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Rocketmen

Created by PHALANX

A fast-paced deck-building tabletop game of modern space exploration for 1-4 players. A new masterpiece from Martin Wallace.

Latest Updates from Our Project:

Miniatures and insert
almost 4 years ago – Sat, May 16, 2020 at 09:11:53 PM

Hello Everyone!

We apologize to everyone for such a long delay for a new update, but we wanted to wait until we had received factory samples of miniatures with stands and an insert.

The miniatures will look phenomenal on the board – you can feel the atmosphere already with the prototype versions, and their settings on the stands give the impression that they are really floating in space (the stands will be transparent).

The insert easily accommodates all components (including figurines from the expansion and cards in sleeves).

Work on the game is still ongoing, but the end is near. Therefore, we do not anticipate any delays in production, and after recent consultations with the manufacturer we are confident there will also be no problem with printing – everything will reach backers in October.

And preorder Rocketmen is still open.

Take care of yourself and stay safe! 

Adrian & PHALANX Team

Pledge Manager and nobody expects the Spanish… edition
about 4 years ago – Thu, Mar 12, 2020 at 01:20:28 AM

Hello Everyone!

The Backerkit Pledge Manager (PM) is now open, and you should receive an email invitation soon. If not, please check your SPAM folder. If you still can’t see the invitation, please go directly to https://rocketmen.backerkit.com/sign_in and use your Kickstarter registration e-mail to get your invitation.

After you click the invitation link, please choose your country. This will set up your shipping charge.

Next please choose your language edition.

Then continue with the add-ons. Please add to your cart the additional items you wish to have in your order - as it is done in a  regular webshop. Your pledged amount is your available credit (reduced by the pledge you have chosen, that you already have in your basket,  including the game itself). But you can purchase any extra items, and total to be paid will be created including the shipping price.

Finally, enter your shipping address, pay the balance, and click "Place Order" and you'll be all set.

Once you respond to your survey, you can still go back later and change your choices until we close the surveys and get our final counts.  If you need to review your information or pledge status, you can return  to your survey by clicking the link in your survey email or requesting  your survey link under "Lost your survey?" on our BackerKit project page   at  https://rocketmen.backerkit.com/

If you used your Facebook credentials to log in to your Kickstarter account, the BackerKit survey is sent to the email address you use for your Facebook account. If you have another email address that you prefer  to use, please contact support at  https://rocketmen.backerkit.com/faq

If you have any questions about the Pledge Manager or how your order is processed, please make sure to contact Backerkit Support first, as the tool is very user-friendly and has a solid helpdesk. If they can’t help you, please contact Agata Jurczyszyn, our BackerKit  Manager: agata.jurczyszyn[at]vertima.trade

The pledge manager will be open until 1 June.

PRE-ORDER

The Pledge Manager is open to anyone who would like to receive the game at the same time as the Kickstarter backers. Here is a link to the  preorder page (it works like a regular webshop):  https://rocketmen.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders

Please note that Rocket & Launch Pad miniatures and Deluxe Earth, Moon & Mars metal coins are exclusive for Kickstarter backers. Everything else is the same as in the campaign.

Nobody expects the Spanish… edition

Very important information is that there will be six language versions of the game (English, French, German, Polish, Italian ... and Spanish). Yes, you see, the Spanish version of Martin Wallace's Rocketmen will appear, and Maldito Games will publish it.

In Pledge Manager you can choose this language version.

Successors Pledge Manager still open

We remind you that Successors Pledge Manager is still open, where you can order not only the fourth edition of the game but also additional components.

Pre-order page: http://bit.ly/smsuccessors

 Keep up to date with PHALANX

It’s worth subscribing to the newsletter, PHALANX Club and FB to keep up to date with what is happening in our publishing house and what we’re currently working on.

This year we will also launch a new campaign - Domination. The game is a new, improved and extended edition of Mini WWII.

This is the preview page: http://bit.ly/dominationonks

Happy gaming!

PHALANX Team

After Liftoff
about 4 years ago – Wed, Feb 05, 2020 at 09:45:05 PM

Hello Rocketeers,

Thank you very much for your participation in this first, but most important part of our mission. The launch was successful and now our space vehicle is beyond Earth's atmosphere, flying towards our main objective: delivering you the Rocketmen game by October 2020!

Please note that the game will be published in five language editions: English, French, German, Italian and Polish. Unfortunately for now we do not have a partner for a stand-alone Spanish edition. Nevertheless we appreciate the support of the Spanish community and encourage you to keep your pledges, as we are going to publish PDF rulebook in Spanish language so that you can enjoy the game in a similar way as backers of other editions. Thank you!

The Next Steps

Please read the following info, as this is very important post-campaign data that all of you need to know:

1. We will be setting up the pledge manager as soon as possible - we will use BackerKit.com. It will allow you to:

  • manage your pledges (check your items, add or remove items from your pledge, choose language editions of your items),
     
  • purchase extra copies of the game, add-ons, etc.,
     
  • enter your delivery address(es).
     

Please do not send us messages containing the above information, as we will be unable to process it. These kinds of choices are made in the pledge manager ONLY.

2. People who have missed the campaign will be able to pre-order the  game in the pledge manager. You will be able to buy the add-ons as well, but won't be able to get the Kickstarter exclusive set.

3. Once the pledge manager is open, you will receive an email notification. There is also going to be a separate update. You really can’t miss it, although please check your spam email from time to time.  ;)

4. The pledge manager should go live 1-2 months after the campaign is  finished, as we need to make the final quotes for shipping based on the  number of backers from each country, and set up all the products in the manager. It will be live for another 2 months. The pledge manager  works like a standard webshop where you choose the items you want to get  for your credit (the amount pledged during the campaign). You will be  able to increase your credit, to pay for shipping and any add-ons you  have chosen.

5. Current payments are processed by Kickstarter, so please contact their help desk if you have any problems with charging your cards. Sorry, but we can't help you in any way, as this is  run solely by Kickstarter and we have no influence over this process.

6. We will keep you updated about game development and production  status. We won’t be spamming, but we will try making at least a single  update each 2 months, or more, if there is anything important to share.

Domination

And now, without any further ado, we can announce to you our next project, a game that brings a completely new quality to the world of strategic-level wargames. It is fast, tense, elegant and beautiful. Click on the image below and check out the Domination!

Thank you for the ride! Happy gaming!

Jaro, Waldek, Michal & PHALANX Team

Italian Edition!
about 4 years ago – Wed, Feb 05, 2020 at 02:15:06 PM

Hello Rocketeers,

We are happy to announce that Pendragon Game Studio will publish the Italian edition of Rocketmen. Congratulations, dear Italian backers! You will be able  to choose your language edition in the Pledge Manager, that will be launched after the campaign ends. Please spread the word in your community, to let the Italian players to join at the very end of this campaing! 

Thank you! 

And speaking about the final steps: here is the last Dr. Eric G. L. Pinzelli's article written for this campaign. Enjoy!

A PERMANENT MARTIAN COLONY

If everything went according to plans, by 2023-24, after a 9-month Mars transit, two SpaceX cargo ships would have landed on the Red Planet to provide the supplies, equipment and habitat, paving the wayfor the following manned missions. The cargo ships will positionthe first infrastructures, while rovers will start to seek locally available energy, mineral and water resources to mine. A propellant plant and depot powered by a huge (40,000 m²) solar array using the Sabatier process to take carbon dioxide and hydrogen to create water and methane will be built in priority. By the time the first human colonists will step on the Red Planet two years later on two more Starships, accompanied by two more cargo ships, they would find quite an adequate base equipped withall the basic necessities for life support with an embryo of production of power, food, oxygen, and fuel. Where science goes, commerce soon follows: the all Martian venture could then kickstart.

While NASA selected a step by step indirect approach with space stations and lunar base milestones before ever attempting to send a human mission to the Red Planet, fifty five years after man first set foot on the Moon, two 12-crew SpaceX teams will finally land on Mars. Assuming all goes exactly to plan, with each Starship designed to carry c. 150 tons of cargo, 900 tons of supplies and hardware should be by then on the Martian soil. That quantity is just a portion of what will be needed for the building and sustained growth of the new isolated colony. The Mars habitat will have to be fully self-sustainable before crews can be sent there on the long space missions, meaning it would have to constructed by robots first. Colonists would have to expand by building recycling devices, more landing pads, mining facilities, habitats, greenhouses and further life support infrastructures. According to SpaceX calculations, during the first decades the Martian village will require one million tons of supplies from Earth to function.

Going to the Red Planet and developing a viable colony won’t be an easy task. On Earth, we are protected from cosmic radiation by the atmosphere overhead, but Mars is a hostile world with 700 times more cosmic radiations than at the surface of our own planet. Experiments are being performed worldwide to find proper solutions to this deadly health hazard. According to Eugene Parker (Scientific American, 2006), theoretically, radiation shielding can be provided by powerful magnetic fields, or by spherical shells filled with water at least five meters thick that would absorb the rays, but it would requirea total mass of 400 tons. There arealso the issues of low gravity and extreme weather conditions: The planet experiences heavy dust storm seasons, and while a summer day may get up to 20° Celsius at the equator, at night the temperature can drop to -100° Celsius. At the poles the temperature plummet to -153°C, much colder than Antarctica.

With new breakthrough technologies to overcome all these challenges and a great deal of optimism, the self-sustaining Elon City could take shape by 2050. That accomplishment using a complex adaptive system would come with an astronomical price tag: somewhere between $100 billion and $10 trillion according to SpaceX’s CEO, which represents around 1/8th of current total global economy. At this early stage, it is quite impossible to give any accurate prognosis. However, if successful, the most ambitious space program ever will also be the most expensive project of all time. Among the long-term benefits, Mars could be used as a source of raw materials and terraforming might transform it into a hospitable environment over the course of centuries, if by then we haven’t detected forms of life, but we are entering the realm of science fiction and dreams...

Thank you for sharing the same dreams. Please keep the engines burning!

Michal & PHALANX Team

Upgraded!
about 4 years ago – Tue, Feb 04, 2020 at 07:59:47 PM

Hello Everyone,

Your support has a great impact! With more than 400 (!) interactions you have added the third metal coin to our Kickstarter exclusive set! This one, representing the Blue Planet, will be used as the First Player marker in 2-4 player games and as the AI marker in solo games. Congratulations!

Having such a great community on our side, we would like to ask you for another favour - voting for our games on the Boardgamegeek.com unofficial (but very fun) Most Anticipated Games list. Just klick on the images below and give them a 'thumb up' (and to any other games that you are waiting for this year!) Have fun!

And please remember about Kicktraq domination! :) Just click the green 'Visit Project' button on the Kicktraq page: 

Thank you for helping us to promote this project. We really appreciate this additional effort from your side!

As our campaign is closing to an end, let's speak about the final target for space endeavours of our generation. Today Dr. Eric G. L. PINZELLI will write you about the...

FIRST MANNED MISSION TO MARS

Once all the preflight architecture elements and procedures are checked, with a human certified heavy-lift rocket and spacecraft, a space station-orbital shipyard, a lunar base, with propellant depots set up for the long journey to the Red Planet, Mission Control would be able to declare the Martian mission go for launch.

A direct approach would need a huge a launch vehicle: Manned spaceflights to Mars require much larger spaceships than the 1960s-early 1970s manned flights to the Moon. In effect, the Mars spaceship could have the size and appearance of a traveling space station, rather similar to the Hermes depicted in the fictional 2015 The Martian film. In Ridley Scott’s production, the entirely LEO-assembled transit ship Hermes is equipped with an advanced propulsion system (ion engines) and a rotating wheel to provide artificial gravity for the crew of the Ares Mission. Astronauts ride to space on the Lockeed Martin-ESA Orion spaceship launched by the SLS rocket and dock the Hermes. Most of these elements are directly inspired and extrapolated from NASA’s Artemis II designs with Boeing as the SLS’ prime contractor. However, the U.S. space agency doesn’t plan to send a manned mission to Mars before Phase IV of the Artemis II program in mid-2030s and even then, a 2019 report from the Science and Technology Policy Institute (STPI) concluded that, with the current financial investments and developments, NASA would not manage to send humans to Mars before the late 2030s.

According to a 2018 Roscosmos research, even with a radiation shelter and protective measures, the two years it will take to travel to Mars and back will take two and a half years off the lifespan of each cosmonaut involved in the mission. Even with the risks involved that are still difficult to measure, Russian manned missions are currently planned for a 2040-2045 timeframe. The Privately-funded Mars One project, which never passed the draft phase, went bankrupt a year ago. Neither JAXA, the Japanese space agency, nor the Chinese National Space Administration have plans for human missions to Mars. The ESA has a long-term goal for manned missions, but has not yet developed a crewed spacecraft for that purpose.

SpaceX could get to the Red Planet first: If everything goes according to plans, in 2022 two cargo ships will be sent to Mars before a manned flight in 2024 during the next "Orbital sync” that happens every two years. SpaceX future Interplanetary Transport System (ITS) architecture consists of a two-stage reusable vehicle with a large stainless steel spaceship now called Starship, stacked atop a giant rocket for orbital insertion named Super Heavy, both still in development. After refueling in LEO, Starship, capable of carrying 100 people, would depart for the Red Planet. For the return trip to Earth, SpaceX envisions to reload Starship with locally-produced methane and oxygen as propellants. The challenges are huge: Starship would go through the stress of aerodynamic pressure and temperature change during the takeoff from Earth, then would come the long transit, the deceleration for the Mars descent at 1700°C and touch down, before taking off again from the Martian surface and the final Earth’s atmospheric re-entry. SpaceX is aiming for a series of 10 launches to start a city by 2050. Elon Musk’s eventual particularly optimistic goal is to have fleets of 1,000 Starships departing for Mars every 26 months and an extremely long operational life of 20 to 30 years for each vehicle. It is, by far, the most daring and ambitious space program ever envisioned, but is it feasible?

With a firm foothold on the Red Planet, beyond transforming humanity into a space-faring civilization we would become a multi-planetary species, with more chances to survive a cataclysmic extinction event. “Catastrophic events have a way of sneaking up on us, of catching us unaware. Your own life, or your band’s, or even your species’ might be owed to a restless few—drawn, by a craving they can hardly articulate or understand, to undiscovered lands and new worlds...” Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994. Inspiration like this has always been Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos’ supreme goal. Although, with a ticket to Mars on Starship currently estimated at $500,000, clearly not everyone will yet afford to “Boldly Go Where No One Has Gone Before” in order to “Live Long and Prosper” on the surface of another world.

Thank you for your support! Please keep the engines burning!

Michal & PHALANX Team