appear throughout play. This deck should be kept in numerical order to make it easier to find specific ships used for Events and Missions.

Starter Ships — used at the start of the game only. Contains just 4 cards.

Fighter Ships — used only after players purchase ships to be deployed from their Fighter Bay. When needed, players will use these ships as their own in combat.

Shipyards — 3 decks total. Used when players are looking to upgrade their ships. Players will land on an appropriate planet, pull a number of ships from the appropriate deck, and (if pulled) purchase their choice of ship.

Jobs — tasks for players to complete for credits. Some Jobs lead into longer Commissions.

Commissions — longer form stories for players to complete for credits. The risk is often greater, but so is the reward. Some Commissions also provide bits of setting lore. This deck should be kept in numerical order to make it easier to find specific cards.

Training — a short set of Missions intended to provide players with a comprehensive play experience, so they become comfortable with the intricacies of the game more quickly. This deck should be kept in numerical order to make it easier to find specific cards.

Directives — see the Directive card modal for more information.

Events — short tasks for players to complete as they enter each system.

Floating trackers, with counts up to 99 each, are provided for some consumables:

• Hull Patch Kits — quick repair kit that can be used during combat. Expensive, but worth having around.
• Laser Diffusion Charges — completely negates damage from laser weapons for a whole turn.
• Decoy Drones — causes seeking weapons to reroute to these and destroy them instead of hitting your ship.

Additional tokens are provided to track where certain Missions were picked up, whether Passengers or Cargo are associated with specific Missions, which pieces of Equipment a player has added to their ship, the step a player is currently working on for a Mission, and Health and Move sliders.