Ruling — Automobiles

You asked

How do I play?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Automobilesbg-180680-en-1e

The goal of the game is to be the first to cross the finish line.[1][2] The game is played over several rounds, with each player taking one turn per round, beginning with the starting player and proceeding clockwise.[3]

Standard Turn - Racing

1. Select one or more cubes in your active pile.[4]

2. One at a time, place each selected cube in your used pile, then apply its effect.[4]

3. Move cubes to the track as appropriate.[4]

4. Use any leftover cubes in your active pile as money to buy one or more cubes from the stock, then add these bought cubes to your used pile.[4]

5. Move your race car according to your cubes placed by actions on the track.[4]

6. Alternatively, you may decline, in which case you gain wear according to the highest color track space you moved on.[4]

7. End your turn by moving all cubes from your track, active pile, and used pile to your discard pile, then randomly draw seven new cubes for your active pile (if the discard pile is insufficient, put all cubes from the discard pile into your bag first).[4]

Alternative Turn - Pit Stop

1. Select one or more cubes in your active pile.[4]

2. One at a time, place each selected cube in your used pile, then apply its effect.[4]

3. Move cubes to the track as appropriate.[4]

4. Remove wear by placing all wear from your active pile back into the stock.[4]

5. End your turn by moving all cubes from your track, active and used piles to your discard pile, then randomly draw seven new cubes for your active pile (if the discard pile is insufficient, put all cubes from the discard pile into your bag first).[4]

Winning the Game

1. The game ends after the current round is completed if a player's lap marker is on the Final Lap space and their race car crosses the finish line.[4]

2. The winner is the player whose race car went the farthest past the finish line.[4]

3. Ties are broken by whichever race car is in the innermost lane on the track.[4]

[1] RULEBOOK Automobiles — Rulebook · p.2 · Introduction · Goal · In This Box

[2] RULEBOOK Automobiles — Rulebook · p.2

[3] RULEBOOK Automobiles — Rulebook · p.5 · Setup · How to Play · Important Note About Rulebook Examples

[4] RULEBOOK Automobiles — Rulebook · p.16 · Standard Turn - Racing · Alternative Turn - Pit Stop · Winning the Game · Wear Chart

Settled. Play 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 91 ms · ask 4771 ms · total 32171 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 27304 ms · generation 4867 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 5, "score": 0.04918, "snippet": "Each player also receives a draw bag and 12 starting cubes: 2 light gray 4th Gear cubes, 5 white 3rd Gear cubes, and 5 yellow Garage cubes. The players place these starting cubes into their bag. Beginning with the starting player, then continuing clockwise, each player buys one or more cubes from th", "headingPath": "Setup · How to Play · Important Note About Rulebook Examples", "sharpsignalDocId": 1171}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.048131, "snippet": "Choose which side of the game board to use and place it in the center of the playing area. Each side features a unique track to race on. Note: For your first game, we suggest using the Daytona Beach track. Place the cube tray next to the board with room for cards to be placed on both sides of it. Th", "headingPath": "Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 1171}, {"page": 16, "score": 0.046452, "snippet": "Choose which side of the game board to use and place it in the center of the playing area. Place the cube tray next to the board. Place the Gear cards and the Wear card next to their respective color cubes. Separate all remaining cards by type. Shuffle each type, then randomly select one from each c", "headingPath": "Setup · Reminders:", "sharpsignalDocId": 1171}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.046394, "snippet": "Number of Players: 2-5 Play Time: 45 minutes Age: 14 and above Will you cross the finish line first? Now is your chance to find out! Automobiles is a deck-building game where the fun is cubed. Instead of cards, you'll be building your collection with cubes. Your cubes not only allow you to race your", "headingPath": "Introduction · Goal · In This Box", "sharpsignalDocId": 1171}, {"page": 10, "score": 0.044388, "snippet": "Instead of performing a standard turn, you can opt to perform an alternative turn. If you choose to do this, you cannot use any of the effects of your cubes in your active pile, you cannot buy any new cubes from the stock, and your race car cannot move. To perform an alternative turn, otherwise know", "headingPath": "Alternative Turn - Pit Stop · Removing Cubes · Drawing Cubes · Pit Stop Example", "sharpsignalDocId": 1171}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.043905, "snippet": "2 Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Goal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 In This Box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 T", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 1171}, {"page": 10, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "The purple player's turn is next in clockwise order. Since the green player didn't move during her turn, the purple player must move from his current position. This means during his Action Phase, any movement he does must start with either the light gray space near the inside lane, or the black spac", "headingPath": "Next Turn Example", "sharpsignalDocId": 1171}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.030415, "snippet": ". . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Introduction Will you cross the finish line first? Now is your chance to find out! Automobiles is a deck‑building game where the fun is cubed. Instead of cards, you’ll be building your collection with cubes. Your cubes not only allow you to race your car around t", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 1171}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Introduction · Goal · In This Box", "sharpsignalDocId": 1171}, {"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 1171}, {"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Setup · How to Play · Important Note About Rulebook Examples", "sharpsignalDocId": 1171}, {"page": 16, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Standard Turn - Racing · Alternative Turn - Pit Stop · Winning the Game · Wear Chart", "sharpsignalDocId": 1171}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 1171 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 1171 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 0.91398 of 1581 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row recorded: Sep 7, 2026 03:06 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 Automobiles — Rulebook (corpus doc 1171)	Setup · How to Play · Important Note About Rulebook Examples	p.5	0.04918 (at the 3-arm ceiling (0.04918) — every arm ranked it #1)	300
#2	RULEBOOK Automobiles — Rulebook (corpus doc 1171)	Setup	p.4	0.048131 (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 Automobiles — Rulebook (corpus doc 1171)	Setup · Reminders:	p.16	0.046452 (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 Automobiles — Rulebook (corpus doc 1171)	Introduction · Goal · In This Box	p.2	0.046394 (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 Automobiles — Rulebook (corpus doc 1171)	Alternative Turn - Pit Stop · Removing Cubes · Drawing Cubes · Pit Stop Example	p.10	0.044388 (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 Automobiles — Rulebook (corpus doc 1171)		p.2	0.043905 (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 Automobiles — Rulebook (corpus doc 1171)	Next Turn Example	p.10	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
#8	RULEBOOK Automobiles — Rulebook (corpus doc 1171)		p.2	0.030415 (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 27 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 Automobiles — Rulebook (corpus doc 1171)	Setup · Reminders:	p.16	#3	0.046452 (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 Automobiles — Rulebook (corpus doc 1171)	Introduction · Goal · In This Box	p.2	#4	0.046394 (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 Automobiles — Rulebook (corpus doc 1171)	Manage Modern Railways! · Now Boarding!	p.15	#11	0.029418 (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
#4	RULEBOOK Automobiles — Rulebook (corpus doc 1171)		p.2	#8	0.030415 (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 Automobiles — Rulebook (corpus doc 1171)	Standard Turn - Racing · Alternative Turn - Pit Stop · Winning the Game · Wear Chart	p.16	#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))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#6	RULEBOOK Automobiles — Rulebook (corpus doc 1171)	Next Turn Example	p.10	#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))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#7	RULEBOOK Automobiles — Rulebook (corpus doc 1171)	Setup · How to Play · Important Note About Rulebook Examples	p.5	#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
#8	RULEBOOK Automobiles — Rulebook (corpus doc 1171)	Setup	p.4	#2	0.048131 (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 Automobiles — Rulebook (corpus doc 1171)	Introduction · Goal · In This Box	p.2	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Automobiles — Rulebook (corpus doc 1171)		p.2	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Automobiles — Rulebook (corpus doc 1171)	Setup · How to Play · Important Note About Rulebook Examples	p.5	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Automobiles — Rulebook (corpus doc 1171)	Standard Turn - Racing · Alternative Turn - Pit Stop · Winning the Game · Wear Chart	p.16	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 91 ms · first delta 2487 ms · total 32171 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown: queued 27304 ms · retrieval 91 ms · ask 4771 ms · gateway work 4867 ms · total 32171 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 2755
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 470
tok/sec: 201.3 tok/sec — 470 output tokens in 2.335 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 46s ago)
answerer host (measured by rulesage): reachable (for 22h, checked 6s 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 1101), 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.