Ruling — Pulsar 2849

You asked

how do i set up the game for 3 players?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Pulsar 2849bg-228341-en-1e

To set up the game for 3 players, follow these steps:

1. Place the star cluster board in the center of the table.[1]

2. Use the side of the star cluster board without dead ends for your first game.[1]

3. Flip the dice board to the side designated for a 2- or 3-player game and place it anywhere against the star cluster board.[1]

4. Place 3 of 6 goal tiles against the star cluster board with the marked side up (for your first game) or choose 3 at random with a random side up (for a standard game).[2]

5. Set the time marker to point at the innermost row of technologies.[2]

6. Place 3 technology boards (one for each category: I, II, and III) against the star cluster board in order, with board I on the inside and board III on the outside.[2]

7. Keep engineering cubes where everyone can reach them.[2]

8. Group transmitter tiles by their letters (A, B, and C), stack each group with the lettered side up and shuffle, then create a big stack with Cs on the bottom, Bs in the middle, and As on top; deal the top 3 transmitters beside the stack.[2]

9. Place the gyrodyne board anywhere against the star cluster board.[1]

10. Separate gyrodyne tiles by type and stack each group in its place on the gyrodyne board.[1]

11. Create three stacks of construction award tiles, each with a 7-point award tile atop a 4-point award tile, and place them on the indicated spaces of the gyrodyne board.[1]

12. Use 7 silver dice and the red die, leaving 2 silver dice in the box; start the dice in the black hole in the center of the board.[1]

13. Turn 16 planetary system tiles face down, mix them, and deal them to the planetary system locations on the star cluster board.[1]

14. Place the die modifiers board anywhere against the star cluster board.[1]

15. Give one plus-minus die modifier token to each player and stack the rest on the corresponding space on the die modifiers board.[1]

16. Stack plus-two die modifier tokens on their corresponding space on the die modifiers board.[1]

17. Shuffle exploration bonus tiles and keep them in a facedown stack where everyone can reach them.[1]

18. Each player chooses a color and takes a quick reference sheet.[3][4]

19. Each player takes one hundred-point tile and places it near space 0.[4]

20. Each player takes one plus-minus die modifier token.[1]

21. Each player takes one HQ board (for a standard game, these are randomly selected; for the first game, leave them in the box).[4][1]

22. Place one rocket figure of each player's color on the dice board's play-order spaces in a randomly determined order.[3][4]

23. In a three-player game, each player has one rocket figure on a play-order space and one on an entry gate, leaving the third rocket figure in the box.[4]

24. Beginning with the last player and proceeding in reverse play order, each player chooses one unoccupied entry gate and places one of their rocket figures there.[4]

25. Each player has two tokens on the dice board as counters for the initiative and engineering tracks, stacked in reverse order (first player's counter on the bottom, last player's on top) on the starting spaces.[3][4]

26. For a three-player game, place a token in a nonplayer color on any planet labeled with the specific symbol indicating it is not available.[5]

[1] RULEBOOK Pulsar 2849 — Rulebook · p.4 · OVERVIEW · SETUP

[2] RULEBOOK Pulsar 2849 — Rulebook · p.5 · SETUP

[3] RULEBOOK Pulsar 2849 — Rulebook · p.6 · PLAYER COMPONENTS · INITIAL POSITIONS

[4] RULEBOOK Pulsar 2849 — Rulebook · p.6

[5] RULEBOOK Pulsar 2849 — Rulebook · p.11 · Planets

The book has spoken.

🔧 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 164 ms · ask 5156 ms · total 5323 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 5323 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 6, "score": 0.04866, "snippet": "6 Each player should also take a quick reference sheet. Your rocket figures, your score tile, and some tokens go to the game boards, as explained below. Keep all your other components on the table in front of you. Tokens are also used as score counters around the edge of the star cluster board. The ", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 442}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.047643, "snippet": "Dice Board: Flip this to the correct side and place it anywhere against the star cluster board. This is the only board that depends on the number of players. Use this side for a 4-player game. Use this side for a 2- or 3-player game. Setup of the rocket figures and counters is described on page 6. M", "headingPath": "OVERVIEW · SETUP", "sharpsignalDocId": 442}, {"page": 19, "score": 0.047131, "snippet": "Use the two- and three-player side of the dice board. All other boards are the same for any number of players. In a two-player game, two rocket figures are used as play-order markers. Randomly decide which player will go first. Place that player's rocket figures on play-order spaces 1 and 3. The sec", "headingPath": "Setup · Example: · Dice Phase · Action Phase", "sharpsignalDocId": 442}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.04598, "snippet": "After each player has taken one die in order, each player takes a second die in reverse order. In the examples on this page, players choose in this order: Green, Yellow, Red, Red, Yellow, Green. The first player will choose his or her second die last. Exception: In a two-player game, each player has", "headingPath": "Second Die · EVEN START VARIANT", "sharpsignalDocId": 442}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.045695, "snippet": "3 of 6 Goal Tiles: For your first game, we recommend the three goal tiles marked with this symbol: . Place them against the star cluster board with the marked side up. For a standard game, choose 3 at random and play with a random side up. Return the 3 unused tiles to the box. Time Marker: This mark", "headingPath": "SETUP", "sharpsignalDocId": 442}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.032258, "snippet": "Each player chooses a color. Each color has the following components: Each player should also take a quick reference sheet. Your rocket figures, your score tile, and some tokens go to the game boards, as explained below. Keep all your other components on the table in front of you. Place one rocket f", "headingPath": "PLAYER COMPONENTS · INITIAL POSITIONS", "sharpsignalDocId": 442}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "Each round begins with a die roll. You use all 9 silver dice in a four-player game. In a two- or three-player game, you use only 7 silver dice. Each player will choose two dice that will be used to buy actions during the Action Phase. The choice of dice affects players' positions on the initiative a", "headingPath": "SUMMARY OF THE DICE PHASE · ROLLING THE DICE · DETERMINING THE MEDIAN", "sharpsignalDocId": 442}, {"page": 19, "score": 0.029644, "snippet": "Rearrange all four rocket figures according to the four counters on the initiative track. (In the setup for round 1, counters are stacked in reverse order. But at the start of all later rounds, the rocket figures should match the order shown on the initiative track.) This is the new play order. The ", "headingPath": "Production Phase · Final Scoring · TH R EE PL AYER GAME", "sharpsignalDocId": 442}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "OVERVIEW · SETUP", "sharpsignalDocId": 442}, {"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": "SETUP", "sharpsignalDocId": 442}, {"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "PLAYER COMPONENTS · INITIAL POSITIONS", "sharpsignalDocId": 442}, {"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 442}, {"page": 11, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Planets", "sharpsignalDocId": 442}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 442 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 442 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 0.90426 of 2674 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row recorded: Sep 30, 2026 18:22 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 Pulsar 2849 — Rulebook (corpus doc 442)		p.6	0.04866 (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 Pulsar 2849 — Rulebook (corpus doc 442)	OVERVIEW · SETUP	p.4	0.047643 (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 Pulsar 2849 — Rulebook (corpus doc 442)	Setup · Example: · Dice Phase · Action Phase	p.19	0.047131 (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 Pulsar 2849 — Rulebook (corpus doc 442)	Second Die · EVEN START VARIANT	p.8	0.04598 (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 Pulsar 2849 — Rulebook (corpus doc 442)	SETUP	p.5	0.045695 (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 Pulsar 2849 — Rulebook (corpus doc 442)	PLAYER COMPONENTS · INITIAL POSITIONS	p.6	0.032258 (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 Pulsar 2849 — Rulebook (corpus doc 442)	SUMMARY OF THE DICE PHASE · ROLLING THE DICE · DETERMINING THE MEDIAN	p.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))	300
#8	RULEBOOK Pulsar 2849 — Rulebook (corpus doc 442)	Production Phase · Final Scoring · TH R EE PL AYER GAME	p.19	0.029644 (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 35 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 Pulsar 2849 — Rulebook (corpus doc 442)	SETUP	p.5	#5	0.045695 (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 Pulsar 2849 — Rulebook (corpus doc 442)	PLAYER COMPONENTS · INITIAL POSITIONS	p.6	#6	0.032258 (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
#3	RULEBOOK Pulsar 2849 — Rulebook (corpus doc 442)		p.6	#1	0.04866 (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 Pulsar 2849 — Rulebook (corpus doc 442)	Second Die · EVEN START VARIANT	p.8	#4	0.04598 (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
#5	RULEBOOK Pulsar 2849 — Rulebook (corpus doc 442)	Planets	p.11	#9	0.029412 (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
#6	RULEBOOK Pulsar 2849 — Rulebook (corpus doc 442)	SUMMARY OF THE DICE PHASE · ROLLING THE DICE · DETERMINING THE MEDIAN	p.7	#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
#7	RULEBOOK Pulsar 2849 — Rulebook (corpus doc 442)	Setup · Example: · Dice Phase · Action Phase	p.19	#3	0.047131 (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
#8	RULEBOOK Pulsar 2849 — Rulebook (corpus doc 442)	OVERVIEW · SETUP	p.4	#2	0.047643 (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 Pulsar 2849 — Rulebook (corpus doc 442)	OVERVIEW · SETUP	p.4	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Pulsar 2849 — Rulebook (corpus doc 442)	SETUP	p.5	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Pulsar 2849 — Rulebook (corpus doc 442)	PLAYER COMPONENTS · INITIAL POSITIONS	p.6	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Pulsar 2849 — Rulebook (corpus doc 442)		p.6	no quote on the wire
[5]	RULEBOOK Pulsar 2849 — Rulebook (corpus doc 442)	Planets	p.11	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 164 ms · first delta 1086 ms · total 5323 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown: queued 0 ms · retrieval 164 ms · ask 5156 ms · gateway work 5323 ms · total 5323 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3639
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 827
tok/sec: 198.9 tok/sec — 827 output tokens in 4.157 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 43s ago)
answerer host (measured by rulesage): reachable (for 48h, checked 9s 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: NO_APPROVED_CHECKLIST — setup-shaped, but no approved setup checklist exists for this game
pattern that matched: SETUP — "setup" / "set up"
matched words (in the normalized question): set up

errata registry — what the gate above had to match against

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 373), 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.