There will be 6 RDP allocations set up and publicly available. RDP allocations will not be modifiable by entrants. Each player designs weapons and ships from that RDP allocation. Fleets are built to 800 points, and must contain ships of three different sizes, with no more than one "big", three "medium" and four "small" ships. (These size restrictions are in place to facilitate the painting competition.)

[An RDP allocation is a package deal listing the limits for ablative shields, armor, what weapon traits are available, etc.  It's "what this hypothetical star nation knows how to make."]

Because the RDP allocations are posted in advance, you are welcome to design a fleet in advance of the convention; however, all fleets must be turned in to the judge's desk by 5 PM on the first day of the convention. Fleets will be numbered by the time of entry; it is mildly advantageous to have a lower fleet number if you're going for the Architect's prize, so there's an incentive to turn your fleet in early (which makes the Judge's job easier.)

All fleets will be validated by the judges, printed out and posted publicly by 7 PM of the first day of the convention.  Bonus karma for people who hand us filled out spreadsheets to make the check in easier.

Fleets are assigned by single round, sealed bid - you will be bidding match points to get the fleet of your choice. See below for round scoring. To keep bidding from getting ridiculous, all bids are matched by pledges to the charity the event is sponsoring - the charity will be publicly disclosed at least four weeks before the event, at the same time the RDPs allocations are disclosed.

We do not accept cash for charitable contributions for the fleets; we will sign you up for a pledge sheet. We CAN take physical possession of a check made out to the charity.

Each fleet will be represented at least once in the bidding process; most will be represented more than once as we expect more players than builders. We take the number of bid sheets and divide by the number of fleets created, keeping the remainder - remainders are assigned by fleet number as defined above. For example, with 7 fleets and 16 entrants, there would be 2 of each fleet and 2 remainders, meaning an extra of fleet 1 and fleet 2.

You may bid on your own fleet; to win the auction for a fleet you designed, your bid must be twice as high as the next lower bidder for that fleet. You may bid zero on a fleet. You may not bid a negative value; see below if you see a fleet designed to do nothing but lose, badly.

You may submit a fleet of "BS" (for "builder swaps") on a fleet. If one quarter of the bids submitted by players for a particular fleet are "BS", the designer of that fleet (and only the designer) is forced to play that fleet. This is used to curb the "duffer" fleet.

After sorting out for BS bids, fleets are assigned in the order of highest bid to lowest. Once you've been assigned a fleet, all your remaining bids are nullified.

If the minis painting competition is going on, minis sets are chosen by the players in bid order. See scoring below.

Playing the game:

The tourney will be run as three rounds of Swiss scoring. If there are fewer than twenty entrants, the fourth round will be a finals match between the two highest scoring entries. If there are more than twenty entrants, the top four scores will be seeded to a single round elimination tree.

All games have a disengagement clock of 15 turns. At the end of 15 turns, players may disengage whatever units they wish that are still capable of doing so, and scoring is done. This should result in games that run between 1.5 and 3 hours.

Scoring:

The standard victory rules will be used, and the victory levels printed.

A draw gets 5 points for each player.
A minor victory gets 10 points for the winner
A victory gets 20 points for the winner
A major victory gets 25 points for the winner
An overwhelming victory gets 30 points for the winner
A legendary victory gets 35 points for the winner.

At the end of each game, each player gets a number of match points equal to their opponent's fleet bid. Scores will be reported on the format of X+Y: X match points from the game, Y points from the handicap.

After the first round, players will be paired up by match point totals, highest going against second highest, and so on.

Architect Prize:

The designers of the best fleets also get prizes -- even if they don't play in the game.

Scoring: Each fleet gets an initial score equal to the average bid it receives, not counting bids of BS or bids by the designer. Each round, it receives additional points equal to the base match points accrued for every time it's flown. If your fleet shows up three times, and scores a draw, a minor victory and a loss, your fleet got 15 points for the round. Architect scoring is not altered by player bids for the rounds; that's factored in in the average bid received.

Fleets used in the finals score the rounds normally; it is possible to win the Architect prize with a fleet that didn't make it into the finals, though it's unlikely.

Painting Contest:

At least three months before the tournament, a listing of acceptable miniatures for a fleet will be made known; these will include manufacturers and part numbers, and we will try to get a package deal arranged.

The fleet will have one large, three medium and four small ships in it, for eight ships total. All ships must have Ninja Magic adapters and bases; we will make sets of angle adapters available, and all must be painted. These fleets will be available for other people to play with; keep that in mind when doing your paint jobs. Each person who submits a fleet for others to use gets a gift certificate usable on the Ad Astra web shop.

Each player picks which minis they'll use in bid order.

For the painting prize, the initial score is equal to the bid of the person who selected your fleet. You score additional points equal to the base match points won by your fleet's player in combat, just like the Architect award.

Prizes are awarded for Admirals, Architects and Painters, with the top three in each.