Imperial Trader Rules
You take on the role of the captain of an Imperial Transport vessel. You are a private merchant principally interested in profit. Your employer is likely a local noble, or merchant guild of an advanced Imperial World.
Goal: First player to obtain 100 credits wins.
Players: 2+
Set Up:
Build the Sub Sector:
1. Design Planets: I recommend designing between 5-7 planets for this game. The planets will be Imperial worlds of any class. However, one of your planets should be a Civilized World, Forge World, or Hive World as these planet types allow you to purchase upgrades. Each planet should have one export: I.E. Something that your ships will be transporting around the sub sector. I.E. Valuable natural resources, or passengers. For my game, I used the
Star Trek Ascendancy (STA) planets as templates for my card board cut outs, then glued labels explaining the planet's name, type, and export.
2. Connect Space Lanes to the Planets: You can connect any number of space lanes you want and make them any size you want. I used the STA space lanes but you can easily build your own. Each space lane should have between two and four spaces on it.
3. Create Buy Order Cards: You can use file cards to create these. Each card specifies where to pick up a good, and where to drop it off. (They don't even need to list how much you get paid because I have a simple system for that). One buy order card per planet is fine.
4. Each player places a ship on a planet of their choice. Once all players have placed their ships, deal one buy order card to each player.
-Starting Cash: 25 credits.
-Starting Damage Points: 6
What happens if you lose all damage points?
Your ship is destroyed, return all money to the bank, discard any buy order card and cargo, place ship on a planet of your choice.
5. Roll a dice (
D6), play proceeds clockwise from player with the highest roll.
What you can do on your turn
On your turn you can take two actions.
Yes, you can take the same action twice.
Actions:
Fly
Buy/Repair
Work
Deal
Fly
Roll a
D6 and move your ship up to the highest number you rolled. Each space on the space/warp lane counts as one space and each planet counts as one space. So if you rolled a 5 your ship could move all the way through a four space warp lane and reach the next planet.
If you roll a 1, move your ship one space and take D3 damage. [Note this is not some type of catastrophe like the geller field collapsing, its more representative of the normal wear and tear on a ship. Which over time, CAN lead to a catastrophe if neglected]
Buy/Repair: Only available at Civilized, Hive, or Forge World
Choose one when you initiate this action. (Either buy upgrades or repair).
Repair: Repair one point of damage per 5 credits spent.
Buy: You can purchase the following upgrades with a buy action:
15 Credits: Advanced Armored Hull (Increase max damage by 2)
15 Credits: Resilient Machine Spirits (When flying, if you roll a 1, immediately roll a dice, on a 4+ you take no damage).
15 Credits: Autoloaders: (When offloading cargo, if you roll a 1, immediately roll a dice, on a 4+ you take no damage).
Work:
If you have a buy order card, you can use a work action to pick up cargo from a planet your ship is on,
or offload the cargo to a planet where your ship is on.
When off loading cargo with a work action roll 1
D6.
On the roll of a 1 a terrible accident at the orbital docks has occurred. Take D3 damage and the work action fails. You will need to attempt another work action to unload your cargo.
(Note, you DO NOT lose your cargo)
Getting Paid: When you successfully offload your cargo in accordance with a buy order card that you possess, you get paid.
Pay is simple. Count the number of space lanes between the pick up world (where you picked up the cargo) and the drop off world (where you dropped it off). You get paid 10 credits per space lane. (If there is more than one route between the two planets, use the shortest route for calculating pay). I.E. Two space lanes between pick up and drop off worlds=20 credits awarded.
Once this happens, discard the buy order card. The card can now be retrieved by any player in accordance with a deal action.
Deal:
When you are on an Imperial World, you can sue this action to draw a buy order card. If you exceed the max number of buy order cards a player can have, discard the extra card (and any cargo you have picked up that is associated with it). The number of buy order cards a player can possess is up to you. For small games in small sub sectors, limit the maximum number of cards to one. Bigger subsectors and/or groups can make that limit higher, allowing ambitious captains to work on multiple buy order simutaneously.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Upcoming Expansion Ideas:
Shifting Imperium
During game rounds, worlds may erupt into war zones, or fall to Xenos/heretics, making them inaccessible to trade. The Imperium might also expand, and with a Rogue Trader's license, you can help colonize new worlds and trade with xenos.
To be continued...
