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Navigate the frontier

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, the ship is rescued.
• 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 always remain manual.

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.

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.

Scan, clear, extract

Scan 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 at a station 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 skills generate harder resources and designs

Skills do not stop at a final maximum. 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.

Read the enemy, then commit

Combat is turn-based. 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.

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. A defeated raid guardian returns after 30 personal turns.

Build the ship around the job

• 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.

Build and operate a fabrication facility

Industrial facilities are player-built upgrades for a specific station. While funded, your facility makes fabrication queues at that station finish 20% faster. It does not unlock recipes or produce items by itself—you still reserve each queue's materials and collect the completed work at its original workshop.

Unlock the construction site

1. Create real demand at the station: it must record at least five completed player-market sales involving three different buyers.
2. Gather 5,000 CR, 20 alloy and 5 Consecrated war salvage. War salvage is found in shared-frontier Sepulchre vault and Slaughtered convoy signals.
3. Dock at that station, open Industry—directly from the top stations when shown, or through More—and expand Industrial facilities.
4. Name the facility and choose Build at current station. Each pilot may operate one facility at a given station.

Keep it productive

Construction includes the first 24 hours of operation. Choose Fund one day / 200 CR to extend upkeep by another day. If funding expires, the facility remains yours but its queue speed bonus pauses until you fund it again. The bonus applies only when you start a fabrication queue at the facility's station.

Construction checklist: 5 sales · 3 buyers · docked at the chosen station · 5,000 CR · 20 alloy · 5 war salvage.

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.

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.

Your flight is server-saved

Every successful action saves automatically. This browser remembers the pilot for 30 days. To play from another browser, open Pilot registry, set a recovery password and keep the displayed registry ID. Recovering a pilot transfers the active session.

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