Game guide

Your first run

1. Create your captain and compare the ten starting exchange goods.
2. Find a buyer, check the loaded voyage budget and keep working cash for fuel and setbacks.
3. Buy your cargo, travel and sell within the receiving station’s allowance.

Freight is optional client work. Review its payment, cargo ownership and due date before accepting. Tasks lists current commitments; the Journal records what happened.

Reference catalogues

Characters covers species, appearances and the reference establishment roster. Ships covers classes, fittings, weapons and capacity. Goods covers exchange goods, access, production, consumption and price distributions. Pricing formulas explains the approved economy models. These references are generic and do not read a player’s voyage.

Station locations

Locations read as station · local orbit or moon · parent world. Stickney Dock · Phobos · Mars and Swift Anchorage · Deimos · Mars belong to the same Mars system. Meridian Station · Orbit · Earth, Kepler Shipyard · High orbit · Earth and Shackleton Relay · Moon · Earth belong to the Earth system. This format appears on destinations, tasks, deliveries, assignments, ship locations and station records.

Powered travel

Ships accelerate for half the flight, turn around and brake for the second half. Flight time is estimated as 2√(distance / acceleration). Circular planetary phases lead the destination at arrival; paths detour outside a 0.25 AU solar exclusion. Local legs follow a conservative corridor around the parent. A one-day interplanetary clearance replaces the old launch-window wait. Cargo, equipment, propellant and the slowest escort affect acceleration. The map follows the ship’s calendar and the planned arrival time.

Establishments

Establishment controls

Each establishment keeps its character conversation beside the relevant services. The Dry dock selector applies to every quoted service and its actual target. Changing ships clears a partial fuel amount. Communications uses the same selected destination for readiness, route plotting and briefing. Its section buttons jump to transport, departure or survey work when more than one is available.

The Fleet registry keeps the selected ship, price and purchase or sale action visible while you inspect the hull. Upgrade rows show their benefits before fitting. Review a diplomatic mandate to read its full route and terms before accepting; return to the authority to continue. Patrol keeps the local watch above bounties, with Read full report opening the complete dated circular. Its Known routes badge describes the highest assessed risk on your known network, not just the current station.

Commons accounts remain available in the dated notebook after buying a round. Select a headline to read its complete account and plot a reported location. A round is limited to one per station per ship-day, and useful news is not guaranteed. A seven-day layover costs 14 cr in provisions; deadlines, bank interest and berth fees continue.

Clinic recovery restores up to 40 readiness over two days; full treatment restores 100 over five. These options appear when the crew needs care. Before ending client freight, review the restitution, breach charge, cargo outcome and suspension. Available funds pay breach charges first; unpaid amounts become charter debt at Meridian. Stealing carries full restitution and the longer suspension. Surviving ordinary-breach goods remain client-owned until returned. Original purchase contracts retain their original rules.

Navigation learning and repeated routes

Departure learning reflects route complexity and actual work rather than a large flat launch award. The raw award starts at three for a local leg or eight between planetary systems, adds up to ten for the logarithm of physical flight days, up to four for assessed hazards, five for a first destination, and three if new useful deliveries, aid, victories or profitable trading voyages were recorded since the last departure award. Waiting alone adds nothing. Existing captain XP bonuses apply afterwards.

The same corridor, in either direction, earns 100%, 65%, 35%, then 15% of that raw award when repeated within ninety game days, rounded down with a one-XP minimum. The learning window and route register are bounded to sixty-four corridors. Normal local work remains useful; repeating one safe leg cannot stand in for experience of every profession.

Twenty percent of voyage learning after corridor repetition and before captain XP bonuses accumulates as reportable observations, capped at twenty-five. A one-day traffic report pays its whole-XP balance once and clears that balance. Repeated observations with no whole XP add no reputation. This report cannot restore the old flat five-XP-per-launch advantage. Current XP totals remain earned records; relic and crew effective-skill bonuses do not replace earned qualifications.

Continuing memories store scene IDs, choices, outcomes, dates and compact counters. They do not duplicate every transcript. New personal, regional, crew, correspondence and mastery actions appear in the Journal and durable action history.

Orbit & rotation details

The chart advances with your ship’s calendar. Moon surface marks face their parent to show tidal locking; orbital values below provide a common reference for route planning.

Planning route fuel

Load route fuel solves the planned flight again as propellant mass changes. It loads enough for the journey and an arrival maneuver reserve, while keeping fuel already aboard. The reserve covers a 0.25 km/s avoidance maneuver and a 0.15 km/s withdrawal, with a 0.15 tonne minimum. Larger and heavier fleets therefore retain more propellant. If the journey fits the tanks but the full reserve does not, loading fills the tanks and navigation warns that the reserve is limited.

The route readout shows expected fleet burn and fuel left with the current load; loading fuel updates flight time, cost and arrival estimates. Commanding a formation maneuver or withdrawing burns fuel for every moving ship. Individual live-battle positioning burns fuel for the ship making that move. Berthed ships are excluded from travelling fuel, cargo and maneuver costs. Hulls, cargo, installed fittings, ammunition, passengers and mission loads affect propulsion mass; drive fittings improve specific impulse.

Propellant and people

Asterion drives provide 50,000–56,000 s base specific impulse, combining high-thrust fusion propulsion with advanced heat management. The rocket equation includes acceleration, braking and a conservative orbital maneuver allowance. Fuel remains mass that you carry and buy; hydrogen reaction mass and fusion pellets are one certified load. Life-support mass, detailed radiation dose, fuel production and biological aging are not simulated. Calendar time and loan interest are.

Raids during a voyage

Navigation and freight use the same voyage forecast. Corridor interception and destination-approach challenges are separate chances: either, both or neither can occur. For chances r and a, the chance of at least one raid is 1 − (1 − r)(1 − a). Ordinary combined risk is capped at 55%. A confirmed destination blockade is a separate forced encounter before docking, even without accepting a liberation commission. A high-risk quote does not guarantee a raid.

The destination approach depends on its distance from Earth, local exposure and dated watch. The corridor also depends on origin, flight duration, belt exposure and regional raider history. Personal creditor exposure and confirmed intelligence may affect your own voyage. Public circulars describe station approaches, independently of your ship or finances. Their thirty-day background accounts adjust the actual forecast, with influence fading over 120 days on longer flights. Changing origin or travel date can therefore change a quote for the same destination. Accepted freight keeps its dated fee and assessment.

A corridor raid visibly interrupts playback before arrival and saves the elapsed calendar and remaining flight. Resolve it before continuing; station services, docking, discovery and inspections await actual arrival. Planned propellant and travel provisions, including named-crew transit wages, are committed once at departure. Avoidance or combat can add delays and extra costs. A later approach raid can still occur. Skipping animation stops at the contact, and reloading the recorded stage does not reroll it.

Regional access

Visit port authorities as you travel to discover the licences each one offers. Some require navigation experience, a suitable ship, or both. Build navigation experience by completing voyages or studying routes with station contacts. A qualifying ship must be your flagship or an assigned escort present at the station, with at least 35% integrity.

Licence prices reflect your career discount and destinations already covered. Fees are paid from available cash. Licences are permanent and non-refundable, and previously earned access remains valid. Access does not replace route fuel, hull integrity or escort readiness requirements. A disabled purchase button means a qualification, encounter or available-funds check is unmet; inspect the licence below for its requirements. The quoted price already includes your career discount and any destinations you already have access to.

Fleet overview & command

The active and berthed registers list ships from lowest to highest full catalogue value, including installed fittings and specializations. The flagship stays first. Values are replacement costs, rather than discounted sale offers; hull condition, fuel, stores and cargo do not change this ordering. Berthed ships keep their station beside their name.

Select another local ship and choose Make flagship to transfer command. Both hulls keep their cargo, fuel, equipment and assignments, and the previous flagship remains in the active fleet as an escort. Remote ships require a rendezvous first; embarked or towed ships must be deployed or detached, and a replacement needs at least 15% integrity. Command changes are unavailable during an encounter or battle.

Fleet registry: ships, upgrades & sales

Use Purchase a ship to inspect new hulls and ships sold at this station. Ship upgrades outfits an owned local vessel. Purchases keep your flagship and berth here until you assign an escort or take command.

Sell a ship pays 75% of catalogue hull value multiplied by its integrity, plus 50% of installed upgrade costs, including any duty specialization. Fuel, spares and ammunition stay aboard without adding to the bid. Clear cargo, passengers, mission assignments, embarked craft and tows first. Take command of another local ship before selling your flagship.

The sold hull remains at that station indefinitely with its condition, equipment and stores. Repurchasing costs the full catalogue hull price plus every installed upgrade and specialization at full fitting cost. Stock is one physical ship, and purchases still require class experience and fleet space. Ordinary new-hull deliveries are separate.

Ship upgrade reference

Dry dock services

One selector applies to fuel, hull repairs, engineering spares and ammunition. Active fleet is selected by default and includes the flagship and travelling escorts. Select an individual active ship or all active ships. When you own berthed ships at this station, a separate group offers each berthed ship, all berthed ships here, or all ships here together. Ships berthed at other stations never appear. Remote ships must arrive before they can be serviced. A specified fuel quantity is shared in proportion to each selected tank’s free space; existing stores stay aboard their hulls. Fill tanks fills the selected ships. Each job uses the ordinary per-ship service charges and commits together, so insufficient funds never leave a partly serviced fleet.

Ammunition is listed openly by fitted weapon type. Load 1 each adds one round to every selected ship with compatible free space; Load max loads as much as the magazines and cargo holds allow. Quotes show the exact total rounds and price. Unsupported ammunition stays unavailable at that dock, and energy weapons require no ammunition.

Accounting lots, packaging and holds

Exchange prices and production recipes use lots of 250 kg of net material. A lot can contain many smaller packages: sacks, cases, drums, pressure cassettes or cryogenic dewars. The container is supplied with the lot and has no separate resale value. Loaded weight includes its tare; packed volume includes handling clearance. Both count when buying, loading freight or moving goods into storage. Dense metals usually reach the weight limit first; gases and delicate equipment can fill the hold before reaching that weight.

Each ship has a gross cargo weight limit and a separate volume limit suited to its role. Cargo fittings expand both; other fittings and ammunition consume some of that capacity. Spare parts use dedicated lockers and add to flight mass. Specialist handling rules still apply. Drive propellant stays in fuel tanks; packaged hydrogen and other exchange gases are merchandise. Fuel calculations use the actual gross shipment weight once. Raw-ore extraction leaves a small weight reserve for the cases used after refining. A warehouse bay holds 10 tonnes and 40 cubic metres, including reserved tenant cargo and stored equipment.

Goods lists and the bonding-curve tool show generic packaging specifications. Fill this hold considers both dimensions for the selected good and ship. Public prices remain per net lot; packaging does not change factory ingredient ratios. Existing excess cargo is retained for unloading, but further loading and departure require a valid fit.

Hull batches and reservations

Qualified basic hulls—Swift, Kestrel, Heron and Peregrine—have guaranteed, finite production batches at their supplying registries. Specialist classes retain variable availability. If a basic class sells out, reserve one hull from its next scheduled batch. Only one reservation may be held; no deposit is taken, and the full catalogue price is due when you collect it. A ready reservation survives travel and reloads. Cancelling it yields no money, goods or experience.

Fleets, upgrades and raids

Fleet lets you buy up to 32 owned ships, fit nine kinds of equipment, service each hull and switch command at the same station. Cargo and modules belong to individual ships. Assigned escorts travel on the same physical route and need their own propellant; berthed reserves stay at their ports and cost 1–5 cr per day according to the station; home-base reserves are free. Daily reserve fees use deposits at that station’s bank first, then local credit. Overdue reserve auctions sell the lowest-value berthed ships first; any surplus becomes a local bank deposit. Emergency recovery charges retain their ordinary cash/debt terms.

Pirate encounter risk grows with distance from Earth, with extra exposure on asteroid-belt routes. Patrol offices offer seven notorious-raider warrants. Accept a bounty in conversation to put it on your record and receive the patrol’s latest target intelligence. Acceptance is free and never launches combat. Accepted warrants remain open until capture; location information can be refreshed when it becomes stale. Normal travel near a reported station raises encounter odds; proximity and report freshness matter, and reports fade over 120 days. Each named target pays once: capture secures the warrant, then Claim bounty at a patrol office settles the payment. Legacy already-paid warrants retain their settlement. Every ship includes a standard laser; optional coilguns need ammunition. Battles open paused for fleet and individual orders. Live command lets both sides commit fire in the same exchange; each ship has one firing, maneuver or support opportunity. Earlier saved manual rounds keep their original controls until a clean round boundary. Salvos use ammunition and build heat; guard cools weapons, spares repair damage, and maneuvers use propellant. Withdraw or request emergency recovery if needed. Ten-minute turns and range bands are tactical abstractions, not an orbital combat simulator. A hull reduced to zero integrity is destroyed with its cargo, fuel and fitted equipment. Command transfers to a surviving escort. Voluntary surrender recovers intact hulls. Battle saves preserve the exact turn.

Live fleet command

Every finished battle opens a summary with the outcome, payment and fleet condition. Closing it resumes the remaining journey and docking checks; arrival opens the main station page. A failed blockade still prevents docking, and a destroyed travelling fleet proceeds to crew recovery. The summary is saved, so reloading before closing it cannot repeat the battle payment or skip the unfinished journey.

Ordinary raids use finite regional formations selected from overlapping threat bands based on the factory capability of your flagship class. An untouched courier on Earth’s local routes faces a single armed courier, rather than a combat cutter and escort. Larger flagship classes gradually encounter more capable groups. Adding or improving escorts does not immediately strengthen an ordinary contact; fitting upgrades remain a combat advantage; distant regions retain stronger minimum forces. Cash and cargo value do not increase enemy fittings, and damage or empty magazines do not make the next opponent weaker. Remote berthed ships do not provide protection. Enemy hulls begin intact, with real fitted weapons and finite ammunition.

Unaccepted named raiders enter ordinary travel only after the captain has some voyage or combat experience and an equipped formation suited to the group. Accepting a warrant deliberately seeks its named opponent even if you are unprepared; the target and posted bounty are not weakened. Check the contact’s readiness warning before engaging. That estimate considers standing roles, preferred weapons and range, ammunition reserves, current hulls, shields, thermal cycling and available repair supplies. It highlights an unusable firing plan, damaged hull or missing repair spares; it is not a win probability or guarantee. Contact names identify their real hull classes. Repairs, ammunition, spares, escorts and maneuver fuel still matter. Small ordinary encounters have a reduced salvage payment, capped by the actual hostile hull values; defeating an easy courier does not pay a combat-cutter bounty.

Live combat advances on half-second recorded ticks, with independent fitted weapon cycles. A battle can continue for up to ninety seconds, allowing time for maneuvering, cooling and repairs; it is still live and cannot be paused. The ninety-second ceiling ends unresolved contact without victory or payout. If neither side fires or makes further progress closing for sixteen seconds, contact breaks off earlier. Ordinary raiders with a badly damaged last ship may withdraw at long range; named warrants and blockade formations do not use that early retreat. Withdrawal never completes a warrant or liberates a blockaded station.

Set standing orders from each ship’s Battle profile in Fleet, or revise them before selecting Engage. Role, weapon preference, fallback, ammunition reserve, automatic repair threshold, cooling threshold, preferred range and target priority belong to the individual hull and persist between encounters and saves. Fleet strategy, formation and preferred range also carry forward. Unconfigured hulls receive class and fitting-based starting orders: civilian hulls favor energy fallback, cautious cooling, a repair threshold based on protective refits and a reserve only when physical weapons are fitted; interceptors favor weakened targets, patrol frigates favor large contacts and Nightjars favor the lead contact. An unconfigured escort Nightjar starts in electronic-warfare support; a lone Nightjar engages. Fitted thermal Ospreys accept more heat before guarding, and Gannets retain an emergency repair threshold. These are starting orders rather than hidden bonuses. Saved orders remain explicit and are not replaced by upgrades or a new recommendation. Use ship defaults deliberately to apply a fresh recommendation. Weapon choices list only fitted banks, including empty ones; unfitted bank changes are rejected. Capabilities reflect the actual hull, fitted sensors and certified thermal/interception duties. Self repair heals that ship only; Ibis wards, Crane servicing and other stopped services do not become invented combat powers. A specific hostile target and one-shot orders belong only to the current engagement. Changing the flagship preserves each hull’s own profile; sold or destroyed hull profiles are removed. All ships already in the travelling formation are present; berthed ships cannot join remotely. Hold in reserve keeps a ship guarding and cooling, but does not make it immune to attack. Initial contact distance comes from the encounter. Preferred range is a goal your ships maneuver toward, not a free starting advantage. Follow fleet treats the fleet range as the preferred outer distance: a ship closes to the longest reach of a fitted bank that can spend a full salvo above its ammunition reserve and follows its fallback policy. Empty long-range magazines can therefore bring a following ship into reach of its fallback weapon. Temporary reload and heat limits do not alter that goal. An explicit per-ship range remains fixed even if no weapon can reach; choose it deliberately. All range changes still spend an action and normal maneuver propellant.

Balanced fire spreads ships across surviving contacts. Focus weakest target concentrates fire, including the possibility of wasting simultaneous salvos on the same hull. Protect damaged ships assigns guard below half hull integrity. Conserve ammunition prefers a usable laser. Each ship can follow those orders or receive its own role, preferred weapon bank, range and target. Target priority can follow the fleet, prefer low integrity, prefer the largest remaining hull, or engage the lead surviving contact. Selecting a current hostile overrides that priority until the target is gone. A preferred bank must have ammunition for the whole salvo and satisfy range, heat and reload limits. Its fallback can use the best available bank, use energy weapons only, or hold fire and guard. If no eligible bank can fire, the ship waits for reload or cooling; hold-fire fallback guards. Ammunition is never created. A reserve retains the chosen fraction of each fitted kinetic and ordnance magazine after the next salvo. It applies even to the preferred bank. Role default adds no emergency repair to Engage; Support retains its existing repair behavior. Automatic repair below the chosen hull threshold uses spares and the next action, with no simultaneous shot; if spares are insufficient, normal orders continue. Cooling takes priority at the selected heat threshold, and all banks still obey the hard heat limit. Guard and reserve roles continue to hold rather than auto repair; support keeps its existing repair behavior. Queued one-shot orders take priority over these automatic policies. Guard and reserve hold fire; support repairs a damaged hull if spares suffice, then uses Nightjar targeting interference where available, otherwise guards. Formation changes the displayed spacing; it grants no free armor or damage bonus.

Each exchange gives an operational hull one firing, maneuver or support action. A ship outside its preferred range band may move up to two kilometres instead of firing, using its normal maneuver propellant budget. A one-kilometre tolerance avoids needless corrections. Hostiles close toward banks with enough ammunition for a complete salvo. An empty or disabled long-range launcher cannot prevent approach to their remaining guns; a loaded reloading bank does not provoke needless maneuvering. A disabled drive cannot close the gap. Range, armor, shields, bank damage, ammunition, heat, reloads, crew and relic benefits continue to use the shared ship rules. Both sides launch before impacts are settled, so a ship destroyed in the exchange may still return fire. Committed ammunition is spent even if another salvo destroys the same target first. Zero integrity still destroys the ship and its contents; surviving escorts may take command. Existing recovery, bounty, blockade, client-cargo and victory rules apply once.

Once standing orders have been saved, choosing to fight in a later encounter automatically launches those orders; there is no repeated setup stop. The first battle without a stored profile still offers Engage. After engagement, combat runs continuously without a tactical pause, single-exchange button or speed controls. Orders can be revised while the fight continues. Guard, field repair, reconnaissance, jamming, specialization abilities, surrender demands and withdrawal are queued for the selected ship’s next action and may be cancelled before it executes. An unavailable queued command becomes guard, with a recorded notice; it never silently consumes an extra action. A queued fleet withdrawal or recovery uses the flagship. A queued Merlin withdrawal screen settles before the flagship’s queued withdrawal in that exchange, so its ordinary escape benefit is available; the Merlin still spends its own action and heat. Missile locks and critical damage produce warnings while combat continues. Continuous combat retains the ninety-second ceiling and can break off earlier when no firing solution develops.

The shared engine records progress at half-second intervals. Each fitted weapon bank keeps its own reload deadline instead of waiting for every other ship. Order changes do not reset that deadline. An exchange due during another recording waits for that recording to finish; there is no simultaneous write or accumulated catch-up burst.

Opening a page or leaving the game window does not provide a tactical pause; background timer throttling can slow the visible cadence. Quitting ends the local process. Loading an already engaged battle resumes its clock with a fresh half-second interval and no offline catch-up. Losing recording confirmation stops progression until recorded state is reconciled or reloaded, without an automatic retry. New raider encounters begin at full hull integrity; earlier damage must be earned in the battle.

The 3D battle view turns ships toward their targets and keeps the formation framed. Short beam pulses, kinetic bursts, staggered missile salvos and impact rings show confirmed exchange events. Each bank’s fitted emitters or ammunition-per-salvo determine the burst; very large banks sample at most twelve visual tracers. The tracers illustrate one committed action and never apply additional damage or ammunition charges. Kinetic trails and ordnance move faster for readability; weapon cycles depend on their fitted type and upgrade level. Each weapon upgrade improves the cycling rate by 8% relative to its base cycle, as well as the existing fitting changes. Fractional reload deadlines retain that benefit on the half-second recording clock. Armor, shields, heat, ammunition and rewards are settled once by the shared engine. Repairs, support actions and major range maneuvers retain a three-second opportunity cost; they cannot be spammed at the faster recording rate.

Positions, distances, hull sizes and tactical time are compressed for readability, and visual formation depth does not invent collision, cover or Newtonian flight bonuses. Reduced motion uses a static tactical view. Visual turning never changes firing range or outcomes; it does not add an unmodelled weapon arc or collision advantage. Animation frames are not saved. The journal and action history record plan changes, exchanges, shots, support, resources, damage, losses and settlement.

Base bank cycles are 1.5 seconds for tracking lasers and rapid-fire cannons, 2 for pulse lasers, 2.5 for burst lasers, 3 for continuous beams, 4 for coilguns, 5 for railguns, 7 for guided missiles and 10 for torpedoes. A bank launches a fitted salvo; illustrated emitters are not additional free shots. Only banks that are stocked, in range, sufficiently cool and allowed by the ship’s orders can fire. Enemies use the same fitted cycling model. Missile-lock warnings and shield recharge remain tied to tactical phases, rather than becoming six times faster.

Subtle automatic drift and target-facing motion make the tactical view easier to follow; that presentation does not create free dodge bonuses or change the recorded range. A blue shield envelope appears only while a fitted generator has positive charge. Its strength follows the actual remaining shield, and absorbed impacts brighten it. The envelope vanishes when depleted or the hull is destroyed. Reduced-motion mode retains a static shield outline and confirmation lines.

Station inventory, production chains and freight

Exchange rows show the good, unit price, owned quantity and order controls. Select a unit price to inspect the current station reserve curve. Its buy and sell quotes come from the same engine as trading, including recovery bonuses. Expand Supply & trading limits to see reserves, offered lots and daily buying allowance. Physical station stock changes immediately on each ordinary purchase or sale; returned goods become available to buy again the same day. Daily allowances follow net purchases and sales, so a completed round trip restores the original allowance without expanding it. Whole-credit rounding can leave a unit quote unchanged after a small trade. Expanded details also reconcile next-day production, factory/local use and net shipments into expected stock. Local shortages and surpluses are intentional; planned global goods balance is measured across a full pricing cycle. Those limits still govern Max and order acceptance. Use the Goods reference to explore example markets and pricing curves independently of your voyage.

Every station uses one physical exchange stock pool for cargo purchases, warehouse trades and client freight pickups. Daily production adds goods, local consumption uses them, and scheduled incoming or outgoing shipments reconcile the reserve. A reserve shortfall or excess changes scheduled shipments by that difference divided by the station’s delivery lead time. This is shown with production and consumption in broker conversations; refreshing or revisiting cannot refill stock. Ordinary trading affects both reserves and prices. Primary resources feed intermediate plants, which supply higher-tier manufacture. Factories need every ingredient already in local stores and may stop during shortages; selling the missing input can restart a later daily batch. Newly produced goods feed other factories on following days. Broker conversations now report actual line shortages. The complete tier volumes, recipes, coproducts and final-demand timing are listed in Trading mechanics below.

Client freight is removed from the issuing station only when you accept and load it. All products in a mixed shipment must fit compatible active fleet holds. The receiving client consumes delivered freight; delivery does not add resale stock to that exchange. The client owns the goods in transit: you cannot sell, donate or pledge them. Cargo loss, overdue delivery, abandonment or theft retains the signed restitution and breach terms. Existing accepted shipments keep their original terms.

Parcel work carries 6 lots. Mixed freight carries 24 lots of two products and needs earned Navigation or Commerce level 1 and four licensed destinations. Regional freight carries 96 lots of three products and needs level 2 and eight destinations. Fleet charters carry 320 lots of four products and need level 3, sixteen destinations and at least two active ships. Each tier also needs the corresponding total active hold capacity and enough real station stock.

The board offers up to six distinct receiving stations, with one shipment per destination. Available tiers rotate across destinations and dispatch periods; an active shipment reserves its origin–destination route until settled. Commissions use capped station-profit participation; recorded voyage costs are reimbursed only within the reference operating allowance.

Station storage limits

Every station keeps a separate physical storage limit for each exchange good. The limit covers that station’s highest planned seasonal reserve plus 25% operating headroom, with a minimum of 100 cargo units. Bulk export hubs therefore hold more of their core output than small specialist stores; one universal stock ceiling does not fit every station or product. The selected exchange order shows the offered commercial allocation and remaining buyer allowance; protected working stores remain part of the physical station ledger.

As occupied and committed incoming cargo pass 90% of a store’s capacity, production eases. At full capacity it stops. Every coproduct must fit before a batch consumes its inputs. Local use, industrial inputs and outgoing freight free space for later batches. Scheduled imports reserve room; unloading waits when stores are full, and new dispatch is limited by space remaining after existing commitments. Goods already in transit remain accounted for.

The station only buys the quantity that fits. Max and Sell all respect that limit, including warehouse sales, and a rejected oversized order changes no goods or credits. Buying from the station frees room immediately. Historical excess stock remains present and saleable; new production and purchases wait until it is worked down through use or outgoing cargo. No overflow goods are silently deleted.

Freight dispatch and receiving needs

The charter dispatcher, cargo broker and station coordinator share one dispatch picture. The broker checks actual goods available beyond a protected local consumption reserve, dispatch matches receiving shortages and expected net use, and communications checks the route and patrol watch. Shortages are reduced by existing inbound client freight and unused demand credits. A station with ample stock receives no unnecessary shipment. Receiving clients consume the signed goods on handover; these goods never become exchange resale stock.

Routes are ranked by receiving need, source surplus and travel time, with some spread between planetary systems. At most six distinct destinations are offered. Accepting reserves physical source goods atomically. Existing route bookings remain consumed for their dispatch period; an active same-origin shipment also prevents another booking to that destination across a refresh boundary. Higher handling tiers still require earned experience, licences, sufficient active fleet capacity and compatible goods.

Raw resources and local processing

The exchange now carries 64 legal goods. Separate ore concentrates and refined metals include iron, nickel, cobalt, silicon feedstock, magnesium, aluminum, titanium and copper, plus precious metals and certified uranium concentrate. Volatile cargo includes purified liquid water, nitrogen, helium, argon, methane, ethane, ammonia and carbon dioxide. Brines, sodium salts, carbonates and sulfur support local chemistry.

Every station has at least eight core products whose full-cycle production exceeds local use and whose output is offered for sale. Those core lines require no later commodity-discovery milestone or specialist hold; station access, funds and available space still apply. Surplus is an average flow, not an unlimited inventory promise. Reserves can be exhausted and blockades can interrupt supply. Other valuable or specialist consignments retain their discovery and handling rules.

Locations have distinct declared facilities: lunar and Martian mineral processors, Ceres brine and Belt-ore depots, Titan hydrocarbon plants, Triton nitrogen-frost processing and costly robotic gas-collection contracts at the giant-planet relays. Smaller science outposts now have limited nonbiological collection, materials finishing or imported-feedstock refurbishment. Protected ocean material and possible life remain outside commodity trade.

Plants withdraw their actual ingredients from local stock. For example, metal refineries consume the appropriate concentrate, water plants melt ice, and some repair yards recover metals from imported alloy stock. Giant-planet hydrogen collection does not consume electrolysis water. Containers and certified consignment handling distinguish these cargoes from usable ship propellant.

Trading seasons and cargo leads

Exchanges carry 64 legal commodities across habitat supplies, construction, chemistry, agriculture, industry, medicine and research. Their base values rise geometrically from bulk materials to advanced scientific consignments; expensive cargo needs much more working capital. Prices apply per 250 kg lot, not to an entire shipload. Each station stocks a reviewed mix of locally produced goods, imported supplies and redistributed cargo. Shipyards consume components and construction materials; habitats need food and life-support stores; research outposts depend on delivered instruments and laboratory supplies. Ice exports come only from stations with processing operations.

New product categories appear as you gain navigation or commerce experience, obtain regional licences and visit more stations. Everyday supplies come first, followed by industrial goods, electronics and medical supplies, precision cargo and finally advanced research lots after exploring the full station network. Repeated local trades alone cannot reveal every commodity. Goods you have already discovered remain available; relic skill bonuses do not reveal merchandise. Each new commodity discovery brings a notification and a dated Journal entry. Owned cargo can still be sold if qualifications change.

Specialist lots also need a compatible ship hold; owned local storage can receive legal purchases directly.

Production follows a shared 1,440-day procurement cycle. Across the network, primary extraction and collection average 20,000 lots/day with a 12,000–28,000 range; intermediate processing averages 10,000 with a 6,000–14,000 range; higher-tier manufacture averages 3,000 with a 1,800–4,200 range. These stages count repeated processing of the same material: gross output averages 33,000, while new primary material averages 20,000. Factory inputs follow the batches actually produced. Final customer demand peaks 120 days later; it is not an independent consumption wave forced onto factories. Planned production and consumption balance separately for each good over a full cycle. Actual output can fall below plan when inputs are missing. Station stocks retain at least 80 physical lots at the seasonal reference minimum; actual voyage stocks can run out. Larger reserves and gentler inventory price impact smooth modest trades without removing bulk arbitrage effects.

Individual stations retain predictable surpluses or import needs.

A consuming station buys the good from you, including industrial inputs it does not retail. A producing station sells its output to you from available stock, even when its own consumption is larger than production. Net surplus/consumption is a flow label, not a buying or selling restriction. Buy means you pay the station; Sell means you receive credits from it. Only your own goods in the selected local inventory appear for sale. Factory inputs, including electrolysis water, are counted in demand.

Local production, consumption and sourced imports determine reserves and scarcity. Shipments withdraw producer stock before spending the route delay in transit; source stock and transport capacity limit extra replenishment. Confirmed blockades can hold supplies and missing inputs can slow manufacturing. Small remote outposts carry less surplus and recover from shortages more slowly than producers and major terminals. Delivered surplus is gradually consumed or shipped onward. The public seasonal quote follows a predictable calendar. Legal exchange spreads are 1% each side for Limited supply, 0.5% for Steady and 0.25% for Plentiful. Discreet-dealer margins are 2%, 1% and 0.375% respectively. Visiting cargo factors start at a 3% margin each side of the reference value (the competing dealer’s midpoint for restricted goods when that desk is open), with local quote limits preventing immediate resale profit between desks at the same station. Whole-credit rounding still applies. Buying reduces local stock and raises the next ask; selling builds reserves and lowers the next bid. Larger orders clear one lot at a time along that curve, and the displayed total includes the resulting price movement. Splitting an order cannot avoid it. Sufficient shipments can close a price gap between stations; production, consumption and later scheduled shipments can open it again. Canteen conversations sometimes carry dated cargo tips, and a paid round can bring one into your notebook. Trade tips also stay in the Journal with their heard date, canteen, speaker, commodity and deal station, including while travelling. Compare the quoted day and likely arrival: cargo margin still has to cover fuel, provisions and risk.

Trading work and progression

The Exchange handles Buy and Sell orders for your own goods. Select a product, quantity and inventory, then review the total. Client freight and its delivery contracts belong at the Freight office. The Exchange has no voyage planner or supply-agreement board.

Ordinary sales accumulate one bounded work record across ships, warehouses and reloads. The next departure settles that work, or a stationary trader’s next sale after 30 days settles the preceding window. A profitable settled result earns at most 20 Commerce XP, based on the units sold. Splitting orders never refreshes this allowance. Known purchase costs, quoted consumed fuel, provisions, berths, interest and recorded service costs contribute to the net operating result; capital transactions and account transfers do not count as earned trading profit. Individual and bulk service controls charge the same repair, ammunition and spare costs to this record. Stocking fuel is not an immediate operating expense because fuel actually burned is valued on departure; this avoids counting it twice. The record begins with the first eligible expense, including maintenance before your first sale. Cargo without an acquisition receipt cannot establish a new profit claim.

The Peregrine benchmark for a substantially larger interplanetary trading hull is calibrated around 80–120 profitable voyages across tested starting worlds and policies. This is a balance target, not a required counter or a guarantee for every route. Extra escorts add capacity but also fuel, maintenance, wages and financing exposure. Processing stage and commodity value are different: costly certification, research, power and specialist equipment explain some high-value outputs.

Production recovery and feedstock

Normal output still follows the 1,440-day tier curves: primary collection averages 20,000 lots/day, intermediate processing 10,000 and higher manufacture 3,000, each varying by 40%. A physical lot is 250 kg. Processing repeats material already collected; these figures are not all new extraction.

A line below half its reference output stock may use up to 25% spare processing capacity, only with every actual ingredient in its opening stores. Primary extraction does not receive this bonus. The station accounts for power and workshop wear, with overtime service costs higher than ordinary operation. These are station production services, not a bill to a visiting trader. Essential water, breathing-gas and mineral-treatment lines can receive station appropriations when sale tariffs do not cover their actual input and processing values. All coproducts reduce the shortfall. This support is metered only for actual work, including higher overtime service costs; a captain cannot claim it or receive cash from it. Ordinary factory output may still have a weak margin during some market phases. An unbooked legal cargo-factor ask stays above the current ordinary exchange bid, so a discount cannot create an immediate same-station flip. Already accepted work retains its signed terms. Textiles, refined alloy stock, life-support filters and magnesium use targeted ingredient-and-service price floors; other commodity value tiers are unchanged. Ordinary batches receive their shared ingredients before catch-up work uses the remainder. Critical local inputs receive up to five days of reserves only when the destination has better coverage; urgent destinations can still receive real, lead-time-limited shipments.

Composite habitat textiles use polymer, carbon fibre and process water. Refined alloy stock explicitly contains several metals. Mixed-concentrate refining returns its recoverable metals together and records the residual waste; it does not destroy saleable finished alloy. Textile and alloy quotes have an ingredient-and-service cost floor. Ore goods are prepared, assayed concentrates, not untreated crustal rock. Precious-metal recovery uses selected high-grade refinery batches within the concentrate specification. Certified isotopes and specialist electronics include substantial nonmaterial processing value.

Customs & cargo preparation

Patrol activity changes weekly at each port. An arrival may receive a manifest spot check, wideband scan or physical hold search; individual hulls and restricted consignments are checked separately. Earned navigation and commerce experience reduce selection risk, while commerce and engineering help with detection. A trusted wider record and good standing at the receiving station reduce the chance of selection; poor standing increases it. Routine checks remain possible even for trusted captains. A seizure costs more of a reputation you have built, and less of an already poor one. Wider reputation and local standing are assessed separately using your record before the inspection. Recent local seizures still draw extra attention.

Visiting cargo traders at random canteen tables sometimes sell a limited stock of spectral cargo liners and thermal packing sleeves. Speak to them about trade to see their offers; reopening the conversation or reloading does not replenish their cases. Dry docks do not sell these packages. Packages occupy real hold space in the active fleet. During an arrival inspection, one available package of each type protects every arriving ship and is consumed once for the fleet, even with a clean manifest. Extra packages do not stack during that inspection. Local or remote berthed reserves do not supply the active fleet. Store spare packages in an owned local warehouse and collect them before departure; stored packages reserve warehouse capacity and provide no inspection protection. Existing packages keep their contents and provenance. Physical searches are harder to evade, and no equipment or experience grants immunity. Undetected cargo remains aboard; detected restricted consignments and illicit mission cases are seized under their existing consequences. Loading or using packing awards no XP.

Freight payment and route risk

Freight goods are supplied free to the captain and remain client-owned. The station’s acquisition and receiving invoice use the source bid and destination ask for all products, separate from the captain’s own trading spread. A loaded reference ship’s operating allowance is reserved first. From the remaining profit pool, commission is calculated so the captain receives no more than 25% of the profit retained by the station.

The share rate begins at 8%, with up to ten percentage points for raid risk, four for receiving urgency, two for journey length and one for mixed-product handling. Existing quartermaster, relic and captain freight benefits improve that rate within the same 25% cap. Risk uses the navigation forecast; urgency reflects missing stock relative to the receiving need, duration reaches its maximum at 180 days, and handling scales from one to four products. Offers without a positive station margin are not posted. More expensive goods alone do not create an extra payment.

The quoted total is a maximum: fixed commission plus capped reimbursement of recorded fuel burn, provisions and berth costs. Departure expenses are allocated over cargo being carried, so several jobs on one voyage cannot each claim the whole cost. Only actual travel earns reimbursement; detours cannot exceed the signed ceiling. Capital, unrelated repairs and unagreed incident costs are not additional reimbursements. The delivery button shows the current amount payable. Signed older fixed-fee contracts retain their original payment.

Each offer’s deadline belongs to its dispatch cycle: issue day plus the loaded reference-route flight and clearance, with 90 days of handling allowance. Reading the board or returning later does not extend it. Offers disappear when your current loaded fleet’s flight and clearance would put arrival after the due date, and acceptance checks again before any stock is removed. Delivery on the due date is allowed. Accepted jobs keep their signed deadline; all elapsed game days count, including travel, service days and incident delays. A new dispatch cycle may issue a different offer and deadline.

A deadline failure, abandonment or loss cancels the reward. Surviving cargo stays sealed and client-owned on its original ship, with no purchase basis, trading or collateral value. Bring that ship to a freight office and Return the cargo. Only missing goods plus the signed breach fee are billed; later loss of sealed return cargo adds only its extra missing value, without a second fee or repeated reputation penalty. Returning cargo earns no reward or refund because it was never billed as a purchase.

Theft requires confirmation, bills the entire locked restitution value plus the fee, and transfers the same physical goods with restitution basis. Both ordinary breaches and theft use available funds first; only the unpaid amount joins original charter debt at Meridian. Local bank deposits stay untouched. Ordinary breaches suspend new freight for 30 days; theft for 60. Public and local standing fall, and no delivery XP is awarded. Every payment, custody change and return is recorded once.

Goods & exchange mechanics

Open the trading mechanics reference alongside the Goods tables and pricing formulas.

Station stores have a separate limit for each good: the peak planned seasonal inventory plus 25% headroom, with a 100-lot minimum. Production eases above 90% committed occupancy and stops when any coproduct cannot fit. Incoming cargo waits rather than disappearing; new shipments reserve receiving room. Exchange sales stop at available storage space. Historical excess is retained while local use and outgoing trade work it down.

Diplomatic missions

Each tier opens when the captain has access to at least one station in its named system. Purchased licences and retained access both count; merely having enough funds, experience or a suitable ship does not grant access. Earlier tiers remain available when their own access and qualifications are met. The mandate can be issued at any eligible port authority; the receiving station must already be visited, accessible and governed by another jurisdiction. Existing accepted mandates keep their signed terms and remain completable after this change.

Port authorities offer Veyr transit hearings, Ilyri stewardship disputes and joint corridor negotiations. Visit the named receiving authority after acceptance, choose a negotiating position there and return to the issuing liaison before the deadline. An earned level in Navigation or Diplomacy is required for every new mandate. Joint corridor talks additionally require Diplomacy level two, two completed mandates, a trusted Veyr or Ilyri introduction and acceptable standing with the involved parties. The posted fee is paid when you submit the report. Hearings take one or two ship-days and cost 60–120 cr. The Journal keeps your position and the resulting agreement.

Continuing personal and regional stories

After the original five personal chapters, five further arcs open at relationship ages of two, five, fifteen, thirty-five and seventy-five years. They concern adapting a failed beginning, sharing responsibility, repairing a promise, succession and preserving an honest account. Each arc has three beats, including a persistent choice and an outcome, with at least thirty days between beats. The first follow-on resolution can fulfil the original undertaking, revise it with the people affected, or release a plan that did not work. Later recollections retain that result and name the new concern rather than permanently repeating the original ambition. Relevant professional experience and restored personal trust still matter. These are character developments, not extra paid cargo contracts or automatic market events.

Regional anchor contacts keep nine different local series: Meridian’s shared arrivals, the Caloris workshop, Aphrodite’s closed-environment care, the Mars–Phobos acknowledgements, Belt custody, Jovian rescue records, Saturnian stewardship, the outer assembly’s delayed replies and Neptune’s reception history. Each names the person who holds the other account. Hear that person at the actual receiving desk before returning to close the hearing.

Regional periods begin at game years 0, 2, 5, 10, 20, 35, 50, 75 and 100. They have different authored disputes and later consequences. A hearing already begun has no expiry. If an unaccepted period passed while you were away, a dated archive explains its off-screen resolution; reading it cannot retrospectively choose for those residents. Later periods remain available. These social story periods do not change prices, bank quotes, production or travel safety.

Ask for a lasting inquiry contact to put the named desk in your record. Tasks shows that lead whenever an account is ready, and replaces it with the current named handover once you begin. It does not depend on catching a rare dealer’s brief visit. Rare dealers keep finite stock and their original intermittent visits. The larger story pool is finite: alternative choices and missed opportunities cannot all be experienced in one journey, while freight, market cycles and some jobs recur indefinitely.

Correspondence and professional mastery

Communications lists new personal accounts from known remote contacts with rapport of at least three and intact personal trust. A correspondent can send at most one new account per 180 days. A dated letter can continue an eligible personal chapter or record your explicit personal choice, without moving your ships, paying XP or settling a physical handover. Actual cargo, inspection, contract and custody work still needs its named location. The latest letter remains in the character’s compact record; the durable action history keeps the earlier letters.

Earned skill ranks four through seven open mentoring, independent assessment, cross-region coordination and stewardship undertakings. Each profession progresses in order. Register at Communications, complete rank minus two new relevant work records, hear the named receiving coordinator and return after at least thirty days. Commerce counts deliveries and twenty-lot trading units; Engineering counts repairs and completed studies; Diplomacy counts aid, negotiations and completed diplomatic mandates; Navigation counts newly recorded journeys with an award of at least eight after corridor repetition, before captain XP bonuses. Earlier work establishes eligibility but cannot fulfil a new undertaking. These distinctions have no deadline, cash, free XP, material reward or automatic destination access.

Bounties

Accept a posted bounty at a patrol office. The warrant remains accepted while you travel; fresh target information comes from conversations with patrol staff or people in canteens. Their reports are dated and unconfirmed. Capturing the target secures the warrant and records the agreed payment. Return to any patrol office and choose Claim bounty to collect it once. Completed claims disappear from the board.

Work fees and transport

Each assignment lists its objective, delivery or reporting deadline and agreed payment. The named establishment handles its handover. Current assignments are listed in Tasks; completed outcomes and dated reports are recorded in Journal.

Freight breaches suspend new bookings for 30 ship-days; deliberately stealing client cargo suspends them for 60. New delivery offers stay hidden until the suspension ends. You can still deliver active jobs, trade and travel, and normal ship time advances the suspension. Offers return according to each station’s route schedule.

Relics, discovery and collectors

Captain’s record lists only the named relics and recovered cases currently in your inventory, with their benefits and equipment controls. Empty relic sections and asset rows stay hidden. Two relics may be active across the cabinet and physical antiquities; matching benefits use their strongest source. Instruments can support trained skills, crew wellbeing, travel safety, weapon handling, defence and emergency repairs. Earned XP, licence qualifications and commodity discovery do not change. Recovered physical cases remain on their carrying ship and are appraised separately.

Ask commons hosts or coordinators about lost instruments, commons hosts or patrol officers about raider caches, and port authorities about service awards. Accepting a lead is separate from discussing it. Discovery contributions use the existing relic buyback value less the shared route/work reward budget, with a 150 cr minimum; the quoted contribution is paid once. Restore at the named destination after a new voyage, then report to the issuing establishment. Raider leads count only new defensive victories in ordinary travel; the final victory releases the relic automatically. Public-service awards count new freight-office deliveries after acceptance and are claimed at the issuing authority. All these leads and private canteen relic assignments have no expiry. Ordinary freight, passenger charters and unrelated missions retain their deadlines. Named relics are granted free at most once per voyage; selling one never resets that provenance.

Ask a commons host who collects relics. Seven collector stations introduce a named buyer who takes one of each owned relic per 30-day cycle. Visiting antiquarians also buy and sell named relics through the quiet-table trade conversation. Prices and stock remain fixed during the visit; buyback is 45% of catalogue value. Selling removes ownership and any active bonus immediately. Physical antiquities use their existing condition, appraisal, custody and specialist-broker rules.

Station liberation

The Patrol Office report includes a current Local blockade watch for charted stations in the same planetary system. Ask its security liaison about local blockades, then an affected station. The watch uses actual blockade status independently of mission offers, lists recent local clearances, and updates as blockades are broken. A patrol briefing accepts no mission and starts no battle; the Port Authority handles liberation commissions.

Ask a Port Authority about blockades or use its Government liaison mission register. New blockades are rare around Earth and become more likely farther from Earth, where patrol coverage is thinner. Each station follows a dated 180-day outbreak cycle. New cordons normally last 21–45 days before patrol relief, unless you defeat them first. Earth-system approaches are protected during the first 365 game days. Report updates do not reroll an outbreak. Mission acceptance does not cause an outbreak or change the encounter. Some authorities have no nearby liberation work. Blockade formations are fixed by region and are not reduced to match an arriving merchant. The authority names a reference combat ship; prepare that patrol or bring suitable escorts.

Arriving at a blockaded station immediately starts the battle, and station services stay closed until every raider is defeated. After a failed attempt you can fight again or pay for fleet recovery back to your departure station; retreat never frees the destination.

Liberation opens 30 days of tapering exchange sell-price premiums, weighted by local production and consumption and capped below the local buy price. These premiums cover ordinary exchange goods only, not contraband, relics or contract payments. Accepting a named commission is optional; travel to the station and its blockade will intercept you before docking. Defeat the entire hostile formation in the normal tactical combat system. Retreat, surrender, dispersal and unrelated battles do not liberate the station. A failed sortie leaves the same commission active for another attempt; normal combat losses, repairs, propellant and crew wages apply.

Victory records the station as liberated immediately. Return to the issuing authority to claim the agreed service payment once; there is no separate combat bounty. Commissions have no expiry. Finish or claim your current commission before accepting another; a previously withdrawn contract still honours its original payment if you later free its target. You may withdraw before victory and resume at the same issuing authority, with the original reward. A settled station cannot generate another liberation commission. Rewards use the shared reference-patrol return-route, work, risk, repair and spares budget. Baseline prices retain the approved daily model; the local recovery premium is applied separately to legal exchange sell quotes. Tasks show the next destination, and the flat Journal retains liberation and payment receipts.

Named travelling crew

Ask the primary canteen or commons host who is looking for work. Potential recruits are passing travellers rather than permanent station staff. A commons host may introduce someone during a brief visit; sometimes nobody is available. Successful work, combat, care, exploration, earned skill levels, reputation and the classes of ships you have acquired influence who is likely to take an interest. Experienced recruits are harder to meet early in a voyage. Visitors leave on the displayed date. New accomplishments affect later introductions; reopening the conversation never rerolls an existing visit. Review their background, benefit, signing fee and daily wage before hiring. Four named specialists may be aboard, with two on duty and one per duty family. They follow the travelling fleet through flagship changes and are separate from passengers and client escorts.

Navigators, engineers, quartermasters and liaisons support trained skills. Medics and counsellors protect crew readiness, watchkeepers and belt pilots improve travel safety, and gunnery officers, defence marshals, thermal technicians and damage-control chiefs support combat. Veteran and Elite recruits provide stronger benefits and cost more to hire and retain. A matching relic or crewmate uses the strongest benefit rather than adding duplicate bonuses. Earned qualifications and merchandise discovery stay unchanged.

Wages continue every ship-day, including off duty. Transit wages appear in the departure quote and are paid once. Stopped days and delays invoice wages once; cash shortfalls use the original charter account. Release a crewmate at a station to end future wages. Signing fees are not refunded. Earlier agreements retain their terms.

Conversation introductions and agreements

Finite blockades and patrol relief

Blockades are finite local episodes, with 21–45 active days within 180-day station schedules. Distance from Earth raises the chance of an episode. The Earth, Moon and Kepler corridor is protected during a new charter’s first 365 days. Local reports, route quotes, arrival encounters and physical station freight use the same dated closure. Patrol relief reopens an unbroken cordon; an accepted commission stays open and unpaid if you did not win the liberation.

Arrival during an active cordon always forces battle, even without an accepted mission. An encounter already underway must be resolved. Winning opens docking, earns the existing fading recovery premium and prevents outbreaks beginning within 90 days of that victory. A later siege can form without allowing the same settled authority payment to be claimed twice. Old recorded open sieges receive a bounded 60-day relief schedule.

Conversations and agreements

Each conversation belongs to a named character at a particular establishment and station. Staff describe their own service; visiting specialists discuss their profession without running the canteen. Replies appear in full, with up to four spoken choices. Choose another subject through the replies offered in that branch.

Opening replies put current work first, then practical questions and personal conversation. The remaining replies are grouped into questions about work here, the person you are speaking with and work you could take on. Their buttons use the captain’s spoken words. Returning practical questions progress through a worked example and a trade-off; a contact says when there is nothing new to add. Challenging a safeguard or demanding private information requires a deliberate separate choice and can damage trust.

Not now keeps an unaccepted quote for later. “No, I’ll leave this one” removes it from the immediate replies for this visit without a penalty; ask about work you could take on to reconsider it, or enquire on a later visit. Neither response cancels an accepted agreement. Named regular commons visitors are recurring contacts; recruits and quiet-table traders instead have the departure dates shown in their offers.

Private-project handovers name the establishment, grouped station location and receiving person. Once a stage is signed, “What do I need to do next?” reviews the remaining handover; after both stages, return to the issuing character for payment. Each approach button shows its complete input, stopped work time and processing fee, including zero work days. Costs are alternatives, not added to a separate header charge. Already accepted agreements retain their recorded tasks and terms.

Introductions and rumours do not sign an agreement. Review the offered payment, deadline, ownership and failure consequences before accepting. A personal reserve or patrol-support commission pays only after its objective and return handover; missing its deadline means no payment, damaged standing and lost experience, with no cash fine. Named bounty warrants instead require the specified capture and patrol handover. Private project handling choices can affect trust; false certification ends the project without payment and withdraws recommendations. Current work, named contacts and deadlines are in Tasks; completed actions are in the Journal.

Relic-bearing traveller jobs have no expiry. You supply any requested goods, restricted cargo remains subject to seizure, and abandonment harms both issuing-station trust and wider reputation. A dead drop accepts handover after the traveller leaves. Newly acquired relics equip automatically when one of the two shared active slots is free. Existing active relics are never replaced automatically; extras stay stowed, and you can change the loadout in Captain’s record. Recovered antiquities activate after appraisal confirms a genuine instrument, provided a slot is free and no active patron commission claims it. Matching benefits use the strongest source. Captain’s record lists only relics and recovered cases you currently own; the section stays hidden until you have one. Collectors buy one of each named relic per 30-day trading period, rather than per calendar month. Supply prices follow the production cycle and finite local stock; an earlier quote is not a guaranteed later offer. Patrol conversations refer to the dated circular and distinguish reports from confirmed encounters.

Conversations: station stories and different perspectives

Ask a contact what they understand about this place to discuss its founding, everyday customs and local disagreements. The Asterion and shared-community branches draw on the same established history as this Guide: Oriole, Sen and Ibarra’s Kepler work, the technical Open Drive Compact, the political Compact and the ark reception and treaties. Staff offer a working perspective; the port authority remains the source for formal liaison and access decisions. A named person suggested for another perspective has not automatically agreed to a job or received a recommendation letter.

Ask for a difficult example to hear a case suited to the speaker’s profession. You can favour independent evidence, the people affected or an informed crew choice, ask why the character agrees or disagrees, and consider the strongest other argument. Respectful disagreement does not count as a threat. Explicit demands to ignore safeguards or invade private boundaries retain their consequences.

Conversations: returning discussions and questions before agreeing

Contacts remember the most recent viewpoint you expressed in an example. You can reconsider it on a later visit; the examples change over game fortnights, while an already discussed example keeps its own context for follow-up questions. Discussing a professional example does not open an incident report or accept a mission. Opinions grant no money, experience, reputation or completed objectives. References to actual work use its recorded outcome rather than treating a persuasive answer as an accomplishment.

A job offer keeps acceptance, deferral, refusal and a question together. Before agreeing, ask about ownership and timing, why the request matters, and who receives the work. Project handovers identify the establishment, grouped station location and named collaborator. These enquiries neither accept the quote nor change an existing agreement; return to the offer to make a deliberate decision. Any listed project inputs must be yours, and another client’s sealed cargo remains ineligible.

Station coordination

Communications is the dispatch point for ship and fleet escort contracts, passenger charters, medical transfers and evacuation flotillas. Ask the station coordinator about the relevant work in conversation, then accept the quoted contract on their board. Existing work appears here with its original fee, deadline, assigned ships and objectives. Passenger disembarkation and emergency accommodation are arranged here; clinics retain treatment, and the port authority issues welfare and handling certificates. Owning and assigning your own escorts remains in Fleet. Ordinary goods consignments remain with Freight.

The coordinator checks licensed routes, fuel, risks and delivery margins. Departure briefings take one day, reduce equipment-incident chance by 25% and main-belt advisory chance by 50%, and apply once to the selected departure within 30 days. Pirate risk and physical travel remain unchanged. Booking a different route replaces the earlier booking. File your completed voyage observations.

Medical clinics and crew readiness

Clinics care for the travelling crew, accept supplies for the station’s medical reserve and offer supervised research. Long voyages and disruption after hull damage reduce crew readiness. Below 60, fatigue increases equipment-incident risk; the clinic shows the current fatigue contribution before any departure briefing. Recovery berths take two days and restore up to 40 readiness. Full crew treatment takes five days and restores readiness to 100. A fully ready crew needs no treatment. Hull repairs and engineering spares are handled by the dry dock.

Clinic service days advance your ship’s calendar. Freight deadlines, bank interest and reserve berth fees continue while you receive care or join a study. Check the quoted price and duration before booking.

Medical reserves accept only your own eligible goods; client-owned freight cannot be donated. Each clinic requests another parcel after 60 days, and the requested goods can change. Supervised research takes three days, pays the quoted stipend and requires crew readiness of at least 60. Each clinic offers a new shift after 60 days. Current requirements, available quantities and study cooldowns remain on the clinic’s service board.

Patrol circulars

The Patrol office displays a dated raid report above the bounty board. It covers visited stations and destinations already licensed on your charts. Regional outlooks reuse the existing piracy assessment, belt exposure and current patrol intelligence; personal creditor exposure is excluded. Background traffic accounts sample one reference arrival per charted station per day over the completed circular window, using the same regional, belt and dated-intelligence piracy risk. They are deterministic, unverified reports of offscreen traffic, not a census of actual ship movements or extra events on your voyage; no cargo, crews, rewards or market stock are changed. Routes use each station’s nearest fixed neighbouring station, favouring its own sector; both endpoints must already be known. Personal creditor exposure is excluded. Station sighting circulars refresh every 30 ship-days, while new recorded engagements and received intelligence can update the issue sooner. Recent records and sightings are retained for up to 120 days. Unlocated older battles are omitted rather than assigned to your current station. A reported sighting is not a confirmed attack, and a victory clears only that encounter. Risk words summarize current information; they are not a forecast that an attack will occur on the next voyage. Opening or refreshing the page does not advance time, reroll the reports, accept bounties or change your encounter odds.

Conversations across a career

Available questions appear together as spoken replies, changing with the character, station, current subject and your shared history. Ask about work, personal matters, opportunities or services through those replies; each receives a character response. A service request also brings the service desk into focus. To change the subject, choose the conversational reply offered in that branch. Responses appear in full. Reading them does not advance time or grant rewards. Reports about rates, blockades, reputation and travellers return when their information changes; previously heard information remains in the action history. During recording, spoken replies pause until confirmation. If recording cannot be confirmed, use Reconnect to check progress before choosing again; an uncertain reply is never automatically repeated.

Ask a station contact to continue their own story. Familiarity, personal confidence and professional sponsorship are different: respectful conversation begins a relationship, while a return after a voyage or a kept commission gives it shared history. Already shared confidences and accepted agreements remain recorded. Public services do not close because a personal relationship is strained.

Each profession has one introductory learning allowance of eight XP across its contacts. General station-channel lessons use the same profession budgets. Later conversations can still develop rapport and open new subjects without repeatedly paying experience. Broad specialist introductions require 200 total earned XP and three voyages, or an appropriately matching active hull; linked expeditions need the relevant full hull team for that alternative. Actual jobs retain their separate rank, licence, certificate, assignment, funds and stock requirements.

Personal stories have five chapters, with a small beginning, experience of the receiving end, a first practical step, a choice and its aftermath. Forty-four existing personal ambitions have distinct obstacles, first steps and questions. The initial five chapters need respectful familiarity and relationship ages of 0, 14, 60, 180 and 365 days.

From the third chapter, a relevant new work record or a kept commission is needed. Inflating the global voyage count cannot replace those conditions. Professional examples also respond to relevant work. Reading a response or browsing other questions never advances game time or a chapter.

Each response is shown in full, with no Continue button. Conversations show at most four reply choices. When more topics are available, the last reply opens other questions; the final group returns to the earlier questions. Accept, defer and decline remain together when an agreement is offered. Characters also describe changes in the local shift over time; those are not automatically credited to the captain. Their larger ambitions remain separate from an unrelated supply errand.

Profession examples expand with actual experience: two introductory situations, another after fourteen relationship days, a fourth after ninety days and relevant work, and all five after a year, relevant work and 1,000 total earned XP. A completed commission for that character or a matching completed mastery is also valid relevant work; unrelated total XP alone cannot skip the professional requirement. Eligible unseen examples are offered before deliberate revisits. Saved viewpoints retain their original example.

Major events remain separate talking points. Ask about changes in your record, then ask about the next event. A routine question does not acknowledge every achievement. Important losses, broken promises, liberation, crew and relic changes take priority over routine totals. Settled work can have a later personal response without paying its reward again.

Receiving inquiries & dated leads

The receiving copy links the Meridian exchange, warehouse and dry dock with Shackleton’s receiving coordinator and Meridian’s authority. A place on the next watch connects Valhalla’s clinic, commons and coordinator with Galileo’s custodian and Valhalla’s authority. Ask about the inquiry through a contact’s personal-story conversation. Tasks identifies the next named receiving desk and its grouped station location.

These optional inquiries collect attributed accounts. They carry no cargo, fee, reward, licence or deadline. You can leave and resume while preserving the evidence already heard. The final choice records a full attributed account or keeps the crew’s account with the receiving desk. Talking to someone else cannot sign the named person’s handover.

Every station’s contacts can suggest a licensed commons with a dated traveller notice, or explicitly say that no dated sighting is available. A past notice is not a promise that a traveller is waiting. Quiet-table visitors retain their original brief stays and finite trading stock. Accepted archive and relic jobs have no deadline and can use the receiving dead drop after a traveller leaves. A completed receiving inquiry or regional hearing provides an alternative introduction to the discreet archive expedition; recovering its physical antiquity and meeting the expedition’s other requirements still matter.

Relic interpretation distinguishes documented acquisition, instrument type and unknown earlier ownership. Discussing an instrument alone never grants or equips it. Receiving a relic as a conversation reward follows the same automatic equipment rule as other acquisitions. Free grants remain finite after a relic is sold.

Talking with travelling specialists

Open a hired specialist from Captain’s record and select Talk with their name. The crew can discuss settling in and current duties immediately. New shared work and fourteen service days open observations; disagreement needs ninety days, personal plans 180 days and the later return a year. Each hired specialist also has six later service chapters beginning after ninety days, one, three, ten, twenty-five and fifty years. Each has an incident or concern, a choice and a later consequence. New work since the preceding account opens each later chapter, with fourteen days between its beats. The topics recognise the actual specialist role and events since hiring; they do not claim the captain’s earlier battles as shared service. These scenes do not charge an extra fee or add a benefit.

The signed daily wage continues on and off duty. Duty allocation and matching relic benefits keep their existing limits. Release ends future wages; discussing a disagreement does not release someone. Conversations take place while safely stopped, and each selected response appears in the journal and action history.

Character memories keep compact chapter and event records rather than duplicating every transcript. The action archive remains the historical record; current conversation panels show the relevant response. Older accepted work retains its original terms and can still be settled.

Warehouses & inventory transfers

Each bay permanently adds 10 tonnes and 40 m³ here, with no recurring rent. Warehouse transfers automatically use your travelling fleet docked here: the flagship and active escorts. Berthed and remote ships stay untouched. This applies to legal cargo, cargo-screening packages, engineering spares and each separate ammunition type. Transfers use compatible holds while preserving specialist space where possible. Transfer quantities are totals across the travelling fleet. Cargo purchase costs and package provenance stay with the goods. Packages stored in a warehouse or berthed ship provide no protection to the active fleet. Coilgun rounds, autocannon rounds, railgun rounds, guided missiles and heavy torpedoes stay separate. Ammunition can only be collected into a matching fitted weapon within magazine and remaining hold capacity. Old unsorted kinetic stock remains available for compatible kinetic weapons; new deposits always retain their type. Lasers use ship energy and have no ammunition to store; spares cannot exceed each ship’s allowance. These are your existing supplies, not new purchases. Client-owned freight, restricted goods, installed upgrades and propellant are not accepted. Stores remain local and are excluded from travelling cargo and ship-loss damage. Tenant consignments introduced at the canteen reserve separate space; rent and any inspection liability settle at this station’s bank.

Choose Transfer to warehouse or Transfer to fleet, then select an item and quantity. Max uses your travelling fleet’s owned inventory and compatible capacity. Owned source items remain listed when no space is available, with an Unavailable label and disabled transfer controls. Free space or add a warehouse bay before trying again.

View every owned warehouse in Captain’s record → Warehouses. Each shows owned capacity, your stores, tenant space and free space, with a local warehouse or map link.

Leasing spare warehouse space

Speak with the canteen or commons host at a station where you own storage. Available tenant introductions change with the station’s 30-day cycle: ordinary legal stores, sealed industrial lots and discreet restricted cargo.

Industrial and discreet arrangements require Commerce level 2; declared goods also require commodity discovery. Only one open agreement per route is allowed. The quoted goods, quantity, term and rent stay fixed for that offer cycle. Rent and restricted-cargo liability use the public quote from the start of the cycle; later trades, stock changes or travel do not change a signed agreement.

Tenant cargo reserves real warehouse capacity and stays client-owned. It cannot be traded, withdrawn, donated or counted as your collateral or net worth. At the end of the term, the tenant collects it automatically and the rent is deposited at that station’s bank. If that deposit is at its account limit, payment stays pending until room is available. Tasks shows active terms by collection date; the warehouse and Captain’s record show leased space.

Restricted tenants pay more and accept a fixed, disclosed liability. Weekly warehouse inspections follow the existing customs selection, reputation and detection models even while you are elsewhere. Store the matching canteen-trader screening package in that warehouse and choose concealment when signing, or configure packing at the warehouse later.

Spectral liners cover AI cores and combat drones; thermal sleeves cover biocultures. One matching package covers configured lots of that type for one selected inspection, then is consumed. Packing reduces detection without guaranteeing clearance; packages left aboard your fleet do not protect warehouses. Seizure releases the space, forfeits rent, applies the usual trust-scaled reputation loss and bills the agreed liability to local deposits first, then local credit. Your own legal goods remain separate.

Home base & station standing

A captain’s balance sheet can quietly broaden commercial introductions. At 50,000 cr net worth, established contacts can refer industrial storage clients and veteran crew; at 250,000 cr, regional freight and elite crew become possible; at 1 million cr, fleet-charter clients can consider you. Discuss business at a credit cooperative, freight office, warehouse or commons to have that standing recognized. The same asset estimate shown in Captain’s record is used, after all debt. Existing experience, reputation, access, warehouse and ship requirements still apply. Recognition is remembered through later price dips or expenses; it does not guarantee a visiting candidate or a profitable contract. Borrowing and transferring money do not themselves increase net worth. Existing signed contracts and hired crew keep their terms.

Reserve ships berth free at your home station. Home clinic care and departure briefings receive a 20% discount, with further service adjustments for reputation. Staff recognize you as a resident. Other fees, access requirements, loans and debt enforcement remain in force.

Register a new home at its port authority while docked there. Registration costs 2,500 cr, with 30 days between moves. Your ships, cargo, licences, loans and station records stay where they are. Public standing follows you; local standing belongs to the station. The authority shows the current service discount or surcharge; the Captain’s record retains the detailed standing and history.

Credit availability

Available credit is the additional amount the local cooperative can lend now. Every loan counts once against both its branch allowance and the shared network assessment. A new charter has a small emergency margin rather than enough debt to buy another starter ship immediately.

Expansion finance grows with settled net trading income, a seasoned record of profitable voyages, and durable net debt retirement supported by that income. Only repayment below the lowest debt balance recorded under the current rules adds new repayment credit. Borrowing again and repaying the replacement cannot improve that record; interest and automatic debt recovery do not reset the floor. Earlier credited history is preserved. The review caps that support at conservatively recoverable assets. Hulls and fittings are discounted; shared cargo at the same station is valued along one complete batch liquidation curve, not by multiplying the first unit’s bid. Client freight is excluded. Borrowing, moving deposits, or selling ships cannot manufacture trading income. Existing recorded voyages contribute to seasoning without inventing past profits.

These limits govern new borrowing. Existing loan terms and the separate branch collection rules remain in force; a revised assessment does not itself repossess a ship.

Deposits, loans and interest

How rates are calculated · Station rate ranges

Cooperatives show your branch balances, annual rates, allowance and available new credit. Use Borrow floating or Borrow fixed to take a loan at that quoted rate. This choice applies only to the new draw. Floating credit and deposits adjust every ship-day; fixed credit locks the quoted annual rate for the life of that draw. The fixed quote is today’s floating rate plus a disclosed 1.5–2.5 percentage points, reflecting regional and import-financing risk, plus branch size and resupply time. Larger, well-supplied branches usually charge less to lock a rate; small, remote branches charge more. The local premium is sampled daily as import demand changes. This is an annual-rate premium, not an upfront fee. Later fixed draws use their own current quote and never enlarge an old cheap agreement. Early repayment has no fee. Repayments clear the highest current annual rate first.

Public rates combine a slow 1,440-day funding cycle (48 rate periods) and a shorter 330-day cycle (11 periods), plus branch risk, seasonal goods production versus consumption, and profitable gross exporter-to-consumer quote spreads. Public production, consumption and exporter-to-consumer quotes are sampled every ship-day. Those conditions change the rate’s acceleration: momentum builds, eases or reverses before moving the quoted rate. Damping and daily speed/acceleration limits prevent sharp jumps. The deposit-to-floating-loan spread widens in proportion to upward momentum and narrows in proportion to downward momentum; stronger movement has a larger effect. A cross-branch deposit ceiling prevents immediate borrow-and-redeposit profit. The station-specific premium for a new fixed loan remains separate. Quotes are unchanged within a ship-day, and very small changes may be hidden by display rounding. The economic target starts from the common funding rate and smaller regional/local adjustments, with a 1.2% floating-loan floor. The actual rate follows that target gradually. The lending spread uses the smoothed local baseline, adjusted up or down with rate momentum. The savings rate is the annual interest the bank pays you; the floating and fixed loan rates are the annual interest you pay the bank. A net-consuming station needs import finance; a producer may need export working capital. The same wholesale goods and seasonal model used by the exchange supplies these signals. Player trades, cash movements, reputation and refreshing a screen cannot reroll rates. Reputation and earned experience still affect credit availability.

Interest compounds over elapsed ship-days, including travel, work and clinic stays, using each daily quote actually crossed: balance × (1 + annual rate)^(days / 365.25). Fractional balances are retained; transactions use whole credits. No interest accrues merely by opening a page. Existing fixed loans retain their exact agreed rate. Original charter and restitution debt stays at 4% with Meridian Station Credit Cooperative (Orbit · Earth). New reserve-berth and tenant-liability credit floats; it never increases an earlier fixed loan.

Deposits stay at their branch until you visit to withdraw, or that bank uses them for local obligations. Moving funds requires withdrawal, travel and a new deposit; cash in transit earns no deposit interest. All current floating loan quotes exceed every current deposit quote. Carry opportunities can arise when an earlier fixed loan costs less than a later deposit rate, but later floating returns can fall. Compare the entire holding period, interest paid during travel, fuel, provisions, berth fees, other liabilities and risks. Goods arbitrage uses the actual purchase and sale quotes, finite stock, hold compatibility and ownership. Gross price spreads are a funding-demand signal, not a guaranteed return.

Enter a whole-credit amount or use the −1,000 and +1,000 controls. Deposit and Loan have independent amount fields. In Deposit, Debit moves available funds into your local savings, and Credit withdraws savings into available funds. Both use the Deposit amount; either Borrow button uses the Loan section’s amount; Repay loans clears network debt. Max uses the currently permitted amount, while Repay here clears only this branch. Borrowing never creates fresh collateral by redepositing the same money. Available funds remain in the sidebar; deposits and loans open their account lists. Captain’s record shows assets and net worth.

What a loan assessment considers

Outstanding debt across all banks; travelling and berthed hull liquidation values; installed fittings; owned cargo aboard every ship and in warehouses; cash and deposits; unborrowed liquidity; asset-backed support; shared lending ceiling and remaining headroom; and the branch ceiling. Client cargo is excluded. The lending desk reviews these factors before each new draw. See the banking formulas for the equations.

Bank rate model

The banking chain is daily public economic conditions → rate targets → acceleration and velocity → quoted rates → interest. The target guides the direction of movement; the quoted rate follows gradually.

1. The game day sets the common funding cycles.
2. Seasonal goods production, consumption and public exchange prices supply local import pressure and export-financing demand.
3. Regional banking risk and location adjust the station’s targets.
4. A damped rate motor changes acceleration, then velocity, then the rate.
5. Momentum widens or narrows the deposit-to-floating-loan spread. A separate station premium sets new fixed-loan quotes.
6. Balances compound using each elapsed day’s applicable annual rate.

Rates below use decimals: 0.04 means 4%. “Clamp” keeps a value between its lower and upper limits.

Funding and local economic targets

F = 0.026 + 0.020 × sin(2π × day / 1440)
     + 0.006 × sin(2π × day / 330)
Balance = average[(production − consumption)
         / max(1, production + consumption)]
C = max(0, −Balance)
T = sum[min(1, best positive export margin)]
  / max(1, number of surplus goods)
Export margin = (consumer bid − exporter ask) / exporter ask

C measures net-consumption pressure across listed goods. T measures export working-capital demand using the best positive gross price gap to a consuming station. These price gaps exclude transport costs. R is the region’s banking-risk baseline above Earth; O is the location adjustment: 0.003 for the Moon, 0.001 for Earth high orbit, 0.0015 for other moons, and zero elsewhere.

Loan target = max(0.012,
 F + 0.010 + 0.4R + 0.5O + 0.003C + 0.002T)
Deposit target = clamp(
 F − 0.006 + 0.2R + O + 0.005C + 0.003T,
 0.002, F + 0.008)
Baseline spread target = Loan target − Deposit target

Acceleration, velocity and the lending spread

a = clamp(0.0144 × (target − rate) − 0.24 × velocity,
     −0.000025, +0.000025)
New velocity = clamp(velocity + a, −0.00035, +0.00035)
New rate = rate + new velocity
Momentum = clamp(New velocity / 0.00035, −1, +1)
Lending spread = clamp(
 smoothed baseline spread × (1 + 0.35 × Momentum),
 0.008, 0.040)
Floating quote = round4(max(0.012, new rate))
Deposit quote = round4(max(0.002, Floating quote − Lending spread))

The same damped update smooths the baseline spread. A falling target first slows an existing rise before it can reverse the rate. At full upward momentum, a 2-percentage-point baseline spread becomes 2.7 points; at full downward momentum, it becomes 1.3 points, before floors and the network ceiling apply. The final deposit quote also stays at least 0.1 percentage point below the cheapest current floating quote anywhere in the network.

Internal rate velocity is limited to 0.035 percentage points per ship-day, and acceleration to 0.0025 percentage points per ship-day squared. Quotes round to 0.01 percentage point, so a small daily change can leave the displayed number unchanged. Each date is reconstructed from at most 240 preceding daily targets, initialized at the first target with zero velocity; no growing rate-history file is added to a voyage.

Fixed borrowing and interest

L = clamp((resupply lead days − 24) / 86, 0, 1)
S = clamp((22 − station size) / 19, 0, 1)
Fixed premium = round4(0.015 + 0.003 × min(1, R / 0.062)
           + 0.002C + 0.0025L + 0.0025S)
New fixed quote = round4(Floating quote + Fixed premium)
Daily balance multiplier = (1 + annual rate)^(1 / 365.25)

The station-specific locking premium is 1.5–2.5 percentage points annually. A fixed loan keeps its signed rate; deposits and floating loans use the quote for every elapsed day. Long voyages multiply the applicable daily factors. Earlier recorded balances and outcomes are preserved.

Regional banking baselines, station size and resupply settings remain fixed profiles; the goods and funding signals are sampled daily. Public goods conditions influence banks. Bank rates do not currently change goods production, consumption or prices. Player trade perturbations and screen refreshes cannot reroll public quotes. Reputation, earned experience, assets and existing debt feed into borrowing limits.

Compare each station’s minimum and maximum rates, or open the full banking and goods formulas.

Bank rate ranges by station

Compare the lowest and highest annual rates produced by the current banking rules at every station. The reference covers every valid day from 0 through 365,249: the full 1,000-game-year playable calendar and 9,496,500 station/day quotes.

Each minimum and maximum can occur on a different day. A deposit maximum and loan minimum in this table are not necessarily available together. At any one time, every floating borrowing quote remains above every deposit quote across the network. “New fixed loan” means the rate offered for a new agreement; an existing signed fixed loan retains its own agreed rate.

The built-in floors are 0.20% for deposits and 1.20% for floating loans. The table records the rates actually produced across the playable calendar; the lowest offers and their station differences are shown in the table. The separate fixed-rate premium stays station-specific. These are generic game reference values and do not use a captain’s balances, inventory, discoveries or voyage history.

See what feeds into each rate or return to deposit and loan controls.

Bank credit and enforcement

Each station bank has its own base credit budget. Your current limit grows with earned experience and improves with wider and local reputation; poor reputation can reduce it. Relic bonuses do not count as earned experience. Review your current allowance at the local cooperative. New loans also share one network assessment: every outstanding balance, including the charter and restitution debt, is counted against a record-based lending ceiling subject to earned-income and seasoning requirements, and supported at most by 65% of recoverable hull and fitting values, 50% of eligible cargo within remaining funded local buyer allowances, and 50% of unborrowed cash and deposits. Equity includes cash, deposits at every bank, owned legal cargo at its physical station’s conservative batch liquidation value, hulls at 75% of catalogue price adjusted for integrity, and fittings at 50% of installed cost. Travelling ships, berthed ships and goods in every warehouse are included. Warehouse bays, client shipments, restricted goods, unmarketed mission items, fuel, ammunition and spares do not support this estimate. Borrowed cash is offset by its matching debt, so moving loans or deposits between banks does not create more equity. The local branch ceiling still applies. Asset or price changes affect new loan availability; this assessment alone does not call in an existing loan or seize remote assets. Earth also handles the original charter and restitution balance. Arrival authorities collect cash for an over-limit local balance, targeting one credit below that arrival’s assessed limit. If cash leaves more than 110% of that limit owed, owned legal cargo, optional upgrades and local ships may be auctioned in that order. Surplus proceeds return to cash. Arrival collection leaves deposits and remote ships separate. Chargeable reserve berths are billed daily at their own station: local deposits first, then branch credit. Above 110% of that branch’s current limit, the lowest-value berthed ships are auctioned until its debt is cleared or those ships run out. Proceeds pay that branch’s credit first, including any charter balance held there; surplus is deposited at that bank. These reviews also run while you are elsewhere. Client freight is not sold as your property; losing its carrying hull triggers the ordinary freight-breach terms. More than 10% over the limit also increases normal raid risk near the creditor, with the projected effect shown in the flight plan. If every ship is seized, begin a new voyage.

Home base and station reputation

Every new captain starts at Meridian Station above Earth, their first home base. Register a different home while docked at its port authority for 2,500 credits; wait 30 days between moves. Reserve berth rates vary by station from 1 to 5 cr per ship per day; see the selected ship’s station and daily fee in Fleet overview. Home reserve berths are free and home clinic care and departure briefings receive a 20% discount. Your wider reputation follows you, while each station keeps its own record of deliveries, aid, dialogue and misconduct. Good standing can improve service quotes and personal introductions; poor standing can worsen them. Moving home never resets reputation, moves ships or clears debt.

Character growth and conversations

Your Captain’s record tracks your career. Establishment conversations branch into follow-up questions and can return to earlier subjects. Contacts may offer personal commissions, introductions or further work. An assignment identifies what is needed, where to bring it, its deadline and its payment or promised outcome. Tasks lists active commitments; the Journal records actions and outcomes.

Journal & action records

The Journal follows the saved action history: every completed action has its own dated row and matching record number. Notices and material results appear as separate compact rows under that record. Rows identify the action or event, its location and relevant person, goods, payment or outcome. Long messages continue on short rows; hover for the complete original text. Earned XP, levels, account movements and material inventory changes use actual saved differences, never promised rewards. Dates on notices identify when they occurred during a multi-day action. Conversations record the selected topic and any actual results without copying the full conversation tree.

Earlier entries load as you scroll. Older detail is reconstructed from adjacent saved action outcomes; opening the Journal never repeats an action or grants rewards. Restoring a save is identified as a change of recorded state. Original snapshots remain unchanged. Details from before the action ledger began can only be shown where they were actually recorded.

Reputation, stations & rumours

Good deeds build saved progress rather than awarding their old full score immediately. Higher reputation takes progressively more work. Trust at the station where you act strengthens its public endorsement; your wider reputation in turn affects local reception, service quotes, bank credit and customs checks. Local trust also builds more slowly. Setbacks apply immediately and erase progress toward the next point.

Exceeding 90 requires local trust 20 at three stations; exceeding 97 requires trust 30 at six; reaching 100 requires trust 40 at ten. Existing scores are retained. Ask a canteen or commons contact what people are saying about your reputation. Recent recorded deeds can introduce you elsewhere; misconduct spreads warnings. Each account reaches at most three other stations, once per station, within 180 days. Each station considers one account per 30 days. Good accounts build progress; bad ones cost up to two local trust and one wider reputation. Gossip cannot generate more gossip, and old praise cannot cover newer misconduct. Buying drinks grants no reputation.

Progress & checkpoints

Every completed action saves automatically, including random events and combat. Open Menu → Progress for the full Action history, newest first, and scroll back to the beginning.

Save a checkpoint

Menu → Save checkpoint offers three slots. Replacing an occupied slot asks for confirmation and keeps its earlier contents as a recovery copy.

Continue an earlier voyage

Menu → Load lists the same three slots and confirms the captain and voyage before loading. Action history also offers Continue from here after confirmation, while preserving later records. Neither option earns rewards or advances the calendar.

Where progress is stored

Guest play on the public website saves on this device, in this browser. Clearing site data can remove that voyage and its checkpoint slots. The public Play page opens the game menu. For cross-device play, choose Sign in & load voyage and use the same email address or Ethereum wallet as your account save. Choose Continue voyage for the latest saved progress, or Load checkpoint for a saved slot. Account & saves remains available from the menu during play. A voyage saved only on its original device must first be transferred to the account from that device. An account voyage stores its journal, full action history and three checkpoint slots on the server and needs a connection to record actions. No NFT is required. Signing in keeps an existing device voyage separate: choose Transfer device voyage & history to add it to your account library, or load a voyage already saved there. Menu → Saved voyages lists your captains. New account voyage starts a separate charter while preserving the earlier ones. Each voyage has its own journal, action history and three checkpoint slots. Devices can play different voyages on the same account; each open tab keeps its selected voyage. Storage is shared across the account. A transfer preserves the device original and can resume if interrupted. A newer save from another device must be reviewed before continuing; it cannot be silently overwritten. Email and wallet identities are separate unless explicitly linked. Signing out returns to the device voyage. The Mac app and its local browser share their own local ledger and checkpoint set. New charter begins a fresh voyage after confirmation.

Audio & display controls

Menu → Audio opens independent Music and Sound effects controls, mute and a test sound. Audio pauses in the background; preferences stay on this device. Fleet and berth inspections provide a square ship viewer: drag or use arrow keys to rotate, plus and minus to zoom, and Home or Reset to return to the standard view. The separate ship reference lets you inspect every class and fitting without changing a voyage.

The Asterion age

The magnetic-nozzle breakthrough of 2074 became a crewed drive in 2081 and a common retrofit under the Open Drive Compact in 2085. Every ship uses an Asterion fusion drive. The Engine story traces its development and adoption across the station network.

Government & treaties

Resources and settlement

Your charter begins in 2089, within a network of 26 stations. Gas and ice giants have no solid surface ports. You always dock in space. Ice-rich moons support processed-water exports where local facilities are available; water abundance alone does not provide cheap hydrogen fuel. Europa and Enceladus focus on research; their industries do not mine the subsurface oceans. Food, medicines and electronics require industrial supply chains.

Science references

NASA: transfer trajectories
JPL: planetary orbital elements
JPL: moon physical parameters
NASA: Enceladus and water plumes