The sector map and hyperwarp
The star system
The system is a grid of 15 × 15 sectors, each 10 km square, named by column (A to O, west to east) and row (1 to 15, north to south). You start in the center, H8. Space is continuous: fly past a sector’s edge and you’re in the next. About a quarter of the sectors have an asteroid field, sixteen have a station, and eight hold a Morgon base, all at least five sectors from H8. Outside the grid is empty deep space.
Every run is a new system
NEW GAME builds a new system from a random seed: where the stations, bases and fields are, which shipyard each
station is, and how hard each base’s trench is. The seed’s code, such as SYSTEM 4F2A-91C3, shows on the pause
and result screens, so you can tell someone which system you played.
- SYSTEM OF THE WEEK is one system for everyone, changing every Monday at 00:00 UTC. Play it as often as you like that week, for its own leaderboard.
- PLAY A CODE plays the system a code names, so friends can fly the same one. Typing is forgiving: lowercase is fine, and so is O for 0 or I for 1. Runs on a typed code go on no leaderboard.
Every system is fair. A system is played only if it passes a check against all the others: how near the bases are, how many stations they threaten, how many fields there are, and how far it is to a shipyard of every kind. So a rating on one system compares with a rating on any other.
The long range sector map
Tap the map button, top left, to open the map. Time stops while it’s open. Drag to pan and pinch to zoom; the center button goes back to where you are, and the fly button closes it.
| On the map | Means |
|---|---|
| Green arrow | Your ship, pointing your heading |
| Shaded sector | The sector you’re in |
| Green outline | The sectors in your map’s range |
| Cyan shapes | Asteroid fields, to scale, where they are now |
| Yellow square, with hull | A station, red while under attack. Zoomed in, its shipyard kind: WPN, DRV, SYS or CGO. |
| Gray square, crossed out | A destroyed station, LOST |
| Orange outline, BASE | A Morgon base, once seen. Gray once destroyed, WRECK. |
| Orange ▲ and a number | Morgons in a sector now |
| Small orange triangles | Morgons on their way, pointing where they’re going, with dotted lines to the stations they’re attacking. Outlined for scouts, dots for miners. |
| Orange tint | Morgon territory |
? |
A sector the map has never seen |
The map sees only so far. It’s one of your ship’s components. It sees what’s in each sector only within its
range of yours: one sector all round for the standard map, two for a Mk II, the whole system for a Mk III. Outside
its range, a sector shows what the map last saw there, dimmed, with how long ago, such as 3 MIN. Exploring fills it
in. Every standing station’s sector is always shown live, wherever you are, since the stations report what’s
around them. Damage shrinks the map’s range.
Tap a sector to make it your destination, and again to clear it. The footer shows its range, what a jump there would cost, and your energy.
Impulse
Ordinary flight: follow the white destination marker on the HUD. Crossing a sector at top speed takes 100 seconds.
Hyperwarp
The fast way, aimed by hand, as in the original. With a destination in another sector set:
- Tap WARP. The drive spools up for 4 seconds, engines at full. Tap ABORT to call it off.
- Keep the white destination marker under the crosshair. The drive makes the nose wander, so keep correcting.
- The ship jumps along its nose, as far as the destination is away. Steering is much gentler during the jump, but keep correcting: any error lands you off target, and the longer the jump, the farther off.
A sector’s center is always clear of its field, and a station’s bay faces it, so arriving on target is safe and puts you near the station. You pass through everything during a jump, and the guns are silent.
A jump costs energy, charged as it starts: 100, plus 8 a kilometer.
| Jump | Energy |
|---|---|
| One sector | 180 |
| From H8 to the edge | 700 |
| Corner to corner | about 1,680, more than a standard fuel cell holds |
A Mk II hyperdrive cuts the cost by a quarter and a Mk III by half; a damaged one costs more and wanders more. Energy also runs your shields, so a long jump leaves you weaker in a fight, and a fight can leave too little to jump home.
Warriors chasing you to where you were last seen are shaken by a jump, unless a scout trails you there. Morgons out with you follow you through it.