Longer Game

To play a longer game with more possibilities in the opening, do not setup with VESTIGIAL STRUCTURES, add an extra suit to the instability deck and choose a corresponding instability effect to go with it.

Trigger Events

Trigger events represent structural shifts or solar phenomena brought about by the current environment of instability in the Sun.

There are 5 additional cards that can be added to the instability deck called trigger flares. If used, at setup shuffle some or all of the trigger flares into the instability deck and choose one trigger event face-up near the board.

During the game, whenever a trigger flare is drawn, immediately perform the effect on the trigger event card chosen at setup. Once resolved, remove the trigger flare from the game and immediately draw another card.

We recommend adding 4 trigger flares to the instability deck, but feel free to use more or less to add a taste or an onslaught to the game. The trigger events provided are:

• Attrition: Everyone sacrifices (to their reserve) one of their own sundivers.

• Implode: All sundivers on the board move down one layer, whether a gate is present or not. Any sundivers in the core are hurled.

• Explode: All sundivers are pushed out one layer, whether a gate is present or not. Any sundivers in outer orbit are "lost in space", and you must spend one move to fly them back into any space in outer orbit.

• Sunworm: All sundivers not on a station are consumed by the Sunworm...and sent back to player reserves.

• Warp: Each player chooses one of their sundivers in play (in their hold or on the board) and places it anywhere on the board.

• Singularity: Place all sundivers from player holds into spaces in the core (your choice, but respect the five sundiver per player limit).

• Energy Garden: In each space in the three layers of the Sun, place one energy cube if the space is empty (no sundivers, stations or energy cubes present) and it is not adjoining (adjacent in the same layer as) a space already containing an energy cube.

  These energy cubes are gained (taken into a player's hold) when one of their sundivers flies into the space containing that energy.

• Feeders: Each trigger flare, four feeders crawl out of the heart of the Sun into the core (use energy cubes to represent feeders). Place each one on a different space. Every solar flare, feeders move towards the nearest station on their layer.

  If there is no station on their layer, they move up one layer. For each feeder on a station, the activation reward is reduced by 1 (first base, then bonus).

  If there are enough feeders on a station to reduce the base plus bonus reward to 0, the station is destroyed (removed from the game), and the feeders are left on the board. You can remove feeders by taking a special SCOUR action.

  To scour, remove one feeder per sundiver in its space by recalling the sundivers and removing the feeders from the board. You can do this as many times in as many spaces as there are sundivers cohabitating with feeders during a single scour action. This takes your whole turn.

Solo Variant

To play Sol as a solo game, there are 2 changes to the standard rules of game play

• Draw a card each time you orbit your mothership, in addition to any other cards you may trigger that turn. This card cannot be kept and does not count for effects that are based on card draws (Pillar and Pulsate), but solar flares are still resolved normally.

• There is a special setup for each solo scenario which governs how many suits you use, which instability effects are in play, what if any stations and gates are already on the board, how many sundivers and energy you start with, if there are any restrictions on what station types you may build, and which trigger event is used (trigger events were originally developed for solo and co-op scenarios and later given an independent existence).

  The scenario also provides the momentum threshold for winning.

Solo Scenarios

All solo scenarios start with 8 sundivers and 0 energy in your hold unless otherwise noted.

• Ancient Tower: Tower in the core. 2 energy nodes in the convective, evenly spaced from each other with the mothership starting between them on one side of the board. 4 suits. No instability effects. Win if you gain 17 or more momentum before the last solar flare.

• Cosmic Unity: 3 suits, instability effects are Chain, Ceremony and Transcend. One energy node in the core. You may not convert sundivers into a tower. To win, gain 23 or more momentum.

• Solar Inhabitants: 3 suits, instability effects are Juggernaut, Procreate and Festival. Use the FEEDERS trigger event. Place one energy node, one foundry and one tower in the convective layer (mostly) evenly spaced. To win, gain 19 or more momentum.

• Energy Garden: 3 suits, instability effects are Hyperdrive, Transcend and Accelerate. Use the ENERGY GARDEN trigger event. Place one tower in the core. Cannot convert sundivers into energy nodes. To win, gain 31 or more momentum.

• Sunworm: 3 suits, instability effects are Puncture, Cluster and Procreate. Use the SUNWORM trigger event. Start with one foundry in the radiative layer. To win, gain 17 or more momentum.

• Solar Whirlpool: 8 sundivers and one energy. 3 suits, instability effects are Procreate, Motivate and Squeeze. Use the IMPLODE trigger event. Start with one tower in outer orbit on the opposite side of the board from your mothership. To win, gain 29 or more momentum.

Cooperative Variant

To play Sol as a cooperative game: use all the rules for the playing the Solo Variant above, with the addition that the final score for everyone as a group is the score of whoever has the least momentum! When constructing the instability deck, use the solar flares + one suit per player + one extra.

In addition to using one of the scenarios, you can play a straight cooperative game: pick 3 instability effects to use in the game, and assign suit tokens to them as evenly as possible (so some effects may have more than one token assigned to them).

You all collectively win if the lowest scoring player has at least 13 momentum. To increase the level of difficulty, raise this number in increments of 3. Now Sean's favorite way to play!

Levels of Survival

Instead of everyone perishing in a fiery cataclysm, if players decide they would like a more nuanced view of survival after supernova, you can play with these levels of survival.

The following levels show the results of your efforts to save your people.

Special thanks to Jonathan C. Osborne for this variant!

• 0-2 momentum:

  YOU HAVE FAILED YOUR PEOPLE!

  Your feeble attempts to gather the needed energy was insufficient to power your Ark. All the inhabitants who had counted on yaaou to save them are now doomed to annihilation as the Sun goes supernova.

  At least you'll get one last chance to look upon your homeworld from the bridge of the Ark before you are suddenly consumed.

• 3-7 momentum:

  ADRIFT IN DARKNESS.

  The energy you gathered was only enough to get away from the destructive path of the supernova's infernal rage. Unfortunately, you and the few people you were actually able to save from one fate are now marooned in the vastness of empty space.

  Your home is gone, and other habitable worlds are too far away. It is most likely that you saved your people from being consumed in flames only for them to die from suffocation and starvation.

• 8-12 momentum:

  HOME IN THE VOID.

  You saved your people from the supernova, but you simply do not have enough energy to get to any nearby planets.

  With the ingenuity it took to get this far and with the resources you've managed to bring with you, it is likely that you'll be able to maintain a workable system that would allow your population to survive aboard the Ark.

  It'll be a hard life, but at least your people will live on.

• 13-20 momentum:

  THE CHALLENGE AHEAD.

  ou have managed to get your people away from the dying throes of the Sun in time. Your Ark has enough energy to get you safely to a nearby planetary system...but not much farther.

  The planets available to you are not as hospitable as you'd like, but you've already overcome one tremendous hardship. The challenge of finding and colonizing a new world seems welcome, a point of focus and purpose in the aftermath of such a devastating event.

• 21-33 momentum:

  HOMEWARD BOUND.

  You have gathered an abundance of energy from your dying star. All thoughts turn to the heroic efforts of the Mothership and her crew of sundivers, now vapor in the space of your former system.

  Your Ark flies swiftly from the wreckage of the worlds you once knew. Your people prepare themselves to settle a new alien world and rebuild your civilization out of the ashes of the previous.

  The voices onboard your Ark rise in a song of determination and hope, looking to the future.

• 34-54 momentum:

  THE GALAXY IS YOURS.

  Congratulations! You have saved your people from the threat of certain annihilation.

  Massive energy reserves have allowed you to make extensive improvements to your Ark, transforming life aboard into something resembling your former Utopia. Your sensors are now able to scan farther and more accurately, allowing you more time to consider your final destination.

  With the entire galaxy before you, you have your pick of the planets you will eventually call home. Not only have you saved your people, but with so many worlds before you, you can rest assured that humankind will be able to spread out among the stars.

• 55+ momentum:

  TRANSCENDENCE.

  Your people captured the totality of the bound energy of the star, channeling it into a godlike command of spacetime. You see all things that have ever happened and all things that will ever be.

  You see at the vastness of the complete cosmos, and the glittering of the tiniest flicker of existence. Not only that, but your merest whim is like a fountain of creation, turning the universe into a tapestry of metamorphosis and beauty.

  Every particle rises to meet you in an ecstatic union of all existence.

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