Ruling — The Search for Planet X

You asked

How do I setup the game?

Answered counted as answered

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

To setup the game, follow these steps:

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

2. Place the solar system board in the center of the table, using the side that corresponds to the chosen game mode.[1]

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.[1]

4. Place the sun disc in the center hole of the solar system board.[1]

5. Give each player a pencil and a different note sheet with the icon matching their view of the solar system board, ensuring they use the side of the note sheet corresponding to the chosen game mode.[1]

6. Give each player a player screen matching their chosen player color and position it to hide their note sheet.[1]

7. In Expert Mode, give each player the expert panel matching their player screen and have them slide it into the slots in their screen.[1]

8. Place the earth board on top of the solar system board with the sun disc in its center hole.[1]

9. Rotate the earth board so that the visible sky starts with sector 1.[1]

10. Each player chooses a color.[1]

11. Find the player pawns matching the chosen colors and place them in sector 1 of the time track, lined up in random order.[1]

12. Give each player two target tokens and 12 theory tokens matching their chosen player color, and have each player put their tokens behind their player screen.[1]

13. In Standard Mode, each player uses only one of their dwarf planet theory tokens and returns three dwarf planet tokens to the game box.[1]

14. In Expert Mode, each player uses all four of their dwarf planet theory tokens.[1]

15. Ensure each player has access to the companion app on an electronic device (either using their own or sharing) and install/launch the app on all devices to be used.[2]

16. On one device, generate a game code by pressing 'Start New Game' from the app's initial screen, pressing the button for the chosen game mode, and then pressing 'Start Game'.[2]

17. On all other devices, press 'Enter Game Code' from the app's initial screen, enter the generated code, and press 'Join Game'.[2]

18. Verify all devices display the same game code and press 'Continue'.[2]

19. Each player follows the app instructions to receive and record their starting information on their note sheet.[2]

20. Once all players have recorded their starting information, press the 'Start Game' button on all devices.[2]

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

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

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 213 ms · ask 4556 ms · total 4771 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 4771 ms
retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read: [{"page": 7, "score": 0.048916, "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": 0.048652, "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": 13, "score": 0.031746, "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": 10, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "Other advancements in the field might be able to assist you in your efforts. Review this research to learn about the relationships between certain objects. From the game menu screen within the app, press the 'Research' button. On the next screen, select one of the available research topics, based on", "headingPath": "RESEARCH A TOPIC · This is it! All of your hard work may be about to pay off. Could this sector, which appears empty, really be the location of Planet X?", "sharpsignalDocId": 298}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.030769, "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": 12, "score": 0.030303, "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}, {"page": 9, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "One particular type of object has drawn your interest. Survey a range of visible sectors to find out how many objects of that type are located in that range. From the game menu screen within the app, press the 'Survey' button. Select a type of object, then select a range of consecutive sectors in th", "headingPath": "SURVEY FOR AN OBJECT", "sharpsignalDocId": 298}, {"page": 16, "score": 0.029412, "snippet": "The end of the game is triggered when one player correctly locates Planet X. The player who triggered the end of the game still advances their pawn based on the time cost of that action (5 /clock ), but does not rotate the earth board. Once the end of the game has been triggered, no more turns are t", "headingPath": "Game-End Condition · Final Scoring Opportunities · SUBMIT THEORIES · OR LOCATE PLANET X · Reveal Objects", "sharpsignalDocId": 298}]
citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show: [{"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Choose Game Mode · Board Setup · Player Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 298}, {"page": 7, "quote": null, "headingPath": "App Setup", "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 0.91359 of 2002 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
debug row recorded: Sep 15, 2026 15:35 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)	App Setup	p.7	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 The Search for Planet X — Rulebook (corpus doc 298)	Choose Game Mode · Board Setup · Player Setup	p.6	0.048652 (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)	3. Rotate the Earth Board · CONFERENCE PHASE	p.13	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
#4	RULEBOOK The Search for Planet X — Rulebook (corpus doc 298)	RESEARCH A TOPIC · This is it! All of your hard work may be about to pay off. Could this sector, which appears empty, really be the location of Planet X?	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
#5	RULEBOOK The Search for Planet X — Rulebook (corpus doc 298)	Gameplay Sequence · Turn Overview · 1. Take One Action	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
#6	RULEBOOK The Search for Planet X — Rulebook (corpus doc 298)	2. Advance Your Player Pawn	p.12	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)	SURVEY FOR AN OBJECT	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 The Search for Planet X — Rulebook (corpus doc 298)	Game-End Condition · Final Scoring Opportunities · SUBMIT THEORIES · OR LOCATE PLANET X · Reveal Objects	p.16	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)	App Setup	p.7	#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)	3. Rotate the Earth Board · CONFERENCE PHASE	p.13	#3	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
#3	RULEBOOK The Search for Planet X — Rulebook (corpus doc 298)	2. Advance Your Player Pawn	p.12	#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
#4	RULEBOOK The Search for Planet X — Rulebook (corpus doc 298)	RESEARCH A TOPIC · This is it! All of your hard work may be about to pay off. Could this sector, which appears empty, really be the location of Planet X?	p.10	#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
#5	RULEBOOK The Search for Planet X — Rulebook (corpus doc 298)	Game-End Condition · Final Scoring Opportunities · SUBMIT THEORIES · OR LOCATE PLANET X · Reveal Objects	p.16	#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
#6	RULEBOOK The Search for Planet X — Rulebook (corpus doc 298)	Gameplay Sequence · Turn Overview · 1. Take One Action	p.8	#5	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))	vector + the doc-priority boost arm	the re-ranker chose it
#7	RULEBOOK The Search for Planet X — Rulebook (corpus doc 298)	SURVEY FOR AN OBJECT	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
#8	RULEBOOK The Search for Planet X — Rulebook (corpus doc 298)	Choose Game Mode · Board Setup · Player Setup	p.6	#2	0.048652 (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)	Choose Game Mode · Board Setup · Player Setup	p.6	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK The Search for Planet X — Rulebook (corpus doc 298)	App Setup	p.7	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 213 ms · first delta 1790 ms · total 4771 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 213 ms · ask 4556 ms · gateway work 4771 ms · total 4771 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 3849
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 582
tok/sec: 201.6 tok/sec — 582 output tokens in 2.887 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 38s ago)
answerer host (measured by rulesage): reachable (for 22h, checked 7s 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 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.