How to play
Nightmare Space

Your first trip, step by step

The basic loop is to choose a reachable activity, prepare a ship, travel, bring back resources or rewards, and improve the pilot and ship. Start with a short trip so you learn the controls before risking valuable equipment.

1. Enter the game. Choose Try without registering, or Register for an account. You start with a Kestrel and a fitted Swift. The active ship is the one you fly; the other can become a hired pilot’s ship.
2. Read the Star chart. Your ship’s position is highlighted. Select the nearby mining belt and inspect its level and resources. Selecting a destination is only planning.
3. Prepare. Check fuel, hull and cargo space. At the station, inspect Ship layout and fit an available mining rig if you plan to mine. If you only want salvage, use the site’s salvage action.
4. Travel. Choose Set destination, then Jump to next star. Read the arrival window. Use Scan planet for the local survey and inspect the revealed work.
5. Do one useful job. Mine an eligible vein or salvage available material. If a guardian blocks work, compare its stats before choosing to fight. Do not take on a much stronger enemy just because it is nearby.
6. Return. Plot the station, travel back and open Browse cargo. Sell part of your haul, store it where facilities exist, or keep ingredients for your first recipe. Refuel and repair before the next trip.
7. Choose a direction. Command deck has career lessons; Contracts has objectives and return points; Skills shows progression; Workshop turns materials into equipment.

A good first goal: complete one out-and-back trip and make a deliberate equipment improvement. You do not need a fleet or industrial facility to start crafting.

Where things live

The rest of this guide follows these categories. Jump to the mechanic you want to learn using the contents, or search for a term such as “predecessor”, “fuel” or “theft”.

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Navigate the frontier

Use the Galaxy map and Sector map tabs on the single map panel. Select a solar system on the galaxy overview, then choose a location on its local chart. Use Set destination to keep a route visible across screens, or travel the route automatically. Your ship is marked with a mint ring.

A star's colour is its PvE warning. Its displayed Level is whichever is higher: the strongest visible opponent there or the Mining level of its hardest known ore. Select the star to see that combined level, separate Combat and Mining ratings, and every known ore's required Mining level. Hidden signatures can raise the rating after a better survey. PvP activity never changes the colour or level.

• Connected jumps use one fuel each. Long-range system scans also cost fuel.
• Stations refuel you; compatible fuel supplies can be used from cargo away from a station.
• Operating with an empty tank damages the hull. At zero hull, that ship, its fitted equipment and carried cargo are lost; you restart at Port Haven in a replacement Kestrel. Your skills, credits, station storage and other ships remain.
• Location names in the interface are interactive: open one to plot it or view it on the chart.

Automated expeditions and route risk

Beside Auto refuel, open Expedition auto. Auto combat fights every visible non-player monster at each stop; Auto mine surveys eligible worlds and extracts every usable vein until it is exhausted or cargo is full. Set a destination and choose Travel to destination to run those actions after every jump. PvP and fleet-raid bosses remain manual for your captain’s Expedition auto. Hired pilots use their separate Fleet orders.

Set the lowest and highest allowed PvE levels in the same Expedition auto panel. Autopilot will not plot through stars outside that range; if the destination itself is excluded, no route is offered. Use this to avoid content above your ship's capability or to skip trivial areas.

Repeated travel is never permanently quiet. After at most ten successful jumps without combat, accumulated jump wakes attract a mandatory path predator and the route pauses until it is defeated or you retreat. Its level follows the star's combined PvE level and its loot comes from that level's resource table. Autocombat will fight it, but it does not make the fight safe: an under-tier ship crossing a high-level system has a serious chance of destruction. The highest systems are balanced around the strongest hulls, tier-matched weapons, repaired high-quality lineage and defensive fittings—or a fleet.

In Industry, choose Balanced, Safest or Dangerous route risk. This calculation uses only monster and regional difficulty—never PvP status. Dangerous routes seek stronger PvE regions, where the chance of better ore and valuable arrival finds is higher; the flight toolbar warns about open PvP separately.

Plot and fly a route

1. Open Star chart. Use Galaxy map to inspect solar systems, then Sector map for the local connections. Selecting a place only inspects it; it does not move your ship.
2. Choose Set destination on the place you want. Read its combat and mining ratings, route, fuel needs and PvP warning before departing.
3. Use Jump to next star for one step, or Travel to destination to follow the route. The arrival window offers activities at your new location. A hostile interruption must be resolved before continuing.
4. Show destination brings the waypoint into view; Clear waypoint removes the plan. Neither teleports your ship. The travel controls sit under the two map tabs.

If no route appears, check your Expedition auto level range, blockades and whether the destination is in a separate region reached by warp or stargate. A guest’s level cap does not itself block travel. A route being available does not mean your ship can survive it.

Fuel planning

Refuel before a long trip and keep usable fuel supplies in your hold. Auto refuel can help when a supported source is available; it does not provide unlimited fuel or remove service costs. Inspect the displayed fuel grade, price and capacity. Plan the return journey as well as the outward trip, particularly when moving to another region.

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Choose a focus, not a class

Prospector, Bounty hunter, Cartographer, Broker, Fleet support and Cargo thief focuses provide goals and activity-chain rewards. Each focus has a sequential tutorial with credit rewards and a final training point; the Cargo thief path teaches fabrication of an intrusion hardpoint, player scanning, cloaked theft and escape. Change focus when you like; your ship, skills and access to the rest of the game do not change. The deck also tracks regional demand, the featured frontier and fleet operations.

Use the tutorial as an activity checklist

1. Open Command deck and choose a focus that matches what you want to learn.
2. Read the lesson marked CURRENT and its instructions. Complete lessons in order; doing a later task first does not skip the current lesson.
3. For a mining task, use Star chart to reach a resource site, then scan and mine through Planet operations. For a combat task, reveal a hostile, travel there, engage it and use a fitted weapon in the combat window.
4. Return to the deck to see the next lesson and rewards. Change focus when you want another activity; a focus does not equip your ship or supply missing materials.

Training points are separate from credits and skill practice. Review Skills and Pilot registry before spending them. You can be a miner, fighter and builder on the same pilot.

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Scan, clear, extract

Use Scan planet at a deposit to reveal its ore, skill requirement, guardians and caches. Defeat any guard and fit the required tool before mining. Richer strips need better Mining skill and may require a Survey rig, Deep-core extractor or Quantum drill.

Choose precision, balanced or overcharge extraction. Faster methods build more heat. If you need your first tool, craft a Survey mining rig in Workshop from four Copper ore and three Ferrite ore, then fit it to gain +2 Mining.

Scanner tools

Utility-mounted Survey, Deep-spectrum and Quantum signal scanners add effective Scanning, Exploration and Prospecting and extend system and player-ship scan range. A planetary survey reveals hidden ore veins, concealed creatures, relic caches and other signatures when your effective Scanning meets the site's requirement. The Deep scanner consumes a Survey scanner; the Quantum scanner consumes the Deep version, so each better tool preserves the earlier physical build.

Find a specific ore

Open Resource intelligence on the Star chart and select the exact ore you want. One fuel buys a scan that ranks known systems by percentage. Ore tier, regional difficulty, effective Scanning, Prospecting and fitted arrays shape the estimate; running it while docked also includes NPC miner reports. A successful scan gives a likely planet to survey. Failure still leaves the ranked probabilities, and no result is ever 100% guaranteed.

Private monsters and ore or salvage deposits return after 30 successful turns; recovered caches return after 50. Shared deposits replenish on the hourly frontier reset. This makes cleared routes worth revisiting without making resources immediately infinite.

Your first mining trip

1. At a station, inspect your active ship’s utilities and fit an available mining tool. You must fit a tool to the ship you are actually flying; owning one in your armoury is not enough.
2. Select a low-level resource site on Star chart, set the destination and travel there. Open Planet operations and use Scan planet.
3. Read each revealed vein’s required base Mining level, tool, remaining amount and guardian. A high scanner bonus helps find things; it does not waive a vein’s Mining requirement.
4. Clear the guardian if the vein is guarded. Choose an eligible vein and an extraction mode, then mine. Check the resulting cargo, heat and depletion before repeating.
5. Return with enough fuel to sell, store or craft your haul. Station-stored ore must be withdrawn before a recipe can use it.

Why an extraction is blocked

The site has not been surveyed

Use Scan planet at your current site; selecting it on the map is not a survey.

Skill or tool requirement

Train the named base skill and fit the required tool or a more capable one. Check whether another hull has your tool installed.

Hostiles or full cargo

Resolve the guard, or make cargo room. A cargo frame can increase capacity, but removing it later also requires your load to fit the smaller hold.

Depleted deposit

Find another vein or site. Repeatedly clicking an empty vein will not refill it.

Salvage and mining are different actions. Salvage recovers a site’s available salvage resource; mining extracts surveyed veins. A contract or lesson may require one specifically.

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Your skills generate harder resources and designs

Registered pilots’ skills do not stop at a final maximum. Guest pilots and their hired crew can travel anywhere, but earned pilot and base skill levels stop at 5 until registration. Once your base Mining skill reaches 10, the game generates a new persistent exotic mineral tier. It generates another at every five levels after that—15, 20, 25 and onward. Each tier is harder to discover and extract because it requires that exact base Mining level. Equipment bonuses cannot bypass this unlock requirement.

Discover the new resource

1. Reach the next base Mining milestone shown on the Skills screen.
2. Travel to a mineral-bearing world, survey it and clear any guardians.
3. Open Mineral discoveries in Planet operations and discover the new deposit.
4. Fit a Quantum drill, or an equally capable mining tool, before extraction.

Discovering a tier creates a mineable deposit rather than free cargo. Deposits can run dry, but the same mineral can be located again on another eligible world. The generated mineral name, requirements and discoveries remain part of your saved universe.

Turn it into harder equipment

Matching base Fabrication milestones generate seven stronger component designs for hull, armour, shield, reactor, fuel, cargo and thrusters. Each higher-tier design consumes a stored copy of the same component from the preceding tier. That predecessor may be one you crafted or bought from another player, but it must be unfitted and in your inventory.

The first mineral component at Fabrication 10 builds on its Standard version. After that, each mineral tier builds on the previous mineral version: a level-15 component needs its level-10 version, level 20 needs level 15, and so on. Each step also requires two units of the new milestone mineral, four iron and two alloy. Fitted skill bonuses cannot bypass the base Fabrication requirement.

Every 20 base Fabrication levels also reveals another mastery array; each mastery version consumes the previous mastery version. Newly generated components still begin at item level 1 and use the normal permanent quality-and-upgrade system. Higher Fabrication skill improves quality odds, while later tiers provide stronger base stats. There is no final mineral, recipe or mastery tier.

The consumed item's material costs and ownership history become part of the new component's lineage. If several eligible copies are stored, the workshop consumes the weakest one first. Fabrication queues reserve one predecessor per batch; cancelling returns both materials and those components to that station's pickup. Ordinary item-level upgrades already build directly on the same physical item rather than creating a disconnected replacement.

Brew temporary skill buffs

The Workshop also offers three potion-like consumable families: Prospector draughts improve Mining and Prospecting, Artisan catalysts improve Fabrication and Engineering, and Vanguard serums improve weapon skills and Shielding. Use them from the cargo hold; the command-vessel panel shows the active bonus and remaining time. Equal or weaker doses cannot overwrite an active stronger buff.

Brew the basic version from Copper ore and Helium crystal. At Fabrication 10 and every five levels thereafter, the system generates a stronger recipe. Each new dose consumes the previous dose, one unit of that milestone's generated mineral and one Helium crystal. A potion bought from another player qualifies as the predecessor. Buff bonuses improve effective skills and outcomes, but never bypass base Mining or Fabrication levels required to unlock resources and recipes.

The loop: keep the preceding component → raise base Mining → discover the new ore → raise base Fabrication → combine the old component and new ore into the stronger tier → continue.

Three levels that do different jobs

Open Skills from the top menu to see each profession’s current progress. If a recipe says Fabrication 10, a base level of 8 with a +2 bonus is still locked. Keep practising fabrication until the base value reaches 10. Registered skills continue beyond the first mastery milestone; later advances require more experience.

Temporary buffs must be used from cargo. Read their duration and affected skills, and activate them before the relevant activity. Carrying a potion unused gives no bonus. A stronger active dose cannot be overwritten with an equal or weaker one.

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Read the enemy, then commit

Combat opens in a dedicated window. Turns have a 15-second decision window; enemies can act when your time runs out. Minimising the window does not pause combat. Fire a fitted hardpoint, spend energy on its burst action, use a supply or brace to reduce incoming damage and recharge. Inspect Enemy ship stats before engaging to compare shield, armour, hull and damage resistances.

Campaign enemies alternate normal fire, a charging turn and a heavy volley—brace when a heavy attack is telegraphed. Weapon skills raise matching damage and improve special effects. Repair nanites work in combat but consume a turn.

Dangerous regions

Regional danger increases patrol density, interception and enemy strength. Obsidian Horizon has mandatory patrols throughout its open stars, stronger guardians and real ship-loss consequences. Its hardest guardian recommends six pilots. Deadly and Nightmare regions require a station for a warp exit; leaving a dangerous star is a decision, not a free escape.

Boss stars and fleet raids

Some stars contain named bosses with larger hull pools, stronger phases and special rewards. The deepest shared Leviathan Grounds are persistent fleet raids: the boss has one shared hull total for every attacker. Their highest difficulty assumes top-tier ships, upgraded weapons, repaired high-quality lineages and suitable resistances.

You may enter alone, but retaliation is multiplied whenever fewer than the recommended number of co-located fleet ships are present, so solo survival falls dramatically. Fleetmates attack the same health pool and every contributor can claim a difficulty-scaled reward. At the guardian’s sector, choose Join guardian battle, then attack through the combat window. A defeated raid guardian returns after 30 personal turns.

Start and finish a normal hostile encounter

1. Select a revealed hostile sector and expand Enemy ship stats. Compare its damage and resistances with your active ship, not a spare hull in your hangar.
2. Arrive with a repaired ship, fitted weapons and usable supplies. Choose the sector’s engagement action. Some patrols intercept you automatically.
3. In the combat window, choose a fitted weapon’s Fire action for a normal attack. Burst costs two capacitor energy; its button shows the damage and is unavailable without enough energy.
4. Watch the intent text: normal shot, charging turn, then heavy volley. Brace / +1 energy trades your attack for protection and energy. A repair supply consumes a turn too.
5. Reduce the enemy’s shield, armour and finally hull. Excess damage carries into the next layer. Read the result, loot and damage before engaging again.

The 15-second NPC deadline continues while the guide is open, the combat window is minimised, or the browser is closed. Read this guide while safely docked. PvP uses its own displayed turn clock and actions; do not assume the NPC timing or rescue rules apply.

Choosing damage and defenses

Read the target’s shield and armour profiles. A high headline weapon number can perform poorly against resistance to that damage type. Ion can drain energy; beam has a defense interaction; corrosion continues after a damaging hit. Armour, shield and hull are separate pools, and component condition can reduce the stats you thought you had. Repair and refit before testing a higher difficulty.

For a shared guardian, gather at the guardian’s actual sector and use Join guardian battle. Being in the same social fleet elsewhere does not provide the co-located ships needed to survive its retaliation.

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Build the ship around the job

Use Workshop to fabricate on your ship outside combat. Crafting and upgrading at a station adds one quality grade to each new equipment layer, up to Peerless. Fitting equipment still requires a station. Where storage is available, use Store cargo in station in Sector actions and choose the cargo and quantities; that pilot’s stored cargo is available at other storage-enabled stations.

• Fleet & trade: buy, switch and name hulls; manage hardpoints, repairs, fuel and the player market.
• Inventory: use supplies, open caches, inspect cargo and jettison items when space is tight.
• Workshop: turn mined resources into supplies, weapons and skill modules.
• Pilot registry: train attributes and professions, choose a faction and configure account recovery.
• Field guide: compare ships, weapons, enemies, resources and vendors.

Ships have different mount sizes, utility slots and resistances. Your cargo and armoury follow your pilot; owned hulls retain their fittings and condition when switched.

Damage, repair and inherited quality

Incoming hits can damage an installed crafted component, weapon or module. Damage lowers all of that item's stats until you unfit it and repair it at a station workshop. A repair has a Fabrication-skill-based chance to raise one quality layer—either the current tier or any consumed predecessor embedded in its lineage. Repeated damage and expert repairs can eventually make every layer Peerless, giving the final item maximum contribution from every cheaper version used to build it.

Special intermediary materials unlock cosmetic exterior modules, resistance-granting liveries, corrosion weapons that deal damage over later turns, and scatter weapons that hit multiple hostile players. Higher versions consume the preceding version as well as their new ore and special components.

Fit the ship you intend to fly

1. Dock and open Fleet & trade / your ship management view. Transfer command to the hull you want to use. Buying or owning a ship does not make it the active one.
2. Open Ship layout. Match each weapon to a compatible mount size and keep the total weapon power within reactor capacity. Utility modules use utility slots; a mining rig, scanner, cloak and defensive module compete for that space.
3. For a crafted copy, manage its individual fitting through Workshop. Inspect its condition, quality history and installed location. One physical item cannot be fitted to two ships at once.
4. Check the resulting ship stats after fitting. Refuel and repair before departure, and ensure your current cargo fits any reduced hold capacity.

Keep materials and equipment straight

Browse cargo opens your carried resources and supplies. Weapons, modules and crafted components are managed as equipment. Use Learn More under an item for its lore; use its stats and recipe requirements for mechanical decisions.

At a storage-enabled station, choose Store cargo in station, pick an item and quantity, and store it. Your private locker is available at other stations offering storage. Withdraw cargo into the ship to craft, use or sell it. This storage network is different from a player-market pickup or a cancelled fabrication job: those remain at their named pickup station.

Buy, sell and collect

1. Dock, choose Browse cargo and the relevant merchant or player-trade view. NPC merchants and other players have different stock and prices.
2. Before buying from a player, review the complete lot, total price, pickup station and travel distance. A remote purchase reserves goods for you; it does not teleport them into your hold.
3. Travel to the named pickup station and collect with enough free space. If selling, list only uninstalled available items and review the asking price for the lot. Collect sale proceeds through the market controls.
4. If dismantling equipment, review the material return before confirming. Dismantling consumes the item; it is not a way to unfit or temporarily store it.

Saved ship loadouts in Industry remember a fitting arrangement. Apply them at a station while commanding the matching hull, with the actual items available. A preset does not create missing equipment. Up to 12 presets can be kept.

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Hire pilots and issue orders

1. Anywhere outside combat, open More → Fleet. Your spare Swift starts with a pulse cannon and mining rig. Existing captains receive this starter hull once if they do not already own it.
2. Expand Recruit a pilot, enter a callsign, select any unoccupied ship from your hangar and give the pilot an operating budget. Recruitment costs 50 CR in addition to that budget. Six hired-pilot berths are available. The assigned ship is delivered from its berth to your captain’s current sector; you do not need to dock or visit its previous berth.
3. Under the pilot, expand Destination & standing orders. Choose a destination, work to perform there, and how many work actions to attempt. Mining automatically surveys first. Fighting without a pilot target engages local monsters or a raid guardian; PvP and theft need a target pilot’s registry ID.
4. Select any en-route actions. Each runs once at each intermediate sector where possible. Set fight-back or retreat behaviour, automatic refuelling, and whether to return to the departure sector when cargo fills.
5. Choose Start these orders. Check the status and message in Fleet. The server performs at most one action roughly every eight seconds, even while you are away. A failed requirement pauses the order and explains why.

Hired pilots have their own experience, attributes, skills, credits and cargo. They learn through the same actions and at the same rates as normal pilots. They need suitable equipment and fuel, share normal PvP rules and can lose ships. Guest crew inherit the guest level cap. A ship’s hull, fittings and upgrades move with its assignment; they are not copied.

Use any normal game action

Choose Take direct command to pause the pilot’s standing orders and use the normal game screens for that pilot: train skills, craft, fit equipment, trade, accept contracts, scan, fight, use gateways and more. The banner identifies the pilot you are controlling. Choose Return to captain to switch back.

While commanding crew, enable Queue actions and use the normal controls to enqueue actions instead of executing them immediately. Turn it off for immediate control. Return to Fleet and choose Resume orders / queue to run queued actions in order. Queues hold up to 30 actions; a blocked action remains queued for review. A finished queue pauses. New standing orders replace the queue. Account and test commands cannot be delegated.

Connected routes are automatic. Use direct command or queued warp/gateway actions to enter another unconnected chart, then issue new destination orders there. Pausing orders does not stop combat deadlines; take command promptly during a fight.

Bring the results home

Under Budget, cargo & ship assignment, fund the operating budget or withdraw earned credits. Bring both pilots to the same sector, outside combat, to unload cargo into the captain’s hold or swap the hired pilot into a spare ship. If your captain already owns the old hull type, the hired pilot keeps that old ship as a reserve instead of returning it. Make room for the cargo first. Shared equipment must be unfitted from another stored hull or replaced with an extra copy before assignment.

Example: send the spare Swift mining

While out of combat, open More → Fleet, recruit a pilot into the spare Swift and allocate credits for operations. Choose a reachable low-level mining site as the destination and mining as the work. Enable automatic refuelling if wanted and choose the response to danger. Start a small number of work actions first, then inspect the status, location, cargo and last message.

Mining orders survey first, but the pilot still needs the appropriate base skill, fitted tool, cargo space and safe access to the vein. If the order pauses, fix the reported requirement through direct command or funding, then resume. Giving the same impossible order repeatedly will not bypass it.

En-route work can fill the hold or start a fight before the final destination. Choose it deliberately. A retreat preference is an attempted response, not immunity from anchors, interceptions or ship loss. The pilot’s budget is separate from the captain’s spending balance.

Standing orders versus direct command

Standing orders automate supported travel and work. Direct command gives you that pilot’s ordinary game interface for the full range of mechanics. Confirm the crew-command banner before buying, training or crafting so the action is performed for the intended pilot. Return to the captain before managing your own build.

For collection, bring captain and crew to the same sector outside combat and use Budget, cargo & ship assignment. Cargo transfer needs free space in the receiving hold. A paused pilot can still be in a timed fight: pausing work does not pause enemies.

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Arrange menus and send feedback

Every destination, including Command deck and the default shortcuts, is listed in More. Open More and choose Pin to menu beside a specialist station. It appears in the top navigation. Use Unpin from menu in More to remove that shortcut. More remains available so you can restore any shortcut. Pins save to your registered account; guests keep them in this browser.

Flight panels can be collapsed, reordered by dragging their handles, and resized. The map stays on the right with Sector map and Galaxy map tabs. Your panel layout saves to your account when registered and to this browser when playing as a guest.

Use Feedback in the top bar for bugs, confusing gameplay, balance or ideas. Explain your steps, what happened and what you expected. Optional game context helps investigation. Reports are private; open My reports to see their status and developer replies. Drafts survive background game updates and closing the feedback window, but not refreshing the page.

Make a cockpit for your activity

1. Open More and pin frequently used screens such as Industry. Open Fleet there to manage hired pilots.
2. Collapse a flight panel by its heading. Drag its handle to change panel order, and use its resize control where available. Keep the map visible while placing your frequent actions near the top.
3. Registered accounts save layout and pins to the account; guest settings remain in that browser and may be lost when browser data is cleared.

For useful feedback, include the screen, exact button, expected result and the message you received. If a process seems stuck, report its status and the last successful action. Avoid putting passwords or sign-in codes in a report.

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From raw ore to an industrial facility

There are three separate production systems. Workshop fabrication makes or improves items immediately. Industry fabrication queues reserve materials for timed station work. Industrial facilities are station upgrades that speed up your queues. You can craft aboard your ship outside combat without owning a facility.

1. Plan the build before spending materials

1. Open Workshop, choose the recipe and inspect the output, required base Fabrication level, ingredients and any previous-tier item it consumes.
2. Use the recipe dependency planner where offered to expand intermediary materials into their ingredients and known sources. Set the number of batches; one batch may produce more than one supply.
3. Gather or buy the missing materials. A source in the planner is somewhere to investigate, not guaranteed free stock. An uncharted source means you may need further exploration, surveying or player trade.
4. Withdraw station-stored materials into your cargo. Unfit a required predecessor at a station and keep it in your equipment inventory. Items in market escrow, on another ship, or already reserved by a queue are not available for another build.
5. Check the finished item’s mount, power and utility requirements before making it. Being able to fabricate a weapon does not mean your current ship can fit it.

2. Fabricate now: a first cargo frame

At base Fabrication 1, a Standard Cargo frame costs 4 Ferrite ore (iron) and 2 alloy. Put those materials in carried cargo, open Workshop and find the Standard Cargo frame recipe. Fabricate it outside combat, then dock to fit it. Its base cargo stat is 5 before quality, item-level layers, lineage and condition modify the actual result. Check the finished item’s displayed stats rather than expecting every copy to be identical.

Crafting at a station adds one quality grade to the new equipment layer, capped at Peerless. This applies to equipment fabrication and item upgrades. Shipboard fabrication is convenient; station fabrication gives the quality benefit. Fitting and workshop repair still require a station. Consumable quantities do not become quality-layered equipment just because you brewed them at a station.

3. Understand tier, item level, quality and condition

A new design starts at item level 1 even when its recipe requires Fabrication 20. A high-quality low-tier item and a low-quality high-tier item are not interchangeable. Compare their actual bonuses, inherited layers and condition.

4. Upgrade the same physical item

In Workshop, inspect an owned item and its next upgrade requirements. Each upgrade adds a new quality roll and keeps earlier rolls. It does not reroll every existing layer. For an item with recipe difficulty D, upgrading to item level L requires base Fabrication D + 3 × (L − 1) and L times the item’s recipe ingredients.

Example: the Standard Cargo frame’s level-2 upgrade needs Fabrication 4, 8 Ferrite ore and 4 alloy. Level 3 needs Fabrication 7, 12 Ferrite ore and 6 alloy. These are the costs of those individual upgrades, on top of what you already spent. An ordinary item-level upgrade does not consume a second cargo frame.

The first quality layer contributes a full quality-adjusted base stat. Later layers each add a quarter of their quality-adjusted base contribution. Thus a low roll on the next level still adds a layer; it does not replace the earlier good roll. Use the Workshop’s comparison and upgrade preview to decide whether to invest further or build a different tier.

5. Build the next tier and preserve its lineage

At base Fabrication 10, the first generated-mineral version of each component consumes the matching Standard component, plus 2 units of that milestone mineral, 4 Ferrite ore and 2 alloy. The level-15 mineral recipe consumes the matching level-10 mineral component, then level 20 consumes level 15, and so on. Mastery designs form their own chain at 20-level Fabrication intervals. Read the exact predecessor name; a different branch does not substitute for it.

The predecessor must be a stored, unfitted physical copy. A qualifying crafted copy bought from another player works. If several eligible copies exist, the system uses the weakest first; the recipe shows the available candidates. Each queued batch needs its own predecessor. Once crafted, the previous item is gone as a separate fitting: it is embedded in the new item’s history.

Inherited tiers retain their quality layers and contribute at 10% of their quality-adjusted base stats to the descendant. Their material investment and ownership history are preserved. This is why investing in an earlier component can still matter later. Improving an item’s level is different from advancing its recipe tier; one grows the same item, the other consumes it to make a new design.

6. Restore combat damage and refine quality

1. Look at the item’s condition in Workshop after combat. Ship hull repairs and individual equipment repairs are different operations.
2. Dock and unfit the damaged component, weapon or module from every ship using it. Make sure removing a cargo or reactor component will not leave an invalid load or power configuration.
3. Read the repair materials and quality-improvement chance. Put the materials in cargo and choose the item repair action.
4. Repair restores its condition. A successful quality refinement raises one eligible current or inherited layer by one grade. It is a chance, not a guaranteed improvement, and cannot exceed Peerless.
5. Refit the repaired item and check the ship’s resulting stats.

Normal wear reduces item stats by half the damage percentage: 40% damage means a 20% stat penalty. Even a fully worn item retains half its undamaged stats; losing the ship under destruction rules is a separate risk. Repair costs are based on the recorded material investment, so a heavily developed item can be expensive to restore. You cannot repeatedly repair an undamaged item merely to roll for better quality.

7. Reserve work in a station queue

1. Dock, open More → Industry → Fabrication queue, select a recipe and enter batches.
2. Choose Reserve & queue. The complete material cost and required predecessors leave your available inventory immediately. The job does not gather missing ingredients for you.
3. You can keep up to 10 queued entries, each with 1–20 batches. Read the displayed ready time and original workshop.
4. Travel or do other work while the timer runs. When ready, return to that workshop, make cargo space for supply outputs, and choose Collect completed work. Completion is not automatic delivery.
5. If you cancel, materials and predecessors become a pickup at that original station. They are not instantly returned to your ship or its network storage.

Unboosted queue time is batches × (10 + 2 × recipe level) seconds. For three batches of a level-5 recipe, that is 60 seconds. Your active facility at that station makes it 48 seconds. Quantities and output per batch still follow the chosen recipe. The speed reduction is fixed when the job starts; funding a facility afterward does not shorten an existing timer.

8. Construct an industrial facility

A facility is attached to a specific station. It gives your queues at that station a 20% time reduction while funded. It does not automatically produce items, unlock recipes, improve quality, boost all stations or grant every pilot the bonus.

1. Choose the station where you plan to run queues. It must have at least five completed player-market sales involving three distinct buyers in your flight channel. NPC merchant sales, unsold listings and repeatedly trading with only one buyer do not meet that condition.
2. Bring 5,000 CR, 20 alloy and 5 Consecrated war salvage. Carry the materials aboard your ship. Look for war salvage in shared-frontier Sepulchre vault and Slaughtered convoy signals, or check available trade.
3. Dock there and open More → Industry → Industrial facilities.
4. Enter a facility name and choose Build at current station. The costs are consumed. Each pilot can operate one facility per station.
5. Construction includes 24 hours of operation. Check its Paid through time. Fund one day / 200 CR adds another day after the later of now or the current expiry.

If upkeep lapses, the facility remains yours, but new jobs lose the speed bonus until you fund it. Paying early stacks funded time; it does not waste the remaining hours. You do not need to build another facility after an expiry. Facilities save time, so decide whether the local trade demand and volume of work justify the construction and upkeep costs.

9. Specialist fabrication

At base Fabrication 20, dock and choose a discipline in Industry → Specialist fabrication. Choosing or changing discipline costs 500 CR. Siege artisan, Ward architect and Void engineer have their corresponding specialist equipment recipes. The selected discipline is a recipe requirement, not a replacement for ingredients. These matrices use utility mounts, so their bonuses compete with scanners, mining tools, cloaks and defenses.

When construction will not proceed

“Gather the missing ingredients”

Check carried cargo, batch count and intermediary recipes. Station storage and reserved jobs are separate.

“Store a previous component”

Check the exact recipe branch, unfit the predecessor from any hull, and ensure a queue or market listing has not reserved it.

“Base level required”

Earn the specified base Fabrication level. Temporary or fitted bonuses improve outcomes, but do not unlock the recipe.

“Five completed player trades”

Check actual completed sales at this station and distinct buyers. Purchases at other stations and NPC trading do not qualify.

Cannot collect a ready job

Return to the job’s original workshop, confirm the timer is complete and make enough room for the full supply output.

Cannot apply a fitting or loadout

Dock in the matching hull and check ownership, mount size, reactor power, cargo capacity and whether the physical item is installed elsewhere.

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Turn discoveries into progress

Accept jobs from Contracts, complete their objective and return to the named issuer—sometimes in a required vessel—to claim the reward. At a frontier edge, scan and clear the site before choosing Explore frontier. This spends one fuel and charts a new connected solar system with its own locations and threats.

That generated system can become your next personal region without erasing the old one: every old route, depleted site, market pickup and berthed ship remains where it was. Relocation is physical. Fly one ship and its fitted gear and cargo at a time; return for other hulls at their actual station. Publishing the route through a PvP-hosted region makes those hauling trips visible and interceptable, so scout, cloak or bring friends before moving valuable loads.

Arrival events, hidden deposits and generated systems persist. Your private campaign is personal; publishing discoveries can extend a hosted shared chart.

Some stars carry dark archival stories: failed evacuations, empty generation ships, impossible distress calls and survey crews that never returned. Read sector descriptions carefully. These stories often mark a boss route, concealed signature, rare cache or unusually dangerous ore.

Complete a contract without guessing the destination

1. Open Contracts and read every objective, any required ship, and the issuer/return location. Accept the job when an acceptance button is offered.
2. Use the contract’s named destination controls to set the objective waypoint. The return/issuer waypoint is a separate stop; it is not necessarily the objective site.
3. Perform the exact activity in the requirement: survey, salvage, collect, defeat or deliver. Check the objective indicators after acting. Similar activities do not always count interchangeably.
4. Keep required delivery cargo until hand-in. Return to the specified issuer in any required vessel and choose the claim action when all checks are complete.

If you cannot claim, inspect each incomplete requirement, your actual location and active hull. Credits and experience are shown on the contract. Equipment rewards vary with the job’s difficulty and rarity; inspect the awarded item’s tier, quality, condition and stats rather than assuming every reward is an upgrade.

Different kinds of discovery

A local planetary survey reveals activities at your current site. A long-range system scan searches within its displayed light-year range. Explore frontier opens a connected frontier route when its prerequisites are satisfied. Player scans locate pilots. Use the tool matching what you want to find; a planet survey is not a long-range system scan.

A message reporting no new systems can mean that nothing undiscovered was found within the current scan range. Move to another system, improve scanner range and try again. Discovery and hosted sharing determine who can reach a route; seeing a name in a list is not the same as having an accessible jump connection.

Arrival encounters: secure the haul or go deeper

On your first arrival at an eligible non-station location, an optional wreck, mineral seam or archive encounter appears. Review the artwork, three chambers and starting haul. Use Secure the haul to take the displayed credits and materials, or Go deeper to spend one fuel on the next investigation. You must have at least two fuel before investigating, preserving one in reserve.

The three success chances start at 75%, 55% and 35%. Effective Scanning adds up to ten percentage points; your encounter shows its fixed odds. Each success increases the unsecured haul. A setback ends the encounter, secures half that haul and inflicts the displayed damage (5% of maximum hull when the encounter was created, capped to leave at least 1 hull). Ordinary combat can still destroy your ship.

Three successful investigations recover a Rare, item-level-1 Standard ship component directly into Workshop; this is a quality reward, not a top-tier hull or weapon. Secure the remaining cargo and credits afterward. Every investigation, successful or not, adds an archive fragment. Twelve fragments automatically recover one Forbidden blueprint fragment and reset that progress counter. Overflow materials are left as a pickup at the location.

Each pilot has one encounter per location. Refreshing, changing ships and returning cannot reroll it. Closing the arrival window keeps the choice; leaving the location forfeits unsecured salvage. From Sector actions, use Arrival encounter & discovery journal to reopen it or review recent records. The records remain saved. Automatic travel does not make these risk decisions for you; stop to review the current site. Turn arrival popups off in Settings if desired. Use the Encounter, Sector actions, Briefing and Journal tabs to switch views without a long opening page. Planet operations and local signals expand from Sector actions; Browse my cargo opens your hold. The reduced-motion setting keeps the presentation quick.

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Trial pilots can enter all three public PvP regions and fight registered pilots. Trials remain capped at level 5. Stations are safe; arrival and rookie protection follow the normal rules. Outside protection, your ship, fittings and cargo are at risk.

Trade, fleet up—or hunt

Stargates connect hosted regions. Shared systems contain communal resources, player markets, fleets, chat, map pings, bounties and public objectives. SAFE STATIONS disable attacks; combat can begin only in a sector marked OPEN PVP.

Jump to another pilot's systems

1. Open the galaxy overview and select another pilot's blue marker. Choose Set destination for their Port Haven.
2. Open Stargates. If you are away from a station, choose Plot route to gateway and follow the saved route to your nearest reachable station.
3. At the station, choose Synchronize & enter gate. The first link to that pilot costs 100 CR; later visits remember the connection and cost no credits. Every outward transit uses one fuel.
4. You arrive at the host's Port Haven, which is always a safe station. Explore their published systems normally from there.
5. Dock at any station in the hosted region and choose Free return passage to return to the station where you entered. Returning costs no fuel or credits.

A host can make a gateway Public, Friends-only or Invite-only and may disable visitor mining and salvage. Restricted gates require the host to grant access. PvP-hosted regions require explicit ship-loss consent; their stations remain safe, while open space grants +50% mining yield and NPC bounties with the stated ship, fittings and cargo risk. Combat and an active aggression timer block gate use.

Share a risky live region location

In Stargates → Host your region, first set the hosted region to PvP, then choose a pilot under Share your region. They receive a saved, warpable gate contact and explicit danger alert. This is not a truce: once either captain leaves the safe arrival station, each may scan, steal from, intercept and destroy the other. Public PvP gateways can also be found through pilot discovery, so sharing or publishing a home route creates lasting strategic risk.

Finding another pilot

1. Enter the same shared frontier zone and choose Scan for players. The scan costs one fuel. Scanning skill and fitted arrays control range; stronger skill reveals fittings and later a cargo estimate. Active jump cloaks do not appear in results.
2. For a particular target, choose them under Specific pilot to hunt. The displayed fix percentage uses your Scanning, fitted scanner arrays, range, distance and their signature suppression or cloak. A successful sweep gives a last-known sector; a failed one consumes fuel but reveals nothing precise.
3. Read the result as a last-known fix, not live tracking. Compare its time, uncertainty in jumps, ship and estimated threat. Set that sector as your destination, travel there and scan again if the target moved.
4. Get into the same OPEN PVP sector. Intercept starts the fight while preserving the defender's normal retreat options; Commit anchor activates your best retreat-disruption module when possible. Safe stations never allow an attack.
5. In battle, choose a hull or subsystem aim. Engines interfere with escape, utilities can disable anchors and defensive modules, reactor hits drain energy, and weapon hits reduce outgoing damage. Watch your own energy, anchor heat and 45-second turn deadline.
6. Fleetmates at the same location can reinforce an active fight, up to two pilots per side. Area weapons hit every hostile on the opposing team while leaving allies unharmed.

Cloaked cargo theft

1. Craft and fit a Shade jump cloak; its Specter upgrade consumes the Shade version and lasts for more jumps. Choose Activate jump cloak manually before approaching. Each jump consumes one charge. Any action other than jumping drops stealth, and an exhausted cloak never restarts automatically.
2. Fit Whisper cargo spoofers or Phase-lifter arrays in weapon hardpoints. Every fitted intrusion tool stacks its Thievery bonus, but each one replaces a combat weapon. Theft is unavailable unless the cloak is active and the target is in the same shared sector.
3. Attempt theft. Effective Thievery competes with the victim's Scanning to decide success and detection. An undetected attempt keeps the cloak; an intrusion alarm drops it immediately and reveals you.
4. If revealed in OPEN PVP, the victim can attack normally. In a safe non-PvP sector, player weapons remain disabled but the victim gets a five-minute sheriff case. If you remain in that jurisdiction, the summoned sheriff disables and tows your ship.

Open-PvP loss is real: destruction costs the active ship, its fitted equipment and carried cargo. Your credits, pilot skills and wider progression survive.

Before meeting another player

Agree on the region and actual sector, then travel there. Your private campaign and a shared frontier are different places even if their activity types look similar. Use the player count as a population indicator, not a list of targets in your sector. Guests can meet and fight registered pilots, but their earned levels remain capped.

For cooperation, assemble in the same location before reinforcing a battle or working together. For PvP, read the local protection state. A target at a safe station, under applicable protection or outside your sector cannot be attacked merely because a scan revealed them.

Theft preparation checklist

Fabricate the cloak and intrusion gear, dock and fit them, choose the route before activating stealth, then activate the jump cloak and approach the target. Intrusion hardpoints displace weapons, so a thief’s best outcome may be escape rather than winning a gunfight. Check remaining cloak jumps and the target’s current location before attempting theft.

Do not confuse a successful scan with permission to attack anywhere. Safety, cloak, aggression, jurisdiction and co-location checks still apply. The action’s reason text explains the unmet condition.

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Hide from a hunter

1. Treat every scan warning as proof that the hunter knows only your last position. Jump immediately and change direction; each move adds uncertainty to their old fix. Do not mine, scan or fire while trying to go quiet—those actions expose a stronger signal for 60 seconds.
2. Targeted radar creates a counter-intelligence warning even if the hunter fails to acquire you. Its percentage is your ship's estimate that the named pilot is actively hunting you—not proof of their exact position. Higher Scanning and defensive radar make this warning more confident.
3. Select Safest PvE route risk, then plot a safe station. Route risk does not avoid PvP by itself, so inspect the OPEN PVP warnings and choose the actual destination carefully.
4. Fit an Ash Veil to reduce long-range detection. For complete travel concealment, fit a Shade or Specter jump cloak and activate it manually. Stay disciplined: setting a new destination, scanning, mining, trading or any other non-jump action breaks an active cloak.
5. Reach a SAFE STATION, where attacks are disabled. If you are stepping away, safe-logoff is immediate while docked. In open space it needs 30 uninterrupted idle seconds, during which you are still vulnerable.

Run after combat begins

1. Check the retreat status every turn. An active enemy anchor compares its item level and quality against your best retreat protection; stronger protection wins and exact ties allow escape.
2. Fit a Grave Slip Drive or retreat countermeasure before entering dangerous space. In battle, target enemy utilities to disable the anchor or engines and reactor to limit pursuit actions.
3. Use Evade to halve a hit, Brace to quarter the next hit and recover energy, Reinforce shields or Emergency repair when fitted, and Decoy or Emergency escape when you have their modules and charges.
4. Watch anchor heat: maintaining it costs energy and adds heat each turn; at 100 it releases. Retreat as soon as the lock clears. A co-located fleetmate can reinforce your side and divide enemy focus.

In the private campaign, a rescue tow returns a disabled ship to Haven with full hull and fuel, costing up to 60 credits and half the cargo. Shared open-PvP destruction follows the harsher loss rule above.

Departure checklist

• Active hull repaired; shield, armour and installed component condition inspected.
• Usable weapons, enough reactor capacity, suitable defenses and an escape plan.
• Fuel for the route and return; supplies in carried cargo, not station storage.
• Free hold space for the objective; valuable spare cargo stored when possible.
• Destination danger, open-PvP status and exit restrictions read before committing.

When an action fails, read the requirement rather than clicking repeatedly: you may be in combat, away from a station, short on energy, out of range or missing a physical item. Retreat and rescue are not always a free return to safety; the displayed context determines the loss rules.

Before stepping away, resolve active combat and dock at a safe station. Logging out is account management, not a combat escape ability. Hired pilots with active orders may continue operating while you are away.

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Your flight is server-saved

Every successful action saves automatically on the server. Guest progress is tied to this browser’s pilot cookie; clearing it can lose access to an unregistered pilot. Choose Register while playing as a guest to keep that pilot in a new account. Logging into an existing account resumes its own pilot; separate saves are not merged.

Registered players can use Log in on another browser and Log out in the top bar. Use “Forgot your password?” on the sign-in page for account recovery. A registered account keeps its panel layout and pinned menu choices. A guest’s layout and pins stay in this browser until its storage is cleared.

Need a specific statistic or vendor? Open the in-game Field guide. Need direction? Return to the Command deck and follow its next action.

Guest progress, registration and signing back in

1. Use Try without registering for a guest pilot tied to this browser.
2. To keep that pilot, choose Register while playing it and finish the email verification and sign-in flow.
3. To return to an existing account, use Log in with that account. This loads its linked pilot rather than merging in a different guest save.
4. Check the pilot and ships after sign-in. The account action changes to Log out. Use the same account on another browser to continue that registered pilot.

Delete account is in the registered pilot’s account controls and requires typing DELETE. It removes the sign-in and private pilot progress; public shared history can remain. This is different from logging out. Read Privacy for retention and Alpha information for the current development status.

If an old session has expired, sign in again. Do not create another account just to recover an existing pilot. Password resets are available on the sign-in page.

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