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StopTheRock

Oh noes! A very big rock is flying towards the world! It won't break it in half, but it will make enough of a mess to make it a very bad place to live in for a long time.

Heroes across the world start a search for powerful ancient artifacts that can stop the impending doom. Some even start their own space efforts intending to send professional miners into space to blow the rock up at the last minute!

Your derps however know better than to waste time on this sort of silliness: the best way to make the rock go away is to give it little nudges over a period of time, the earlier the better.

• The rock hits the world in 20 turns.
  • OPTIONAL: However, we're not sure that it's true. Roll a D20 for the rock at each start of a turn; on a 1, it takes one more turn, and on a 20, it takes one less turn. Landing a Waylight on the rock, or the rock being 5 or less turns away from the world, removes this uncertainity (because the rock is easier to observe).
• The rock needs 20 nudges total to be pushed away from the world.
• Any nudge given to the rock counts for all subsequent turns; in theory, 1 nudge given on turn 1 would be enough. If the rock can only be reached at the last minute, it would need 20 nudges all in one go! If the rock is reached before turn 10, it will need 2 nudges, if it is reached before turn 15 it will need 4 nudges, and so on.
• Nudging the rock requires landing an Up Goer on it, and operating a thruster, using up 2 units of fuel for each nudge. The rock is big but not as big as a planet, and has little gravity; landing on it is a docking maneuver (It's easy to land on the rock, but you must land in the spot where your nudge helps!), and taking off it is free although a Rock Pushoff burn to synchronous orbit is required.
• Spacederps are fighting for literally everything in their history ever! They can choose to use their return fuel for extra nudges (and hopefully be rescued later). Given the circumstances, if they are out of stamina when they get to the rock, they can even choose to become injured to use their skills one extra time.
• If the underped rules are being used, it is possible to leave an automatic system to perform the nudges, however docking with the rock in the right spot is tricky and needs a Waylight in libration near it for guidance.
• Getting to the rock requires roughly the same amount of fuel due to differences in orbital velocities, but it is faster to get to it when it's closer: for every 5 turns the rock is away from impact, there is a duration step for transit and return (Just leave your Up Goer tokens on the marked duration step). Round down: for the last 4 turns, there is no duration step, so skip the one drawn on the board.
• If the game continues after the rock has been stopped, the nudging has caused the rock to become a second natural satellite of your home planet; it can be visited normally.
• If the rock hits the world and colonization rules were being used, the game can continue! However, the budget for all players is reduced to 20 and decreases by one each turn. Can you build a self-sustaining outpost before then? This can be the start of an interesting RPG campaign if anyone had a self-sufficient program and you fast forward some years...
• An easy way to change the difficulty of a Stop The Rock scenario is to change the size of the rock: the smaller it is, the less amount of fuel necessary for a nudge.

This is intended as a cooperative game; if a winner absolutely must be declared, it's whoever landed the Up Goer(s) that gave the most nudges to the rock. If the game continues after stopping the rock, stopping it gives a dot bonus to each player equal to the number of nudges they gave it.