This is a Beginner's Guide, primarily intended to communicate these ideas:

1. Buy AP-gaining (and/or card-drawing) cards before you thoroughly bog down your deck - otherwise, you won't have the money (AP) to buy new better cards when you need them.

2. You don't have to rush through the scenario goals, nor rush to eliminate 'harmless' crises. You do, however, have to have enough sources of Oxygen, and also some Authority, Hull repair, and Stability gain, or you will lose.

This Guide is based on Stellar Orphans version 0.9.8.1-i

Stellar Orphans is not a typical deckbuilder.

Each card that you choose to play costs you at least -1 oxygen. Meanwhile, each card that you DON'T play (and don't Block) you'll discard at the end of your turn to gain +1 AP next turn.

This means that you should not be playing out your hand "hoping that a combination will turn up." Rather the reverse: End your turn the moment that you have completed necessary or powerful effects. Each card that you play has an opportunity cost of -1 AP next turn and -1 Oxygen on top of its casting cost, and sometimes it is better to NOT play (even if the card does something) to consolidate resources for a future turn.

In the beginning, most of your cards just give 1 AP each if you play them, which is pretty terrible. Most of the time, you'll just not use them during your turn and let them get discarded to fuel next turn. That means that your priority is to buy better AP-granting cards, that give 2 or more AP each when you play them.

Burning your entire hand to buy a mediocre non-AP-granting card is really bad in the early game not only because it dilutes the economic power of your deck, but also you'll start the next turn with zero AP, and then by the time you've recovered you'll probably have to redirect your resources to putting out fires (solving crises or eliminating banes).

To successfully overcome the challenges in Stellar Orphans, it is easiest if you prioritize card purchases in roughly the following order:


Most cards in your deck cost AP to play, and some powerful cards require large amounts of AP. Many crises and events require AP to solve or activate. Most importantly, the primary way to improve your deck is to purchase new cards at the store using AP.

Each turn, the store refreshes, offering three cards for purchase. Bronze cards cost 4 AP, Silver cards cost 8 AP, Gold cards cost 12 AP, and Platinum cards cost 16 AP. In the beginning, you will be offered mostly Bronze, because rarity percentages are determined by the number of crises that you have overcome. Usually all three store cards are worthless to you – but the cards you need will arrive at the most inconvenient times imaginable. If your deck cannot reliably generate 4 AP and “burst” 8/12/16 AP when required, you will not be able to improve your deck.

Therefore massive AP-generation is your first priority, and it will remain your top priority throughout all normal scenarios and difficulty levels. Note that card-draw-cards and tutoring-cards (cards that control the next card you draw) can also improve your ability to generate AP on-demand.

Extremely early in the game, you should be cautious about purchasing cards that sound good but dilute your precious AP-generation. Also be careful of Support cards – because these remain in your hand, they do not contribute to discard-generated AP for next turn.

Good Bronze AP cards:
Decision making (+2 AP : decent when upgraded to +3 AP)
Overwork (+6 AP now, -8 AP next turn)
Risky decision (50% +6 / -3 AP)
Material order (-2 AP for +4 AP next turn)
Reservists (draw 3 cards but prevents future draws this turn)

Probably Bad Bronze AP cards:
Planning (unplayable; gives +4 AP if force-discarded)
Xeno amphetamines (huge oxygen cost; its cloning is hard to deal with)
Adaptability (+1 AP per Bane in your deck, which is often 0)

Good Silver:
Teamwork (great when upgraded: becomes +2 AP +2 draw)
Battery (improves to +7 AP for -1 Hull)
Resilience (+2 AP per crisis in play)
Negotiation (discard random card for +4 AP)

Good Gold:
Inspirational speech (+4 AP and +4 Stability)
Virtualization (+2 AP and tutor card from deck to top of library)
Exoskeleton (Support : +3 AP when held in-hand)
AI (Support and cyclic; +3 draw)


An important way to solve high-cost crises is to pay some of their skill cost using Authority points: after playing your best skill card(s), you boost to reach the final price by spending your Authority. There are also crises that must be solved by spending Authority directly. There are important cards whose cost is Authority points instead of AP or skill points, or who trigger off of Authority level (such as “Mercenaries”). Your deck must include a way to generate Authority rapidly and reliably. Note that for a small deck, one upgraded Authority card (such as “It’s an order!” or “Charismatic leader”) might be sufficient to meet your entire Authority requirements, because Authority starts out capped at 5 max.

Since Authority cards give you +1 Authority with a stability drawback, you want to UPGRADE these to double their effectiveness!

Bronze:
Militia (-4 AP -5 Stability for +1 Authority)
Balance of power (unplayable; +1 Authority when force-discarded)

Silver:
Bullying (-2 AP -3 Stability for +1 Authority)

Gold:
It's an order! (-0 AP -2 Stability Repeats for +1 Authority)
Freeing an Inmate (-1 AP -5 Stability for +1 Authority and tutor from discard to top of deck)


Most starting decks will die of oxygen-starvation after a relatively short number of turns. Technically, you could avoid immediate game-over by playing an average of 1 card per turn once your oxygen gets too low, but this type of suffocation will cause result in a slow, painful death as you get overwhelmed by crises and banes that you cannot resolve efficiently. You need to purchase enough oxygen-generation cards to stabilize your oxygen level per a full-library-playthrough.

Bronze:
Oxygen dose (-1 AP -1 Hull for +2 Oxygen [+3 upgraded])

Silver:
Emergency load shedding (-1 Tools -5 Hull for +10 Oxygen [+15 upgraded])
Labor (+2 AP if held at start of turn; +5 Oxygen if force-discarded)

Gold:
Asceticism (+5 Oxygen if you don't play any cards)
Gas Masks (-1 Tools; Support; +2 Oxygen if held at start of turn)
Breathing technique (-3 AP future cards played this turn consume no oxygen; This card is only good for late-game decks.)

Platinum:
Photosynthetic greenhouse (-10 Tools; Installed; be sure to upgrade before installing to get 55% +1 Oxygen per card played)


The two ‘easiest’ oxygen generators, Oxygen dose and Emergency load shedding, obtain oxygen by trading hull on a 2-for-1 basis (3-for-1 once upgraded). This usually means that your deck will also have to generate reliable hull repair (for example, repairing roughly 5 hull per 15 oxygen consumed). Hull repair is also necessary to overcome certain game objectives, crises, banes, and useful cards (particularly Battery: +7 AP for -1 hull). Generally, I tried to make sure that my hull repair card total exceeded my hull loss card total.

Bronze:
Caulking (-1 Tools for +0-2 Hull. This card is painfully slow even upgraded.)

Silver:
Repairs (-3 Tools for +5 Hull. A staple workhorse; basically the only card available. One of these is often enough.)

Gold:
Energy shield (-1 Tools; Support; +1 Hull when held in-hand.)


Some of the best deck-improving cards, including Increase (upgrades a card) and Cloning (duplicates a card), cost Stability to use. Many of the tutoring and authority and AP generation cards also cost Stability. Although running out of stability doesn’t instantly kill you (like Oxygen or Hull does), an inability to recover your stability can cause you to be overwhelmed by banes.

Bronze:
Encouragement (-1 AP; discard a card and get +2 Stability. Having the ability to discard a card of your choice is powerful for many quest goals!)

Silver:
Music (-1 AP for +5 Stability. A staple workhorse; one of these is often enough.)
Psychological support (-1 AP for +3 Psych +2 Stability. Upgrades nicely but vastly inferior to Meditation.)

Gold:
Inspirational speech (+4 AP +4 Stability. Wow!)
Meditation (-2 AP for +3 Psych +3 Stability +1 draw.)
Cat (-1 AP; Support; +2 Stability if held in-hand.)


Now that you’re keeping all the previous requirements in mind, you can balance your need to generate skill points within each “currency” (medical, tools, military, psychology). Cards that generate skill points combined with card-draw effects (and/or AP) can be added to a deck without harming its overall power level. Note that Cycling and Repeat are multipliers that will greatly increase the effective point-gain per full-library-playthrough. Burst skill values are also important, because certain crises require you to muster +10 skill points within a single turn – either you will hold your skill-gainer until you draw a second skill-gainer in hand, or else you have a tutoring card (such as Delivery) that lets you redraw and reuse your played card. Cards that do nothing but generate a small amount of skill points in one currency (such as Toolkit or Hugs) are weak enough that you will probably remove them from your deck eventually.

Bronze:
Antibiotics (-1 AP; Uses 5; +3 Medic. Hey, at least it uses itself up so it doesn't clutter your deck.)

Silver:
Computer skills (-2 AP +5 Tools +1 draw: great when upgraded to +2 draw)
Old broken robot (-4 AP Uses 5, Insubordinate, Potential to 6 max; +0 to all skills. This card requires 6 upgrades and needs continual restocking, but delivers to all skills.)

Gold:
Mercenaries (-3 AP Insubordinate Unique. +X to all skills where X is your Auth.)

Usually, your Stellar Orphan deck can be thought of as evolving through several stages:

Starting deck:

Initially, you are directing your efforts to purchase “economy” cards: cards that generate AP and/or draw additional cards to strengthen your card-purchasing capabilities. Once you can purchase from the store a bit more reliably, you will need at least one source of Authority and multiple sources of Oxygen to stay alive. This will in turn require you to obtain source(s) of Hull repair and Stability.

Midgame / developing deck:

During the developing stages of the mid-game, judiciously (selectively) purchase skill cards that enable you to meet goals, overcome crises, eliminate banes, activate events, and pay card costs. Keeping the deck small with lots of draw-power will enable you to own fewer niche cards (such as only one card to accommodate each skill-type).

Endgame / degenerate deck:

In the endgame, your deck will include self-modifier cards like Increase, Cloning, and Exclude. At this stage, removal is used to exclude cards that are good but “not good enough.”

You will obtain particular cards that single-handedly eliminate certain bottlenecks. The upgraded Photosynthetic greenhouse installation, in particular, yields net positive Oxygen consumption (unless you are running Mobilization and/or Xeno amphetamines).

You will obtain particular cards that permanently change your playing style. Psionic mage enables you to eliminate crises before they reach your ship – they no longer hit you with their turn-zero effects.

You will have the opportunity to give one card Potential (unlimited upgrades) – I usually selected a card that included +AP as one of its benefits, although “+ to all skills” (such as Yehuda) might also be OP. Important: +100 is most useful on AP; next on skill points. +100 is okay but overkill for Stability, Oxygen, and Hull. +100 is least useful when applied to Card Draw and Authority, where +5 (attainable through normal upgrading) already gains maximum practical benefit.

During this stage, you tune your deck around OP cards like Chicken Breeding, Volunteers, Mercenaries, Charismatic leader, Inspirational speech, AI, Shifting paradigm, Old broken robot, …

Certain OP cards generate limitless card-play (hence limitless AP and skill points), but your deck must be tuned to accommodate their severe costs: Mobilization and Denial of democracy.

Note that your played cards will enter the discard immediately after they process, enabling you to recover them on the next play! Endgame configurations are possible where you can play an unlimited number of cards, steadily increasing all attributes: AP, authority, oxygen, hull, stability, and skill points. This differs from other deckbuilders, such as Dominion and Monster Slayers, that push all your played cards into limbo so they cannot be reused until your next turn.

Sometimes, you'll win the game before you are able to completely tune your deck. Also, (assuming the game designers did a good job) you will encounter new goals or quests that force you to deconstruct or profoundly alter your degenerate deck - ideally this part of the game is a lot of fun rather than tedious or demoralizing.

Thanks for reading!

I hope that the above descriptions are specific enough to be useful.

If time permits, I will list some of the most important cards in each category - although this information changes as they rebalance the cards during Early Access.