SSO Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Contents
• Before your first game
• Overview and Objective
• These rules
• Set-up
  • Build the ship
  • Assign the Crew
    • Example crew cards
  • Prepare the Crew
  • Choose your terror
• Gameplay
• Activation Phase
  • 1. Deal and Assign Activation Cards
  • 2. Resolve Activation Cards
  • 3. Discard Remaining Activation Cards
    • Movement examples
  • Your First Turn
• Check Phase
  • 1. Auto Effects
  • 2. Morale 0 Death
  • 3. Breathe
  • 4. Actions
  • 5. Missions Fail
  • 6. Missions Succeed
• Challenge Phase
  • 1. Pods lose power
  • 2. Missions count down
  • 3. Players win
  • 4. Players lose
  • 5. The next terror reveals itself
  • 6. The next terror resolves itself
  • 7. Vote for missions
  • 8. Abort missions
  • 9. Activate missions
  • 10. End the turn
• Death Phase
  • 1. Reduce crew Morale by 1
  • 2. Reduce crew with Rank Tokens on the dead crew by 2
  • 3. Remove dead crew from the game
  • 4. Pass crew
  • 5. Add crew
  • 6. Revive crew
• Location Details
  • Main Airlock
  • Cryogenics Pod
  • Medical Pod
  • Radio Pod
  • Central Corridor
  • Oxygen Hydropod
  • Rec Room
  • Command Module
  • Computer Module
  • Solar Array
  • Shuttle Array
• Crew Details
  • First Officer
  • Astronaut
  • Generalist
  • Botanist
  • Trillionaire Backer
• General Rules
• Challenge Decks
• A note on Betrayal and Co-operation
• Scoring Success
• Rage of Montalbano Deck Identifier

Contents

This copy of SSO: The Rage of Montalbano should contain 24 red backed Challenge Cards; 6 numbered Mission Cards; 1 fully illustrated Location Card; 2 Crew cards; 15 Custom Meeples; 15 Moulded Plastic Voting tokens; 6 Status dial sets consisting of punchboard sheets and plastic dial centres.

Before your first game

Unwrap and dispose of all cellophane wrapping on cards. Find the crew card that matches each coloured meeple (most of them will be in the SSO base set) and use them to match the colour-blind identification stickers to their appropriate meeples, if you are colour blind you will need assistance for this stage. Punch out and assemble the Morale/Oxygen dials.

Overview and Objective

If at least one player has at least one surviving crew member when the Challenge Deck is empty then that player has outlasted the disaster and can safely complete the Omega's mission.

All players with crew remaining when the Challenge Deck is empty win the game, all players with no crew lose the game.

These rules

Throughout these rules there are several forms of box-out.

• Those marked as "explanation" boxes are an explanation of the rules just mentioned, sometimes connecting them to a previous or later rule and sometimes making explicit meanings that were only implied in the body of the text.
• Those marked as "example" boxes contain an example of some form.
• Those marked as "commentary" boxes are a commentary on tactics or intent, they are opinion and should not be taken as certain facts.

In this transcription, explanation and example boxes are given as indented notes; commentary boxes are marked Commentary.

Text in italics is background text only and has no gameplay purpose of any kind.

Set-up

Build the ship

Lay out the 14 Location cards to form the ship, to do so place the Main Airlock then line up the Central Corridor such that both cards have text showing and the same way up and they have connecting doors (designated by the green strips above them), continue with the rest of the 'White' cards. So long as each has text showing and the same way up, has all doors connected to other doors and no cards overlap there is only one way to lay out all the White cards. Then place one of the 'Yellow' Solar Arrays touching each of the Pods and finally place the 'Red' Shuttle touching the outer portal of the Main Airlock.

Locations have Types and Colours as well as individual names. The Types are 'Module', 'Pod', 'Array' and 'Airlock'. The Colours are 'Yellow', 'White' and 'Red'. Solar Arrays are Yellow, the Shuttle is Red and all other locations are White.

Two touching locations of the same colour are 'Adjacent', two touching locations of different colours are 'Attached'. A face down Location loses all qualities, including its name, except its colour.

The Radio Pod is adjacent to the Oxygen Hydro Pod and the Central Corridor, and attached to the Solar Array directly above it.

The doors are used only to assist the placing of locations in SSO, once Set-up is complete, they have no gameplay purpose whatsoever.

Assign the Crew

For quick play set-up during your very first game only, deal 6 random Crew Cards among the players face-up, then deal each player an additional Crew Card face down, players may have differing numbers of crew.

For all other games, decide if you wish to play on the easier 'Story Mode' or harder 'Challenge Mode', then find your number of players on the following tables and check down the columns below your player count:

Story Mode

Players	1	2	3	4	5	6
Comm.	1	1	1	1	0	0
Non-Comm.	5	2	1	L2	1	1
Reserve	1	1	1	1	1	1

Challenge Mode

Players	1	2	3	4	5	6
Comm.	1	1	1	1	0	0
Non-Comm.	3	1	L1	0	1	1
Reserve	1	1	1	1	1	1

If the column reads 1 for Comm. separate out the Command Crew (those with their rank value marked in orange) and randomly deal 1 Command Crew to each player, then return the remainder to the box, if it reads 0 shuffle the Command Crew into the rest of the Crew Cards.

If the column reads a number only for Non-Comm. deal that number of Crew Cards to each player. If it reads L1 or L2 deal 1 Crew Cards to the 1 or 2 players with the lowest ranking Crew Cards (where 1 is lower than 2).

Shuffle all unused Crew Cards, if the column reads 1 for reserve deal 1 face down to each player. If it reads 0 return the remaining Crew Cards to the box. Return all remaining Crew Cards to the box.

Face down 'reserve' crew are held in deep cryogenic sleep, they will be unfrozen for use if and when one of their player's other crew die.

The deep cryogenic sleep of reserve crew is separate from the short-term cryogenic freezing that players may engage in using the Cryogenic pods, these will be explained in more detail in the Locations section.

Players may check their face down Crew Card and, if it is a non-command Crew they may flip it face up in return for flipping one of their other Crew Cards face down.

Commentary: Once you learn the interactions of crew abilities you may choose to build a more effective team rather than a group of individuals.

Example crew cards

The manual shows these crew cards in its example crew distributions (Story Mode, 3, 4 and 5 players). Each card lists its Rank, the numbers on its Oxygen and Morale tracks, and its ability.

Crew	Rank	Oxygen track	Morale track	Ability
Psychiatrist	18	0-3	0-4	PSYCH PROFILING - May treat 1 in Medical Pod "Crew" actions as 2.
First Officer	17	0-3	0-4	BY THE BOOK - Crew: Must flip 2 Missions face down.
Pilot	15	0-3	0-6	RIGHT STUFF - Auto: if alone with Morale = 0 this Crew gains 1 Morale.
Engineer	11	0-3	0-4	MANUAL OVERRIDE - Crew: Must reduce Personal Oxygen by 2 may flip 1 adjacent Location face up.
Radio Officer	4	0-3

Prepare the Crew

Each Player finds the coloured meeple matching their Crew Card (they have symbols to assist colour blind players) and places them in the Central Corridor.

Place the plastic Rank Token matching each Crew Card's rank score on their card, this is that crew's Rank Token.

Rank tokens represent a Crew member's concerns, what they are currently thinking about and are focussed on. You'll use them to vote for engaging with missions and to track things that are worrying the crew.

Place the blue marker on the Oxygen track's blue 0 and the red marker on the Oxygen track's red space equal to the number of living Crew x 2 (face down reserve crew are never counted as living). This is the amount of Oxygen already available for use in the Omega.

Hand each player a Status dial for each of their face up Crew Cards, set the dials at Oxygen 0 and Morale 4.

The Oxygen on Status dials represents Crew's Personal Oxygen, accessible only to them and the only way of surviving in external locations, it begins at zero since the ship's General Supply means that there is plenty to breath on the ship, at least for now.

Choose your terror

If playing with multiple Challenge Decks all but one player turns away while the remaining player unboxes and sets out all Challenge Decks with their attached Mission Cards on top, they then turn away as the other players turn back, select one deck and return all others to the box.

Once a Challenge Deck is selected, or if playing with only one, shuffle and place face down the red backed Challenge Deck and place the six Mission Cards out separately number side up.

Shuffle and stack the blue backed Activation Deck and you're ready to begin your mission.

Gameplay

There are three general keywords in SSO, 'May', 'Must' and 'Try' that players should be aware of:

• May - Whenever an instruction reads 'May' then the player activating the instruction follows it or not as they choose to the degree that they chose. May will feature in actions and Activation cards.
• Must - Whenever an instruction reads 'Must' then the following instructions have to be followed exactly as written OR none of the listed instructions are performed, though players are free to choose to follow none of the instructions. Must will feature in actions and Activation cards.
• Try - Whenever an instruction reads 'Try' then they are to be followed as fully as possible. Try will feature in actions and Challenge cards.

The Astronaut's Crew action reads: 'Must reduce General Oxygen by 6, may increase this Crew's Personal Oxygen by 6'. This means the General Oxygen has to be reduced by 6 or nothing happens, but if it is the Astronaut's own oxygen can be increased by 0-6 points, however the controlling player wishes.

The Captain's ability reads: 'At the end of Challenge Phase step 5 must have this Crew die and skip next step'. So, the player can choose to not have the Captain die and not skip the step if they wish, but they cannot skip the step without the Captain dying.

Challenge Card Vent Oxygen reads: 'Try to reduce General Oxygen by living Crew'. If there is less General Oxygen than Crew it still needs to be reduced to 0.

At various points SSO will tell players to start with the 'Highest-Ranking Player', this is the player who has the crew member with the highest rank in front of them. In SSO the larger the number the higher the rank, so 24 is a higher rank than 1. Remember that if the highest-ranking crew dies the player might change, possibly changing the order of play.

A turn of SSO consists of a series of Phases and Steps.

• Activation Phase: 1. Deal and Assign Activation Cards; 2. Resolve Activation Cards; 3. Discard Remaining Activation Cards
• Check Phase: 1. Auto Effects; 2. Morale 0 Death; 3. Breathe; 4. Actions; 5. Missions Fail; 6. Missions Succeed
• Challenge Phase: 1. Lose Pods; 2. Reduce Mission Guides; 3. Check for Win; 4. Check for Loss; 5. Flip Challenge card; 6. Resolve Challenge card; 7. Mission Voting; 8. Mission Abort; 9. Mission Activation; 10. End Turn

At the start of each Step white Locations with Solar Arrays attached flip face up.

At the end of each Step Crew in face down Locations Die.

Crew in face down Locations die irrespective of Personal Oxygen levels, whatever the flavour explanation for the shutdown it will be universally fatal.

Activation Phase

1. Deal and Assign Activation Cards

Shuffle and deal each player 1 Activation Card per living Crew plus 1 (so if a player has 2 face up crew, deal them 3 cards, remember that face down crew do not count as living). They then select and assign one face down to each Crew Card, discarding the remainder face down.

Players should discuss the cards they have and what they can or cannot achieve in order to formulate effective plans. Players all assign cards before any are revealed or activated. This is because when playing co-operatively coordinating assignment and movement of Crew is a vital part of the game; when playing competitively the chance to lie about your options allows betrayal without discovery. When playing solo or fully co-op (such as in a first game) cards can be assigned face up if players prefer. Cards have to be discarded if unused, they cannot be saved for later turns and will be re-dealt.

2. Resolve Activation Cards

Starting with the Highest-Ranking Player and passing left, players select and activate any of their own crew with face down Activation cards assigned to them in any order they wish. To activate a crew either:

• Flip the crew's Activation Card, follow its instructions and discard it.
• Move the crew to the location of another crew with a face down activation card assigned to them and discard both crew's activation cards.
• Pass, leaving crew and Activation card in place.

A Crew's meeple indicates its current Location, to move a Crew move its meeple, crew count as being in the Location that their meeple is on. Crew move to their destination without needing to pass through intervening Locations.

Crew can never move onto a face down Location or one containing Crew equal to or in excess of its 'Max Crew' value, noted in a black circle in its top left corner. Crew cannot move onto a Location they are already on.

If an Activation card cannot be used by a Crew member (because they are unable to fulfil its 'Must' conditions) it will be left face down. If a player chooses not to use an Activation card, it will be left face down.

Some Activation cards come with rewards for using them, such as the card that moves Crew to the pods and allows them to take an additional action or the card that moves Crew to the Main Airlock and gives them personal oxygen. These are rewards for efficiently co-ordinating crew movement and are always free additional benefits, the oxygen does not come out of the general supply and the Crew does not lose their later actions. Remember, if a card's 'Must' condition cannot be fulfilled, no part of the card can take place, so a Crew member already in the Main Airlock cannot move to the Main Airlock and cannot gain the additional oxygen reward for using the Activation card.

3. Discard Remaining Activation Cards

Discard all remaining Activation Cards face down.

Cards that are unused are always Discarded face-down. Betrayal in SSO is dangerous, but sometimes necessary, face-down discarding allows players to claim that they are unable to move to locations vital for their ship-mate's survival without ever having to prove it.

Movement examples

Legal Adjacent Options: The Captain can move to either Location indicated by a blue arrow using the "Move to an Adjacent Location" card.

Illegal Adjacent Options: Each Adjacent Location is an illegal option since the Cryo Pod is full and the Central Corridor is Shut Down.

Alternative Movement Option: Alternatively, the Captain can discard the Activation cards assigned to both the Captain and Trillionaire Backer to move to the Hydro Pod.

Moving Through Illegal Locations: Activation cards move Crew directly to their destination, so they can move through an Illegal Location such as the Shut Down Central Corridor or a full Location.

Any Non-Array Location: Blue arrows indicate all legal Locations for the "Move to any Non-Array" card.

Illegal Resolution: Since the Rec Room is face down in the first image, the Captain cannot resolve their Activation card. In the second image, since the Radio Officer is in the Airlock already, they cannot move to it. In both cases the card cannot be flipped and resolved.

Your First Turn

During the first turn of a game of SSO there are no immediate threats or pressures on the Crew, things are quiet, almost too quiet. Experienced players will quickly learn to turn these precious moments of peace to their advantage, but first-time players may find it hard to decide on a direction for their first turn.

There are three things to remember on your first turn:

• Challenge cards can target crew that are bunched up or spread out too much, so try to make sure your crew are spread out, but that not too many are on their own.
• Oxygen will always be a pressure in SSO, so make sure that you have two crew in the Hydro pod to start fuelling the oxygen tanks.
• Activation cards with rewards are free advantages and often make the difference between success and failure, try to make sure any crew with such cards get to use them.

Focus on achieving these goals in your first activation phase, then follow out the rest of the turn, you should find you'll have plenty to deal with by your second or third turn.

Check Phase

1. Auto Effects

Check all cards in play for 'Auto' effects, they are performed whether or not players wish them to be.

Remember, morale boosting Auto effects come before checking for morale death, making them extremely valuable.

2. Morale 0 Death

Crew with Morale 0 in a Location with no other Crew die.

Crew with Morale zero are finding the pressures of the mission to be too much for them and will need a second crew member to keep an eye on them or they will cease to be a mission asset. Should this result in a crew dying the Death Phase will be triggered immediately.

3. Breathe

Starting with the highest-ranked crew member and moving down, each crew member's controlling player opts to either reduce the general oxygen meter or the crew member's personal oxygen meter by 1. Any crew unable to do one or the other die.

To reduce General Oxygen move the blue token down 1 space. To reduce it from the 0 move it to the blue 5 and move the red token down 1. To increase from 5 reverse this process. If the red token is on zero, it cannot be reduced. To reduce personal Oxygen move the crew member's dial down one, if it is on zero it cannot be reduced.

This is the only event which occurs in strict crew rank order, it does not start with the ranking player and pass left. Breathing order will only matter during the last few desperate turns of a game and so it is spread between players to stop the ranking player having too much advantage in a competitive game.

Remember, having 0 oxygen remaining does not lose players the game. If oxygen can be replenished using actions, Mission rewards or Activation cards before the next Check Step 3 crew can carry on.

4. Actions

Starting with the Highest-Ranking Player and passing left each player's Crew may perform a single 'Crew' action printed either on their Crew Card or current Location.

Players are not forced to activate 'Crew' actions if they don't wish to (or are unable to). Each crew can only perform a single 'Crew' action during this step even if they have multiple 'Crew' actions available. Each player either performs actions or passes with all of their crew before the next player takes their turn, but players may have their crew take their actions in the order of the player's choice.

5. Missions Fail

Check the 'fail' conditions of any face up Mission cards, if any of them are currently fulfilled perform the following actions in order:

• If there are any Rank tokens on the failed mission card, reduce the Morale of the crew they belong to by 1.
• Perform the 'Punishment' effects listed on the Mission card.
• Return any Rank tokens on the failed mission card to their matching crew cards and flip the mission card face down.

Failure conditions only have to be true during this step for a Mission to fail, but if the conditions are not true during this step the Mission does not fail. So, for example, if a Mission Count reaches 0 then a Crew uses the Radio Pod to increase the Mission Count the Mission does not fail this turn, just because the Mission Count was at 0, because it is not currently.

Note that Missions fail before they succeed so if both the success and failure conditions are true at the same time a Mission will fail and not succeed. This means Missions with a fail condition of Mission Guide = 0 can only succeed if their Mission Guide = 1, so missions may have less time to be completed than players might think at first.

In your first turn there will be no Missions to fail or succeed, they may become active during the Challenge phase, they represent the crew's attempts to deal with the problems besetting them. Each mission will have a set of 'Fail' conditions which if true mean that the crew's efforts have come up short and their problems will continue, to represent this each Mission also comes with a 'punishment', a negative effect to suffer if it is failed. In addition, crew that voted to attempt a mission (noted by their rank token being on it) will suffer additional morale loss as the plan that they personally backed has gone wrong and they feel the personal responsibility for any negative effects, this can mean that those crew suffer twice from a mission failing. It is possible for punishment effects to have no negative effect (if Morale is already at zero or a location is already face down for example).

Most missions fail when their Mission Count = 0, those missions have a time limit in which they must be completed. If the Mission Count is on zero in this phase, time has run out to perform the action needed, and the mission will fail.

6. Missions Succeed

Check the 'succeed' conditions of any face up Mission cards, if any of them are currently fulfilled perform the following actions in order:

• Return any Rank tokens on them to their Crew Cards.
• Perform the 'Reward' effects listed on the Mission card.
• Remove the Mission card from the game.

Successfully completed Missions are removed from the game meaning that they will not trigger again.

Missions represent a range of plans, not all will stop the problems occurring but all will assist in overall victory. Most will require that specific actions or goals be achieved representing the crew dealing with problems arising on the ship. Some will be achieved by the Mission count reaching zero, representing a situation that crew must avoid arising for a set period.

Challenge Phase

1. Pods lose power

Flip any Pods without Solar Arrays attached face down.

Face down locations lose all qualities except colour, meaning that face down Solar Arrays are no longer Solar Arrays, and so any Pods with face down Solar Arrays must be flipped face down. So, a Pod with a face down Solar Array will end up face-down and Pods with face up Arrays attached flip face up at the start of each step. Sadly, since Crew in face down Locations die at the end of each step if a Pod with an Array attached with Crew in it is flipped face down it will remain so exactly long enough to kill the Crew within.

2. Missions count down

Try to move all tokens on Mission Guides one space left.

3. Players win

If there are 0 face down Challenge Cards all players with living Crew WIN, the game ends.

Remember, if the final challenge card is flipped in step 5 of a challenge phase, players do not immediately win, they have to survive one last turn until this step comes around again. Also, if there are no Challenge Cards the game ends at this step whether there are living crew or not, meaning that if there are no living crew and no challenge cards remaining no players win or lose.

4. Players lose

If there are 0 face up Crew Cards all players LOSE, the game ends.

5. The next terror reveals itself

Flip the next Challenge Card face up.

6. The next terror resolves itself

Follow the instructions of the most recently flipped face up Challenge Card.

Challenge cards consist of these parts:

• Permanent - A keyword that some Challenge cards have, permanent Challenge cards are removed from the Challenge card discard stack, their rules remain in play constantly until something discards them.
• Title - No gameplay purpose.
• Instructional text - Follow as written.
• Mission Activation - Flip face up all Missions currently in the game face down listed here. If not all of the Missions can be flipped face up due to being removed or already face up do not activate any Missions.
• Flavour text - No gameplay purpose.

This is the only point at which the effects of Challenge Cards occur, so any Challenge Cards flipped prior to Step 5, such as by Mission Rewards, are effectively avoided. Only one Challenge card each turn will actually activate.

Players win the game by exhausting the Challenge deck and will generally fail due to allowing too many Challenge deck cards to resolve, as such causing cards to flip prior to step five by completing missions is vital to success.

Challenge cards represent a range of threats to the SSO and its crew, collected into a narrative of terror and peril. They will link in a narratively connected fashion to various missions that the crew hope (often forlornly) will deal with those threats.

7. Vote for missions

If a face down Mission was activated in Step 6, place a green token on the highest number of its Mission Guide. Players then vote to either attempt the mission or not by following these steps:

• Players take all Rank tokens that are both on Crew cards they control and match those Crew card's printed Rank values.
• Players place Rank tokens in their closed hands: Left to vote against a mission; Right to vote for a mission.
• Players reveal the contents of all hands simultaneously, add up all Rank tokens in left hands and then all in right hands for two totals.
• Return Rank tokens in the lowest value group to their Crew cards.

If multiple Missions were activated in Step 6 the highest-ranking player chooses one to resolve steps 7, 8 and 9 for, then returns to resolve the steps for the next of their choice until all Missions activated have been resolved.

Players may not pick up their own tokens from other player's Crew Cards or Missions, nor may they pick up other player's Rank tokens.

Note that values of Rank tokens are totalled and compared meaning that it is possible for a higher ranked crew to out vote multiple lower ranked crew.

Players should take a moment to discuss how they would achieve a mission's success conditions and formulate a plan of some kind before voting. Opinions can differ even when playing co-operatively since much in a game of SSO is uncertain.

Rank tokens track what is on a Crew member's mind at any given point, what they are giving their personal thought or attention to. Various events may move Rank tokens around, representing Crew's attention shifting to other matters. Players should bear in mind that Crew who vote for a mission will be unable to vote for other missions until their voted for mission is completed, as such even if all players agree to attempt a mission it is in their best interests to ensure that it is voted for by the fewest possible crew members.

8. Abort missions

If the left-hand total is higher or both are equal:

• Try to reduce all Crew's Morale by 1
• Flip the Mission Card face down
• Return the remaining Rank tokens to their crew cards

Morale is only lost if a Mission is voted down, not if a Challenge card fails to activate a Mission.

If there are no crew available to vote because all Rank tokens are committed, missions will be automatically aborted, since zero in both groups is equal.

When Missions are aborted all crew lose Morale, as they have failed to attempt to deal with the distressing or dangerous issue raised by the Challenge card, or are starting to feel the creeping panic of being over committed to Missions. Also, the Mission is flipped face down, if no-one was willing to attempt it the first time, it will be raised again.

9. Activate missions

If the right-hand total is higher place the voting Rank tokens on the Mission Card.

The Mission remains face up, it is now active until achieved or failed. Once a Mission is engaged by voting it will remain face up irrespective of whether the rank tokens used to vote for it are removed by other events or not. A Mission with no rank tokens on it does not automatically fail or flip face down.

10. End the turn

End the current turn, start a new turn, return to Step 1 of the Activation phase.

"Maintenance Report" moves a rank token then activates Missions 3 and 4.

"Airlock Shutdown" flips the Main Airlock face down then activates Mission 4.

Those are the basic rules for SSO, and more than enough to play with until something goes wrong. The following rules tell you what to do when someone dies, how to score the end of the game and explains specifics, and can be left until needed, though scanning them over may make the game flow more smoothly.

Death Phase

SSO is a game of death, sacrifice and survival, some crew will die. Death in SSO can refer to anything that would render crew useless as a mission asset from freezing suffocation in the vacuum of space to permanent coma or catatonia.

The Death Phase does not necessarily occur either every turn nor only once per turn. Whenever one or more Crew members die during a step trigger 1 Death Phase for each Crew member as soon as the step is over and before the next step begins. In the event that several Crew die in a single step and it matters which order their Death Phases are resolved in, the highest-ranking player decides the order of resolution. Death occurs when:

• A Challenge card states that a particular Crew dies.
• A Crew member is in a face down location at the end of a step.
• A Crew member is alone with zero Morale in Check phase step 2.
• A Crew member is unable to reduce an oxygen meter during Check phase step 3.

Remember, in SSO you are not your crew, so long as one of them makes it to the end of the game you win. Losing or sacrificing some does not mean that you are losing or will lose the game. Situations will more often than not appear hopeless at some point, fighting to the end is usually the difference between victory and defeat.

1. Reduce crew Morale by 1

Simply reduce the Morale of all still living crew by 1.

The remaining crew find their former ship mate's dying screams, or frozen corpse or eviscerated shell disheartening.

2. Reduce crew with Rank Tokens on the dead crew by 2

Crew with their Rank tokens on the Crew that the current Death Phase is for try to reduce their Morale by 2 then return their Rank tokens to their Cards.

This reduction is in addition to the Morale loss from step 1.

A crew member's Rank Token represents what they are thinking about or focussed on. The primary reason for having a Rank Token on a fellow crew member is having in some way betrayed them. As such, this step represents the guilt that a crew will feel when the person they betrayed dies, or the additional mental weight when the person they happen to be focussed on is killed.

3. Remove dead crew from the game

Remove the dead Crew's Crew Card, Rank token and Movement token from the game.

4. Pass crew

If the player controlling the Crew that died has no face down Crew Cards one of the other players may move one of their face down Crew Cards to the player controlling the Crew that died.

Players should discuss the options and are free to go back on their positions until the next step is begun. The next step starts when either one player agrees to give a new Crew Card or all players agree not to, decisions are not made by players in any specific order nor are refusals binding until the step ends.

5. Add crew

If the player controlling the Crew that died has no face down Crew Cards one other player can choose to reduce the General Oxygen supply by Living Crew x 3, and randomly select a Crew Card not in the game then enter it face down into the control of the player whose Crew died. Any player can choose to make this exchange, but all players decide individually, if even one chooses to make the exchange then it occurs. Note that only one reduction and introduction of crew can take place, even if multiple players would like to do so, the returned crew can be the one just removed in step 3.

It is hugely beneficial to have a full compliment of crew active on the ship, if a player has face down crew when another player has no crew it is heavily in their own best interests to hand a face down crew-member across the table, even when not playing specifically co-operatively. Players will learn this in the course of play, but it is strongly suggested that they take the chance to do so in early games. When oxygen is extremely low fewer crew can be beneficial, but at such a point the game is likely to end soon either way, note that just as players may choose to selfishly hand over crew when playing competitively, they may also hold them back for the good of the mission in co-op play.

Sacrificing oxygen for additional crew should be saved until there are no face down crew to hand around the table. At that point there will generally be few enough crew remaining that the amount of oxygen to be sacrificed can be quite minimal. Again, unless the oxygen depletion would lead to defeat in the next few turns additional crew compliment is almost always beneficial in terms of mission completion and player options.

Players should realise then that while elimination is possible in SSO it will generally only take place a handful of turns before the end of the game, or among players who are openly adversarial and even mendacious to the point of their own detriment.

6. Revive crew

If the player controlling the Crew that died has at least 1 face down Crew card they flip 1 Crew card face up. Find the crew's matching rank token and place it on its card, place its matching movement token in the Location of its controlling player's choice, then finally set its Oxygen and Morale dials to 0.

Location Details

Locations may have:

• Title in its top centre, which may include a 'type' such as Pod, Array or Module.
• Random selection designator in its top right corner.
• Max Crew number in its top left corner.
• Colour, White, Yellow or Red, shown by the general colour of the card.
• Crew or Auto abilities in the bottom centre, generally noted in short hand.

Example: the Command Module has random selection designator T,T,T, can hold up to one crew, it is a 'White' location and has two crew triggered abilities (Crew: Skip Challenge step 1; Crew: Move 1 Crew to adjacent location).

Face down Locations lose all qualities except their colour.

Main Airlock

Crew: Must increase the Crew activating this ability's Personal Oxygen by any amount, must decrease the General Oxygen supply by double that amount.

• Noted as: Crew: Crew Oxy + Y, Gen Oxy - Y x 2

Crew increase their personal oxygen first, so will be limited in how much they can take from the general supply.

When Crew here with Personal Oxygen greater than 0 reveal an Activation Card it may be treated as saying 'Move to any Array or Airlock'.

• Noted as: Activation cards here may be "move to any Array or Airlock"

The card may still be treated as reading its standard text, or left face down. This is the only method of reaching a Solar Array from within the ship since no printed Activation Card specifies movement there. Crew are limited by their oxygen to ensure that they will only be able to use this option if doing so would not be a suicidal act.

Cryogenics Pod

Crew here treat their Rank and Rank tokens as 0 and any actions or abilities printed on their cards as blank. If they would change their Morale, Personal Oxygen or the General Oxygen count nothing happens but treat the reduction as having occurred. Do not assign Activation Cards to Crew here.

• Noted as: Cards here are blank. Do not change Morale and Oxy. Do not play Activation cards.

The Cryogenics Pod does not protect Crew from death, including from being alone with Morale = 0.

Technically, frozen crew can still vote, though it would be pointless. Crew in the Cryogenics Pod cannot voluntarily leave, they require assistance from Crew in the Command Module.

The Activation card reading "Must move to Rec Room, May move 1 other Crew not in an Array with rank 1+ to Rec Room." interacts with the fact that the Cryogenics Pod reduces crew's rank to 0. No matter how good the game of Shuggy might be, it cannot pull crew out of cryogenic suspension.

Medical Pod

Crew: Increase any single Crew's Morale by 1.

• Noted as: Crew: Any Crew Morale + 1

This effect can target any crew member anywhere, including the crew member who activates it.

Crew: Reduce any single Crew's Morale by 1, must place the activating Crew's Rank token on the Crew Card of the Crew whose Morale was reduced.

• Noted as: Crew: Any Crew Morale - 1, move rank token to target.

This can still be activated by crew that do not have their own Rank token on their card, they simply move their Rank token from its current location to the target of the action. The Medical Pod uses Rank tokens to track crew's sense of guilt over undermining allies.

Radio Pod

Crew: Move the Rank token of the Crew activating this ability to its Crew Card.

• Noted as: Crew: Move rank token

Crew: Move a single Mission Guide counter up 1.

• Noted as: Crew: Mission Guide + 1

Mission counts can never exceed their maximum.

Central Corridor

Infinite capacity and multiple adjacent Locations make the Central Corridor surprisingly important.

Oxygen Hydropod

Crew: Must increase the Crew activating this ability's Personal Oxygen by any amount, must decrease the General Oxygen supply by the same amount.

• Noted as: Crew: Crew Oxy + Y, Gen Oxy - Y

As with the Main Airlock, crew increase their personal oxygen first, so will be limited in how much they can take from the general supply.

Crew: Increase the General Oxygen supply by 1 per 2 Crew in the Oxygen Hydropod.

• Noted as: Crew: + 1 Gen Oxy per 2 Crew here.

1 Crew in the Pod produces 0 Oxygen, 2 Crew produce 1 Oxygen each.

Rec Room

Auto: All Crew here may gain 1 Morale for each other Crew here.

• Noted as: Auto: +1 Morale per other Crew here

Activating prior to Check Phase Step 2 means Rec Room Morale can be highly valuable.

Command Module

Crew: Skip the next Challenge Phase Step 1.

• Noted as: Crew: Skip Challenge Step 1

The only purpose of this ability is to stop Pods that have no Arrays from automatically shutting down for a turn.

Crew: Move 1 Crew's movement token to a Location adjacent to its current Location.

• Noted as: Crew: Move 1 Crew to Adjacent Location

This may be used to move the crew activating the ability. Aside from allowing additional movement, this is the only method of returning Crew in the Cryogenics Pod to duty. This does mean that if the Command Module is face down Cryogenics Pod residents are trapped in suspended animation.

Computer Module

Crew: Flip 1 white Location face up.

• Noted as: Crew: Flip 1 white Location up

Crew: Flip 1 white or yellow Location face down. Try to place activating Crew's Rank token on a Crew Card with a Movement token in the flipped Location or a Location attached to it.

• Noted as: Crew: Flip 1 Location down

White locations are the Pods, Modules, Airlocks, Rec Room and Central Corridor. Yellow locations are the Arrays. Arrays are attached to Pods.

Locations that are both unoccupied and attached to unoccupied locations can still be flipped face down.

Like the Medical Pod this uses Rank tokens to track Crew's sense of guilt, moving them to crew that will die due to a location flipping down or, in the case of shutting down Arrays attached to occupied Pods, put in peril by it.

Solar Array

Crew: Flip an adjacent Location face up.

• Noted as: Crew: Flip Adjacent Location up

This can only flip other Solar Arrays face up, since Pods are not Adjacent to Solar Arrays, it is also the only generally available method of flipping Solar Arrays.

Activation Cards assigned to Crew Cards with Movement tokens here are treated as reading "may move to any Array or Airlock" and are always flipped and resolved in Activation Step 2. Crew here cannot reduce the General Oxygen supply.

• Noted as: Treat Activation cards here as "Move to any Array or Airlock"
• Noted as: Crew here cannot reduce Gen Oxy

This means that it is impossible to move from an Array directly to core ship locations such as a Pod or Module. Also, that Crew here without Personal Oxygen will die in Check Phase Step 3.

Shuttle Array

Auto: If Crew here try to move this location to touch 1 location then try to move crew here to adjacent location. This location counts as adjacent to any location it is touching.

• Noted as: If Crew here, try to move this location to touch location, try to move Crew here to adjacent.
• Noted as: Always counts as adjacent to touching.

The shuttle array can be used to move crew to any location in play, but crew are unable to remain in the shuttle unless it is moved next to a location that they are unable to move into.

Crew Details

First Officer

Crew: Must flip 2 Missions face down.

Since failing Missions comes with significant punishments this ability can be used to abort Missions players know will fail to avoid such negative effects, but only if 2 Missions can be shut down at once, forcing you to sometime take the bad with the good.

Astronaut

Crew: Must reduce General Oxygen by 6, Try to increase this Crew's Personal Oxygen by 6.

This ability reduces General Oxygen by 6, even if the Astronaut gains less due to already having some Personal Oxygen.

Generalist

Crew: Change this "Crew" action to that of 1 other living Crew.

This ability can only copy "Crew" actions, not inherent abilities such as that on the Psychologist. All text becomes that of the copied card. This means that if an ability such as the Astronaut's is copied 6 Oxygen will still be paid even though only 4 can ever be gained. Note that the new ability becomes permanent, since the Generalist's original ability is lost.

Botanist

Crew: Must reduce Crew in Hydro Pod's Morale by Y, increase General Oxygen by Y.

This ability can reduce any number of crew's Morale by any amount for oxygen provided they are in the Hydro Pod, it may target more than one crew member at a time. The Botanist does not need to be in the Hydro Pod themselves.

Trillionaire Backer

Crew: Missions with only this Crew's rank token on them count as having their success conditions fulfilled.

The Trillionaire Backer is a Kickstarter stretch goal representing our backers within the game. As such it is intentionally extremely powerful and will change the shape of the game, creating a new challenge when used, players who wish to experience a Challenge Deck's story as intended and in full should remove the Trillionaire from the game at set up. If the Trillionaire is present players will find the Mission becomes a PR exercise as they constantly use the Radio Pod to report the Trillionaire's progress back to the waiting world's press. Players who wish to use the Trillionaire Backer in a game without changing the nature of the challenge should insist that it has the lowest available Rank token.

General Rules

To Randomly determine a Crew member, place all relevant Rank tokens in a container and select one without looking, then return them to their Crew Cards.

To Randomly determine a Location; all locations that may be chosen randomly will have one or more Ts or Hs in brackets in their top left corner (T for Tails and H for Heads). Flip a coin and ignore all Locations whose listed letter does not match the result. Repeat for remaining letters in order until only the number of Locations required remain. When all eligible Locations list the same current letter, skip to the next.

A card asks players to Randomly determine a Pod. Since all pods start with an H they skip that letter then flip a coin, which comes up Heads, eliminating the Radio Pod (H,T,H) and Oxygen Hydro Pod (H,T,T), they then flip Tails eliminating the Medical Pod (H,H,H), so the Cyrogenics Pod is selected (H,H,T).

Face down cards lose random selection designators and so will always be skipped by future random determinations.

If a Crew Card is ever turned face down by game effects immediately return any Rank tokens on it to their matching Crew Cards and the face down Crew's Rank token and coloured movement token to its Card. If a Crew Card is ever turned face up, turn its Morale and Personal Oxygen dials to 0, place its colour token in a Location of the controlling player's choice and its matching numbered Rank Token on its Crew Card.

If a choice is ever unclear the player whose Crew activated the Ability or effect chooses between options, if no Crew activated it the highest-Ranking player chooses. In any debate over rules interpretations the highest-Ranking player has final say.

This includes timing issues such as the order to resolve mission rewards or multiple Crew deaths, which will go to the highest-Ranking player's choice.

Mission Guides, Morale and Personal Oxygen supply counts cannot raise past their top level, crew Morale and Personal Oxygen dials can never be raised above the highest level printed under Morale or Personal Oxygen on their Crew Cards. The General Oxygen supply count cannot raise past its set up level. No count can drop below 0.

The Captain's Crew Card lists 4 as the highest value under Morale, so they can never have their Morale dial raised to 5 or 6 by any means.

Whenever a Mission Card is activated outside of Challenge Phase Step 6 flip it face-up and place a marker on the highest number of the Mission Guide.

When text requires that a card be flipped it should be turned over from one face to another. If it requires that a face up card be flipped face up or a face down card face down nothing occurs.

If there are ever seven or more face up Crew for any reason players get 1 Activation Card per living Crew only.

Challenge Decks

SSO has a range of challenge decks, each of which has specific missions and challenge cards. Each deck has an accompanying PDF FAQ guide to clarify any issues that players might have. The QR codes in the manual take you directly to the PDFs for all existing Challenge decks, but they and any future PDFs can all be found at www.manokentgames.com/howtoplaysso

A note on Betrayal and Co-operation

SSO is a semi-co-operative game, in that players win and lose as individuals, rather than a single player's elimination losing the game for all concerned. Since oxygen is limited and other crew will consume this precious resource this does mean that the betrayal and disposal of other crew is a potential advantage. However, it should be noted that the game's Challenge decks are aggressive and deadly, and that in general having additional crew available to complete the missions that they generate is more than worth the cost in oxygen, even for ruthlessly self-obsessed players.

Player's crew represent dedicated professionals who have trained together as a team and worked closely in deep space for years just to catch up with the Omega, they are not killers nor even strangers, and for them to attack each other will take a great deal of skill and focus for a player to be successful.

There will often be times when not all players can win, but these times will rarely crystallise until extremely late in the game and are as likely to be a moment of sacrifice as betrayal. Successful and rewarding betrayal in SSO is difficult and will almost certainly be based on snatched chances rather than open murder.

Generally, in SSO it is a bad idea to kill another crew-member until they have saved your life at least a few times. If players find that killing their friends is ending badly for them, the best advice is, stop doing it.

Scoring Success

To score victory beyond simply winning and losing use these values: face up Crew = 10; face down Crew = 15; per point of Oxygen remaining (personal and general) = 1; per face up Location = 2. Total the values and divide them by the number of starting crew then check the value below.

• 0 - 4: Should a mission fall to this level of operational capacity Mission Control will officially consider it a piss poor job. We have a stamp for it and everything.
• 5 - 8: Operational capacity of this level will technically be considered 'successful'. Note that the return journey of such a mission would be considered 'universally fatal'.
• 9 - 12: Minimal level operational capacity to not be laughed at when you make it back to the officer's mess. Not that you actually will make it back.
• 13 - 16: Sufficient mission success to have both saved humanity and to achieve partial crew survival.
• 17 - 19: Mission completed and we won't be needing to write too many letters for widows either, which we much prefer if given the option.
• 20 +: Salutes and medals all around, we'll smoke you a kipper, you'll be back for breakfast.

Players with no crew when other players win have lost. If the game ends with no players winning or losing (when the Challenge deck runs out but no crew remain face-up) then the crew have sacrificed themselves for the good of humanity, they will be long spoken of and remembered, but they will still be dead. The game should be considered a win, though all players should consider themselves to have lost.

Rage of Montalbano Deck Identifier

The SSO deluxe expansion is provided with the 'Rage of Montalbano' Challenge Deck, representing a rival captain jealously attacking the Omega. Challenge Decks are never set identified for game play reasons so to separate out Challenge Decks that get jumbled up the 'Rage of Montalbano' Challenge Deck consists of:

1 x Sinister Noise, 1 x Sinister Noises, 2 x Boarders, 1 x Search and Report, 1 x Vent Oxygen by crew, 1 x Vent Oxygen by crew÷2, 1 x Report, 1 x Maintenance Report, 1 x Meteor Strike, 1 x Airlock Shutdown, 2 x Strike, 2 x Power Array, 2 x Torpedo Array, 2 x Laser Array, 1 x Bridge Array, 2 x Hostile Resistance, 2 x Traumatic Stress.

Missions: Search Pattern, Emergency Oxygen Protocol, Full Status Report, Realign Solar Arrays, Battle Stations, All Hands Out.