Drop in outer space
Drop Drive is a 1-4 player "drop-style" pick-up-and-deliver game in which you are mining asteroids in space and selling your goods while also facing pirates who want to profit from your cargo. It will launch on Kickstarter on September 28.
To set up the game, you will assemble a set of walls to define your play area, place the sun and pirate ships within it, and then take the asteroid, planet, fuel and salvage cubes in your hands, shake them, and drop them on the table. You will then drop your ship inside this system and you're ready to go.
On each turn, players may Drop Drive and/or Rocket Drive. To Drop Drive, you have to spend one fuel canister from your cargo by dropping it over the sun, adjust your Nav tool (a measuring tool) according to your drop drive rating, and then drop your ship from a height equal to the Nav tool length. You may Drop Drive more than once if you have enough fuel. To Rocket Drive, you first adjust the Nav tool to your rocket drive rating, and then attach it to your ship and move the ship to the other end of the Nav tool.
While the ship moves along the Nav tool, you can interact with the objects that touch the Nav tool. If it's an asteroid, a fuel, or a salvage piece, you can gather it as long as you have the required cargo space. If it's a pirate ship, you have to fight it. You will roll your battle die, adding your ship's battle rating to the result, and then roll for the pirate. If you roll higher than the pirate, you defeat them and steal anything they may be carrying. If not, the pirate escapes and you re-drop the pirate over the sun.
If you touch on a planet, you have to land on it and then deliver any passengers who have the planet as their desired destination and gain their bonus. You may also re-drop any salvage pieces you have gathered and receive that many Explore cards (Explore cards may be ship upgrades, passengers or specimens). If you are carrying asteroids, you may sell them if they match the planet's market demand to gain credits. Sold asteroids get re-dropped over the sun. Planet landing also activates pirates: if the planet's pirate ship is docked on the planet tile, you drop the pirate over the sun. All pirate ships in space are then triggered: they move to and steal the closest asteroid matching their colour. If there is no matching asteroid, you just drop the pirate over the sun.
Players may fight each other if their ships meet, or choose to be friendly. If they both choose the hostile stance, they roll their dice and fight. If one is hostile and the other peaceful, the hostile one steals cargo from the peaceful player. At the end of the game, when there are no Market Demand tokens left, you proceed to scoring and the player with the highest credit amount wins. Solo rules have not been yet revealed.