Drillers · Board game rules
What happens when the Drillers damage pile is empty?
Quick answer
If you need to take damage but no damage cards remain, remove the most valuable mineral from your market table instead. [p.18 — FAQ]
Details
When your mech takes damage during the game, you normally place a DAMAGE card from the stack into your discard pile. However, the damage stack is finite—it contains only 14 cards total (one per player's starting deck). [p.2 — Components]
If you ever need to take damage and the damage stack is empty, you don't take a damage card. Instead, you must remove the most valuable mineral from your market table and return it to the supply. This represents your mech becoming so damaged that it loses cargo. [p.18 — FAQ]
The "most valuable" mineral is determined by victory point value: ruby (5 pts) > emerald (4 pts) > sapphire (3 pts) > gold (3 pts) > silver (1 pt). If your market is also empty, you cannot take this penalty, so the damage effect simply cannot be resolved.