The module is designed with essentially 3 different play areas; the main map, the Year Card window, and the individual Player windows. 

The main map area is where the actual game map is displayed. The system display uses an invisible hex grid to regulate movement of the Tech Level markers as also to allow various markers to be placed for Treaties, Trade Connections, etc. Each individual system can also be accessed via shift-click at the top of the system graphic. Once selected in this way, which is easiest done by shift-clicking the large planet symbol on the outside orbit track, you can right-click the system to bring up a menu allowing you to set the form of government via conversions. This will change the system to that government color making it visually easy to see when government's have been changed.

The Year Card window is the other main play area. Here is where the Year Card deck is located, as well as the Player, Raider and Outworlder hands are located. The Turn and Round tracks are also here along with the Event chits and two areas to display Events that have been played as well as a box for those events that have been removed from play. Cards and Events are dealt out via the respective buttons on the menu bar. For the cards, click the button, choose the player, and 5 cards will be dealt to that players area in the window. For events, click the button, choose the player color, and an event chit will be sent to that players private window where the player can then see what was drawn and then take appropriate action with the chit. The Event Chit stack can also be right-clicked to allow you to draw out a specific event via a scroll menu in case there are events you want to remove from the game before play or for whatever reason. All event chits can be returned to the deck via a right-click menu choice.

The player areas are divided into the area where the cards will be dealt, a holding area where chits can be played, an area showing the 3 Government Sectors, and two sets of 3 counters to allow the tracking of Resources and Victory Points. Note that the Resource and VP buttons are due an overhaul in two ways; one they will be getting a little x100, x10, and x1 at the top near the little resource symbol and VP marking to denote that the counters are representing hundreds, tens, and ones. Also, instead of right clicking and choosing the set number directly on these counters, people have suggested that they would rather just use an up and down arrow to increase or decrease quantity once the piece is selected. Lastly there are the three Government Sectors and their values. These are using an increase / decrease system, although I was using greater-than and less-than (comma and period) for that which I will change also to up and down arrow to keep all of these counters consistant. Feedback is most welcomed on any of this.

Cards are played by simply right clicking the card stack and choosing play card. The card is them moved face up to the played cards area to allow seeing the results of the card. You can of course also just double click the cards to open the stack and then pick whichever card you want and drag it over to the cards played area where it will be turned face up and revealed. The Return to Deck and Flip Over choices will most likely be removed in the final version. Finally if you right click on the stack of cards in the Played Cards area, which is itself another deck, you can have the cards all returned to the Year deck for the next round.

The initiative chits under the Round track are to be moved to the various player holding boxes to show initiative order. Each chits number can be changed via right-click.

Next we have the player windows. These are rather small, mainly because they are intended only to hold the event chits, which is the only thing the player is allowed to keep hidden from others, other than keeping their cards face down. Since a player can only ever have a total of 3 chits in hand or in play at any one time, there is only space for 4 total chits here. This is one of the other last things I'm fiddling with. Right now it's a bit clunky in getting the pieces separated in the window to play them. Anyway, these windows are only selectable by the side who owns it and the solitaire player side.

There are a couple of special buttons on the main menu to help automate some of the more constant and more tedious things that you do constantly in the game, choosing random systems and doing Government Sector checks. Pressing the System selection button will automate the roll on the System Selection Table and give you the numbers you rolled as well as the system name in the text window. The Sector Checks button brings up a menu where you select the current government sector value that you are checking, and then displays the new sector value in the text menu. There are also the Piece, Marker, Charts, and Notes buttons as well as the map controls.

In the Pieces box, there are some extra counters here not part of the original set to help people keep track of various things. The pieces have right-click menus that allow you to change things around, for example the Tech Level pieces allow you to switch the Tech Level marker to different faction colors including the Outworlders and the Revolt Tech Level for the One Faith revolt. They can also be flipped over to show a system in revolt. The colony markers are designed to be placed on the map during colonization, and then have a number on them that can be changed again via the right-click menu in order to change the colonization level, or to flip the counter over to show completion of colonization. Be sure and check the various right-click menus to see the different things you can do with the various pieces. This is another area I will be changing. For example rather than using flip on the Tech Level pieces, I will probably just add an initial menu choice to allow the player to set the system to Unrest directly.

The Markers are for use mostly in game set up, though there are a couple to indicate game states such as worlds the Draka have commited genocide. The marker with the crossed rifles is used to indicate successful conversion attacks on a system. This marker can be stacked with the Ideology pieces from the Piece menu to show which Ideology is being changed. This is another temp thing for now and will be changed.

Sorry for the wordy readme, but I really felt some explanation is needed for several of the various items in the module and to catch you up to where my gaming group and I are at with the module.

Chris H. Hansen