Aquanauts Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Objective
• Set Up
  • Setting Up for Different Player Counts
• Resources
• How to Play
  • Round Sequence
    • 1. Run Automated Systems
    • 2. Assign Workers
    • 3. Workers Return
• Automated Systems
• Assigning Workers
  • Shared Facilities
  • Facility Tiles
  • Nodes
  • 'Load' and 'Launch' Tiles
• Research Papers
• Construction
  • Construction Track
  • The Grid
  • Storage Tiles
  • The Dock
• Public Objectives
• Game End

Objective

In Aquanauts, players are competing to make the greatest contribution to science. Players will need to use their robot and aquanaut workers to collect resources, build new Facilities, and operate the submersible in order to earn Contribution Points (CP) through publishing papers, achieving public objectives and working together in the shared Facilities.

The game ends at the end of the round in which a player publishes their fourth paper.

The winner is the player with the most Contribution Points at the end of the game.

Set Up

1. Take the Construction Board (1) and the Research Board (2) and place them in the centre of the play area. Together, these make up the Main Board.

2. Place the Dock (3) to the right of the Construction Board.

3. Place the Submersible (4) to the bottom right of the Research Board.

4. Shuffle the Research Papers and deal four of them face up into the open spaces (5) at the top of the Construction Board. Place the remaining papers face down at the top of the board, forming the Research Deck (6).

5. Shuffle the Public Objectives and draw three, placing them face up to the side of the Research Board (7). Remove the rest of the public objectives from the game.

6. Sort the Facility Tiles according to player count [see: Setting Up for Different Player Counts], and remove the rest from the game.

7. Shuffle the remaining Facility tiles and place five face up on the Construction Track (8). Place the remaining Facility tiles in a stack face down at the top of the board (9).

8. Give each player a Player Board and pieces in their colour. Each player places their two on the robot worker spaces (10) and their (their human worker) on the space on their player board (11). Place the to the side of the player board (12).

No. Players	Player 1	Player 2	Player 3	Player 4
2	2 Power	2 Power	–	–
3	2 Power	1 Power, 1 Oxygen	1 Power, 1 Building Materials	–
4	2 Power	2 Power	1 Power, 1 Oxygen	1 Power, 1 Building Materials

Setting Up for Different Player Counts

Aquanauts is designed for games of two, three or four players. The Facility tiles are marked with black dots to show which tiles are used at each player count.

Assemble the tile deck as follows:

• Two players: tiles marked with two dots only.
• Three players: tiles marked with two dots and three dots only.
• Four players: all tiles.

Resources

The game uses the following resources:

• Power
• Algae
• Building Materials
• Oxygen
• Samples
• Contribution Points (tokens kept in a separate section of the player board; they do not count towards the storage limit)

How to Play

In Aquanauts, play continues over a series of rounds until one player has published four papers. The game ends at the end of that round.

Round Sequence

Each round follows the same sequence.

1. Run Automated Systems

All automated systems and Facilities activate.

Automated Systems have a green border.

First, resolve the automated spaces on the Research and Construction Boards.

Players then simultaneously activate the automated Facilities on their player boards.

2. Assign Workers

Starting with the player with the First Player token and moving in a clockwise direction, players take turns to place one of their workers (Robot or Aquanaut) on a Research or Construction space on the Central Board, paying that Facility's cost (if it has one) and taking the resources shown. The worker remains on the Facility until the end of the round. Each Facility, except the Load Submersible and Launch Submersible Facilities, can only be occupied by one worker at any time.

Continue until all players' workers have been placed.

Players may only play their Aquanaut if they paid to activate it during the 'Automated Systems' phase of the round.

3. Workers Return

Once all workers have been placed, players take their workers back, ready for the next round. Robots return to their worker slots, and the Aquanaut returns to the Living Pod.

Automated Systems

Automated systems have a green border.

They trigger automatically during the Automated Systems phase.

On the Main Board:

• Add one Power to the Stockpile.
• Refresh the Construction Track. If there's a building on the leftmost space, it is removed from the board and placed in the discard pile. All Building Tiles then shuffle left down the Construction Track to fill the spaces. Any empty Construction spaces left filled with new Building Tiles from the stack. If the stack runs out, reshuffle the Discard Pile and flip it face down to form a new stack.

On each player's board:

• Each player can choose to activate the buildings in their grid once each, in any order, paying the resource cost shown. In addition, any nodes that are connected to the grid also produce the resource shown.
• Players can also choose to activate their Aquanaut at any point during this phase, paying the resource cost shown on the Living Pod to move the Aquanaut to the worker slots. The Aquanaut is then available for this round. At the end of the round, the Aquanaut returns to the Living Pod, and must be activated again if the player wants to use them in future rounds.

Assigning Workers

Players use their workers to generate resources on the Research Board, construct Facilities on their player board, and load the Submersible and Dock.

Shared Facilities

The Facilities in the research station are used to produce resources, which can be used to construct more efficient Facilities and sustain an Aquanaut. Resources can also be sent to the surface in the submersible to publish scientific papers. Workers may only be assigned to the Research and Construction boards - they cannot be assigned to tiles on a player board.

Facility Tiles

The Research Board is made up of connected Facility Tiles. When a Facility is activated, the activating player pays the cost shown at the bottom of the tile to the supply and collects the Resource token(s) produced by the tile, placing them in their store. A placed worker remains on that tile for the rest of the round. Each Facility Tile can only be occupied by one worker at a time.

For example, when a player places a worker onto the Facility Tile above, they pay one Power token from their store and receive an Algae token from the Supply.

[Diagram: example Facility Tile, as in the draft.]

Players may not place their worker on a Facility if they cannot pay the tile cost. Some spaces do not cost any resources to use.

Facility tiles with a blue background are only activated when a player places one of their workers (Robot or Aquanaut) onto it. Tiles with a green background are Automated Systems which are activated during the automated Systems part of the turn sequence.

The only exception is the Stockpile, which has both a blue and green border. Placing a worker on the Stockpile gives the player all the resources on that tile, and the first player marker. This means they will be the first player next round.

[Diagram: robot on Stockpile, player receiving first player token and resources.]

If a Facility tile is marked with the 'Aquanaut' symbol, then it is highly specialised and can only be activated by an Aquanaut. Aquanauts can activate any Facilities on the Research and Construction boards.

Note: players can only have as many resources as there are spaces in their Storage Facility. All players start off with ten storage spaces, which they can increase by building a Storage Facility on their Player Board. If a player exceeds their storage limit, they must immediately discard resources of their choice until they have the correct number. Discarded resources are placed on the Stockpile, to be recycled by the next player who activates it!

Contribution Point tokens are placed in a separate section of the player board, and do not count towards the storage limit.

Nodes

The Facilities on the Main Research Board are connected by Nodes, which give bonuses when workers collaborate.

Nodes activate when two of the adjacent Facility Tiles are occupied. When the Node activates, it pays out the bonus resource shown once to each worker occupying the connecting tiles. If both workers belong to the same player, that means they get two of the bonus resource!

Nodes, like Facilities, can only be activated once per round. If a worker is placed on a connected Facility after the node has already activated this round, the node does not activate again and the worker does not earn a bonus resource.

[Diagram: example in the draft. In this example, the red and blue players would get a bonus Algae (green) token each.]

If the yellow player were to place their Aquanaut on the 'Gardens', they would still get the two Oxygen tokens shown on the tile, but they wouldn't activate the Node and would not get any bonus Algae.

Here, the blue player would get two bonus Algae tokens!

'Load' and 'Launch' Tiles

The 'Load' and 'Launch' tiles are used to operate the Submersible, sending resources to the surface to publish Papers and bringing valuable Building Materials down to the sea floor.

These tiles are different to the rest of the Facilities on the Research Board. These tiles can be occupied by any number of workers. When a player places a worker on the Load space, they choose whether to load the Dock or the Submersible.

• Loading the Dock: the player takes two Building Material tokens from the Supply and places them in a Dock bay, along with a Player Marker of their colour. When the Submersible is launched, it will bring these Building Materials tokens down from the surface and the player can put them in their store. Only Building Materials may be loaded into the Dock.
• Loading the Submersible: the player takes up to 6 Resource tokens from their Store and places them in a Submersible bay, along with a Player Marker of their colour. When the Submersible is launched, these resources can be used to publish a Research Paper.

Note: players cannot load Power or Building Materials into the Submersible.

The 'Launch' tile launches the Submersible. In addition, the Submersible also launches automatically when either the Submersible or Dock bays are all filled. In either case, the Submersible launches immediately, as follows:

1. The Submersible is moved up to the surface. The controlling player is encouraged to make appropriate sound effects.
2. The player who launched the Submersible can then decide in what order to unload the Submersible bays. If the Submersible was launched automatically, the player who triggered the launch chooses the order.
3. Each bay can be used to publish a maximum of one Research Paper. A player can only publish a paper if they can pay the cost of a paper with the resources in their bay. Players cannot combine bays to publish a better paper. The player then takes the published paper and places it on their own Player Board.
4. If the player cannot publish a paper, they can instead trade in three of the resources in the bay for three Contribution Points. This can only be done once per bay!
5. Once a player has either published a paper or traded in three resources, they discard the remaining resources in that bay and the next one is unloaded.
6. Once all bays have been unloaded, the available Research Paper slots are refilled from the deck.
7. The Submersible now brings the Building Materials in the Dock down to the Research Base. Distribute the Building Materials in the Dock to the player who owns each bay. They place the Building Materials in their Store.
8. Return the Submersible to its starting position.

Research Papers

Research papers are the primary source of Contribution Points (CP) in Aquanauts. The resource cost of the paper and the number of CP awarded for publishing it is shown on the card. Each paper also has a Subject - Bony Fish, Sharks, Molluscs or Cnidarians - shown by the creature symbol on the card. Some Public Objectives may depend on the paper's Subject! (See the 'Public Objective' section for more). Players do not immediately take CP tokens for their published papers - instead, the points on published papers are added up at the end of the game.

Once published, players place the Research Paper face down in one of the slots of their Player Board, so only the paper's subject is visible.

Construction

Constructing buildings allows players to improve their Player Facilities, generating more resources during the 'Automated Facilities' phase of each round.

Construction Track

The Construction Track enables players to build Facilities on their Player Board. To construct a Facility, the player places a worker on the space beneath that Facility Tile on the Construction Track, paying the cost shown. They can then place that Facility into the Grid on their Player Board.

[Diagram: example, as in the draft. Here, the yellow player pays one Building Material token and one Algae token and places the O2 generator onto their Grid.]

Facility Tiles can't be rotated; they must be placed the right way up in the Grid. Once a Facility Tile has been placed, it cannot be moved. Each player's Player Board has room for up to five Facilities.

The Grid

During the 'Automated Systems' phase, the tiles in each player's Grid activate automatically. If there is a cost associated with the tile, the player can decide whether it activates or not that round.

[Diagram: example, as in the draft.]

The player can decide each round whether to activate the Electrolysis Tank during the Automated Systems Phase. If not, they don't pay the Power token (but don't get any oxygen from the tile this round!).

Facilities can be activated wherever they are placed in the Grid - they don't need to be connected to 'The Grid' itself.

As well as the resources produced by each individual Facility, Facilities can be used to connect up the Nodes on the Grid, generating bonus resources each round. In order to activate it, a Node must be connected by an unbroken path of connectors to the space labelled 'The Grid'. Once a Node has been connected to the Grid, the player can choose whether to activate it during the Automated Systems phase each round and receive the bonus resource shown.

In this example, the player has connected a Power Node to the grid using the connectors on their Electrolysis Tank. This means that they can choose to activate the Node once per round (during the Automated Systems phase) to receive one Power token.

However, they won't get a bonus Algae token, because although the Algae Node is connected to the Algae Tank, the Algae Tank isn't connected to the Grid!

Storage Tiles

Constructing a Storage tile allows players to increase their Storage Limit to fifteen resources. Each player can only construct one Storage Unit.

The Dock

The Dock is used to bring building materials down from the surface to the sea floor. See the 'Launch and Load' and 'Submersible' sections.

Public Objectives

Each game, there will be a limited number of Public Objective Cards that players can earn. Public Objectives represent different achievements, like having the best 'Cutting-Edge Facilities' or becoming a Specialist in a particular species.

Players claim a Public Objective immediately when they have met the requirement. Objective Cards may require players to have Published Papers on certain subjects (shown by the corresponding symbols), have constructed a certain number of Facilities on their Player Board, or a combination. The player who claims it receives the number of Contribution Point tokens shown on the card.

Once claimed, a Public Objective is flipped face down and no other players can score it. Public Objectives are not replaced.

Example: To claim this Public Objective Card, a player must have constructed three Facilities in their Player Grid. They take three Contribution Point tokens from the supply and flip the card face down.

Game End

Once any player publishes their fourth scientific paper, the game ends when the round finishes. No player can publish more than four papers. When the round has ended, players turn over the papers on their Player Boards. Each player adds up the number of Contribution Points on their papers and the number of Contribution Point tokens in their store to get their total number of Contribution Points. The player who has made the greatest contribution to science wins the game!