Each player has five action points to use or lose each round, taking turns doing so. Bring the other player's frame to zero and you win.
Your ship and the four systems you fitted to it start on the table, face down and outside the deck. The deck is everything else. Forty cards, shuffled, and you draw five.
Light Ship — Interceptor—
Attack with a ready light weapon you control. That attack gets +3.
Dodge an attack of 3 or less.
This weapon gets +2.
Attack 3. If you hold the initiative, draw 1.
Dodge an attack.
The ship frame is the one card every deck must have. It sets your frame HP, the weight of gun you can mount, and the disciplines your deck can contain. The four systems in its bays start face down and offline. Pay a system's Play cost to bring it online. It normally enters exhausted and is ready from the next Refresh; a system with Quick Start enters ready.
Shuffle the forty and draw five. You may mulligan the opening hand once. The hand limit is five, and each Refresh draws one card. Everything in the deck is one of three kinds, below.
Attack 3. If you hold the initiative, draw 1.
One-shot actions played on your turn. Attack, draw, ready a weapon, or disrupt an enemy system. Many read "Attack with a ready weapon you control", which fires your gun for the card's price instead of the gun's.
Dodge an attack.
Played in the defense window while an attack is coming in. Shield some of the damage, Dodge the whole shot, or seize the initiative on the way past.
This weapon gets +2.
Software installed on one of your online systems. More damage, a cheaper activation, Cloak. Shut the host down and its Programs are gone.
A round is shared. Each player has five action points, and the players alternate spending them until both have disengaged.
Both players start the round with five action points. Every card and every activation is priced in AP, from zero up. Points do not carry over.
The player holding the initiative takes one action, then the other player does. Play a system from a bay, activate a ready system, play a Tactic, or install a Program.
An attack pauses before it hits. The defender can activate a defense system, play a Reaction from hand, or take the hit. Then the round continues.
When you are done for the round, disengage. You can still defend. The first player to disengage takes the initiative and acts first next round.
Once both players have disengaged, AP goes back to five, online systems ready again, and each player draws one card. A player holding five puts the draw in the Void instead.
Your four systems start offline. Pay to bring each one online, then pay its activation price each time you use it.
A ready system can activate. Pay the AP price on its activation line, it does what the line says, and it exhausts until the next Refresh. A weapon's attack line reads 2: Attack, and attacking always exhausts the gun. Some systems print a second ability, so the choice each round is which one this activation buys.
Systems have no HP. What hurts them is being shut down, whether by heat, by an enemy card, or as a cost you pay yourself. A shut-down system loses its installed Programs, but it keeps its bay and can be played again.
Programs install on an online system you control, or for a few cards on an enemy's, and stay until the host goes down. A Program is the permanent bonus. A damage counter is the one-shot one.
Bringing a whole loadout online takes several rounds, and the order is a plan of its own. Every system you turn over tells the other player something.
:Attack. You may add 1 heat counter to this weapon. If you do, its Critical chance + until the next Refresh.
Critical : +2
This weapon gets +1. Its activation costs 1 less. When it is shut down, add an impedance counter to it.
Attack with a ready light weapon you control. That attack gets +3.
Shield 4.
Every attack pauses before it hits, and the defender gets a chance to answer.
Attacks hit the enemy frame. A weapon attacks for its printed damage plus whatever its Programs, counters and this round's bonuses add. A Tactic can attack on its own (Attack 4 damage) or attack with one of your ready weapons for the card's price instead of the gun's.
The defender answers in the window. Shield N prevents N of the damage, and unused shielding is lost. Dodge stops the attack entirely, damage and on-hit rewards alike. A screen marked React can be activated only in this window, and Reactions are hand cards played here.
Some weapons roll a Critical Hit when their damage lands. Hit the printed die face and the bonus goes through, and nothing can answer it. Fully shielded or dodged shots do not roll.
Counters keep score between rounds. A damage counter adds 1 to the weapon's next attack, and all of them are spent by that shot. Three heat shuts a weapon down. A suppression counter eats the system's next attempt to ready. Mines detonate when the opponent disengages. Drones are small attackers of their own, and any attack may aim at an enemy token instead of the frame.
Bring the other player's frame to zero and you win. A game can also end on an empty deck or a concession.
A player who cannot make a required draw loses. Because a full hand's Refresh draw is removed from the game, a game where nobody lands damage still runs out of deck. When both would draw from an empty deck, the player holding the initiative draws first and loses. You may also concede.
Online games can run a turn clock of sixty seconds a decision. Three timeouts concede the game.
The Proving Runs on the Freeporter board teach each class against the computer, and pay a pack for each first clear.
