Ruling — The Search for Planet X

You asked

How do I play?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: The Search for Planet Xbg-279537-en-1e

App Setup

1. Install and launch the companion app on all devices to be used during the game.[1]

2. Visit <www.PlanetXApp.com> from the device to install the app.[1]

3. On one device, press 'Start New Game' from the app's initial screen, press the button for the chosen game mode, and then press 'Start Game' to generate a game code.[1]

4. On all other devices, press 'Enter Game Code' from the app's initial screen, enter the generated code, and press 'Join Game'.[1]

5. Verify all devices display the same game code and press 'Continue'.[1]

6. Follow app instructions to receive starting information based on chosen experience level and record it on your note sheet.[1]

7. Once all players have recorded starting information, press 'Start Game' on all devices.[1]

Board Setup

1. Choose a game mode: Standard Mode or Expert Mode.[2]

2. Place the solar system board in the center of the table, using the side corresponding to the chosen mode.[2]

3. Orient the board so each player views it from a side indicated by a unique icon: spring equinox, summer solstice, autumn equinox, or winter solstice.[2]

4. Place the sun disc in the center hole of the solar system board.[2]

5. Give each player a pencil, a note sheet with the icon matching their view of the board, and a player screen matching their player color.[2]

6. In Expert Mode, give each player the expert panel matching their player screen and slide it into the slots in their screen.[2]

7. Place the earth board on top of the solar and ensure the sun disc is in its center hole.[2]

8. Rotate the earth board so the visible sky starts with sector 1.[2]

9. Each player chooses a color and finds the matching player pawns.[2]

10. Place all chosen pawns in sector 1 of the time track in a random order.[2]

11. Give each player two target tokens and 12 theory tokens matching their player color, which players place behind their player screen.[2]

12. In Standard Mode, each player uses only one dwarf planet theory token and returns three to the box; in Expert Mode, players use all four.[2]

Gameplay

1. Determine the active player: the player whose pawn is farthest back on the time track is the active player.[3]

2. On the active player's turn, carry out these three steps in order:

a. Take One Action: Choose one of four available actions:[3]

* Survey for an Object: Select an object type and a range of consecutive sectors; the app reveals how many objects of that type are in that range.[3][4]

* Target a Sector: Select one sector; the app reveals which object is there or if it is empty.[3]

* Research a Topic: Select a research topic; the app reveals information and a logic rule for that topic.[3]

* Locate Planet X: Select the sector believed to contain Planet X and the objects believed to be in the two adjacent sectors; the app reveals if you are correct or incorrect.[3]

b. Advance Your Player Pawn: Move your pawn clockwise on the time track by a number of sectors equal to the time cost of the chosen action.[3][5] If the pawn ends in a sector with other pawns, place it ahead of them.[5]

c. Rotate the Earth Board: Rotate the earth board clockwise, one sector at a time, until the arrow points to the sector containing the pawn farthest back on the time track.[6]

3. During rotation, if the arrow reaches a conference or theory icon, pause the game to perform that phase:

* Conference Phase: If the board reaches a conference icon, pause to perform the phase.[3][6] In this phase, all players receive new information about Planet X's location via the app, which they must record on their note sheets.[6] This is only performed the first time the board reaches each specific conference icon.[6]

* Theory Phase: If the board reaches a theory icon, pause to perform the phase.[3][7]

* Step 1 (Select Theories): All players simultaneously select theories to submit (up to 1 in Standard Mode, up to 2 in Expert Mode) and cover them with their hands.[7]

* Step 2 (Place Theories): In player order (back to front) based on the time track, players place theories face down in the outer space of the peer review track in a sector they believe contains that object type.[7]

* Step 3 (Advance Theories

[1] RULEBOOK The Search for Planet X — Rulebook · p.7 · App Setup

[2] RULEBOOK The Search for Planet X — Rulebook · p.6 · Choose Game Mode · Board Setup · Player Setup

[3] RULEBOOK The Search for Planet X — Rulebook · p.8 · Gameplay Sequence · Turn Overview · 1. Take One Action

[4] RULEBOOK The Search for Planet X — Rulebook · p.9 · SURVEY FOR AN OBJECT

[5] RULEBOOK The Search for Planet X — Rulebook · p.12 · 2. Advance Your Player Pawn

[6] RULEBOOK The Search for Planet X — Rulebook · p.13 · 3. Rotate the Earth Board · CONFERENCE PHASE

[7] RULEBOOK The Search for Planet X — Rulebook · p.14 · THEORY PHASE · 1 . T H E O R Y S U B M I S S I O N · ADDITIONAL RULES & CLARIFICATIONS

Rule found, game on.

🔧 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 79 ms · ask 6615 ms · total 6696 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 6696 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 1, "score": 0.048916, "snippet": "You can also learn to play by watching a video explanation: SearchForPlanetX.com", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 298}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.048139, "snippet": "Each player needs to have access to the companion app on an electronic device. Each player can use their own device -OR- share a device with one or more other players. Install and launch the companion app on all devices that will be used during the game. To install the app on a device, visit <www.Pl", "headingPath": "App Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 298}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.047883, "snippet": "You must first choose a game mode: Standard Mode or Expert Mode. We recommend that you choose Standard Mode the first time you play, then move to Expert Mode once all players are Place the solar system board in the center of the table. Make sure that you are using the side of the board which corresp", "headingPath": "Choose Game Mode · Board Setup · Player Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 298}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "Gameplay in The Search for Planet X does not proceed in a fixed turn order. Instead, turn order depends on the positions of the player pawns on the time track. The player whose pawn is farthest back on the time track is the active player. On the active player's turn, they take one action, then advan", "headingPath": "Gameplay Sequence · Turn Overview · 1. Take One Action", "sharpsignalDocId": 298}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "The game has two modes: Standard Mode and Expert Mode. In Expert Mode, the solar system has more sectors and the game is more challenging overall. The differences between the two modes are noted throughout this rulebook. Important! In addition to the components provided, you will need pencils and on", "headingPath": "Game Modes · Components", "sharpsignalDocId": 298}, {"page": 13, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "In this step, check to see if the earth board needs to be rotated. If the arrow on the earth board is not pointing directly at the sector which contains the pawn that is farthest back on the time track, rotate the earth board clockwise, one sector at a time. As you rotate the earth board, if the arr", "headingPath": "3. Rotate the Earth Board · CONFERENCE PHASE", "sharpsignalDocId": 298}, {"page": 15, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "For each sector that now has at least one theory in the inner space [ /sync ] of the peer review track, conduct a peer review. If this applies to multiple sectors, conduct a peer review for each of those sectors, one at a time, in numerical order. Reveal Theories - Reveal any theories that are in th", "headingPath": "2. PEER REVIEW · CORRECT THEORY · INCORRECT THEORY", "sharpsignalDocId": 298}, {"page": 12, "score": 0.029412, "snippet": "In this step, move your player pawn clockwise on the time track. The number of sectors that your pawn advances is equal to the time cost of the action you chose this turn. The time costs for all possible actions are noted below, as well as on the player screens. If your pawn ends its advance in a se", "headingPath": "2. Advance Your Player Pawn", "sharpsignalDocId": 298}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 7, "quote": null, "headingPath": "App Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 298}, {"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Choose Game Mode · Board Setup · Player Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 298}, {"page": 8, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Gameplay Sequence · Turn Overview · 1. Take One Action", "sharpsignalDocId": 298}, {"page": 9, "quote": null, "headingPath": "SURVEY FOR AN OBJECT", "sharpsignalDocId": 298}, {"page": 12, "quote": null, "headingPath": "2. Advance Your Player Pawn", "sharpsignalDocId": 298}, {"page": 13, "quote": null, "headingPath": "3. Rotate the Earth Board · CONFERENCE PHASE", "sharpsignalDocId": 298}, {"page": 14, "quote": null, "headingPath": "THEORY PHASE · 1 . T H E O R Y S U B M I S S I O N · ADDITIONAL RULES & CLARIFICATIONS", "sharpsignalDocId": 298}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 298 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 298 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 0.91155 of 3437 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row recorded: Aug 27, 2026 21:48 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 The Search for Planet X — Rulebook (corpus doc 298)		p.1	0.048916 (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))	80
#2	RULEBOOK The Search for Planet X — Rulebook (corpus doc 298)	App Setup	p.7	0.048139 (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 The Search for Planet X — Rulebook (corpus doc 298)	Choose Game Mode · Board Setup · Player Setup	p.6	0.047883 (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 The Search for Planet X — Rulebook (corpus doc 298)	Gameplay Sequence · Turn Overview · 1. Take One Action	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
#5	RULEBOOK The Search for Planet X — Rulebook (corpus doc 298)	Game Modes · Components	p.3	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 The Search for Planet X — Rulebook (corpus doc 298)	3. Rotate the Earth Board · CONFERENCE PHASE	p.13	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 The Search for Planet X — Rulebook (corpus doc 298)	2. PEER REVIEW · CORRECT THEORY · INCORRECT THEORY	p.15	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 The Search for Planet X — Rulebook (corpus doc 298)	2. Advance Your Player Pawn	p.12	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

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 21 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 The Search for Planet X — Rulebook (corpus doc 298)		p.1	#1	0.048916 (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 The Search for Planet X — Rulebook (corpus doc 298)	App Setup	p.7	#2	0.048139 (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 The Search for Planet X — Rulebook (corpus doc 298)	Gameplay Sequence · Turn Overview · 1. Take One Action	p.8	#4	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
#4	RULEBOOK The Search for Planet X — Rulebook (corpus doc 298)	3. Rotate the Earth Board · CONFERENCE PHASE	p.13	#6	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))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#5	RULEBOOK The Search for Planet X — Rulebook (corpus doc 298)	SURVEY FOR AN OBJECT	p.9	#14	0.013699 (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 The Search for Planet X — Rulebook (corpus doc 298)	THEORY PHASE · 1 . T H E O R Y S U B M I S S I O N · ADDITIONAL RULES & CLARIFICATIONS	p.14	#13	0.013889 (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 The Search for Planet X — Rulebook (corpus doc 298)	2. Advance Your Player Pawn	p.12	#8	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
#8	RULEBOOK The Search for Planet X — Rulebook (corpus doc 298)	Choose Game Mode · Board Setup · Player Setup	p.6	#3	0.047883 (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 The Search for Planet X — Rulebook (corpus doc 298)	App Setup	p.7	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK The Search for Planet X — Rulebook (corpus doc 298)	Choose Game Mode · Board Setup · Player Setup	p.6	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK The Search for Planet X — Rulebook (corpus doc 298)	Gameplay Sequence · Turn Overview · 1. Take One Action	p.8	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK The Search for Planet X — Rulebook (corpus doc 298)	SURVEY FOR AN OBJECT	p.9	no quote on the wire
[5]	RULEBOOK The Search for Planet X — Rulebook (corpus doc 298)	2. Advance Your Player Pawn	p.12	no quote on the wire
[6]	RULEBOOK The Search for Planet X — Rulebook (corpus doc 298)	3. Rotate the Earth Board · CONFERENCE PHASE	p.13	no quote on the wire
[7]	RULEBOOK The Search for Planet X — Rulebook (corpus doc 298)	THEORY PHASE · 1 . T H E O R Y S U B M I S S I O N · ADDITIONAL RULES & CLARIFICATIONS	p.14	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 79 ms · first delta 1555 ms · total 6696 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 79 ms · ask 6615 ms · gateway work 6696 ms · total 6696 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3392
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 1024
tok/sec: 201.8 tok/sec — 1024 output tokens in 5.074 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 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 226), 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.