Ruling — Smash Up: Science Fiction Double Feature

← Smash Up: Science Fiction Double Feature

You asked

How do I play?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Smash Up: Science Fiction Double Featurebg-151004-en-1e

Setup

1. Each player chooses two factions and shuffles them together to make a 40-card deck.[1]

2. Place any titans near your deck.[1]

3. Grab the bases from the sets the chosen factions came from and shuffle the base cards together.[2]

4. Draw one more base card than you have players and place them face up in the middle of the table.[1][2]

5. Each player draws a hand of five cards.[1][2]

6. If you have no minions in your opening hand, you may show it, draw a new hand, and shuffle the old hand into your deck; you must keep the second hand.[2]

7. The player who most recently visited another country goes first.[2]

On Your Turn

1. Any abilities that expire at the start of your turn expire before any start-of-turn events.[3]

2. Play one minion and one action in either order, or play one of each for free.[1][3] You may also choose to play less.[1]

3. To play a minion, choose a base and put the minion card beside it, facing toward you, and do what the card says.[3]

4. To play an action, show the card and do what it says; if it does not stay in play (on a base, on a minion, or buried), it is a standard action and is discarded after use.[3][4]

5. Follow all instructions on card abilities as you play them.[1]

6. Check to see whether any bases can be scored; if the total power on a base meets or exceeds its breakpoint, that base scores.[1][3]

7. If bases are ready to score, you must start scoring.[3]

8. When scoring, the players with the highest, second highest, and third highest power receive the victory points shown on the base.[1] In case of a tie, each player receives full victory points for the highest place they qualified for.[1]

9. After scoring, resolve the ability on the base, discard minions there, and then replace it.[1]

10. Draw two cards.[1][3]

11. Discard down to a hand of 10 if necessary.[1][3]

12. At the end of the turn, things that happen now (such as destroying a minion or drawing a card) happen first; if there is more than one, the current player chooses the order.[5]

13. All abilities that expire at the end of the turn expire at the same time.[5]

14. Check to see if any players have 15 or more victory points just before a turn ends.[1][5]

15. If a player has 15 or more victory points, the one with the most victory points wins.[1][5] In case of a tie, play another turn.[1]

16. If playing with the Obligatory Cthulhu Set, check for Madness cards VP reduction at the end of the game; if players are tied for most victory points, the player with the lowest number of Madness cards wins.[1]

17. If no one has reached 15 victory points, the turn is over and play passes to the player on the left.[5]

[1] RULEBOOK Smash Up: Science Fiction Double Feature — Rulebook · p.20 · Set Up · On Your Turn · Scoring · Winning · Additional Rules

[2] RULEBOOK Smash Up: Science Fiction Double Feature — Rulebook · p.4 · SETUP

[3] RULEBOOK Smash Up: Science Fiction Double Feature — Rulebook · p.6 · 1. Start Turn · 2. Play Cards · Minions · Actions · Abilities · 3. Score Bases · …

[4] RULEBOOK Smash Up: Science Fiction Double Feature — Rulebook · p.13 · TERMS AND RESTRICTIONS · Starting:

[5] RULEBOOK Smash Up: Science Fiction Double Feature — Rulebook · p.7 · 5. End Turn · Card Resolution Order

The book has spoken.

🔧 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 91 ms · ask 16432 ms · total 71753 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 55228 ms · generation 16525 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 6, "score": 0.048916, "snippet": "Some abilities say they happen 'at the start of your turn'. This phase is when they all can happen - not just the first one. Any abilities that expire at the start of your turn expire before any of those start-of-turn events. On your turn play one minion, play one action, or play one of each… for fr", "headingPath": "1. Start Turn · 2. Play Cards · Minions · Actions · Abilities · 3. Score Bases · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 1075}, {"page": 20, "score": 0.045956, "snippet": "Each player chooses two factions and shuffles them together to make a 40-card deck. Place any titans near your deck. Draw a hand of five cards. Place one more base card than you have players in the middle of the table (for example, use five bases for four players). Play 1 minion and 1 action in eith", "headingPath": "Set Up · On Your Turn · Scoring · Winning · Additional Rules", "sharpsignalDocId": 1075}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.045635, "snippet": "Score a base during the Score Bases phase if the total power on that base equals or exceeds the base's breakpoint (see p. 3). If more than one base is ready to score, the player whose turn it is decides which one to score first. After a base has been chosen to score, players may use abilities that h", "headingPath": "THE BIG SCORE · Me First! · Awarding VP", "sharpsignalDocId": 1075}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.045245, "snippet": "Next, grab just the bases from the sets the chosen factions came from. For example, if you have Shapeshifter Vampires vs. Ninja Apes, take the bases from the Smash Up base set, Monster Smash, and Science Fiction Double Feature to make your base deck. Shuffle the base cards together. Draw one base pe", "headingPath": "SETUP", "sharpsignalDocId": 1075}, {"page": 10, "score": 0.045228, "snippet": "'Play X off the top of your deck' means you reveal cards from the top of your deck until you reveal a card of type X, and then play it; if you are told to play N Xs you do the procedure N times. After the Xs are played and resolved, if there are any unused revealed cards you shuffle them into your d", "headingPath": "Cards played off the top of the deck · TERMS AND RESTRICTIONS", "sharpsignalDocId": 1075}, {"page": 11, "score": 0.045037, "snippet": "Control: By default, each card you play is controlled by you. If you gain control of a card, it is as if you had played it: minions add to your power total, abilities on the card apply to you and you can use them, etc. Controlling a minion does not mean you control any actions played on it, but thei", "headingPath": "TERMS AND RESTRICTIONS", "sharpsignalDocId": 1075}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.044283, "snippet": "For formal play, put at least 2 factions per player in the middle of the table. Randomly determine who goes first. The first player chooses one faction. Choice continues clockwise. When everyone has chosen one faction, the last player chooses a second faction. Choice continues in reverse order. Play", "headingPath": "Kickin' It Queensberry", "sharpsignalDocId": 1075}, {"page": 9, "score": 0.043549, "snippet": "If players are tied on a base, all involved players get points for the best position they tied for. So, if three players had 10, 10, and 5 power on a base when it scores, the winners with 10 power each get first place points! The player with 5 power then gets third place, not second. If two players ", "headingPath": "Tie Fighter · Back to Your Corners · Scoring order:", "sharpsignalDocId": 1075}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 20, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Set Up · On Your Turn · Scoring · Winning · Additional Rules", "sharpsignalDocId": 1075}, {"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "SETUP", "sharpsignalDocId": 1075}, {"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "1. Start Turn · 2. Play Cards · Minions · Actions · Abilities · 3. Score Bases · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 1075}, {"page": 13, "quote": null, "headingPath": "TERMS AND RESTRICTIONS · Starting:", "sharpsignalDocId": 1075}, {"page": 7, "quote": null, "headingPath": "5. End Turn · Card Resolution Order", "sharpsignalDocId": 1075}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 1075 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 1075 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 0.88534 of 2163 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row recorded: Sep 7, 2026 03:00 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 Smash Up: Science Fiction Double Feature — Rulebook (corpus doc 1075)	1. Start Turn · 2. Play Cards · Minions · Actions · Abilities · 3. Score Bases · …	p.6	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))	300
#2	RULEBOOK Smash Up: Science Fiction Double Feature — Rulebook (corpus doc 1075)	Set Up · On Your Turn · Scoring · Winning · Additional Rules	p.20	0.045956 (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 Smash Up: Science Fiction Double Feature — Rulebook (corpus doc 1075)	THE BIG SCORE · Me First! · Awarding VP	p.8	0.045635 (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 Smash Up: Science Fiction Double Feature — Rulebook (corpus doc 1075)	SETUP	p.4	0.045245 (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 Smash Up: Science Fiction Double Feature — Rulebook (corpus doc 1075)	Cards played off the top of the deck · TERMS AND RESTRICTIONS	p.10	0.045228 (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 Smash Up: Science Fiction Double Feature — Rulebook (corpus doc 1075)	TERMS AND RESTRICTIONS	p.11	0.045037 (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 Smash Up: Science Fiction Double Feature — Rulebook (corpus doc 1075)	Kickin' It Queensberry	p.5	0.044283 (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 Smash Up: Science Fiction Double Feature — Rulebook (corpus doc 1075)	Tie Fighter · Back to Your Corners · Scoring order:	p.9	0.043549 (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 20 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 Smash Up: Science Fiction Double Feature — Rulebook (corpus doc 1075)	Set Up · On Your Turn · Scoring · Winning · Additional Rules	p.20	#2	0.045956 (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 Smash Up: Science Fiction Double Feature — Rulebook (corpus doc 1075)	1. Start Turn · 2. Play Cards · Minions · Actions · Abilities · 3. Score Bases · …	p.6	#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
#3	RULEBOOK Smash Up: Science Fiction Double Feature — Rulebook (corpus doc 1075)	Cards played off the top of the deck · TERMS AND RESTRICTIONS	p.10	#5	0.045228 (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
#4	RULEBOOK Smash Up: Science Fiction Double Feature — Rulebook (corpus doc 1075)	VOID WHERE PROHIBITED	p.17	#9	0.030366 (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 re-ranker chose it
#5	RULEBOOK Smash Up: Science Fiction Double Feature — Rulebook (corpus doc 1075)	5. End Turn · Card Resolution Order	p.7	#12	0.028571 (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 re-ranker chose it
#6	RULEBOOK Smash Up: Science Fiction Double Feature — Rulebook (corpus doc 1075)	TERMS AND RESTRICTIONS	p.11	#6	0.045037 (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
#7	RULEBOOK Smash Up: Science Fiction Double Feature — Rulebook (corpus doc 1075)	TERMS AND RESTRICTIONS · Starting:	p.13	#14	0.027973 (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 re-ranker chose it
#8	RULEBOOK Smash Up: Science Fiction Double Feature — Rulebook (corpus doc 1075)	SETUP	p.4	#4	0.045245 (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 Smash Up: Science Fiction Double Feature — Rulebook (corpus doc 1075)	Set Up · On Your Turn · Scoring · Winning · Additional Rules	p.20	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Smash Up: Science Fiction Double Feature — Rulebook (corpus doc 1075)	SETUP	p.4	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Smash Up: Science Fiction Double Feature — Rulebook (corpus doc 1075)	1. Start Turn · 2. Play Cards · Minions · Actions · Abilities · 3. Score Bases · …	p.6	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Smash Up: Science Fiction Double Feature — Rulebook (corpus doc 1075)	TERMS AND RESTRICTIONS · Starting:	p.13	no quote on the wire
[5]	RULEBOOK Smash Up: Science Fiction Double Feature — Rulebook (corpus doc 1075)	5. End Turn · Card Resolution Order	p.7	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 91 ms · first delta 2333 ms · total 71753 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown: queued 55228 ms · retrieval 91 ms · ask 16432 ms · gateway work 16525 ms · total 71753 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3218
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 723
tok/sec: 51.9 tok/sec — 723 output tokens in 13.932 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 33s ago)
answerer host (measured by rulesage): reachable (for 22h, checked 3s 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 1005), 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.