Starfall Exchange

How to play Starfall Exchange

1. Each player starts with 40 Hull and a shuffled deck of seven Parcel Skiffs and three Patrol Darts. Draw five cards; the first player starts with three to balance the opening.
2. On your turn, play ships from your hand. They generate trade, attack, repairs, shields or more cards. Playing a second or later ship of the same non-neutral fleet grants 2 extra attack.
3. Spend trade to buy ships from the five-card shared market, replenished from 572 cards representing 500 market designs: 125 designs in each of four fleets. Purchases go into your discard pile; the market refills from a finite supply. Ten Frontier Sloops are available in a separate reserve for 2 trade each. New ships become available when your discard pile reshuffles into your deck.
4. Strike to spend all accumulated attack against the opponent. Shields absorb damage first and persist until that player’s next turn. Repairs cannot raise Hull above 40.
5. Once per turn you may salvage one unplayed card from your hand: remove it permanently and gain 1 trade. Use this to improve your deck.
6. End your turn to discard your hand and played ships, lose unspent trade and attack, draw five, and pass play. Reducing the opponent to 0 Hull wins. After 80 total turns, highest Hull wins; equal Hull is a draw.
7. Bases stay in play instead of being discarded. Their printed benefits happen immediately on deployment and automatically at the start of each of your turns. Your bases count as matching factions for deployed ships. Bases themselves do not earn the generic +2 Attack faction bonus.
8. Spend Attack equal to a base’s Defense to destroy it in one action; no partial damage is stored. The card goes to its owner’s discard pile and may be drawn again. Destroy all enemy outposts before targeting non-outpost bases or Hull. Temporary shields protect Hull, not bases. Leftover Attack remains available after destroying a base.
9. Faction powers resolve once when deploying that card, after its ordinary effects, if another ship of the same faction is already deployed this turn. The earlier ship does not trigger retroactively. Cards in hand, deck or discard do not count; Neutral ships never match. Read each card for its extra faction ability.
10. The expanded catalog contains 468 modular hull/system combinations plus the original 32 market designs (including eight bases). Each expanded ship has a deployment power and a matching-faction power. Powers resolve after ordinary effects; repairs cap at 40 Hull. A base counts for faction matching. Systems are combinations of shared mechanics, not 500 unrelated abilities.
11. Computer players use public market information and their own hand. They play ships, buy upgrades, strike, and finish their turns without AI calls.

Bring your group together

Open a table, invite your friends, then start when everyone is ready. The host can add available computer players before starting. For a living-room game, open the TV screen from your table while everyone plays on their own device.

Explore Starfall’s 500 market designs and four factions.