Wiki / How it is played
Stations
Six kinds, each for one job; every station has a name, a plate and an owner or none, and the Citadel at home does every errand at the bottom of its ladder.
Every station is for one job. A single structure that bought everything and sold everything was tried and removed: it made everything around it scenery. Home’s Citadel runs every errand, but only at the bottom of each ladder; every specialist does its own errand better, somewhere further out.
| Kind | Sells | Pays for ore |
|---|---|---|
| Trade port | nothing at all | ×1.50, the best - because it sells nothing |
| Mining post | mining lasers, bores and cargo bays; ferrite dust, silica gel and servo arrays | ×1.10; ×1.80 for the ore it calls that week |
| Arms post | weapons, shield cells, and assay seals as the lanes deliver them | ×0.85, the floor |
| Shipyard | the warranted hulls, and the top of the drive bench | ×0.85, so you need not fly out again to pay for one |
| Citadel | grade I of every tool, gun, bay and shield cell; every hull that asks no warrant; its bench stops at +3 | ×1.10 |
| Sentinel | nothing - a berth, not a counter | buys nothing |
Two rates and a floor: the market pays, the processor pays a little less, everybody else is doing you a favour. The Citadel pays the processor’s rate and never the market’s. Grade II of a bay is at a Mining post and grade II of a shield cell at an Arms post, so the first upgrade is a choice of where to fly. Mining and the scissors.
Docking
The prompt appears within 500 m of the hull, from any bearing; dock with R under 120 m/s, and the same key undocks. Docked, the station screen fills the display: pages - Market, Fitting, The bench, Hangar, The rolls and more - picked from the room’s menu or cycled with Q / E; ↑ / ↓ move through a list, B buys, G sells the hold’s ore. A locked row says what the lock is; the shelf shows the ladder rather than hiding it.
A berth mends the hull, free, and fills the warp tank, full and free - at every station that will berth you, whoever owns it. From level 10, leaving a berth costs a flat 20 credits, whatever the station - a charge on the trip, never on the clock. The chart and warp.
| A refused dock says | Meaning |
|---|---|
| outside the dock envelope | too far from the hull |
| over approach speed | slow down |
| under fire; break off, then berth | you were shot at in the last 8 seconds; a Sentinel, a Compact Shipyard and a besieged home ask this |
| a Compact’s not yours line, ending Try a Freeport | a Sentinel or a Compact Shipyard of another Compact; or the home your Compact is besieging |
| berths shut … | a Sentinel in its Stand, silenced or dark; or a home through its Citadel’s Stand |
| a Compact’s proscribed line | this Compact wants you: its Arms posts refuse, and so do its Citadel’s shelves and yard - Wanted |
A berth never turns you away for being full: a pilot past the last bay is in their own hangar.
Home, by Compact
Each Compact keeps three stations in its home - the Citadel, a Trade port and an Arms post - a Mining post at its own Belt and another at its Shallows, and a Shipyard in its own Tin Hollow. The Shallows post is where every pilot’s first purchase is made: the first 15 minutes.
Concord - the Registry
| Station | Kind | Stands in | The plate says |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hall of Record | Citadel | Concord Home | The rolls are kept here. Every hull the Registry has entered, it can still produce. |
| Cauldwell Exchange | Trade | Concord Home | The wheel turns and the market clears. Rates posted at the collar. |
| Vance Armoury | Arms | Concord Home | Racked, numbered, signed for. Guns and shields leave only bolted to a registered hull. |
| Verity Assay | Mining | Concord Belt | Ore weighed, permits stamped, cutters fitted. The claim field’s own office. |
| Alder Weighbridge | Mining | Concord Shallows | Where a pilot’s record begins: first hold weighed, first tool fitted, first entry made. |
| Brandt Slipways | Shipyard | Concord Tin Hollow | Hulls sold, registered and insured before the paint is dry. |
Sepulchre - the Kindred
| Station | Kind | Stands in | The plate says |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Carved House | Citadel | Sepulchre Home | Nothing was ever added to this house. It is cut from what came home, and still cut. |
| The Laying Ground | Trade | Sepulchre Home | Set the hold down and let it be weighed. The belt’s gifts are counted here. |
| Vigil House | Arms | Sepulchre Home | Guns are cut from the dead here and given to the living. Ask whose before you fire it. |
| Tekla’s Post | Mining | Sepulchre Belt | Cutter heads and hold frames, kept the way Tekla kept hers. |
| Edda’s Bench | Mining | Sepulchre Shallows | Where the young are handed their first torch and told whose it was. Edda taught here. |
| Maren’s Ring | Shipyard | Sepulchre Tin Hollow | Hulls are opened and made whole here. Maren cut first; her torch still works. |
Ashaari - the Concern
| Station | Kind | Stands in | The plate says |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Trust | Citadel | Ashaari Home | The directors sit here. They trust the figures, and you are not yet one of them. |
| The Concourse | Trade | Ashaari Home | Nine kilometres of berths, and every one of them charging. |
| Underwriters’ Bond | Arms | Ashaari Home | Bonded stock, duty on collection. The guns are somebody else’s until bolted to yours. |
| Margin Post | Mining | Ashaari Belt | Cutters and holds at cost. The house makes it back on the ore. |
| First Stake | Mining | Ashaari Shallows | Your first stake, sold at cost. The Concern earns it back over the rest of your career. |
| Aster Holdings | Shipyard | Ashaari Tin Hollow | Hulls on credit. The terms are attractive; the penalties are more so. |
A Compact Shipyard sells every warranted hull and builds the drive levels the Citadel’s bench does not, and it keeps no hangar: the fleet stands at the Citadel. It berths only its own Compact’s pilots, and not one who was shot at in the last 8 seconds.
Sentinels
A Sentinel stands in every sector a Compact owns - nine each, never in a belt, a nursery or a home - and berths only that Compact’s pilots. Alongside, the hull is mended and the tank filled; nothing is bought or sold. Its berths shut while it stands a siege, while it is silenced and while a foreign Compact holds its ground, and nobody wakes beside one after a death. The siege.
| Sector | Concord | Sepulchre | Ashaari |
|---|---|---|---|
| Long Watch | Folio 51 | Ulla’s Cairn | Surety HG-1 |
| Iron Shoal | Folio 52 | Brenn’s Cairn | Surety HG-2 |
| Ash Run | Folio 41 | Oddny’s Cairn | Surety HG-3 |
| Broken Span | Folio 42 | Tove’s Cairn | Surety HG-4 |
| Overcut | Folio 32 | Senna’s Cairn | Surety AC-3 |
| Tin Hollow | Folio 21 | Rikke’s Cairn | Surety AC-1 |
| Quiet Verge | Folio 22 | Isak’s Cairn | Surety AC-2 |
| Foundry Yard | Folio 11 | Gerd’s Cairn | Surety PR-1 |
| Shallows Drift | Folio 12 | Olin’s Cairn | Surety PR-2 |
The plate is the Compact’s: Entered on the Registry’s roll. Its own pilots berth here; the guns answer the rest. - The Kindred keep this watch for their own. Mend, and go back out to the dark. - The Concern’s claim, lit and held. Members berth free; everyone else is on account.
Freeports - nobody’s counters
The middle and the ladder have stations too, and every one of them is a Freeport: nobody’s, whoever holds the ground, and open to every pilot. The ladder’s doors are berthed alongside, so their no-fire bubble stays under a kilometre - the one place on a fighting rung where the shooting stops.
| Station | Kind | Stands in | The plate says |
|---|---|---|---|
| Middlemark | Trade | Cinder Belt | Nobody’s flag, everybody’s ore. Sells nothing, so the rate is what you came for. |
| Meridian Post | Mining | Cinder Belt | Cutters and holds for anyone working the belt. Ore bought as it comes off the rock. |
| Halden Depot | Arms | The Assay | Guns and shields for any hull, whoever it flies for. The ladder’s culls are posted here. |
| The Hook | Arms | Rusthook Drift | Coils in from the Shoal, guns out. The wrecks are one crossing away. |
| The Bed | Mining | The Lathe | Holds fitted, tools racked, grades taught. Bring what Gallows Reach gave you. |
| The Weighbridge | Trade | Ashfall | The market rate without the haul back. Weighed as it lands; nobody asks whose. |
| The Last Yard | Shipyard | Salt Wake | Warranted hulls sold to any pilot, sworn or not. Your hangar opens here too. |
| The Sump | Arms | The Dross | Spent lanes back, hull mended, the floor rate for a hold. Enough to climb out; no more. |
The Sump is the whole of the deep run’s economy in one row: the richest field in the game has a counter one warp away, at the same star, that pays the floor. It exists so nobody strands, not so anybody cashes out.
Whose station
A station has an owner and reads on the chart in the owner’s tint; a Freeport has none. Being in another Compact’s space is what the chart locks, not the berth: once you are in, its trade ports and mining posts serve you, its Sentinels and its Shipyard never do, and a Compact that has written you off turns you away from its guns and its hulls too. Its Citadel still lets a proscribed pilot in - to pay what they owe, not to shop. Restitution is paid at the injured Compact’s Trade port or Citadel. The zones.