Ruling — Nexus Ops

You asked

How do I play?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Nexus Opsbg-15363-en-1e

To play the game, follow these steps:

**Setup**

1. Randomly determine the first player and give them the first player marker, which they keep for the duration of the game.[1]

2. Each player chooses a faction and takes the corresponding plastic unit pieces and reference sheet (placing the sheet with the red and black striped side faceup).[1]

3. Place the Monolith hex tile in the middle of the play area.[1]

4. Shuffle the six single-hex tiles facedown and place them in a circle around the Monolog.[1]

5. Shuffle the six double-hex tiles facedown and place them in a circle around the single-hex tiles.[1]

6. Place a home base tile next to the board for each player in the position indicated by the 'Game Board Setup' diagram.[1]

7. Flip all terrain tiles faceup.[1]

8. Shuffle the Secret Mission cards to create a deck and place it facedown near the board.[1]

9. Shuffle the Energize cards to create a deck and place it facedown near the Secret Mission deck.[1]

10. Place all Battle Victory cards faceup in a deck.[1]

11. Shuffle the remaining exploration tokens facedown and randomly place one token facedown on all hexes except home base hexes and the Monolith.[1]

12. Place the rubium tokens in a pile next to the board to create a supply and place the dice near the board.[1]

13. Each player receives starting rubium: the first player receives 8, and each subsequent player in clockwise order receives 3 additional rubium.[1]

**The Turn**

Starting with the first player, each player takes a turn as the active player, performing the following phases in order:[2]

1. **Deployment Phase**: The active player may purchase and place new units on any of their home base hexes (even if occupied by other players) using rubium from their supply.[2] They may also play 'Deployment Phase' Energize cards by stating they are playing them and following the card instructions.[2]

2. **Movement Phase**: The active player may move each unit once.[2]

3. **Exploration Phase**: The active player reveals facedown exploration tokens in hexes where their units are present.[2]

4. **Battle Phase**: The active player conducts battle in each contested hex where their units are present.[2] During battle, players may trigger unit abilities or play Energize cards in the order of attacker, defender, then other players clockwise from the defender's left.[3] After all players pass, attack rolls begin.[3]

5. **Mining Phase**: The active player collects rubium from each controlled hex where their miner units (Humans, Fungoids, and Crystallines) are present.[2]

6. **Draw Phase**: The active player draws one Secret Mission card.[2] If the active player controls the Monolith, they also draw two Energize cards.[2]

After the Draw phase, the player to the left of the active player becomes the new active player.[2]

**Additional Rules**

* **Vortex**: Before the first player's turn, they must resolve the Vortex effect by rolling one black die and one white die to move units, then rolling one die to potentially destroy units in a specific hex, and finally drawing Energize cards for each controlled hex adjacent to the Vortex.[4] (Note: Skip these steps during the first player's first turn).[4]

* **Card Usage**: Players may discard Energize or Secret Mission cards from their hand at any time during their turn to gain one rubium per card.[5]

* **Winning**: The method of winning depends on the game mode (e.g., reaching 12 individual victory points or, in a four-player team game, a combined total of 20 victory points).[6]

[1] RULEBOOK Nexus Ops — Rulebook · p.4 · setup

[2] RULEBOOK Nexus Ops — Rulebook · p.4 · a pLayer's turn · depLOyment phase · hidden and Open infOrmatiOn

[3] RULEBOOK Nexus Ops — Rulebook · p.8 · card types · victOry pOint cards · battLe victOry cards · secret missiOn cards · Order Of chOOsinG

[4] RULEBOOK Nexus Ops — Rulebook · p.10 · vOrtex

[5] RULEBOOK Nexus Ops — Rulebook · p.9 · battLe exampLe · enerGize cards · exchanGinG cards fOr rubium

[6] RULEBOOK Nexus Ops — Rulebook · p.10 · fOur-pLayer team ruLes

Question closed. Friendships intact.

🔧 debug — where this ruling came from

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
corpus profile: live,vps
answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only): gemma4:26b think:false 5571076f3d70
timings: search 106 ms · ask 8764 ms · total 18142 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 9270 ms · generation 8872 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 4, "score": 0.047938, "snippet": "Before playing, set up the game as follows: Determine First Player: Randomly determine who plays first and give this player the first player marker. That player keeps the first player marker for the duration of the game. Choose Factions: Starting with the first player, each player chooses a faction ", "headingPath": "setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 608}, {"page": 10, "score": 0.047883, "snippet": "To play a four-player team game, set up the game for four players as shown in the diagram on page 12. Players separate into two teams of two players each. Teammates sit across from each other. Instead of playing to 12 individual victory points, the first team to reach a combined total of 20 victory ", "headingPath": "fOur-pLayer team ruLes", "sharpsignalDocId": 608}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.046642, "snippet": "Starting with the first player, each player takes a turn being the active player . During his turn, only the active player performs the following phases in order: Deployment Phase: He may purchase and place new units as well as play 'Deployment Phase' Energize cards. Movement Phase: He may move each", "headingPath": "a pLayer's turn · depLOyment phase · hidden and Open infOrmatiOn", "sharpsignalDocId": 608}, {"page": 12, "score": 0.046175, "snippet": "Deployment: Purchase new units and play Deployment Energize cards. Movement: Move each unit once. Exploration: Reveal facedown exploration tokens. Battle: Conduct battles and play Battle Energize cards. Mining: Collect rubium from refineries in each controlled hex where at least one of your units ca", "headingPath": "a pLayer's turn", "sharpsignalDocId": 608}, {"page": 9, "score": 0.046032, "snippet": "The game ends immediately if either of the following conditions occur: A player acquires 12 or more victory points. That player wins the game. A player is eliminated from the game. A player is eliminated if both of the following conditions are true: None of his units are on the board. He does not ha", "headingPath": "winninG the Game · OptiOnaL ruLes · time is Of the essence · in fOr the LOnG hauL · executive Orders · kinG Of the hiLL", "sharpsignalDocId": 608}, {"page": 10, "score": 0.043301, "snippet": "Instead of drawing only one Secret Mission card during the Draw phase, the active player draws two Secret Mission cards, chooses one to keep in his hand, and returns the other card to the bottom of the Secret Mission deck. Included with this game are six extra exploration tokens, marked with green b", "headingPath": "tOp priOrity · extra expLOratiOn tOkens · intercepted transmissiOns", "sharpsignalDocId": 608}, {"page": 10, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "During the Place Terrain step of setup, flip the Monolith hex to reveal the Vortex. Each edge of this hex is labeled with one face of a six-sided die. It does not matter how players orient this hex during setup, but once placed it must remain in that position for the duration of the game. Each time ", "headingPath": "vOrtex", "sharpsignalDocId": 608}, {"page": 9, "score": 0.030018, "snippet": "The active player wins a battle in a Liquifungus Forest by destroying one enemy Crystalline, and one of his Fungoids survives the battle. He takes one Battle Victory card from the deck and places it faceup in his play area. In his hand he also has 'Send in the Fungus Creatures,' which he fulfilled d", "headingPath": "battLe exampLe · enerGize cards · exchanGinG cards fOr rubium", "sharpsignalDocId": 608}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 608}, {"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "a pLayer's turn · depLOyment phase · hidden and Open infOrmatiOn", "sharpsignalDocId": 608}, {"page": 8, "quote": null, "headingPath": "card types · victOry pOint cards · battLe victOry cards · secret missiOn cards · Order Of chOOsinG", "sharpsignalDocId": 608}, {"page": 10, "quote": null, "headingPath": "vOrtex", "sharpsignalDocId": 608}, {"page": 9, "quote": null, "headingPath": "battLe exampLe · enerGize cards · exchanGinG cards fOr rubium", "sharpsignalDocId": 608}, {"page": 10, "quote": null, "headingPath": "fOur-pLayer team ruLes", "sharpsignalDocId": 608}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 608 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 608 boosted
answered-before recall: this ruling was answered, so past rulings were not offered
similarity threshold in force: 0.55 (rulesage.answered-before.similarity-threshold; the exact-question tier is not gated by it)
answer fence: passed — letter density 0.90850 of 2940 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row retained until: Nov 23, 2026 16:59 UTC

retrieval — what the passage search returned

what this block IS: the PASSAGE SEARCH's own results — the same search that fills this page's closest-passages list — and NOT the passages the answerer read. Answering runs its OWN retrieval: a far wider candidate pool, re-ranked down to a final handful, plus floors this search never applies — the base rulebook, surviving errata corrections, and one slot per book on a multi-book read. Each of those armed only if THIS ask sent what it needs: the boost block names the ids it forwarded, and the scope line names the books it read. A document the answer CITES that no row here names is therefore EXPECTED, not a defect: two searches, two candidate pools, two orders. The answerer's own final rows are shown in their own block below, beside these and never mixed into them.

score = the fused retrieval score (reciprocal-rank fusion over the search arms) — NOT a cosine similarity. This ruling ran the THREE-ARM fuse (full-text + vector + the doc-priority boost arm, which carried the base rulebook and/or the errata corrections this query matched), whose arithmetic ceiling is 0.04918 — all three arms ranking the same chunk #1 (ceiling = arms/(k+1) at k=60). The measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 was measured on TWO-arm asks and does not bound this one: its high end is the two-arm ceiling, and a third arm has room above it. A chunk only one arm ranked highly lands near 0.016 (that one arm's #1 vote), so 0.03 here is an excellent hit, not a 3% match.

per-arm ranks (the rank each search arm gave a chunk): NOT DISCLOSED by the gateway. Fusion happens gateway-side and only the FUSED score crosses the wire, so rulesage cannot show them without a gateway change. The rank column below is the FUSED rank (position in the returned list), which is real.

token count per chunk: NOT DISCLOSED — chunk token counts are not reported on the ask path. The character counts below are of the bounded snippet/quote rulesage actually received — a real measurement of what we hold, never an estimate of the chunk.

fused rank	document	heading	page	fused RRF score	snippet chars
#1	RULEBOOK Nexus Ops — Rulebook (corpus doc 608)	setup	p.4	0.047938 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#2	RULEBOOK Nexus Ops — Rulebook (corpus doc 608)	fOur-pLayer team ruLes	p.10	0.047883 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#3	RULEBOOK Nexus Ops — Rulebook (corpus doc 608)	a pLayer's turn · depLOyment phase · hidden and Open infOrmatiOn	p.4	0.046642 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#4	RULEBOOK Nexus Ops — Rulebook (corpus doc 608)	a pLayer's turn	p.12	0.046175 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#5	RULEBOOK Nexus Ops — Rulebook (corpus doc 608)	winninG the Game · OptiOnaL ruLes · time is Of the essence · in fOr the LOnG hauL · executive Orders · kinG Of the hiLL	p.9	0.046032 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#6	RULEBOOK Nexus Ops — Rulebook (corpus doc 608)	tOp priOrity · extra expLOratiOn tOkens · intercepted transmissiOns	p.10	0.043301 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#7	RULEBOOK Nexus Ops — Rulebook (corpus doc 608)	vOrtex	p.10	0.030303 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#8	RULEBOOK Nexus Ops — Rulebook (corpus doc 608)	battLe exampLe · enerGize cards · exchanGinG cards fOr rubium	p.9	0.030018 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300

what the answerer read — the passages it actually had in front of it

what this block IS: the passages the ANSWERING read put in front of the answerer, in the order it read them — the other half of the two reads described above, and the one that decides what the answer could possibly say. Each row names the book it came from and where in that book it sits, what it scored when the search arms were fused, which arm carried it there, and whether the re-ranker chose it or a floor guaranteed it a slot. A row here that no passage-search row names is EXPECTED: a far wider pool, re-ranked, with floors the passage search never applies.

candidate pool: the answering read scored 22 passages, out of a ceiling of 80 set gateway-side. Both figures are reported by the gateway for THIS ask — measurements of what actually happened, not constants read out of anyone's source and printed here on faith.

floors armed for this ask: the base rulebook — armed · surviving errata corrections — not armed · one slot per book on a multi-book read — not armed. Every floor is stated on every ask, armed or not, so a floor that did not apply here is never mistaken for one this app does not know about.

arms fused for this ask: vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm. Stated separately from the rows because an arm that ran and carried nothing is a different fact from an arm that never ran.

read at	document	heading	page	fused rank	fused RRF score	carried by	how it got its slot
#1	RULEBOOK Nexus Ops — Rulebook (corpus doc 608)	setup	p.4	#1	0.047938 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#2	RULEBOOK Nexus Ops — Rulebook (corpus doc 608)	a pLayer's turn	p.12	#4	0.046175 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#3	RULEBOOK Nexus Ops — Rulebook (corpus doc 608)	a pLayer's turn · depLOyment phase · hidden and Open infOrmatiOn	p.4	#3	0.046642 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#4	RULEBOOK Nexus Ops — Rulebook (corpus doc 608)	vOrtex	p.10	#7	0.030303 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#5	RULEBOOK Nexus Ops — Rulebook (corpus doc 608)	card types · victOry pOint cards · battLe victOry cards · secret missiOn cards · Order Of chOOsinG	p.8	#9	0.029907 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text	the re-ranker chose it
#6	RULEBOOK Nexus Ops — Rulebook (corpus doc 608)	battLe exampLe · enerGize cards · exchanGinG cards fOr rubium	p.9	#8	0.030018 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text	the re-ranker chose it
#7	RULEBOOK Nexus Ops — Rulebook (corpus doc 608)	aLternate units · aLternate twO-pLayer bOards · enerGy dependence	p.11	#13	0.028191 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text	the re-ranker chose it
#8	RULEBOOK Nexus Ops — Rulebook (corpus doc 608)	fOur-pLayer team ruLes	p.10	#2	0.047883 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Nexus Ops — Rulebook (corpus doc 608)	setup	p.4	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Nexus Ops — Rulebook (corpus doc 608)	a pLayer's turn · depLOyment phase · hidden and Open infOrmatiOn	p.4	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Nexus Ops — Rulebook (corpus doc 608)	card types · victOry pOint cards · battLe victOry cards · secret missiOn cards · Order Of chOOsinG	p.8	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Nexus Ops — Rulebook (corpus doc 608)	vOrtex	p.10	no quote on the wire
[5]	RULEBOOK Nexus Ops — Rulebook (corpus doc 608)	battLe exampLe · enerGize cards · exchanGinG cards fOr rubium	p.9	no quote on the wire
[6]	RULEBOOK Nexus Ops — Rulebook (corpus doc 608)	fOur-pLayer team ruLes	p.10	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 106 ms · first delta 2478 ms · total 18142 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown: queued 9270 ms · retrieval 106 ms · ask 8764 ms · gateway work 8872 ms · total 18142 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3588
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 831
tok/sec: 131.6 tok/sec — 831 output tokens in 6.314 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 35s ago)
gateway schema (read from the running child): schema head 0042_definer_search_path (live revision not readable by this principal)
answerer host (measured by rulesage): reachable (for 60h, checked 3s ago)
answerer node (the seat proxy's own header — this probe, not this ask): node1
stream path: streamed — the gateway pushed at least one accumulated draft
watchdog: first-token watchdog: 30s per arming window (rulesage.table.first-token-watchdog-seconds), re-armed once by the passages frame — so the worst case before a reader falls back to polling is 60s. Whether it actually fired is a BROWSER-side decision that never reaches the server, so it is not recorded here. The stream path above is the server's half of that story: whether a delta was emitted at all.
num_ctx · think posture: both are the CHILD's settings, not rulesage's, and no ask reply carries them — an answer never states which context window or think posture produced it. The live-seat line above reads them from the running child instead, where the gateway can answer for itself; it describes the child NOW, not this ask.

disposition

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
abstain rationale (n/a — this ruling answered): answered — no abstain rationale applies

setup-shape — why the checklist band did or didn't render

decision: NOT_SETUP_SHAPED — no setup-shape pattern matched this question

errata registry — what the gate above had to match against

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 540), so "no registered errata card matched" above could never have matched one

Errata scope: the gate above matched this ruling's own edition only. When an ask also reads an expansion, that expansion's own registered errata cards stay outside the match — a stated phase-1 limitation, not a failed lookup.