Space Station Phoenix

Space Station Phoenix – From The Ashes of Disaster Come The Hab-Rings Of Success

Hello, my name is Rob Wright, I’m 50 something years of age and I still can’t get my head around Legacy games.

I know that the other year I said I was going to give a Legacy game a try but the closest I got was playing Gloomhaven: Jaws of The Lion, and even then it was only after I’d bought the re-usable map and sticker set. I just can’t bring myself to destroy a thing of beauty and of some expenditure.

Which is why I really like Space Station Phoenix. Which is not a Legacy game. But kind of is.

Yeah, I guess I’m going to have to explain myself.

Out There In Space, Will We Find Friends?

Space Station: Phoenix (SSP) is a game for two to four players from designer Gabriel J Cohn (whose other game, Exodus Fleet is about leaving Earth in a hurry) and publisher Rio Grande Games. In it, you take on the role of an alien fleet that have just rocked up to Earth to bring enlightenment by building an impressive space station in orbit. Nothing threatening whatsoever and we are definitely not hear to steal your precious bodily essences – no siree, Bob…

To do this, you are going to utilise the ships in your fleet to gain resources, improve diplomatic relationships, build space station sectors and house aliens and humans. Now unfortunately you can’t build space stations out of good intentions and hope alone – you’re going to need both cold hard cash and cold hard… metal too. Cold hard cash can be gained by taxing your fleet and charging rent to the poor suckers – I mean, pioneering individuals – living in your space station. Cold hard metal is going to be a little harder to get hold of because… hey, space ship captain, you weren’t needing that space ship of yours, because I might have kinda, sorta, ish… smashed it up for parts.

Soz.

Still, look at this shiny new apartment, just built in my space station – I’ll rent it to you at a bargain price… because where else are you gonna go? Eh?

Hub-ble, Bubble, Toil And Telescopes

Each player begins with a player board to show them what they can do, some tokens to place on the various trackers, five level one ships and a space station hub. Each hub determines what resources and advantages/disadvantages you start with, what special in-game effects you have and any end-of-game scoring methods you have. Each hub is different and there are basic and advanced hubs, so each player will be going for slightly different things, though the final aim is the same – gain the most victory points.

Most hubs will give the player some of the four resources used in the game – gems, food, water and metal. Gems are the cold hard cash of the game, and allow you to use the ships in your and other players fleets, grease the palms of diplomats or buy other resources. Food and water are needed to bring aliens and/or humans to your space station because eating and drinking. Metal is mainly used for building your space station. Mainly. Some hubs also give you special bonuses, like having one of your space station sections pre-built (there are nine to build in total), or even having it built and populated. There may be a forfeit to pay for this bonus though, like losing one of your five ships, and it might be a bit early to lose them. Still, look at all those other ships out there…

Did I say five ships? Well, that’s hardly a fleet, is it? You also get to draft two level two ships and two level three ships – these are similar to your level one ships but give you a few more bangs for your

buck. They are, of course, a bit more expensive to use. Still, look at all the lovely, gleaming metal they’re made from…

This will be about the point when you realise you may need a bigger table, because as well as everyone having their fleet, their space station, the resources and the parts of the space stations yet to be built, there is also the alien board, the diplomacy board and the shared ships board to go out.

At the beginning of the game, a certain number of pink, blue, brown and gold aliens (yes, they have names and, I mean no disrespect, but they are pretty tricky to remember) are drawn at random, determined by the player count, and placed on their respective planets. There are also a player-determined number of humans.

The diplomacy board allows players to benefit from their and everyone else’s actions in the game. Each of the game actions has a track, and, depending on where a player’s counter is on that track, when someone uses that action, that player will get some resources or points. Which is nice – the system works. Of course, the system costs, and the more influential you want to be, the more it will cost you.

The last board is the shared ship board, because as well as your own fleets turning up for the party, a bunch of hangers-on have mooched up to take advantage of the fact that you WILL turn most of your ships into bits n pieces and are willing to offer the same services for predictably inflated prices. Shameless cash-grabbers.

I See A Space Ship In The Harbour…

Now you are all set up, it’s time to play, and on your turn, you are able to do one of two things: use a ship or take income. Seeing as at the beginning of the game you will be pretty flush, gems-wise, it’s probably best to use your fleet. When you go to one of your ships, you place the required amount of gems on it to show that you’ve used it then do the thing; if you go to another player’s ship (which you can do and will be guaranteed to annoy), you place the required amount of gems on the ship AND hand over an indicated amount of gems to that player for their trouble.

Your ship/action choices will be Diplomacy, Construction, Terran Expedition, Transport or Dismantle. There are also Ice Collector and Farm ships available in the level two and level three ships, which simply provide food or water – steady away, but… eminently scrapable. Sorry, Canterbury (ed: The Expanse reference. One for the MLGs – Major League Geeks).

First on the list are the Diplomacy ships. Diplomacy allows you to benefit from what others do, so it’s good to be diplomatic. Send your token to the ship, then raise one of your diplomacy tokens (paying the additional cost to the bank) on the track of your choice – Construction, Expedition, Transport or Dismantle. Level two and level three ships allow you to progress on more than one track, but that will definitely cost you dear.

Construction ships allow you to get down to the real business of the game – building your space station. There are three different regions that you can build for your space station in Space station Phoenix, which for ease of explanation we shall call the pink, brown and blue sections. Each region is made out of three increasingly-sized sections and each has a cost in metal to build. Once built, they will be open for business and can be occupied by the appropriately coloured aliens, gold aliens or humans. Some sectors of your space station will give you an automatic bonus once built, but they will need to be populated for you to get the real benefit. These can be special bonuses that are activated when certain ships are used or certain things are obtained, but many of them are things that will happen when you take income. These will range from more gems to victory points. The level two and level three ships will allow you to build space station parts with a metal discount, and that doesn’t mean half-price Slayer albums (one for the metal fans out there).

In Space Station Phoenix Terran Expedition ships allow you to get resources and/or humans, but can be a bit random. Okay, a lot random, as you will be rolling dice. The ship will tell you how many to roll and how many you can keep, so there is a certain amount of agency involved, but… not much. The dice will either give you food, water, metal or humans. The three resources are what they are, but humans are different. Even though you may have rolled a human, you will need to pay one water, one food and one metal to recruit them and, unlike most aliens, they can go in any region of the space station. If you can’t afford to recruit them, you can simply ‘observe’ them for a victory point – no probing required. Level two and level three ships allow you to roll and keep more dice.

Transport ships allow you to trade gems or resources for other resources, or trade resources to transport aliens to your space station. Aliens have already had a bit of a mention, but here is where you bring the little beggars to the yard. Pink, brown and blue aliens (no little green aliens, let’s not perpetuate that cliché) can be obtained for one food and one water – only problem is that they have to go to their appropriately coloured section (different atmos and that). When they do move in, they can go to any available section but they have to go to the first unoccupied space on the left of that section. Gold aliens cost one food, one water and one gem. This is because gold aliens can go to any section (anaerobic, ya see?) just like humans. The same rules about housing apply, but goldies are a lot more adaptable. The level one ship allows you to do three trades and/or transports, but the higher-level ships allow you to do four or five trades.

And then there are the Dismantle ships. Building all these bits of space station and clothing all these curious humans takes metal, and sadly there are no metal-rich asteroids in the area. Time to break out the angle-grinder. Activating your Dismantle ship allows you to chop up an unused ship in your fleet for the metal content given at the top of the card. That ship will now be gone forever – no rebuilding it a later date – so it is a difficult, if inevitable, decision to make. The level two and level three Demolition ships allow you to eek out more metal from your destructive actions.

I’m The Tax Entity, Yay-ay I’m The Tax Entity…

There will also come a time in Space station phoenix where you run out of that other very essential commodity – gems. Fortunately, no ship-smashing is required to gains precious gems. It’s time to head back to your hub and tax the residents in the Income phase.

In this phase, all your used ships are cleared of gems, ready to be reused or… you know… chopped to bits. You then gain a gem for each ship still in your fleet. Different hubs will also give you income bonuses as well based on what you have built/recruited, but this is where your populated, or at least semi populated, space station comes into play. Certain ‘rooms’ in your space station will have bonuses attached to them such as extra gems, victory points or resources. When these rooms are occupied, you get these bonuses during Income, and as you can imagine, as the sectors get bigger, the bonuses get juicier.

Once you have collected your income, you can return to the important business of gathering, building, pressing the palms (or tentacles, or pseudopods) and, of course, reducing your fleet to little, shiny pieces…

This Is The End, Beautiful Habitat…

All good things must come to an end, and Space station phoenix can end in a number of ways. Either one player can cross the 40-victory point mark or can complete all nine pieces of their space station, or the pool of aliens can be reduced to four measly aliens. Once the end of the game has been triggered, every other player gets one last go and then it’s time to tot up those points.

There are quite a lot of ways to score in Space station phoenix , so you may need to take your shoes and socks off for this… or use one of the score sheets provided. In an attempt to be sustainable, the game has score sheets printed on the back of the player guides and has relinquished the copying rights so you can make as many copies as you like. Hmmm. Or might just want to write it down on a handy piece of paper/do it on your phone.

There are five ways that everyone scores in the game and none of them involve your remaining fleet – yes, it doesn’t matter that all that remains of your mighty space-faring armada is a handful of iron filings, it’s all good. Each section of your space station will score, and the score increases as the sections get bigger. All your resident aliens/humans score you two points each. Then there are points for the player with the most and second most of each type of alien – the points are split if there is a draw. Players will then score their individual hub bonuses and their endgame bonuses in their outer space station sectors, if they have them and if they are occupied. Finally, you get points depending on how many resources and gems you have left – don’t bank on these though as a whopping 20 gems and five of any resource only get you one point. Take that, gem hoarding space billionaires!

The player with the most victory points wins. If there is a tie, it’s the player with the most aliens; then the most humans. If there is still a tie, they share the victory. How very unsatisfying.

Rematch?

It Was Well Reviewed… Four Stars Out of Five…

There are things to criticise SSP about, but there is a whole lot more to praise it for. The components are a bit on the clunky, chunky side and you will need the biggest of big tables to play it; the game is very icon heavy, and it will take you a while to work out what every icon means; icons on space station sectors and hubs can be a bit on the obtuse side, and you WILL need to refer to the help sheets that tell you what each sector and hub does; Rio Grande could have done a bit better with the score sheets – this is a bit big and pricey for a print-and-play; and the play-time is a complete LIE. But that’s hardly a rarity for games, is it?

These are all mere details, because once you start playing the game, it flies! There is a real flow and balance to this game, and it hums like gyroscope when up and running. The amount of space station sectors and hubs available means that you can play umpteen different ways to Sunday before you start repeating yourself. Though it is, at its heart, a pure Euro (a pEuro, if you will), there’s a certain sadistic joy you get from dropping your play counter on one of your opponent’s ships, knowing full well that they needed it next turn. And who doesn’t find the idea of observing humans for victory points hilarious? I do it for free!

But the real USP-de-luxe of Space station phoenix is the eat-yr-engine mechanic. Remember how I said, several thousand words ago that I can’t get my head around Legacy games? This is the sort of legacy I can get my head around. Sure, you demolish your fleet and end up with a limited amount of actions and have to beg, borrow and steal ships to get things done, but I like that I can flip that card, lose that action and know that the next time I play this game it will be back in the box, intact and ready to be reduced to composite parts again.

And that’s Space station phoenix all the destruction of a legacy, without all the destruction of a legacy.