Planet Unknown FAQ
125 questions players ask · Updated Nov 7, 2026 · Full rulebook
Setup and Space Station
Drafting and Station Commander
- How do I draft a tile from my depot?
- What does the Station Commander token do?
- Is the clockwise one-depot rotation the standard two-player rule?
- What is the lock symbol on the depot indicator for?
- Who chooses first when two players reach the same civ milestone in one round?
- In what order can I resolve the gains from my tile?
Tile Placement
- May I flip a tile or pick it up to test how it fits?
- What are the basic tile placement rules?
- Does ignoring adjacency let me place a tile away from all my other tiles?
- If a meteor lands on a tile's resource, do I still gain that resource?
- Can I advance a track first to avoid placing the meteorite on my tile?
- Does my water tile need to cover ice, and does the track move once per ice square?
- Must I place a biomass patch right away, or can I save it?
- Is a biomass patch a tile, and does it count for terrain?
Resource Tracks and Regressing
- If I regress and then advance back over a benefit, do I get it again?
- If I regress the rover track, do I lose a rover or get another when I re-advance?
- If I regress the tech track, do I lose the tech level?
- If I regress the civ track, do I keep my civ card?
- What if the civ cards of my milestone's rank are gone?
- When I reach a civ milestone, can I take a card from a lower rank?
- Can I look at the civ cards before I reach a milestone?
- How does the civ card that moves all trackers to level 5 work?
- Can a synergy boost advance any track, including the one that triggered it?
- If a tracker moves two spaces, do I collect every benefit it passes?
- If my rover tracker is already at the top, do I still get rover movement?
- Can one tracker block another from advancing?
- What counts as a milestone on the resource tracks?
- When a tech unlocks mid-turn, does it work immediately?
- Do all unlocked tech levels stay active for the rest of the game?
- Does a double civ icon in one square advance civ twice?
Energy Resource
Rovers, Lifepods and Meteorites
- Where do I place a rover I gain from the rover track?
- What if an event gives me a rover before I have placed any tile?
- How many rovers can I have, and can I get more?
- Can two rovers share a square?
- Is rover movement shared across rovers, and when can I spend it?
- Do rovers move whenever my rover tracker advances, even without a rover tile?
- Can rovers move over empty grid squares, water terrain, or an occupied tile square?
- Can a rover carrying a meteorite still collect lifepods on the way?
- What happens to a lifepod, rover or meteorite that gets destroyed?
- Do rovers or lifepods get destroyed if a tile slides past them?
- Do uncollected lifepods or rovers count as filled squares at scoring?
- What happens to a meteorite still on a rover at game end?
- Does a meteorite on my planet block its row and column?
- Can an event put a meteorite on a symbol where my rover stands?
- With Universal Coalition tech level 5, can I still place or collect meteorites?
- How are lifepods scored?
Game End
- When does the game end?
- Can the Station Commander rotate to a depot where nothing fits to end the game?
- If one tile fits and the other doesn't, must I take the one that fits?
- What do I gain from a tile I cannot place at the end?
- Does an unplaceable last tile get the water double bonus, its meteor, or count toward objectives?
- Can a planet's tile restriction end the game early?
- Does in front of me mean in front of my depot indicator?
End of Game Scoring and Civ Cards
- What do short, middle and long rows and columns score?
- When do End of Game civ cards advance my trackers?
- Do I keep Immediate civ cards after using them, and are they one-time?
- Can the civ card that destroys a meteorite hit another player's, and where can the rover reposition card place a rover?
- How do Meteorite Repo cards change meteorite scoring?
- How do the Commerce Agreement and Meteorite Repo cards add up across levels?
Objectives
- If neighbours tie on an objective, even at zero, do both score?
- Does a 3x3 or 2x5 terrain objective need to be exactly that size?
- Does energy count as wild terrain for objectives?
- Do biomass patches count toward objectives about tiles or biomass icons?
- When an objective counts resources, do I count icons or terrain squares?
- Can I play private objectives in multiplayer?
- How does an objective counting unique areas work?
- Can one terrain area satisfy two objectives at once?
Event Deck and Solo Mode
- How do I build and shuffle the event deck?
- When is the event card revealed and who executes it?
- What if an event can't be carried out or would end the game?
- When an event says to regress by three, which track must I choose?
- Which civ-card events are solo only?
- Does the extra-rover event add to my usual rover limit?
- What's the difference between the two 'ignore a resource' event cards?
- Can I choose a tracker with fewer than 3 spaces left for an advance-3 event?
- How does a solo turn start, and which depot do I use?
- In solo play, do I choose when an event says draw an extra event card?
- How is the solo target score set?
Asymmetric Corporations
- How does the Flux token work and which tech level is active?
- How does Flux Industries tech level 1 rover movement work?
- What do Flux tech level 3 and level 5 improve or advance?
- Is the Jump Drive's synergy-boost-instead-of-patch optional?
- What does Jump Drive tech E, claiming all benefits in a row, cover?
- How do Jump Drive teleport (tech B) and treat-as-energy (tech D) work?
- Why do Jump Drive's tech medals fall as the tracker advances?
- Are the objectives drawn by Jump Drive tech F neighbour or private?
- Can Republic claim a civ milestone if it can't regress another track?
- When do Republic's tech level 2 and 5 civ options apply?
- When does Wormhole's biomass tracker advance?
- Can Wormhole reset its biomass tracker to zero, and how does it score?
- How do Wormhole's patches interact with meteorites, tiles and civ cards?
- Does Universal Coalition tech level 3 add +1 to every rover movement gain?
- Does Universal Coalition tech level 4 double water from energy or unplaced tiles?
- How does Oasis advance water, and does energy add to it?
- How does Galaxia handle water and ice?
- How do Makeshift trackers move?
- How does Makeshift score cubes sharing a track, and what is the rover infinity?
- How do lifepods work for Cosmos Inc.?
- How does Horizon Group collect and destroy meteorites?
Asymmetric Planets
- How do Petra's electrical currents work?
- Is an all-ice-covered objective already met on Petra in solo?
- On Gaia, what happens if I leave a city uncovered?
- How does Pajitnov's sliding rule work?
- How can rovers cross Tartarus's chasm?
- For Oblivion, which edge counts for edge objectives?
- Do Oblivion's corner bubbles count as ice?
- On Cerberus, which edges count for edge objectives?
- Can a rover cross Lacuna's holes?
- May a Persephone tile span more than one quadrant?
- Can biomass patches go on Arashi's ring?
Planet Unknown: SupermoonExpansion
- How does a spaceship icon reposition a rover?
- How do End Game civ cards that patch a shape, like Bunny Hill, work?
- Must the satellite fire, and does it destroy rovers?
- Are there extra rovers for the moon, and how big is the solo event deck with Supermoon?
- What do Intelligent Grid System and moon resource sets do?