High Frontier 4 All
The original High Frontier is an amazing piece of work and this fourth edition is much the same. Players are major players on the world stage, acquiring technology and building spaceships to send on missions through the solar system. There are victory points to be gained from exploring, but the major goal is to construct extra-terrestrial factories. These let you manufacture better technology than
can be produced on Earth and thus build much better spaceships.
All the technology in the game is real and the board shows the inner solar system. Planets, moons, asteroids and comets are joined by low-energy Hohmann orbits, which players' spaceships use. The tricky part is constructing a spaceship that can carry enough fuel (reaction
mass, to be more accurate)
for the journey. More fuel = more mass, which requires more fuel...
High Frontier 4 All has streamlined the game, moving some of the complexity into the expansion modules and providing a quick start game that introduces the basic mechanisms in a race game. There's also a version for "bright children" and solitaire and co-operative options.
I have the first three expansion modules, Module 1 – Terrawatt and Futures, Module 2 – Colonization and Module 3 – Conflict (details below), plus the double-size neoprene
mat.
For 1-5 players, aged 14+, 4 hours to play (main game): £67.00 (£55.83 tax-free outside the UK)
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