Ruling — AquaSphere

← AquaSphere

You asked

How do I play?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: AquaSpherebg-159508-en-1e

The game is played over 4 rounds.[1] The sequence of play is as follows:

Setup

1. Put the 6 Sectors of the Station together in any order.[2]

2. Place the Headquarters next to the Sectors, leaving space for the general supply.[2]

3. Each player chooses a color and takes the corresponding wooden playing pieces and a Player Board.[2]

4. Randomly determine a Starting Player.[2]

5. Shuffle the Program Cards and place 4 in a stack next to the Headquarters; put the rest in the game box.[2]

6. Place Programming Tiles in the Headquarters as indicated by the topmost Program Card, then return that card to the box.[2]

7. The Starting Player places one Bot on the first space of the Play Order Track, and subsequent players place one Bot on the next free space in clockwise order.[2]

8. Each player places one Counter on space '0' of the Knowledge Track and one on space '0+' of the Full Circle Counting Track.[2]

9. Each player places one Engineer on the Starting Space of the Programming Section.[2]

10. Place the following in the general supply: Crystals, Octopods, Time Markers, and shuffled stacks of face-down Lab Expansions and Research Cards.[2]

11. In 2 or 3 player games, add unused color Submarines to the general supply.[2]

12. Each player places 6 Submarines on their Player Board and receives 1 Base Lab next to their Player Board.[2]

13. Draw 6 Research Cards and place one in each Sector.[3]

14. Draw 6 Lab Expansions and place one in each Sector.[3]

15. Place Center Tiles in the middle of the Station (a tile with a 5, then 4, 3, and 2 on top).[4]

16. Populate Sectors with components (Octopods, Crystals, Submarines, Scientists, Time Markers, and Bots) according to the Setup Overview Card and specific rules for the Starting Sector and remaining Sectors.[4]

17. Assign Time Markers to players based on whether their Starting Sector is adjacent to a "0" lock.[4]

18. Determine the color of the Programming Space in the Starting Sector and place the remaining Bot on the corresponding Program Symbol on the Player Board.[4]

Course of Play

1. Players take turns in the order indicated by the Play Order Track until everyone has passed.[1]

2. On your turn, choose one of three options:

* A: Program a Bot: Take the next available Bot from your supply and place it on an available Program Symbol on your Player Board.[1] You can do this by moving your Engineer in the Headquarters 1 space forward along an arrow; the tile where the Engineer ends up indicates the Program Symbol.[1] Alternatively, once per round, you may pay 3 Time Markers to place a Bot on any unoccupied Program Symbol.[1]

* B: Carry Out an Action with a Programmed Bot:

1. (Optional) Move your Scientist to another Sector, paying the required Time Markers for each Lock passed.[1]

2. Place your Scientist in one of the colored Action Areas for which you have a programmed Bot.[1]

3. Move the Bot from the corresponding Program Symbol to the Control Space of the Sector your Scientist is currently in.[5] If the Control Space is occupied, move that Bot to the Loading Station (subject to player-count limits).[5]

4. Carry out the action of the Action Area occupied by your Scientist.[5]

* C: Pass: Move your Engineer token in the Headquarters onto the next free space of the Pass Order Track to terminate your round.[5]

Intermediate Scoring and Round Transition

1. When all players have passed, an Intermediate Scoring occurs.[1]

2. Players receive 1 Time Marker per Submarine deployed in the Station.[6]

3. Players may return Time Markers from the top right of their Player Board to the general supply.[6]

4. Players may use Research Cards with specific symbols.[6]

5. The next round is prepared.[1]

6. The next round is played in the order players passed in the previous round.[1]

7. The Play Order Track is rearranged to match the Pass Order Track.[3]

8. Engineers are returned to the Starting Space of the Programming Section.[3]

9. Programming Tiles are rearranged as indicated by the topmost Program Card, and the next Program Card is revealed.[3]

Final Scoring and Ending the Game

1. After the fourth Intermediate Scoring, proceed with the Final Scoring.[1][3]

2. The player with the

[1] RULEBOOK AquaSphere — Rulebook · p.6 · course of play: short overview · course of a turn · A: ProGrAm A BoT · B: CArry ouT An ACTion wiTH A ProGrAmmeD BoT · 1. DETERMINE WHERE TO CARRy OuT THE ACTION

[2] RULEBOOK AquaSphere — Rulebook · p.2 · 1. Game Boards (see pages 4/5 for details) · 2. Headquarters · 3. General Supply · 4. Player Boards

[3] RULEBOOK AquaSphere — Rulebook · p.11 · STATION · HEADquARTERS · final scoring and the end of the game · you get Knowledge Points (KP) as follows: · The player with the most Knowledge Points wins the game.

[4] RULEBOOK AquaSphere — Rulebook · p.3

[5] RULEBOOK AquaSphere — Rulebook · p.7 · 2. PLACE THE BOT · 3. CARRy OuT THE ACTION · C: PASS

[6] RULEBOOK AquaSphere — Rulebook · p.10 · intermediate scoring · TIME MARKERS

The table has its answer — dice up.

🔧 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 75 ms · ask 6811 ms · total 6889 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 6889 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 6, "score": 0.04918, "snippet": "The game is played over 4 rounds . Beginning with the Starting Player, you take turns (see below) in the order indicated by the Play Order Track until everyone has passed. Then, there is an Intermediate Scoring and the next round is prepared. The next round will be played in the order you have passe", "headingPath": "course of play: short overview · course of a turn · A: ProGrAm A BoT · B: CArry ouT An ACTion wiTH A ProGrAmmeD BoT · 1. DETERMINE WHERE TO CARRy OuT THE ACTION", "sharpsignalDocId": 667}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.048387, "snippet": "Put the 6 Sectors of the Station 1 together in any order. Place the Headquarters 2 next to it, but not too closely. Leave some space for the general supply 3 . Each player chooses a player color and takes the wooden playing pieces of that color and a Player Board 4 . Randomly determine a Starting Pl", "headingPath": "1. Game Boards (see pages 4/5 for details) · 2. Headquarters · 3. General Supply · 4. Player Boards", "sharpsignalDocId": 667}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.047371, "snippet": "5. Station a) Center Tiles • Take the appropriate 4 Center Tiles according to the number of players (as indicated by the symbol below the light bulb). • Place the tile with a 5 in its light bulb in the middle of the Station. • Then place the tiles with a 4, 3 and 2 on top of it (in that order), each", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 667}, {"page": 11, "score": 0.046642, "snippet": "Draw 6 Research Cards from the draw pile and place one in each of the Sectors (on top of already existing Research Cards, if necessary) . Draw 6 Lab Expansions from the draw pile and place one in each of the Sectors (on top of already existing Lab Expansions, if necessary) . The topmost Center Tile ", "headingPath": "STATION · HEADquARTERS · final scoring and the end of the game · you get Knowledge Points (KP) as follows: · The player with the most Knowledge Points wins the game.", "sharpsignalDocId": 667}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "Move the Bot from the corresponding Program Symbol to the Control Space of the Sector your Scientist is currently in. If the Control Space is occupied by another Bot, move that Bot to the Loading Station of the Sector. If the number of Bots in the Loading Station now exceeds the permitted number, ea", "headingPath": "2. PLACE THE BOT · 3. CARRy OuT THE ACTION · C: PASS", "sharpsignalDocId": 667}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "Whenever your Counter completes a full circle around the Knowledge Track, move your Counter on this track 1 space forward. Starting Space The Programming Section consists of 7 spaces, each of which contains a Programming Tile, and the Starting Space , on which you place your Engineer at the beginnin", "headingPath": "Full Circle Counting Track · Programming Section · Station · Knowledge Track · Action Areas · Control Space · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 667}, {"page": 9, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "You may only have 1 Submarine in each Sector! If you have not already placed a Submarine in the chosen Sector: Take the next Submarine from the left of your Player Board and place it on the next available Submarine Space in the Sector. Pay as many Time Markers as depicted on the space. If you cannot", "headingPath": "PLACe A SuBmArine · TAke A reSeArCH CArD · ProGrAm A BoT", "sharpsignalDocId": 667}, {"page": 12, "score": 0.029644, "snippet": "When gaining resources via Research Cards, always consider your Lab Capacities! You may not discard any Research Cards. You keep your Research Cards until the end of the game. Every time you move your Engineer in the Headquarters onto a space with the depicted Programming Tile, you get the depicted ", "headingPath": "appendix: research cards · Cards that you can use any number of times per round: · Cards that you can use during an Intermediate Scoring: · © 2014 Hall Games", "sharpsignalDocId": 667}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "course of play: short overview · course of a turn · A: ProGrAm A BoT · B: CArry ouT An ACTion wiTH A ProGrAmmeD BoT · 1. DETERMINE WHERE TO CARRy OuT THE ACTION", "sharpsignalDocId": 667}, {"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "1. Game Boards (see pages 4/5 for details) · 2. Headquarters · 3. General Supply · 4. Player Boards", "sharpsignalDocId": 667}, {"page": 11, "quote": null, "headingPath": "STATION · HEADquARTERS · final scoring and the end of the game · you get Knowledge Points (KP) as follows: · The player with the most Knowledge Points wins the game.", "sharpsignalDocId": 667}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 667}, {"page": 7, "quote": null, "headingPath": "2. PLACE THE BOT · 3. CARRy OuT THE ACTION · C: PASS", "sharpsignalDocId": 667}, {"page": 10, "quote": null, "headingPath": "intermediate scoring · TIME MARKERS", "sharpsignalDocId": 667}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 667 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 667 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 0.90278 of 3487 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row recorded: Aug 21, 2026 09:40 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 AquaSphere — Rulebook (corpus doc 667)	course of play: short overview · course of a turn · A: ProGrAm A BoT · B: CArry ouT An ACTion wiTH A ProGrAmmeD BoT · 1. DETERMINE WHERE TO CARRy OuT THE ACTION	p.6	0.04918 (at the 3-arm ceiling (0.04918) — every arm ranked it #1)	300
#2	RULEBOOK AquaSphere — Rulebook (corpus doc 667)	1. Game Boards (see pages 4/5 for details) · 2. Headquarters · 3. General Supply · 4. Player Boards	p.2	0.048387 (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 AquaSphere — Rulebook (corpus doc 667)		p.3	0.047371 (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 AquaSphere — Rulebook (corpus doc 667)	STATION · HEADquARTERS · final scoring and the end of the game · you get Knowledge Points (KP) as follows: · The player with the most Knowledge Points wins the game.	p.11	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
#5	RULEBOOK AquaSphere — Rulebook (corpus doc 667)	2. PLACE THE BOT · 3. CARRy OuT THE ACTION · C: PASS	p.7	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
#6	RULEBOOK AquaSphere — Rulebook (corpus doc 667)	Full Circle Counting Track · Programming Section · Station · Knowledge Track · Action Areas · Control Space · …	p.4	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 AquaSphere — Rulebook (corpus doc 667)	PLACe A SuBmArine · TAke A reSeArCH CArD · ProGrAm A BoT	p.9	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 AquaSphere — Rulebook (corpus doc 667)	appendix: research cards · Cards that you can use any number of times per round: · Cards that you can use during an Intermediate Scoring: · © 2014 Hall Games	p.12	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 13 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 AquaSphere — Rulebook (corpus doc 667)	course of play: short overview · course of a turn · A: ProGrAm A BoT · B: CArry ouT An ACTion wiTH A ProGrAmmeD BoT · 1. DETERMINE WHERE TO CARRy OuT THE ACTION	p.6	#1	0.04918 (at the 3-arm ceiling (0.04918) — every arm ranked it #1)	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#2	RULEBOOK AquaSphere — Rulebook (corpus doc 667)	1. Game Boards (see pages 4/5 for details) · 2. Headquarters · 3. General Supply · 4. Player Boards	p.2	#2	0.048387 (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 AquaSphere — Rulebook (corpus doc 667)	intermediate scoring · TIME MARKERS	p.10	#10	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
#4	RULEBOOK AquaSphere — Rulebook (corpus doc 667)	PLACe A SuBmArine · TAke A reSeArCH CArD · ProGrAm A BoT	p.9	#7	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))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#5	RULEBOOK AquaSphere — Rulebook (corpus doc 667)	exPAnD THe LAB · TAke Time mArkerS · TAke CrySTALS · CATCH oCToPoDS	p.8	#11	0.014286 (below 0.016, the low end of the measured band — a weak fuse (that band was taken on two-arm asks; only its low end, one arm's #1 vote, carries over to a 3-arm one))	vector	the re-ranker chose it
#6	RULEBOOK AquaSphere — Rulebook (corpus doc 667)	2. PLACE THE BOT · 3. CARRy OuT THE ACTION · C: PASS	p.7	#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))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#7	RULEBOOK AquaSphere — Rulebook (corpus doc 667)	STATION · HEADquARTERS · final scoring and the end of the game · you get Knowledge Points (KP) as follows: · The player with the most Knowledge Points wins the game.	p.11	#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))	vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#8	RULEBOOK AquaSphere — Rulebook (corpus doc 667)		p.3	#3	0.047371 (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 AquaSphere — Rulebook (corpus doc 667)	course of play: short overview · course of a turn · A: ProGrAm A BoT · B: CArry ouT An ACTion wiTH A ProGrAmmeD BoT · 1. DETERMINE WHERE TO CARRy OuT THE ACTION	p.6	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK AquaSphere — Rulebook (corpus doc 667)	1. Game Boards (see pages 4/5 for details) · 2. Headquarters · 3. General Supply · 4. Player Boards	p.2	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK AquaSphere — Rulebook (corpus doc 667)	STATION · HEADquARTERS · final scoring and the end of the game · you get Knowledge Points (KP) as follows: · The player with the most Knowledge Points wins the game.	p.11	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK AquaSphere — Rulebook (corpus doc 667)		p.3	no quote on the wire
[5]	RULEBOOK AquaSphere — Rulebook (corpus doc 667)	2. PLACE THE BOT · 3. CARRy OuT THE ACTION · C: PASS	p.7	no quote on the wire
[6]	RULEBOOK AquaSphere — Rulebook (corpus doc 667)	intermediate scoring · TIME MARKERS	p.10	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 75 ms · first delta 1633 ms · total 6889 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 75 ms · ask 6811 ms · gateway work 6889 ms · total 6889 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3773
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 1024
tok/sec: 198.7 tok/sec — 1024 output tokens in 5.153 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 19s ago)
answerer host (measured by rulesage): reachable (for 23h, checked 1s 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 600), 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.