Getting started
The title screen
The game opens on the title screen, with time stopped:
- CONTINUE goes back to the run in progress, if there is one.
- NEW GAME starts a run in a new star system.
- SYSTEM OF THE WEEK plays the same system as everyone else this week, for its own leaderboard. It changes every Monday at 00:00 UTC, and the button shows how long it has left.
- PLAY A CODE plays a system by its code, so friends can fly the same one (see The sector map and hyperwarp).
- HOW TO PLAY sums up the game in a page, with a legend of every icon on the HUD.
- SETTINGS changes how you steer and how loud things are (see Controls).
Your best run on the device shows under the title, and once you’ve found one, how many of the five Thaloran artifacts you have. Starting a new run while one is in progress asks first, since the old one can’t be continued after.
Your first minutes
You start in sector H8, the center of the system, facing north, with an asteroid field ahead and a space station beyond it. Short tips at the top of the screen teach the basics in order: steer, set the speed, fire, shoot a rock, collect Thalorite and open the map. Each goes once you’ve done what it asks. Others turn up the first time they matter: the first Morgon, a station, docking, hyperwarp, low energy. SKIP TIPS ends them all, and SETTINGS brings them back.
No Morgons turn up until you’ve steered, set the speed and fired, and the Morgon bases are all at least five sectors away, so the first few minutes are quiet. Use them to learn to fly and mine.
A good first trip: break a few rocks in the field ahead, fly through the green bundles of Thalorite they leave, then dock at the station beyond it and deliver your haul.
Saving
The run saves itself: whenever the app goes to the background, when you dock and launch, when you quit to the title, and every minute in flight. Closing the app loses nothing. The next launch offers CONTINUE and picks up where you left off, Morgons and all. It’s a resume, not a checkpoint, so quitting mid-fight doesn’t escape the fight.
Time stops when you look away
Time stops on the title and pause screens, while the sector map or the message history is open, while Game Center’s sign-in sheet is up, and whenever the app is in the background or covered by a call, Notification Center or Control Center. Going to the background also brings up the pause screen, so coming back never drops you straight into a fight.
Docked at a station, time doesn’t stop. The war goes on while you trade.
A run is one life
There’s no restarting at the last station. A run ends in one of five ways:
| Ending | What happened |
|---|---|
| SYSTEM CLEAR | You destroyed every Morgon base. You win. |
| SHIP DESTROYED | Your hull reached zero, or the station you were docked at was destroyed. |
| ALL STATIONS LOST | The Morgons destroyed every station, leaving nowhere to dock. |
| SHIP STRANDED | You ran out of energy with the fuel cell destroyed, drifting where no station’s tractor beam will reach you. |
| RETIRED | Docked at a station, you chose RETIRE and ended the run there. |
Otherwise a run goes on as long as you like: there’s no time limit. Every ending shows the run’s numbers and its rating (see Ratings and achievements). A destroyed ship deletes the save.