Ruling — Drillers

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You asked

How do I setup the game?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Drillersbg-465669-en-1e

To setup the game, follow these steps:

1. Unfold the main board and place it in the middle of the table.[1]

2. Place minerals on each floor to match the minerals printed there.[1]

3. Place the remaining minerals in a pile next to the mine.[1]

4. Shuffle the 3 floor cards and place 1 face up next to the indicator on floor 5.[1]

5. Shuffle the 9 floor cards and deal one face down on each floor with an indicator.[1]

6. Put any unused floor cards back in the box.[1]

7. Place one of the 4 barrier tiles on each of the 4 lowest floors of the mine, so that the floor indicator in the upper left corner matches the number on the floor.[1]

8. Flip all the corridor tiles face up so the minerals printed on the tiles are visible.[1]

9. Sort corridor tiles into 5 stacks according to the floor indicators in the upper left corner, randomize the order of each stack, and place them in the marked area on the left side of each floor.[1]

10. Place both pieces of the shop board above the mine.[1]

11. Sort cards according to the icon in the top left corner: leave these aside as they will be the cards in each player's starting deck.[1]

12. Place the DAMAGE cards in a stack to the left of the shop board.[1]

13. Sort the remaining cards into separate decks by icon, shuffle each deck, and place them face down on the corresponding spaces of the shop board.[1]

14. Reveal 2 cards from each deck, placing them below the shop board to form 4 columns.[1]

15. Place 2 cards from the shop face down underneath the deep floor card on floor 5, without looking at them.[1]

16. Place each milestone token next to the shop board.[1]

17. Place all credits in a pile next to the shop board.[1]

18. Each player selects a mech and places their chosen mech miniature on the surface (the top floor of the board).[2]

19. Assemble each player's starting deck by giving each player their card stand, one DAMAGE card, and the 8 starting cards in their color.[2]

20. Set the TORSO card aside, shuffle the remaining cards to form a deck, place it face up in the card stand, and place the TORSE card on top of the deck.[2]

21. Give each player a dashboard and perform the following:

* Place a fuel cap blocking the '11' and '12' spaces of the fuel tank.[2]

* Place a gauge indicator on the '10' space of the fuel tank.[2]

* Place $\text{C}$ and gauge indicators on the $\text{C}$ gauge.[2]

* Place 3 drone tokens into the drone slots at the bottom of the dashboard, flipping 1 face up and leaving 2 face down.[2]

* Place a storage cap blocking the third space of the storage area, leaving 2 empty storage spaces to the left.[2]

22. Give each player a shop refresh tile and place it beside their dashboard.[2]

23. Randomly select a first player and distribute starting resources (credits and cards) based on player count.[2]

[1] RULEBOOK Drillers — Rulebook · p.4 · READY THE MINES · SETUP · SETTLE THE SURFACE

[2] RULEBOOK Drillers — Rulebook · p.5 · SETTLE THE SURFACE · START YOUR MECH

Now you know — make it count.

🔧 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 188 ms · ask 6591 ms · total 6783 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 6783 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 14, "score": 0.04866, "snippet": "Follow all the normal steps of setup, but instead of distributing starting resources, prepare the bot: On the back of the dashboards, you will find 4 boards for the bot, one for each difficulty level. Choose a difficulty that you would like to play against. The more stars in the bottom right corner,", "headingPath": "SOLO MODE SETUP · OVERVIEW · ACTION TURN", "sharpsignalDocId": 204}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.048387, "snippet": "1 Unfold the main board and place it in the middle of the table. Note that the board consists of 7 floors: the surface, the mine entrance ( ), and 5 underground floors of the mine. 2 Most floors start with minerals on them. Place minerals on each floor to match the minerals printed there: for exampl", "headingPath": "READY THE MINES · SETUP · SETTLE THE SURFACE", "sharpsignalDocId": 204}, {"page": 12, "score": 0.045805, "snippet": "At the end of your turn, regardless of whether you surfaced or not, you'll perform your Upkeep. Follow these steps in order: to keep unplayed cards. You may keep one unplayed card in your hand for free. Pay 1 fuel for each additional unplayed card you would like to keep. Move every card in your play", "headingPath": "3. UPKEEP · 1. Pay · 2. Clear your play area. · MILESTONES · ADVANCED SHOP EXPANSION", "sharpsignalDocId": 204}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "3 8 11 15 13 12 Each player should select a mech . Place your chosen mech miniature on the top floor of the board (the surface ). 13 Assemble each player's starting deck . Give each player their card stand, one DAMAGE card, and the 8 starting cards in their color. Each player sets the TORSO card asi", "headingPath": "SETTLE THE SURFACE · START YOUR MECH", "sharpsignalDocId": 204}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "CARDS During Operations, you'll play cards to generate , , and a wide variety of other effects. Whenever you play a card, it goes to an area in front of your dashboard called your play area. You'll move all of the cards in your play area to a personal discard pile during Upkeep. Each turn, you'll ha", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 204}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "During Operations, you'll play cards to generate a wide variety of other effects. Whenever you play a card, it goes to an area in front of your dashboard called your play area . You'll move all of the cards in your play area to a personal discard pile during Upkeep. Each turn, you'll have a hand of ", "headingPath": "USING THE GAUGES · Spend fuel to play its main effect. · Gain fuel. · Save it for the next turn.", "sharpsignalDocId": 204}, {"page": 11, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "Login: 16:42 on console / davinci@Device-M9-Pro ~ % ../ There's 4 shops doin' business in camp: SPINERAMA sells drills, PONY EXPRESS sells propulsion, and BOTS 4 LESS sells a bit o' everything. There's also that shifty suit sellin' old corp tech…but you'll need the bottomless energy of them weird bl", "headingPath": "BUY NEW CARDS FROM THE SHOPS · ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY · PERMANENT CARDS · SHOP REFRESH TILE", "sharpsignalDocId": 204}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "DASHBOARD Your dashboard keeps track of these things: Progress Track Filled with mine tiles from left to right. Triggers the end of the game when full. Milestones Earn bonuses by covering these lines. Storage Place collected minerals here, to the left of the storage cap. Drones Active Drones can be ", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 204}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "READY THE MINES · SETUP · SETTLE THE SURFACE", "sharpsignalDocId": 204}, {"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": "SETTLE THE SURFACE · START YOUR MECH", "sharpsignalDocId": 204}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 204 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 204 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 0.89670 of 2275 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row recorded: Aug 22, 2026 13:08 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 Drillers — Rulebook (corpus doc 204)	SOLO MODE SETUP · OVERVIEW · ACTION TURN	p.14	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 Drillers — Rulebook (corpus doc 204)	READY THE MINES · SETUP · SETTLE THE SURFACE	p.4	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 Drillers — Rulebook (corpus doc 204)	3. UPKEEP · 1. Pay · 2. Clear your play area. · MILESTONES · ADVANCED SHOP EXPANSION	p.12	0.045805 (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 Drillers — Rulebook (corpus doc 204)	SETTLE THE SURFACE · START YOUR MECH	p.5	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
#5	RULEBOOK Drillers — Rulebook (corpus doc 204)		p.8	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 Drillers — Rulebook (corpus doc 204)	USING THE GAUGES · Spend fuel to play its main effect. · Gain fuel. · Save it for the next turn.	p.8	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
#7	RULEBOOK Drillers — Rulebook (corpus doc 204)	BUY NEW CARDS FROM THE SHOPS · ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY · PERMANENT CARDS · SHOP REFRESH TILE	p.11	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 Drillers — Rulebook (corpus doc 204)		p.6	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

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 32 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 Drillers — Rulebook (corpus doc 204)	READY THE MINES · SETUP · SETTLE THE SURFACE	p.4	#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
#2	RULEBOOK Drillers — Rulebook (corpus doc 204)	3. UPKEEP · 1. Pay · 2. Clear your play area. · MILESTONES · ADVANCED SHOP EXPANSION	p.12	#3	0.045805 (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 Drillers — Rulebook (corpus doc 204)	END OF THE GAME AND SCORING	p.18	#25	0.011765 (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
#4	RULEBOOK Drillers — Rulebook (corpus doc 204)	END OF THE GAME AND SCORING	p.18	#20	0.0125 (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
#5	RULEBOOK Drillers — Rulebook (corpus doc 204)	ACTION TURN · HOW TO READ THE BOT'S ACTION BOARD · 1. THE BOT USES EVERY THEY HAVE AVAILABLE. · 1. Is available for them to take. · 2. They have enough drills to afford.	p.15	#16	0.013158 (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 Drillers — Rulebook (corpus doc 204)	THE MINE COLLAPSES ! END OF THE GAME	p.13	#15	0.013333 (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
#7	RULEBOOK Drillers — Rulebook (corpus doc 204)	SETTLE THE SURFACE · START YOUR MECH	p.5	#4	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))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#8	RULEBOOK Drillers — Rulebook (corpus doc 204)	SOLO MODE SETUP · OVERVIEW · ACTION TURN	p.14	#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

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Drillers — Rulebook (corpus doc 204)	READY THE MINES · SETUP · SETTLE THE SURFACE	p.4	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Drillers — Rulebook (corpus doc 204)	SETTLE THE SURFACE · START YOUR MECH	p.5	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 188 ms · first delta 3159 ms · total 6783 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 188 ms · ask 6591 ms · gateway work 6783 ms · total 6783 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3684
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 732
tok/sec: 204.8 tok/sec — 732 output tokens in 3.575 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 42s ago)
answerer host (measured by rulesage): reachable (for 22h, checked 2s 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): setup

errata registry — what the gate above had to match against

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 129), 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.