Vanished Planet Tutorial

The easiest way to learn all about Vanished Planet is by reading the tutorial. It explains in detail the first few turns of play and showcases different elements of the game. You may need to download the Adobe Acrobat Reader and a compression utility like WinZip to view the file.

Vanished Planet Tutorial (ZIPped PDF, 2.88 MB)
To download, right-click and choose "Save Target As...".

You can complete the Saavyel goal without going to the homeworld, but you only get two points.

Rules Clarifications

Q. On the 'Thieves' event card, it says to discard half my basic resources if I don't have a soldier. What if I have an odd number of basic resources?
A. Round down. So if you have only one basic resource card, keep it. If you have three, discard one; if you have five, discard two, and so forth.

Q. If a player's homeworld is destroyed by the creature, do his mines remain on the board?
A. Yes. When a player is eliminated, all of his resources are lost and all his tags are removed from the board, but any mines he has remain on the board until destroyed by the creature.

Q. My goal tells me to go to a Homeworld but it's already been destroyed by the creature. Can I still achieve the goal?
A. Once the Creature consumes a Homeworld, it is gone. You cannot visit the homeworld to complete a goal because the homeworld no longer exists. The Homeworld goals can, however, be completed without visiting the homeworld for a reduced number of victory points. See the individual cards for details. The Unity goal, on the other hand, cannot be completed if any of the Homeworlds have been destroyed.

Q. I have a Mine card. Can I use it to cancel a Creature Growth?
A. No. When the Creature Growth card is drawn, the creature grows immediately. An unlaid mine card cannot prevent this. Only a laid mine, the 'Act of Heroism' event, or the 'Reprieve' event can stop a Creature Growth. You may use a Mine card to place a mine at any time except during the resolution of an event. EXCEPTION: When playing with the expansion, the Gaerhule Heroism racial advantage allows an unlaid mine card to prevent creature growth due to a creature growth card (see expansion rules for details).

Q. Does a mine permanently halt the Creature's growth towards a homeworld?
A. No. Say you have built a mine and one of your ships has placed it in the creature's path. When the creature attempts to advance into the hex where the mine is placed, the mine detonates and the tag denoting the mine is removed. This temporarily halts the creature's growth and the creature will not advance at this point in the game. However, at the next "creature growth opportunity", the creature will advance into that hex. So a mine basically stops the creature's growth for one turn. Nothing can permanently halt the creature's growth.

Gameplay

Q. Can I trade with more than one player on my turn?
A. You may only trade once on your turn. (You may only trade with one person. You may only trade one card for one card.)

Q. What happens if the bank runs out of resource (or other type) cards?
A. If the bank runs out of a particular kind of card then no more of those cards are available until the bank is replenished. For example, if a player had three asteroids tagged but only two Ore cards are available, then the player only collects two Ore cards. The third card is lost.

The bank is replenished when players turn in cards for building, or when a player trades 4 of one basic resource for 1 of another kind of basic resource.

Errata

On the 'Into the Darkness' goal card, the word 'physicist' should be read 'scientist'.

In the first page of the manual, it should read that 18 ship tokens come with the game, not 24.