To the Moon and Beyond

Here's a series of tips I have to offer anyone trying to beat this trash fire on hard.

Hard isn't hard, its unfair. You ought to be able to notice you will lose from how often hard throws negative random events at you. There's no guaranteed strategy to win. Knowing the ins and outs of the game helps tremendously; that's what this guide is. Don't be a baby and downvote this solution over how To The Moon and Beyond will instantly screw you over so badly you'll lose the game after buying like 2 cards. It took me at least 2 solid hours to finally beat hard difficulty due to a combination how cheap and unfair hard is and not fully understanding how the game works.

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very short version:

Again, if you didn't read, HARD IS UNFAIR AF. It is a good idea to restart the game if you get nailed with something too punishing like doubled cost of cards within the first few moves on the first round.

GOAL: to win you need to meet or exceed the # of points in each of the 8 mission categories

game ends after 4 rounds

focus on buying cards with:
- colored rectangles
- big numbers under the treasure chest

DON'T focus on:
- colored triangles until turn 4

research cards you need to know about:

Robotics Research (buy every time you see it)
Material Science (buy every time you see it)

Earth Observations (protects against hurricane)
DNA Research (protects against outbreak)
Outreach (protects against teh dumb)
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Here's the tl;dr

To the Moon's tutorial is bad and misleading. It puts a lot of emphasis on matching the triangular pips at the bottom of cards to earn points and leaves the player to figure out the more important concepts to winning the 'game'.

Here's the super important things you may not know playing To the Moon:

You only get 4 rounds to win the game. Difficulty doesn't matter.

Cards:

On the cards: bottom right. Inverted colored triangles appear here. You need to match 4 colored triangles between 4 cards for 1 point. The only advantage to this is being able to pick a category the point goes to. 4 of the same color = 1 point given to one of the two categories for that color. Or 1 of each color = 1 point to any category. THE TRINAGLES ARE KIND OF USELESS UNTIL TURN 4 (the final turn) WHERE THEY CAN BE VITAL FOR GETTING THAT ONE POINT NEEDED TO WIN

On project cards: bottom right, there is a black bar. Sometimes there is a colored rectangle inside it. Each colored rectangle corresponds to one of the 8 categories needed to beat the game. Each rectangle = 1 point towards that category (IF it makes it to the end of the round). In fact, every time you buy a card with one of these colored rectangles, the game will update the category progress with an * next to the number.

OBVIOUSLY the rectangles take priority over triangles. Again, the triangles become valuable on turn 4 where they can get you those few points you need to win if the game is being too stingy with the rectangles you need.

ANOTHER IMPORTANT DETAIL for winning on hard: On the right side of the card is a treasure chest with a number below it. If you buy this card and it survives the round, the number below the treasure chest increases the money you get every round by that much until the end of the game.

Science:

If you went for the 'Lazy Crew' achievement the instant you started hard, I'm sure you noticed better results vs when you do buy research. To the point where I'd think this game is trying to make a statement that research is kind of worthless and a waste of money! That's what most if it is in this game, sadly!

Research cards can do a combination of the following:
- discount the cost of related project cards
- unlock related project cards for purchase
- protect the mission from specific disasters

On project cards: if research is needed to unlock for purchase or discount the cost, the picture for the corresponding research will be in the lower left corner.

Not all research is equal. Research on project cards is not randomized. It is the same every game. Some research turns up a lot and/or offer big discounts on really good project cards. Some research is almost useless. And some are weird like 3d printing which offers great discounts on lots of project cards that are almost all crap. The more you play, the better an idea you'll have on which research is useful or not.

Here are research cards I recommend buying:
EVERY TIME YOU SEE IT:
- Material Science
- Robotics Research
honorable mentions:
- Optical Fibers
- Biosensor Technology
- Miniaturization
- Deep Space Communication

Here are the research cards that protect you from losing money (and offer a rare discount):
- Earth Observations (counters hurricane)
- DNA research (counters outbreak)
- Outreach (counters dummies who hurt NASA funding because they believe the Earth is flat)

Buying the protection cards is iffy on hard. Hard is a mean cold hearted bitch and will nail you with 2 crises and destroy your rocket before you have a chance to do anything about it.

Hope this helps.
If I missed anything, let me know.

Adding a text guide for those that prefer it over a video.

This achievement took a few tries to win the hard game. Mostly due to poor RNG.

I recommend going for the other achievements first, especially the win 3 games in a row, so that you have a good understanding/recollection of the cards and how they synchronize. This allows you to make the most efficient plays.

The Game System of To the Moon and Beyond is fairly simple.

Scoring: You've got to collect points in 8 different categories to win. There are two different ways to grab points. You can either buy project cards with immediate points (the colored rectangles in rainbow sequence on each card shows what points you'll get), or you can grab bonus points each round after you've spent that round's budget. The bonus points are earned by creating sets with 4 cards (4 of same color or 1 of each color) at the end of each round. You'll then be able to choose how you want to assign those bonus points across the eight categories. To win - you'll need to fill out points across all categories as shown (Gateway 7, Habitat 7, Lander 5, Rover 5, Human 8, Robotics 5, Rocket 4, Return 5)

Cards: Each round you can buy as many cards as you like, provided you've got the budget (coins, money, gold, NasaBucks, whatever you call 'em). The project cards (green, top row) are for scoring and increasing your budget for subsequent rounds. The research cards (blue, bottom row) give discounts on linked project cards and protect against two or three of the random events. You'll be wanting to split your money roughly 60:40 project cards: research cards at the beginning and reduce the amount you buy in research cards each round after (they don't score points, just help you buy the better cards for cheap)

So how do you win?? Two major tactics will allow you to play well.

1. Don't buy too much research early - While you'll want to invest some in the research, as you will need the discount - be careful not to buy too much. Research cards do not increase your budget, so you'll be sacrificing that extra coin you would get from a project card.

2. Make sure to pay attention to your bonus points -- they add up and will likely mean the difference between failure and success. I lost two or three games before clearing the hard mode, and it was by 1 or 2 points in one category each time.

Further Info:
There are 57 project cards and 25 research cards. Each card is unique and only appears once.
The International Collaboration Event is RNG, but very helpful. You might want to restart the game until you get it in the first round...
Pay attention to the costs across each category: Human needs 8 points, and Gateway and Habitat need 7 so make sure you buy the research cards which allow you to buy those immediate points cheaper: BioSensor Tech, Miniaturization, Cut Red Tape and Education are a few I recall.
Certain research cards will block bad events from happening: Outreach Events, Earth Observations and DNA research. Buy them if they're out during round 1 (might be worth restarting until they are out...)
Plan ahead a little if you can. A little preparation can remove a poor decision that would cost you the game.
There are only 8 cards with Red Bonus points available, so make sure to use those for the universal points when possible.

Good luck - hope the tips help people. Overall it's a quick play and will run about 40 minutes to an hour to play through multiple times and get some helpful RNG.