Your company and fleet
Your company is a fleet of ships and their routes. The ships fly themselves; you decide where and with what. This page covers ships, routes, fees and debt.
Ships
| Class | Hold | Speed | Price | Upkeep / min | Jump fee |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Light | 20 | 3.6 | 4,000 cr | 6 cr | 10 cr |
| Medium | 60 | 2.8 | 12,000 cr | 15 cr | 25 cr |
| Heavy | 160 | 2.5 | 28,000 cr | 35 cr | 60 cr |
Heavy hulls are released in Era II.
Ships are bought at a shipyard: an active station in your syndicate's home cluster or in a system your syndicate controls. Select the system and use the buy buttons in its station panel. Each button shows the price and how the whole fleet's upkeep changes.
Eight ships run at normal upkeep. Each further ship costs 15 % more than the one before, compounding. The upkeep of one Light is never charged.
Sell ship pays 60 % of the class price. The sale asks for confirmation, the cargo on board is lost, and the last ship cannot be sold.
Routes
Select a ship in the Fleet panel and set a route: tap the origin system, then the destination. Tapping the origin again cancels. The two systems must be different and connected.
| Route | What the ship does |
|---|---|
| Trade | Buys at one end, sells at the other, both ways. |
| Project | Buys at the origin and delivers to an outpost's founding basket or to your syndicate's gate under construction at the destination. |
| Contract | Hauls the syndicate's contract goods for free while you are in debt. |
A project route is quickest to set from a station or a gate: the destination is known, so one tap picks where to load. The game sends the first ship without a route, or the fleet's first ship when every ship has one.
A ship that is elsewhere finishes the lane it is flying and heads for the new route's first end. Clear route works the same way: the ship finishes its lane, then docks.
Ships take the shortest path along lanes. Every jump counts as extra length, open gates are shortcuts, and a rival's toll counts as a longer way.
What a ship does at a dock
- Sell. The ship sells its cargo if the market buys it. The price falls as the stock fills.
- Tariff. In a rival's territory you pay 10 % of the revenue; at home, nothing.
- Load. The ship loads the good and the amount that earn the most on the next leg, counting how its own sale moves the prices. If nothing beats the jump fees, it flies empty.
- Credit line. A ship may load up to 2,000 cr beyond the company's cash; the sale pays it back.
- Waiting. An empty trade ship whose route pays nothing from either end stays docked and looks again after a while. It pays nothing meanwhile.
- Low margin. Two deliveries in a row that earn nothing raise a notice.
Docking takes 6 sim seconds. A station has 2 berths, plus half a berth per station level and one per industry level. Each ship waiting beyond them makes docking 50 % slower, up to 400 %. Shareholders of the industry and preferred suppliers dock in half the time.
Every departure costs the jump fee of the ship's class. A hop through a rival's open gate costs three times the fee, paid to that syndicate's treasury.
Sell cargo here in the ship panel sells by hand. The panel says what the station pays, or that nobody here buys the good and it is thrown away. Contract cargo is never sold.
Net worth and income
Net worth is cash, plus 60 % of what the fleet cost, plus your own cargo at base prices, plus your industry stakes, minus debt. Income / min (1h) in the top bar is earnings minus costs over the last game hour; dividends and the contract payout are not in it.
Debt and the faction contract
A charge your cash does not cover becomes debt to your syndicate, at most 8,000 cr; the rest is forgiven. The next income pays the debt first.
From 1,000 cr of debt until it is back to zero, the company is fined: no buying ships, no investing, no voting, and every route must stay within 6 jumps of the capital. The syndicate also issues a contract, and the notice says what to haul and where. In the rankings a fined company comes after every other one and carries a debt warning.
There are three ways out: income, Pay off in the Fleet panel, or a contract route. Haul for the faction sends a docked ship with an empty hold on the contract in one tap. Every unit unloaded at the contract's target clears 5 % of the good's base price. A contract ship pays no fees, tolls or upkeep.
A fine that lasts at least 6 game hours, with at least one contract unit delivered, pays out 48 hours of the fleet's base upkeep when it ends, at most 16,000 cr, once per era. Paying off by hand or selling a ship cancels the payout.
Not built yet
Refitting a ship (a bigger hold and more speed) exists in the rules, but the HUD has no button for it yet.