Terraforming Mars: Venus Next

No — the Venus scale is not an end-game condition; only temperature, oxygen, and oceans being maxed out end the game (page 2).

Yes, increasing Venus gives TR like other global parameters until it's maxed; additionally, at 8% you draw a card and at 16% you get an extra TR, and the Air Scrapping standard project can increase Venus one step for 15 M€ gaining TR as normal (page 2).

The Solar Phase occurs after the production phase each generation; Step 1 is a game-end check (if temp, oxygen, and oceans are maxed the game ends and no further Solar Phase steps occur) and Step 2 lets the first player acting as the World Government increase a non-maxed global parameter one step or place an ocean, with any bonuses going to the World Government rather than giving TR to the first player (page 3).

To claim the Hoverlord milestone you must have a total of at least 7 floater resources on your cards, and it is an additional milestone so up to three of six milestones may be claimed (page 3).

Venuphile is awarded to the player with the most Venus tags in play, so you count Venus tags on all players' cards and the highest total wins; it functions as an extra award (page 3).

Shuffle the 49 Venus project cards and the 5 Venus corporations into the respective decks before dealing cards and corporations during setup; there is an optional variant where players draw one Venus corporation and one other corporation to choose from (page 2).