Rio Grande Games to Launch Space Station Phoenix in April 2022

Starting with a hub, raw materials, and a fleet of spaceships, in Space Station Phoenix you attempt to construct multiple levels of your own space station, ideally gaining multiple bonuses via diplomacy in order to fuel your growth.

To set up, each player starts with a set of five level 1 spaceships, then drafts four other spaceships, two each of level 2 and level 3. You choose one of the two space station hubs you were dealt randomly, take the resources, bonuses, and penalties shown on that hub, then install that hub in your player board. Bonus might include advancement on the diplomacy board, which has tracks for four of the actions in the game: dismantle, construct, transport, and expedition.


Space station sectors come in three colors, and each color has three levels of sectors. Reveal as many sectors of each color and level as the number of players in the game, e.g., four of each in a four-player game, so 36 total sectors.

On a turn, you take either a ship action or an income action. When you take a ship action, place your action marker on an unused ship, pay the cost of the ship onto that ship (thereby marking it as used), pay the owner of the ship their use fee (assuming the ship is not yours), then carry out the action.


Six types of ship actions are possible:

• Dismantle: Select an unused ship in your fleet, remove it from the game, then gain metal equal to the value shown on that card.
• Construction: Pay metal equal to the cost shown on a sector, then add that sector to your space station. You can add a specific color/level combination only once, and you must build a color in order from level 1 to level 3, but you can jump from color to color as you wish.
• Transport: Exchange resources and GEMs (galactic exchange minerals, the game's currency) for aliens or for other resources. When you gain a non-gold alien, place it in the living quarters of a matching colored sector; when you gain a gold alien, place it in the living quarters of any sector.
• Expedition: Head to Earth to find humans and resources. Roll as many dice as the ship indicates, then choose dice up to that ship's capacity. Collect resources (water, food, metal) immediately. If you roll a human, you can either observe that human (gaining 1 point) or pay one of each resource to gain that human and place it in the living quarters of any sector.
• Diplomacy: Pay the lobbying cost (1-5 GEMs) to advance a level on one of the diplomacy tracks.
• Resources food/ice: Collect as much food or water as is indicated on the ship used.


Additionally, five neutral ships are available. If you haven't yet placed your "neutral ship" token, you can place it on an unused ship and pay the cost to use it.

When you take a ship action, you might gain bonus actions from the aliens and humans in your living quarters.

Each time a player uses one of the first four actions, all players who have advanced on this track on the diplomacy board gain a bonus, with the type of bonus dependent upon whether you're ahead of everyone else, tied for first, or just somewhere beyond the starting space.


If you have fewer than 8 GEMs or at least one of your ships is used, you can take an income action. Retrieve your action market and neutral ship token (if played), return GEMs from all of your ships to the bank, gain income based on your hub and any bonuses in living quarters, then optionally pay GEMs to move aliens and humans within your living quarters.

At the end of a player's turn, if they have 40 or more points or they've built all nine sector of their space station or fewer than five aliens remain in stock, the end of the game is triggered, with each other player taking one final turn. Players then score points for their constructed sectors, their aliens and humans, pluralities in each of the five types of residents, their occupied endgame bonuses on level 3 sectors, and their leftover resources and GEMs. Whoever scores the most points wins.