Glossary & reference material
Commander’s manual · Rules v3
Storage, missing parts & play guidance
After a match, sort credits by guild and value and modules by department. Check for 72 credits and 60 unique modules before storage, including anything removed for a two-player match. Store boards flat and keep printed pieces dry. Reset all scores, discounts, purchase counts and Synergy records for the next game.
If a playtest piece is missing, reproduce it from its matching source artwork and module ID; do not substitute a different socket layout.
For a first game, focus on keeping a legal corridor to the Core and buying with exact payment. Readiness rewards spreading a department across rings, while Shield rewards outward bulkheads in sunward lanes. Neither guarantees victory: watch your opponents’ department totals before each Storm.
This reading sequence was informed by Michael Gray’s Rules Template for Game Designers. Afterlight Station’s rules and examples are specific to this game.
Appendix: prototype parameters
These values are placeholders until the simulation harness and playtesting confirm them. Changing one of them is a new rules version but not a structural change.
| Parameter | Prototype value |
|---|---|
| Sectors and rings | 10 sectors, 3 rings, 30 nodes |
| Sunward lanes | Sectors 8, 9, 0, 1, 2 |
| Shield points | 1 per screened lane, +1 per screened lane spanning two rings |
| Support thresholds | Middle ring 1 inner neighbor, outer ring 2 middle neighbors, same or adjacent sector |
| Readiness | M + 2 × (R − 1) |
| Synergy | 2 Renown for two qualifying neighbors, 3 for three departments |
| Market rotation | Modules at two discounts rotate to the bottom of the supply at round end |
| Department awards | 4; 7 / 3; 10 / 6 / 3 |
| Exact payment reward | One displayed card valued 3 or less |
| Supply | 60 modules, 10 per department, costs 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8, 9, 10 |
| Catalog sockets | About 36 modules with an outward port and 24 with an outward bulkhead; no module with four bulkheads |
| Catalog guilds | 20 per guild; 4, 3, 3 within each department |
| Credits | 3 guilds, values 1 to 6, 4 copies, 72 cards |
| Opening hand | At least 15 |
| Credit display | 6 cards |
| Multi-card acquire | Up to 3 cards, different guilds, total 7 or less |
| Market | 5 berths |
| Dry Dock | 4 modules |
| Storm thresholds | Purchases at one third and two thirds of the supply |
| Two players | Remove 12 modules, 2 per department and 4 per guild, and 1 copy of every credit |
Glossary
- Berth
- One of five market spaces. A module in a berth is bought with the credits of the guild printed on the module, not of the berth.
- Bulkhead
- A sealed socket. It never forms a corridor. When it is the outward socket of a lane's frontier module, it screens the lane.
- Command Core
- The pentagonal centre of every station board. Each of its five facets carries two docking ports, so it neighbours every inner-ring node and presents a docking port toward each. Not a department module, not a connected module for Synergy, and never a frontier.
- Corridor
- The connection between two neighbouring modules whose facing sockets are both docking ports, or between an inner-ring module with an inward port and the Core. Corridor routes are required for placement and counted for Synergy.
- Credit card
- A card of one guild suit valued 1 through 6. Held in a private hand; spent to purchase modules of that guild.
- Docking port
- An open socket. Two facing ports form a corridor. An exposed port is a self-sealing airlock: safe, but it does not screen a lane.
- Drift discount
- A reduction of one to a market module's effective cost, gained at the end of each complete round for which the module was eligible, to a maximum of two. The module keeps its berth and its guild; the discounts disappear when it is purchased.
- Market rotation
- At the end of a round, a market module that already holds two discounts is exchanged with the top module of the salvage supply and placed at the bottom of the supply.
- Dry Dock
- Each commander's storage for up to four purchased modules that are not installed. Docked modules do not count during scoring.
- Effective cost
- A module's printed salvage cost after its Drift discounts, never below one. Payment, and exact payment, are checked against it.
- Exact payment
- A purchase whose payment total equals the effective cost exactly. It grants one face-up credit card valued 3 or less, then the turn ends.
- Frontier
- In a lane, the installed module in the outermost occupied ring. Only its outward socket decides whether the lane is screened.
- Guild
- One of three salvage guilds, Fabrication, Energy, or Research, each with its own credit suit. Every module is sold by exactly one guild, printed on it.
- Inward marker
- The mark on every module that must point toward the Command Core when installed. Modules cannot be flipped or turned.
- Lane
- A sector inspected for the Storm Shield. The sunward lanes are sectors 8, 9, 0, 1, and 2; the other sectors are leeward and never score Shield points.
- Node
- One docking position on the station board, one in every ring of every sector, thirty in all. A node holds at most one module.
- Purchase counter
- The shared count of modules purchased. Reaching one third and two thirds of the supply triggers Storm I and Storm II.
- Qualifying neighbor
- An installed module joined to a newly installed module by a corridor and belonging to a different department. The Command Core never qualifies.
- Readiness
- A commander's strength in a department:
M + 2 × (R − 1), whereMis installed modules of that department andRthe number of rings they span. - Renown
- The score. Earned from Department Readiness, the Storm Shield, and Synergy; once scored, never lost.
- Ring
- One of three concentric bands of nodes around the Core: inner, middle, and outer.
- Round
- One turn for every commander in seat order, beginning with the starting commander's seat.
- Salvage supply
- The hidden, shuffled stack of modules that refills the market berths.
- Sector
- One of ten 36-degree wedges of the station board, numbered 0 to 9 clockwise. Sector 9 is adjacent to sector 0.
- Socket
- One of a module's four fixed connection faces: inward, outward, clockwise, and counterclockwise. Each is a docking port or a sealed bulkhead.
- Storm Shield
- Renown from the sunward lanes: 1 for every screened lane, plus 1 for every screened lane holding modules in at least two rings, scored at every Storm.
- Support
- The occupancy a middle-ring or outer-ring module needs from the ring inside it: one inner-ring module for a middle-ring module, two middle-ring modules for an outer-ring module, in the same or adjacent sectors. Support needs no corridor.
- Sunward axis
- The line from the centre of the station board out through the centre of sector 0, toward the sun. The five sunward lanes, sectors 8, 9, 0, 1, and 2, are centred on it.
- Synergy
- Renown earned when a module, at the moment it is installed, has corridors to at least two modules of departments other than its own: 2 Renown, or 3 when those neighbors span three departments. Only the module being installed is evaluated, and each module can earn it once per match.