Ruling — Pulsar 2849

You asked

How should we prepare everything before the first turn?

Answered counted as answered

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

To prepare for the first turn, follow these steps: 1. Use the two- and three-player side of the dice board [1]. 2. For a two-player game, randomly decide which player goes first, then place that player's rocket figures on play-order spaces 1 and 3, and the second player's rocket figures on spaces 2 and 4 [1]. 3. Each player has 2 counters on the initiative and engineering tracks, stacked in reverse play order [1]. 4. Place each player's hundred-point tile near space 0 [2]. 5. Beginning with the last player and proceeding in reverse play order, each player chooses one unoccupied entry gate and places one of his or her rocket figures there [2]. (In a three- or four-player game, each player has one rocket figure on a play-order space and one on an entry gate; the third is left in the box) [2]. 6. Place one rocket figure of each player's color on the dice board's play-order spaces in a randomly determined order [2]. 7. Set the time marker to point at the innermost row of technologies [3]. 8. For your first game, use technology boards AI, AII, and AIII, placing them against the star cluster board in order with board I on the inside and board III on the outside [3]. 9. Place 3 goal tiles (the three marked with the specific symbol for a first game) against the star cluster board with the marked side up; for standard games, choose 3 at random and play with a random side up [3]. 10. Keep engineering cubes where everyone can reach them [3]. 11. Group transmitter tiles by their letters (A, B, and C), stacking each group with the lettered side up and shuffling; create a large stack with all Cs on the bottom, Bs in the middle, and As on top [3]. 12. Deal the top 3 transmitters and place them beside the stack so all players can see the silver dice printed on them [3]. 13. Each player chooses a color [4]. 14. In a standard game, each player receives a randomly selected HQ board and must decide which side to use before the first roll of the dice [5][4][2]. (Note: For your first game, it is recommended to leave HQ boards in the box) [5][4][2].

[1] RULEBOOK Pulsar 2849 — Rulebook · p.19 · Setup · Example: · Dice Phase · Action Phase

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

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

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

[5] RULEBOOK Pulsar 2849 — Rulebook · p.14 · HEADQUARTERS · Two Sides · The Project Pyramid · Completing a Project · Types of Projects

🔧 debug — where this ruling came from

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
corpus profile: live
answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only): gemma4:26b think:false 5571076f3d70
timings: search 214 ms · ask 10716 ms · total 30231 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 19291 ms · generation 10940 ms
retrieval refs (raw): [{"page": 6, "score": 0.032787, "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": 8, "score": 0.032258, "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": 20, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "Score the indicated number of points. Take the indicated type of gyrodyne tile from the gyrodyne board. Take a gyrodyne tile with one of the two indicated types from the gyrodyne board. Take a gyrodyne tile of your choice from the gyrodyne board. Take two gyrodyne tiles from the gyrodyne board. They", "headingPath": "Immediate Benefits · A game by Vladimír Suchý · Other Benefits", "sharpsignalDocId": 442}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.03125, "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": 2, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "Spend dice to perform actions: At any time during your turn, you can place an unused gyrodyne tile you have taken on an undeveloped pulsar you have claimed. At any time during your turn, you can pay 4 engineering cubes to copy a die left on the dice board and use it as your bonus die. You can use at", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 442}, {"page": 19, "score": 0.030303, "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": 16, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "Once each player has had a turn in the Action Phase, it is time for the Production Phase. Players gain some engineering cubes, score some points, and set up for the next round. Specifically, the steps are performed in this order: Determine the new order of play. Hand out engineering cubes. Take init", "headingPath": "End of Round Summary · Determining Order of Play · Gaining Engineering Cubes · Example: · Penalties · Online Transmitters", "sharpsignalDocId": 442}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.029412, "snippet": "2 At the end of the game, you may choose one goal tile and evaluate it as though you have met the goal. (You can also buy the bonuses.) At the end of the game, score 4 points if you have a spinning gyrodyne, 8 if you have two different types spinning, or 16 if you have all three types spinning. At t", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 442}]
citations (raw): [{"page": 19, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Setup · Example: · Dice Phase · Action Phase", "sharpsignalDocId": 442}, {"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 442}, {"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": "SETUP", "sharpsignalDocId": 442}, {"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 442}, {"page": 14, "quote": null, "headingPath": "HEADQUARTERS · Two Sides · The Project Pyramid · Completing a Project · Types of Projects", "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)
debug row retained until: Nov 7, 2026 05:04

retrieval — what the search arm returned

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)	PLAYER COMPONENTS · INITIAL POSITIONS	p.6	0.032787 (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)	Second Die · EVEN START VARIANT	p.8	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
#3	RULEBOOK Pulsar 2849 — Rulebook (corpus doc 442)	Immediate Benefits · A game by Vladimír Suchý · Other Benefits	p.20	0.031746 (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)	SETUP	p.5	0.03125 (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)		p.2	0.030769 (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)	Setup · Example: · Dice Phase · Action Phase	p.19	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
#7	RULEBOOK Pulsar 2849 — Rulebook (corpus doc 442)	End of Round Summary · Determining Order of Play · Gaining Engineering Cubes · Example: · Penalties · Online Transmitters	p.16	0.029851 (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)		p.2	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))	300

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Pulsar 2849 — Rulebook (corpus doc 442)	Setup · Example: · Dice Phase · Action Phase	p.19	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Pulsar 2849 — Rulebook (corpus doc 442)		p.6	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Pulsar 2849 — Rulebook (corpus doc 442)	SETUP	p.5	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)	HEADQUARTERS · Two Sides · The Project Pyramid · Completing a Project · Types of Projects	p.14	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 214 ms · first delta 6594 ms · total 30231 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown: queued 19291 ms · retrieval 214 ms · ask 10716 ms · gateway work 10940 ms · total 30231 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 4134
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 525
tok/sec: 122.2 tok/sec — 525 output tokens in 4.295 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 3s ago)
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 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.