Pilots take turns placing the 32 hex space tiles (35 with the wormhole option — the three wormholes join the set as extra tiles), each new tile adjacent to the board and never touching more than three others. Then, in random order, each pilot places their rocket on any tile and places a rival's spare shield somewhere on the board. Only the matching pilot can reclaim a boarded shield — fly onto it to pick it up. If that pilot has been destroyed, the shield becomes salvage anyone can collect. Any shield you hold protects you.
Play proceeds in rounds. The order tokens are shuffled and dealt at the start of every round — once each pilot has taken a turn, they're collected and reshuffled for the next round. On your turn you move, then attack.
Roll the white move die and travel that many tiles, one adjacent tile at a time. You can't revisit a tile this turn. Rockets never block you — fly straight past them, or land on the same tile and share it. If you fly into a dead end, your move stops there. With the Up to roll option, you may stop early, but must always move at least one tile.
Pick a target rocket, then roll the red attack die. On a 3–6, trace an attack path up to that many adjacent tiles — every rocket on the path is hit (you may deliberately trace a miss). On a 1–2, it's point-blank: if the target is within that many tiles, the hit is forced and you take damage too, exchanging shields.
Any number of rockets can occupy one tile. An attack that hits a tile damages every ship on it — but ships occupying the same space can never attack each other.
Three extra wormhole tiles join the set, bringing the board to 35 tiles — and all three count as one single space. Every tile adjacent to any wormhole is adjacent to all of them — enter one side of the void, exit any other. An attack on the wormhole space damages ships on every wormhole tile. Ships in the wormhole share a space, so they can't attack each other.
One extra asteroid tile joins the set. When it's drawn, the pilot placing it drops the first of three asteroid tokens on it, then places the other two — each must touch a tile that already holds an asteroid, so the belt starts as one connected clump.
Asteroid tiles are impassable: rockets can't fly into or through them. Asteroids also give cover — a shot can be traced into an asteroid, but it bursts on the rock and goes no further, so nothing beyond it is hit. In addition to their normal move and attack, a pilot may once per turn take one asteroid token and drift it to a tile touching one of the other tokens — the belt must remain a single connected group when they're done. Use it to wall off a rival, or to dig yourself out.
If the belt is jammed — no token has a legal move left — that turn's asteroid action becomes a removal instead: take one token off the board for good. A stuck belt therefore sheds rocks until the lanes open again.
A hit rocket surrenders one shield to the attacker. Out of shields? The attacker collects your rocket and you're out.
Last rocket on the board wins — then superlative awards are handed out for damage, kills, peace, and spreading the pain around.