INDEMNITY RUN

Welcome, Commander

Nobody built the Indemnity. It has always been here.

Die insured, and it makes you whole again — you wake at port, your death undone.

Whether the pilot who wakes is still you, no one dares ask.

The power behind it: the Underwriter. It covers those who can pay. What it takes in return, nobody knows.

Those who can't pay are the uninsured — they turn pirate, clawing back the cover they lost.

An infinite galaxy. Trade. Fight. Explore. Run.

The Indemnity will cover you…

▶ Watch the full field guide — a ~3-minute narrated run through combat, weapons, mining, a distress rescue, the dashboard, supercruise, docking, the market, shipyard, outfitting, missions, the galaxy chart and its data layers, hyperspace, gadgets, and an elite bounty hunt.

Indemnity Run drops you into an infinite procedurally generated galaxy with 1,000 credits and a random battered starter ship — every commander begins differently: maybe a SKIFF with a worn pulse laser, maybe a DART with a rattly autocannon. Earn the rest. From there, everything is yours to earn: trade between stations, run missions for the three great factions, hunt bounties, scoop salvage from wrecks, refit and upgrade your way up from a junk SKIFF to a BASILISK dreadnought.

The loop at the heart of the game: fly → fight or trade → dock → bank your progress → fit something better → fly further. Docking files your claim and saves the game; die out there and the Underwriter makes you whole — back at your last dock, everything since simply gone. Risk is always yours to choose.

Controls

The Thumby Color has a d-pad, two face buttons (A B), two shoulder buttons (LB RB) and MENU. Flight uses chords: hold a shoulder button to change what the d-pad does.

In flight

In menus

On PC & Android — Xbox controller

Plug in an Xbox controller (or any compatible pad — PlayStation, 8BitDo and the like) and it's detected automatically; on Android the touch controls fade out while it's in use. The analog sticks fly the ship, and the handheld's chords map onto the pad. All three weapons get their own button, so you don't have to cycle in a fight.

The HUD

Left panel

• SP — your actual speed (boost pushes it past the bar's normal range). The number below is metres per second.
• TH — your throttle setting; with assist on, SP chases TH.
• DR appears when flight assist is off (drift); BS while boost burns.
• K# — kill tally.

Right panel — the four bars

• S — Shield. Absorbs damage first; recharges slowly after ~4.5 s without being hit.
• H — Hull. Your real health. Only docking repairs it.
• T — Heat. Every shot adds heat; at the top your weapons cut out until they cool. A klaxon warns near the limit.
• F — Fuel. Hyperspace range in light-years. Jumps spend their distance; refuel at stations.

The scanner

The centre disc is the classic Elite radar: you are the middle dot, contacts appear as blips with a vertical stalk showing height above or below your flight plane. Red = hostile, blue = police, green = civilian traffic, brown = asteroids, gold (blinking) = salvage canisters — fast blink means component pod, slow blink commodity cargo. Ships beyond scanner range show as a dim tick on the rim: direction only, no stalk — fly the heading until they resolve.

Combat indicators

• C4 top-left corner = chaff charges remaining (CHAFF pod fitted).
• Closing brackets on the reticle = railgun charging; bright flash = ready to loose.
• Green pip near your target = TARGETCOMP's lead indicator — aim there, not at the ship.
• ! INCOMING ! + urgent beeps = seeker tracking you. SYSTEMS SCRAMBLED = ion strip, weapons offline.

Target readout

Locking a target (tap LB) shows who they are — PIRATE, POLICE, CIVILIAN — with their pilot tier beneath, distance and their own S/H bars top-right, plus a box and off-screen arrow in the same faction colour: green for friendlies, blue police, red hostiles. Off screen, an arrowhead points the shortest way to turn — follow it and the target slides into view. Bounty-mission targets show ** MARK **.

Flight Model

The ship flies Newtonian-lite: thrust accelerates you along your nose, and your velocity bleeds toward where you point (with flight assist on). Key systems:

• Throttle (RB+UP/DOWN) sets a target speed; assist holds you there.
• Flight assist off (RB tap) — pure drift. Your nose turns but your velocity doesn't: aim sideways while sliding, the classic decoupled dogfight trick. DR shows while drifting.
• Boost (RB double-tap) — 1.8× speed for 2.2 s. Great for escapes and closing distance.
• Precision steering — turning has a ramp: the first touch turns at 1% rate, building to full over half a second. Tap for single-pixel aim corrections, hold to whip the nose around. Released axes keep a short momentum tail (~0.25 s), so alternating UP/RIGHT taps blend into smooth diagonal arcs.

Combat

Combat is real-time 3D dogfighting. The flow: lock (tap LB) → close → put the nose on them (follow the turn arrow) → manage heat while you fire → break and re-approach when your shields drop.

Damage model

• Hits drain shields first (blue flicker), then hull (sparks). Ship shields recharge out of combat; hull damage is permanent until you dock.
• Your own ship rumbles on hits — soft buzz for shield, hard thump for hull. If you feel thumps, break off now.
• Kills pay an instant lawful bounty scaled by the victim's skill tier (see table), plus loot often spills from the wreck.

Reading the fight

• Blue shimmer on your target = their shield is soaking it (with a glassy tick sound). Orange sparks = you're cutting hull.
• Lock chirp confirms every fresh target lock.
• ! INCOMING ! flashing + urgent two-beeps = a seeker is tracking you. Chaff it (LB+B), outrun it, or out-turn it.
• SYSTEMS SCRAMBLED = an ion strip got you: weapons dead for 2.5 s, blue arcs on your hull. Run cold until it clears.

The blue zone

Turn authority peaks at half throttle and bleeds to ~60% at full speed — hard turning means slowing down, for you and for every pilot you fight. Position is earned: out-fly someone and their six is yours to keep. Pirates fight at corner speed rather than charging, and fight at the pace their skill allows — a HARMLESS pilot crawls at half his ship's speed (fast means he can't turn), while a DEADLY ace duels at the full envelope. They respond to being tailed by rank — prey runs, CAPABLE pilots jink, a VETERAN will chop his throttle to force you to overshoot (at dead-slow he has full agility — watch the nose whip around), and DEADLY aces mix the chop with scissor breaks. Misjudge a chop and you're the one out front.

Collisions

Space is solid now. Ships, asteroids and the station all carry real contact physics: everything deflects, and a shielded impact costs shield only — hull never pays while the bar is up. Unshielded, the damage splits by size: the skiff comes off far worse than the dreadnought it grazed. Gentle contact under ~10 m/s is a harmless scrape; a boost-speed ram can be lethal — in both directions. Ramming a rock chips ore loose (at crude-blasting yield), and the station only bites when you're flying manually: the docking computer's approach is exempt. NPCs steer around boulders, so belt fights stay fights.

Heat

Every weapon adds heat per shot (the T bar). Past the red line a klaxon sounds; at the top, weapons refuse to fire until things cool. Big lasers and photons run hot; autocannons and missiles barely register. The Gunnery skill reduces all weapon heat.

Homing missiles

Lock a target, switch to HOMING (B), fire. The seeker chases the target you had locked at launch; no lock = flies straight as a dumbfire. The galaxy fights back, by rank: VETERAN+ answers with 1–2 chaff charges first (count the bursts — then your next missile is honest), pirates turn and run from a long shot (the fastest hulls can just outpace a stern chase — fire from closer), and even the committed shot isn't certain: a CAPABLE pilot slips the terminal lock about 1-in-4, an ELITE about half the time. Green pilots never see it coming.

Weapons

Eighteen weapons. DPS figures are measured on a test rig at device frame rates (every shot hitting, standard quality, real fire pipeline) — charge-up, projectile travel and frame timing are all in the number. Each mount on your hull has a size (Z1–Z3); a weapon fits any slot of its size or larger. Base stats:

• RAILGUN — hold A to charge (rising tones, reticle brackets close in), release at full charge to fire. 90 damage per lance; tech-12 yards only, and ELITE aces field it against you.
• ION — melts shields, tickles hull (13%). Fully stripping a shield SCRAMBLES the target: weapons offline 2.5 s with blue arcs crawling on the hull. Strip → disable → execute. CAPABLE+ pirates carry them too — when YOUR shield breaks to ion fire, expect the klaxon and a dead trigger.
• P.LANCE — the plasma lance (T11+): a slow violet beam that phases clean through shields and lands everything on hull — it can even score critical hits on a fully-shielded target. Modest DPS; its prey is the BULWARK tank that laughs at your pulses. Counter: plain thick armor.
• FLAK — a cone of pellets that always bursts at a fixed 200 m, whatever you aim at. Fire it when the enemy is right at that range and the whole cloud explodes on them — a big hit. Mistime the range and the burst goes off short or long and barely scratches them. Pellets that fly through a target on the way to the fuze do only a light graze; the damage is in the timed burst. A run weapon: line up the range, fire once, peel off.
• RAILGUN warning — pirates carrying one telegraph the charge: rising tones and a muzzle flare, then the slug. Hear it, break hard.
• BLASTER — the photon blaster (T8+): slower bolts that bend toward your lock — not seekers (chaff ignores them, they never re-acquire), just a gentle curve that forgives imperfect aim. Slightly less damage than PLASMA in exchange; no lock = straight bolts.
• PLASMA — a rapid stream of energy bolts (T6+): autocannon tempo without the ammo bill, paid in heat instead — and the balls need leading. The gunner's energy weapon.
• MINE — drops armed astern (blinking red), drifts to a stop, triggers at 18 m, self-destructs at 25 s. The hauler's escape tool: drop them in your wake while running.
• TRACTOR — two tools in one: with a ship locked in 300 m it grapples — their velocity bleeds to a stop and their drives strain while you hold the beam (smaller prey holds harder; big hulls fight it). With salvage locked, it reels canisters in at 26 m/s. Costs a weapon slot and runs hot when held — the REAVER pirate-and-salvage special.

The armoury — every terminal stocks differently

Each station's outfitting bay carries a seeded subset of the catalogue (4–6 lines), gated by tech level: backwaters sell pulse lasers, autocannons, dumbfires and tractors; T4+ adds flak and mines; T6+ beams, heavy pulses and seekers; T8+ ion blasters; T11+ photons and gauss; railguns are T12+ only. Prices swing ±15% with the local economy — MILITARY worlds sell arms cheapest, agricultural ones mark them up. Gadgets and equipment follow the same economy pricing (fuel scoops T7+, targeting computers T9+, chaff T5+).

And the reason to check every terminal you dock at: ★ featured offers — the occasional non-standard instance (REINFORCED, MILITARY, even PROTOTYPE) sold at its full quality price, starred and gold in the list. Any weapon can appear anywhere, so a frontier terminal might be quietly sitting on the best gauss you'll ever own. High-tech stations feature more often.

Quality & integrity

Every weapon (and equipment item) is an instance with a quality grade and a wear state. Effective damage = base × quality × condition:

Condition (0–100%) scales output from ×0.6 to ×1.0 — a 70% PROTOTYPE still beats a fresh STANDARD. Repair at any outfitting bay; the Tech skill cuts repair prices.

Affixes — factory modifications

Some instances carry an affix — shown in the name (GAUSS-VN in lists, VENTED GAUSS on the sheet) and folded into every effective stat and the compare deltas. Roughly a fifth of component drops, half of featured shop guns, and the occasional bargain-bin stock line:

Ammo

Ballistic weapons carry magazines. Rounds persist between fits — no free top-ups. SERVICE is a station facility (next to REFUEL on the services menu, with a live price on the row): restocking charges per round — autocannon 1 cr, gauss 8 cr, missile 35 cr, homing 55 cr. Nothing reloads automatically, so an empty gauss after a hungry patrol is a bill you choose when to pay. Shop weapons come loaded; salvage fits at 40% load.

Equipment — Shields & Armor

Defence works exactly like weapons: your ship has one shield-generator slot and one armor slot, separate from weapon mounts, each holding an instance with size, quality and integrity — plus a utility bay for gadgets (two on ATLAS/BASILISK) and, on the big haulers, a turret hardpoint. Four fit categories, none competing with your guns.

• Size Z1–Z3 multiplies your hull's base protection ×1.0 / ×1.3 / ×1.6 / ×2.0 (frame tier caps what each hull can take).
• Quality and integrity multiply on top, exactly like weapons.
• Flying bare (slot empty) leaves you at a weak ×0.55 baseline — always keep something fitted.
• Shield gens and armor plates drop as salvage (~1 in 4 component pods), can sit in your rack, swap-fit from it, repair, and sell.

Buying with full slots is fine — if nothing compatible is free, the purchase lands in your hold (TO HOLD toast) and you swap it in from the rack whenever you like. Occupied equipment slots don't force a trade-in of your old unit.

How the numbers combine: your final shield is the hull's SHD base × upgrade tier × generator (quality and integrity) × variant — hull HP works the same with armor. An empty slot multiplies by 0.55, not zero: a bare hull still raises a weak shield from its integral emitters and keeps the base 3/s regen. So generators and armor are amplifiers on the hull's bones — a big-SHD hull with a PROTOTYPE generator (×1.65) compounds; and a generator smashed to 0% by a critical hit is worse than none: 0.6× capacity and no regen at all until repaired.

List prices: shields 1,400 cr (Z1) / 2,800 (Z2) / 5,040 (Z3); armor 1,100 / 2,200 / 3,960 — times quality and variant. Trading in your old unit returns ~40% of its value.

Variants — equipment with character

Each station's equipment rack sells a seeded variant per tier, and salvaged gear rolls them randomly. Elite pirates fly them too — a BULWARK wall fights differently from a REGEN skirmisher:

Wear is real now: every hull hit chips your armor's integrity; every shield collapse chips the generator. Battle-worn protection under-performs until repaired — the Tech skill keeps the bills down.

Utility gadgets

Utility bays vary by frame and roll: couriers carry one, mid-class hulls 2–4, the big haulers 3–4 — the spec sheet's UTIL row tells you what an individual ship offers. Gadgets fit there, never competing with guns or protection:

The turret hardpoint

MULE, ATLAS and BASILISK carry an auto-turret bay: fit any Z1 weapon from your rack (outfitting → TURRET row) and it fires itself at your locked target — full sphere coverage, 60% damage, slower cycle, energy-fed. Haulers stop being helpless, and the BASILISK becomes a broadside ship. Watch for turrets on large pirate ships too.

Salvage & Loot

Destroyed ships spill canisters; better pilots drop better gear. Some sites also hold derelict debris fields — loot floating free, most often at beacons and planets in dangerous space.

• Canisters carry a pulsing beacon: gold = commodity cargo, cyan = component pod (weapons / shields / armor). Same colours on the scanner.
• Tap LB with no hostiles around to lock the nearest canister — gold brackets, live distance, edge arrow.
• Scoop by flying within 22 m. Slow down! A scoop run at full throttle is a collision course.
• Canisters drift but never expire — finish the fight first, then sweep the field at leisure. They're gone only when you leave the area.

The rack

Scooped components go to your salvage rack (size varies by ship — a REAVER carries 7, an ATLAS 10, a DART just 2). From outfitting you can press A on any item for its action menu: REPAIR / SWAP / UNFIT / SELL for fitted gear, FIT-or-SWAP / REPAIR / SELL for hold items (sell pays 35–65% of list by condition). SWAP is an explicit 1-for-1 exchange — a picker names the counterpart before anything moves, and it needs no free hold space. Magazines travel with the gun: a part-fired weapon swapped to the hold and back keeps its round count (no free reloads — SERVICE is where ammunition comes from). The component rack is its own stowage — racked gear never takes trade cargo space.

Travel

Supercruise

In-system distances are measured in megametres (1 Mm = 1,000 km) — normal engines would take days. Supercruise compresses the trip: speed builds from a 2 Mm/s floor toward a 12,000 Mm/s ceiling, then the drive brakes you automatically on approach. The HUD ETA models the full accelerate-cruise-brake envelope. Throttle still works — ease off to fine-tune an approach. B drops you out anywhere mid-flight.

Hyperspace

Jumps between stars cost fuel equal to the distance (tank: 30 ly, refill at stations) and are limited by your hull's jump range — bigger, costlier ships reach further (SKIFF 6.5 ly → BASILISK 12.5 ly). The galaxy literally opens up as you upgrade: sparse sectors and remote high-tech yards need long legs to reach.

The Galaxy

The galaxy is infinite and deterministic: every star, planet, economy and pirate derives from your save's galaxy seed. Fly 10,000 light-years in any direction and there's always more.

Star classes

Systems hold 0–7 planets — lava, rock, ice, ocean, gas giants (some ringed) and rare earthlike worlds, placed by orbital temperature. Stations orbit the better real estate.

Government, threat & factions

A system's government is its character: it sets the policing, the markets, and (with some local variation) the threat level. Read it on the survey sheet before you jump.

Threat (0–4) is the number that does the work — government sets the base, each system rolls ±1:

• Threat 0 — no pirates spawn, ever; no mining ambushes. Newbie space and quiet belts. (Also: nothing to hunt.)
• Threat 1–2 — pirate wings of 1–2, HARMLESS-to-CAPABLE tiers; the mining-field ambush clock runs ~40 s slow; modest salvage.
• Threat 3–4 — wings up to 4, VETERAN/DEADLY pilots worth 600–1,600 cr a kill; ambushes inside ~15 s of working a belt; the most floating salvage (+8% odds per threat point) and the best distress-rescue pay (250 + 300×threat cr).

Stations are patrolled ground everywhere (pirate odds ~25% on arrival vs ~55% at beacons and planets) — but only lawful governments post actual police.

The three factions carve the galaxy into great sector blobs — the COALITION, the DOMINION and the FREEHOLDS. Which one owns a system matters for one thing: reputation (−100…+100 with each):

• Earning it: completing missions in a faction's space (+8 with the local faction for bounty marks, +4 for lesser work) and rescuing their civilians from distress calls (+2).
• What it pays: every mission reward in that faction's space scales by +0.4% per point — at +50 standing everything pays +20%, at the +100 cap, +40%. Build standing where you work.
• Reputation never gates access — any dock will take your credits — it only sweetens the contracts.

Reading the market

Prices are coloured against the galactic base: green buy price = this station sells it cheap (producers — fill your hold), gold sell price = they pay over the odds (consumers — empty it). The money is in the expensive manufactured goods: computers, electronics and luxuries swing 50–130 cr a unit between the right ports; bulk staples like food and water are filler, not freight. Tech level tilts it further — high-tech ports make manufactured goods cheaper still.

Smuggling pays through the spread: narcotics bought at a military port and fenced at a tourism station in lawless space clear 80–100 cr a unit at book prices — the premium is for the risk: scans, ambush heat, and the fine if you're flagged.

What each economy trades

Every economy type produces some goods cheap and pays over the odds for others — the spreads below are against galactic base price (the market's cyan/gold colours show the same thing at the counter):

The classic circuits fall out of the table: high-tech goods to farms and mines (computers/electronics out, food/minerals back), military surplus weapons to tourist traps, and for smugglers, vice into tourism ports — they pay the galaxy's best prices for narcotics, but only black-market systems will fence what you bring back.

Where the danger and the loot are

Hostiles and salvage both spawn when you arrive somewhere — a hyperspace arrival or a supercruise drop at a beacon, planet or station. What you find is driven by the system's threat level (0–4, mostly set by government) and where you parked:

• Stations are patrolled — only ~25% of arrivals draw pirates, and debris fields are rare (the locals picked them clean).
• Beacons and planets are frontier — ~55% pirate odds, and the best chance of derelict debris floating free (up to ~60% in lethal systems, 1–3 canisters at a time).
• Threat sets the muscle: threat-1 democracies spawn a lone HARMLESS-to-NOVICE drifter; threat-4 anarchies field wings of up to four DEADLY/ELITE killers flying variant shields. The survey sheet shows threat before you jump — SAFE systems are for hauling, LETHAL ones are hunting grounds (better pilots also drop better salvage: quality and affix odds rise with tier).
• Bounty marks wait at the nav beacon of their contract system, with escorts at ACE tier.

Trading

Twenty commodities. Each station's economy type (Agricultural, Industrial, High-Tech, Extraction, Refinery, Tourism, Military, Service) biases prices: producers sell cheap, consumers pay dear. Tech level and a per-station jitter move prices further.

⚠ illegal — tradeable only at black markets (Anarchy/Feudal systems), at juicy margins — and carrying them paints a target on you (see contraband heat): more ambushes, bigger wings, all the way to your buyer.

Stations & Docking

To dock: fly within 600 m of a station and press LB+RB. The docking computer takes over and glides you in. On arrival, the station:

• names your killer — the death screen is a full report: rank, hull, guns, defences, speed. Learn from it,
• repairs and rearms nothing automatically — REPAIR (outfitting), SERVICE and REFUEL are paid facilities you choose,
• pays out any completed missions,
• saves your game (this is the checkpoint system — see CritsThe LawDashboardTrafficMiningRankDeath & SavesFlying Your Ship).

Services: MARKET (trade), SHIPYARD (hulls), OUTFITTING (the armoury — stock varies per terminal — plus equipment, repairs, salvage), MISSIONS (the board), BAR (rumours and local colour), STATUS, REFUEL and SERVICE — magazines refilled and hull damage patched (~2 cr per point, cheaper with Tech skill) in one bill, live price on the menu.

Ships & the Shipyard

What every ship stat means

Every dockyard stocks its own selection. A station rolls five ships from its seed — class, look and name (like SPARROW-K4) are all unique to that yard. The same class re-rolled elsewhere looks different. Ship hunting is a real reason to explore; high-tech yards stock the big classes.

Trading in your current hull returns 70% of its list price. Mounted weapons migrate with you where they fit; the rest go to the rack (or are sold at salvage rates if there's no room). Equipment over the new frame's tier cap steps down a tier.

Ship designs

Every hull in the galaxy is procedurally generated — there is no fixed catalogue. A ship is a class (its stats) plus a look grown from a seed: fuselage, wings, fins, mandibles, cockpit, engine glow, the lot. Each NEW GAME rolls a different universe of designs; within it, every dockyard builds its own unique stock (no two yards sell the same ship), and pirate wings wear the local style of the system that built them. Every hull is also an individual: stats roll around the class book values (speed/handling ±8%, hull and shields ±10%, cargo ±15%), weapon-slot layouts vary (a bonus Z1 here, an upsized mount there), utility bays run 1 on the couriers, 2–4 on the mids, 3–4 on the big haulers — and used ships arrive with a rolled kit of part-worn guns. Read the spec sheet: shopping is a treasure hunt, and a hot-rolled lemon-priced hull is out there.

Missions, Bounties & Reputation

Bounty hunting, step by step

1. Take a contract sized to your ship: EASY MARK (600 cr) up to ACE MARK (6,500 cr — brings an escort, flies a heavy hull).
2. Open the galaxy chart: the hunt system pulses as a red diamond. Jump there.
3. You arrive at the nav beacon — BOUNTY MARK DETECTED. Lock with LB; the mark shows ** MARK **.
4. Kill it, then dock anywhere to collect (and bank the save).

Completed missions pay at the next dock and add reputation with the local faction (+8 bounty, +4 others). Rep boosts all future rewards in that faction's space — a +50 standing pays +20% on everything.

Encounters & Hails

The galaxy is full of voices, and most of them want something. Docking, drinking in the BAR, boarding a derelict, or just arriving in a system can trigger a hail: a portrait, a situation, and two to four choices. Every choice has a consequence — credits, cargo, fuel, faction reputation, a mark on your record, sometimes salvaged gear pressed into your rack, and sometimes a trap that drops you straight into a fight.

• Distress calls — a stranded pilot begging for fuel. Charity, a fee, or a cold shoulder.
• Customs sweeps & patrol challenges — lawful space wants to see your hold. Submit, bribe, dump, or run.
• Pirate tolls & berthing taxes — pay the gate, refuse and risk an ambush, or lean on a reputation for menace.
• Traders & hawkers — cargo sold unseen, logs bought, a card game, a wager. Profit or a lesson.
• Recurring characters — a few faces return, encounter after encounter, with stories that go somewhere. The portrait is always the same; pay attention.

Outcomes never hide: every hail you answer prints an aftermath receipt — exactly what changed, line by line, before you look away. And choices are stable per visit: the dice are rolled when you arrive, so leaving and re-docking won't reshuffle them. Decide like it counts, Commander — because it does.

The Database & Lore

The DATABASE on the station home menu collects the lore fragments you unlock through encounters — a ledger entry bought from a prospector, a name read off a memorial, a manifest pulled from a cold hull. Most pilots never read past the first.

What they spell out, slowly, is the Indemnity itself: the insurance institution that quietly underwrites the whole galaxy — every docking fee, every fuel tithe, every fine routing a fraction to an account no audit can follow. It covers those who can pay. And it is whispered, in the bars of lawless space, that it does more than pay out — that it recreates the lost.

The fragments arrive out of order and in pieces. Collect them, and the shape of the thing comes clear. We won't spoil it for you here, Commander — that's the point of the file.

Faction Wars

The three great factions — the COALITION, the DOMINION and the FREEHOLDS — hold territory across the galaxy, and where their borders meet, systems turn CONTESTED. Stations near a front offer WAR contracts — but they don't hand war work to strangers. You must first earn reputation 2+ with that faction; only then does the recruiter open the board.

Signing one means fighting for that faction — you are taking a side. Win, and your standing rises with them and falls with the enemy. Contracts come in five intensities, named for the enemy rank you will face, and the ladder unlocks as your loyalty climbs (roughly one tier per five points of standing — the top war wants a true ally):

Accept one, fly to the contested system's nav beacon, and you drop into a live battle: your faction's fighters against the enemy's, already underway. The ranks blend — not a wall of aces, but a spread topping out at the contract's tier, with a single leader a notch above. You are one ship tipping a balance, not a lone hero clearing a galaxy.

Allied kills count too — the contract is won when the enemy force is dead, whoever lands the shot. The whole force spawns on arrival; there are no reinforcements, so clear them and the zone is yours. Win and you're paid (war work pays loyalty back at double the usual rate): your standing climbs with your side and sinks with the enemy you bled.

Pilot Skills

Four skills level from what you actually do (thresholds at 2, 5, 10, 18, 30, 50, 80, 120, 170 XP — ten levels):

A maxed Tech rating halves your refurbishing costs — the heart of the salvage business. Check your levels any time in SHIP STATUS.

The Law

Lawful systems (Confederacy and up) post police Vipers — pale blue on the scanner, POLICE on the lock — patrolling station space. They ignore clean pilots.

• Carrying contraband near a patrol gets you scanned (POLICE SCAN..., ~2.5 s inside 300 m) — then FLAGGED: SMUGGLER: OFFENDER status, a fine on your head, and every patrol engages on sight.
• Shooting a police ship makes you a FUGITIVE instantly (+800 fine); killing one pays no bounty and adds 1,500.
• PAY FINE at any station's services menu clears your record and the heat. Until then, lawful space hunts you — smuggle through Anarchy and Feudal systems, where there are no police at all (and the black markets live).
• Your status shows in SHIP STATUS: CLEAN / OFFENDER / FUGITIVE.

The Flight Dashboard

MENU slides the dashboard up over the cockpit — and the game plays on underneath — the strip at the top is a live mini-HUD (scanner blips, shield/hull/heat/fuel) so you can watch trouble closing while you work. Pick a region with the d-pad — GALAXY, SYSTEM, STATUS, SETTINGS — and A expands it; the sim keeps running inside those screens too. SETTINGS holds invert-Y, the FPS readout, and VOLUME / BRIGHTNESS sliders (left/right to adjust) — shared with the ThumbyOne lobby, so set once, applies everywhere. B or MENU returns to the stick at any moment.

There is no safety net: choosing a supercruise destination or a jump target mid-dogfight is a race against the pilots shooting at you. Escapes are decisions, not pauses.

Civilian Traffic & Distress Calls

Green blips are civilians — mining vessels working the belts (watch their amber chip-beams) and cargo haulers on slow lanes near stations. They're armed, barely. Attacking one flags you an OFFENDER and it will fight back; destroying one makes you a FUGITIVE, and its spilled cargo is stolen goods — contraband, black-market only, with all the police-scan and pirate heat that implies. Piracy pays, then it costs.

Some planets and beacons in dangerous systems show DISTRESS CALL! on the system map (a red ! in the list). Arrive and you'll find a civilian under pirate attack — the wing fights them until you put a shot in, then it turns on you. Kill the pirates while the victim survives and the hail comes with a reward: credits scaled to the danger, plus local faction reputation. Dither, and you'll watch them die.

Mining

Asteroid fields drift near beacons and planets — thick and frequent in EXTRACTION and REFINERY systems (the rocks are dim brown on the scanner). Fit a MINING laser (Z1, 700 cr, every armoury) and chip them: every 24 damage of chipping spills an ore canister — minerals, metals, and a 6% chance of RARE GEMS (400 cr a unit) — and cracking a rock open spills a final bonus. Every weapon damages rocks — shells, slugs and missiles included, and rocks block shots (cover!) — but crude blasting vaporizes most of the ore: standard weapons recover under half per chip. The MINING laser recovers everything, many times faster — though against ship hulls it's an industrial cutter, not a gun — rocks are finite, so the tool roughly doubles what a belt is worth.

Finding the rocks: tap LB with no hostiles or salvage about and the lock cycles to the nearest belt rock — or hold LB for 1.5 seconds (held still, not rolling) to force the target class (TGT: AUTO → SALVAGE → ROCKS) and mine straight through floating loot, or hunt salvage mid-fight. Single taps keep cycling within the chosen class — combat never steps you through a belt. The filter resets to AUTO at each new site — amber corner ticks with a ROCK 485M readout when it's in frame, an amber edge arrow pointing the way when it isn't. Rocks also show as dim brown blips on the scanner disc once you're close. Scoop the ore like any salvage (it counts toward Tech XP) and sell at market — Industrial and High-Tech stations pay best for raw materials. One warning: ore in space attracts vultures. Work a field long enough — sooner in dangerous systems — and you'll hear PIRATES INBOUND. Mine fast, scoop faster, or bring guns.

Combat Rank

Every kill counts toward the classic ladder (shown in SHIP STATUS, with a fanfare on promotion):

Critical Hits

Once a ship's shields are down, hull hits can smash systems — rare and heavy, with big blows (gauss, photon) far likelier to crit than pulse ticks. Your systems take −40 integrity a crit; at zero they're OFFLINE until repaired at a dock: a dead mount won't fire, a smashed shield generator stops regenerating entirely, a wrecked targeting computer loses its lead pip, a jammed chaff launcher won't answer. Engine crits cut your speed and turning 40% for the rest of the fight — dock technicians fix engines on arrival; everything else costs credits.

It cuts both ways: THEIR WEAPON HIT! means a pirate mount is dead, their shield regen can be silenced, their targeting scrambled, their engines crippled — and a fully disarmed pirate turns and runs. Chase it for a free kill, or let it carry the story home. Fights end in more states than "dead".

Death & Saves

• Docking saves — automatically, every time. The save keeps your galaxy seed, ship, gear (with exact quality/wear/ammo), cargo, credits, reputation and mission log.
• Death = insurance recovery. You wake at your last dock with everything as it was then. Kills, loot and credits earned since that dock are gone. Undocked space is always at stake — that's the tension.
• CONTINUE on the title screen restores your universe exactly. NEW GAME rolls a fresh galaxy seed — new stars, names, markets, everything.

That much is the standard policy — die insured and the Underwriter re-issues you at your last dock, the loss undone. It is the deal every pilot flies on, and most never question it. But a policy has terms, and somewhere out there the fine print is still being read. What the Indemnity restores, and to whom, may not stay so simple for the length of a long campaign. Read the DATABASE when it fills, Commander — before it reads you.

Flying Your Ship — techniques and equipment in practice

Fuel scooping

Fit a FUELSCOOP (T7+ bays, ~2,600 cr), then in supercruise just point the nose at the sun and close in until it dominates the screen. Inside roughly 4.5× the star's radius the scoop runs by itself — there's no button. You'll see a pulsing SCOOPING 14.2 LY toast counting your fuel up and the F bar refilling at 1.6 LY/s (empty to full in ~19 s). The price is star heat: every ship (scoop or not) heats inside ~6 star radii, faster the deeper you go — past the klaxon your weapons cut out, and at the redline HULL BURNING! means exactly that: 5 hull/s until you pull away or die in the corona. Skim in passes: dive, fill, run. It pays for itself in about seven tanks, but its real value is crossing station-less systems without stranding.

Railgun charge

The railgun doesn't fire on press — select it with B, then hold A to charge. Four rising tones sound and the reticle brackets close inward as it builds; at full charge (0.8 s) they snap bright white — release on that cue for the crack-and-sing report and 90 damage down a thick helix wake. Releasing early simply cancels: nothing fires, no ammo is spent.

Chaff

With a CHAFF pod fitted (T5+), the moment ! INCOMING ! flashes and the two-beep alarm sounds, hold LB and tap B. A white burst blooms behind your ship with a sharp hiss, the toast confirms CHAFF! 2 LOCKS BROKEN, and the C# counter on the dash ticks down. Blinded missiles don't vanish — they fly straight along their last heading, so step off that line. Four charges; SERVICE refills them at 20 cr each.

Tractor beam — two tools

Grappling a ship: lock a hostile (LB), close inside 300 m, select TRACTOR, hold A. A gold beam connects and shimmer dances on their hull — their speed bleeds away to a stop in ~1 s and their drives drag while you hold. Prey bigger than ~1.3× your hull barely feels it. The play: grapple, B to your gun, execute before they recover.

Reeling salvage: with no hostiles, LB locks the nearest canister (gold brackets) — hold A and watch the distance readout tick down as it's dragged to you at 26 m/s. Scoop fires automatically at 22 m.

Drift mode (flight assist off)

Tap RB and the DR light appears: your nose now turns without changing your velocity. The classic use is the strafe-by — build speed toward a target, tap RB, and turn freely: you keep sliding on the old vector while your guns track sideways across the pass. Tap RB again to re-couple and the ship leans back onto the nose. You can read the state off the bars: in drift, SP stops chasing TH.

The auto-turret (MULE / ATLAS / BASILISK)

Arming it is the non-obvious part: the turret feeds from your rack, so first get any Z1 weapon onto it (buy one, or unfit one with B), then select the TURRET row in outfitting and press A — "TURRET ARMED". From then on locking is the trigger: whenever your locked target is in range the turret fires by itself, and you'll hear its quieter report and see tracers leaving your ship at angles your nose isn't pointing. Full-sphere coverage, 60% damage, energy-fed — it never spends ammo. No lock, no turret.

The ion play

Fit ION alongside a kinetic gun and open every fight with the ion: as long as you see blue shimmer on the target, their shield is still soaking it. The moment the shield strips they're SCRAMBLED — blue arcs crawl on their hull and they can't shoot for 2.5 s. That's your window: B to the kinetic and unload into bare hull, orange sparks confirming every round counts.

Defensively: when YOUR shield breaks to ion fire you'll hear the klaxon and see SYSTEMS SCRAMBLED — your trigger is dead. Don't line up a shot; evade until it clears.

Mine laying

Select MINE and tap A: it drops astern with a soft clunk, drifts to a stop, and arms — you'll see its red light blinking behind you. Anything that comes within 18 m takes a 45-damage blast (it knows its owner; you can't trip your own). Best used while running: drop two or three in your wake through a pursuer's line and listen for the detonations. Unspent mines self-destruct after 25 s.

Wear, repair & the refurbish business

Combat wears your gear: every hull hit chips armor integrity, every shield collapse chips the generator, firing doesn't wear guns but salvaged ones arrive pre-worn. Integrity scales output (×0.6 at zero) — check the % on every status row. Repair in outfitting (A on the row; cost scales with damage and the item's value; Tech skill −5%/level).

The business: a MILITARY gauss scooped at 45% sells for a fraction of its value — repair it first and the sale price rises with integrity. Repair-then-sell beats sell-as-is whenever your Tech level keeps the repair under the value gained. That margin IS the salvage profession.

The lock chain

LB locks, in priority order: nearest hostile (red box, lock chirp) → no hostiles? nearest salvage (gold brackets + distance) → no salvage? the local station (cyan diamond, STN distance) — your compass home when you've drifted off the dock. Tap again to cycle outward through hostiles.

Boost

Double-tap RB: the BS light comes on, the engine note swells, and you get 1.8× speed for 2.2 s (4 s with an AB TANK fitted) — watch the SP needle push past the bar's normal range. One burn at a time; it must expire before the next.

Docking

Fly to a station (lock it via the chain above if you've lost it), kill your speed inside 600 m, and press LB+RB together. The docking computer takes the stick — hands off — and glides you in over a couple of seconds. On the pad, two things happen automatically: completed missions pay out, and the game saves. Everything else is a choice you pay for — REPAIR, SERVICE and REFUEL are priced line items in the services menu.

Quick-start: your first hour

1. Take your starter ship to the local station (it's on the scanner; LB+RB in close to engage supercruise toward it, the same chord under 600 m requests docking).
2. Check the MARKET — buy whatever's cheap that a neighbour wants. Grab a DELIVERY or EASY MARK from the board.
3. Work the loop: deliveries + kill bounties + scooped loot. Sell salvage you can't use.
4. First big purchase: a SPARROW (8,500) — fights and hauls. Or a PACK MULE if the trading bug bit you.
5. Fit a shield upgrade before you fit a bigger gun. Staying alive earns more than alpha damage.
6. Watch the chart for High-Tech systems — their yards stock the serious hardware.