Questions people ask
Do I really not have to sign up?
Really. One click and you are in your own province with a port, credits and a map. If you decide to stay, you pick a name and a password later and nothing moves — it is the same account, it just gains a password. If you decide not to, you have lost nothing but the click.
I forgot my login name or password. What now?
Open your profile on any device where you are still signed in: the Sign-in section shows your login name, and lets you change it or set a new password without the old one — every other device is signed out when you do. If you are signed in nowhere, a password alone cannot be recovered, because there is no reset link and we never send email. That is why the same section offers sign-in providers: link one, and signing in with it always brings you back.
What if I close the tab before claiming an account?
Come back in the same browser and it is all still there. Lose the browser and that empire returns to the galaxy after a week away. Claiming an account is the fix, and it takes about fifteen seconds.
What happens while I am offline?
Cargo keeps piling up on the pads, flights already in the air still arrive and pay, and upkeep keeps falling due. When you come back you get a summary of what changed — including anything that went wrong while nobody was watching.
Do abandoned empires clutter the map forever?
No. Unpaid upkeep decays a structure until it is demolished, and a long-absent player who has lost everything releases their capital and their province back into the pool.
Can somebody just outspend me?
They can outbuild you, and you can undercut them — the fee exponent beats the size exponent, deliberately, so a smaller cheaper port takes traffic off a bigger complacent one. That rule is published on the About page rather than hidden, because a game about competing on price is unplayable if the price rule is a secret.
Can I buy an advantage in information?
You can buy a scouting report: pick a centre and a radius, name a cargo, and you are told which planets inside that circle want or sell it and roughly how much they are holding. Nothing that was public becomes private by it — the free dispatch panel still shows every destination your ship can reach, with its price. What the report sells is reach: places you would have to move to serve, which no screen can work out for you. It costs credits, it is charged per question rather than as a subscription, and if nothing matches you are not charged at all. The answer names places and quantities, never prices, so it is a lead you still have to fly a quote for.
What can other players see about me?
Your profile is public and says a fair amount: your name and handle, the ports, wormholes and Dyson rings you hold, your fleet size, your alliance, the planets you have named, what your ports specialise in and how well you keep them, and roughly how recently you were active. Your wallet is not there — it is private and is never ranked — and nothing on it is an all-time record. If you sell escort cover, the ships you have posted are listed too; raiders are not, to anybody but you. What a rival's ports would charge *you* specifically is shown on the planet itself, beside every other owner's price, which is where that comparison is worth making.
Can other players attack me?
Your cargo can be, in flight — and no route is dangerous until somebody makes it so. A raid happens because another player ordered a pursuit at your particular run, and that pursuit is on the map with its line pointing at its mark, so you can see it coming and send an escort to catch it first. Trading inside your own province is permanently safe, and you are protected while your newcomer's grace lasts. A hauler can never be destroyed, by anyone: a raid takes half of that one run's gross, the rest is never earned, and you still owe the fuel, the upkeep and the port you left from. Rarely it leaves the hull wrecked enough to need an expensive repair. What you are shown before you launch is who is standing here selling cover, and what they charge.
Can I play as a pirate?
You can buy a warship and give it one of four orders: move it somewhere, chase a laden flight already in the air, hunt a raider already chasing somebody, or fly a hauler's leg beside them as an escort. Every one is an ordinary flight, so it costs a whole leg — which is why raiding is meant to be a bad business run well rather than a second income. An order is a contract: there is no recall, and a chase you regret runs to its interception. Loot wins you no standing on any board, deliberately. If you would rather be paid for turning up than for taking, sell escort cover instead: that fee is ranked income.
Is anyone else actually playing?
Yes — the map you are looking at is live, and everything moving on it belongs to a company that is not you. Their ports, their fees and their routes are all real, and all of it is takeable if they stop looking after it.
Should I build a port or just rent one?
Rent, at first. A port gets dearer the further it is from what you already own, and a rival's fee is almost always cheaper than construction. Build when the fees you are paying over a month start to look like the price of the port.
When is a wormhole worth it?
Over long distances, and almost never over short ones. The price grows faster than the distance but so does the time it saves — and what makes a short link a mistake is the upkeep, not the build cost.
Can I earn without flying?
Partly. You can fund a planet's production line and be repaid a fixed multiple of what you advanced — capped, known before you pay, and delivered a container at a time as that line actually works. It is not interest and there is no borrower: the money comes back out of the traffic it helped create. So it pays nothing while nobody serves the planet, and a line left unserved loses value. It rewards knowing where trade is about to be worth having, which is the same skill as hauling, applied earlier.
My ship got slow. What did I do?
Nothing wrong — ships wear with use. Past a point they crawl instead of refusing to fly, which is worse, because you keep paying full upkeep while earning a fraction. Any port you own can repair one; a repair dock just does it cheaper.
How much time does this need?
Ten minutes gets you a ship, a route and your first paid run. Half an hour gets you a second route and a sense of whether you like it. After that it is yours to pace — a day away costs you upkeep and nothing else, unless you have hired a captain, which is exactly what a captain is for.
Can I script it, or use a third-party client?
Nothing here rewards it, so nobody bothers to police it. Every price, distance and delivery is decided by the server, so a script cannot lie about any of them — it can only do what the interface already lets you do, more tediously. And if you want a ship to keep working while you are away, that is a captain: you hire one, it flies for you, and it takes a cut. If you want it to run one particular circuit over and over, you can draw that too — a Roundsman flies the loop you give it. Automation is something the game sells rather than something it hunts. What is not welcome is hammering the server, and that is bounded for everyone rather than judged case by case: too many requests too fast get refused, whoever is making them.
Can I delete my account?
Yes, from your profile, and it is immediate and irreversible. Your name, your address and your picture go; your province, ports and wormholes are dissolved and returned to the pool, and your ships are retired. What stays is the accounting record of trades you were party to, because other players' books refer to them and would develop holes otherwise — but nothing in it identifies you afterwards.