The voyage & chart

The voyage#

Fly your freighter across five acts, one region at a time. Each act is a chart of waypoints: sail toward the exit, where the region's boss waits. Every passage costs crystal (fuel) and provisions, and the pressure front creeps closer.

Lit waypoints — ports, mageholds, refineries — show from anywhere. Dark sky must be scouted with the Lookout, though some dark waypoints carry a penciled clue (smoke, sails, lights), and ports add more. A gold star is a prize under guard: an elite ship, and a fitting, a fine gun or a hoard for whoever beats her.

Each region's chart runs four or five lanes deep: lanes fork and cross, so you choose which way to fly. Lit places are fewer than dark sky, but one always lies within a few passages of wherever you are.

Click a waypoint to set your course: it is ringed in red, the passage is marked in, and its cost is shown beside it; Set sail (or Enter) goes. A parcel in a contract's color marks the port it is bound for, and the chart panel lists every contract aboard. After Undock you can still go back ashore, until you set sail.

Supercharge (on the course card, or S) pushes the Drive for one passage: the front does not move at all. It costs 1 crystal for every 10 t the ship weighs, on top of the passage. You get one an act at Drive 1–2, two at Drive 3–4 and three from Drive 5, never two in three passages, not while Overweight and not running dark. The push may strain the Drive: the next fight then starts with a Drive bar damaged, unless you reach a dock or stop to make repairs first. The dashed line on the chart shows where the front will be after the passage you have chosen.

Make repairs (on the flight deck or the chart, or R) keeps the ship where she is for a passage and puts the whole crew to work on the hull. It costs the passage's meals and extra rations (1 for each point mended, at most 1 for every two who eat), and silver for the timber and tar: the dock's price for the hull mended, 5% less for each point of Repair skill among the crew aboard, down to half price. The front comes on as if you had flown the passage. One stop mends the damage, up to half the hull's maximum, and you pay only for the points mended. The Clockwork Deck chief, Tar & Oakum, Tinker Crabs, Hull Beetles, a stone mage or a Shaper each mend a point or two for no silver. Away from towns, something may come across a ship lying still. A Drive strained by a supercharge is eased too. Once at each waypoint.

At each Harbor between acts, the shipyard offers one free reward: reinforced hull planking (+4 maximum hull), supplies, or a pouch of silver.

Every voyage has a seed—chosen randomly unless you enter one on the New Voyage screen. Using the same seed with the same ship, layout, captain, and difficulty generates the exact same map, crew, and encounters. Seeded voyages count toward the Captain's Record like any other run.

The front#

The pressure front (the Collector's sweep in the Low Lanes, the Hush everywhere else) comes on from the left of the chart every passage. Waypoints behind it are under the front, and they are deadly: nearly every arrival there is a fight, whether you have been there before or not (now and then the front throws up something else: a ship caught in it, castaways, a checkpoint, a squall, a guide who knows its lanes), with the front's own hazards in it (the Collector's long guns firing from the haze, or Hush pulses that strip wards and silence rooms) and the Hearth burning low. A waypoint the front rolls over with you on it catches you.

The longer you stay in, the worse it gets: from the second passage in a row the ships are elite, and on the third the front's pursuer runs you down, a ship far beyond your weight. Charge the Drive and break away. Spoils in the front are thin.

A few places become hideouts once the front has passed over them: a fog-bound cove, a leadglass grotto, a refuge with a lamp still burning. No fight waits there, the count of passages in the front starts again, and once the crew can make camp: patch the ship with their own hands, rest, or take what the place has to offer. Something always happens while you are there.

Safe anchorages are found the same way: an anchorage is only there once the front has passed over it (until then the waypoint is open sky, a wreck, a crystal outcrop or a storm cell, like any other). No fight waits there and the crew get a night at rest, but unlike a hideout it does not set the count of passages in the front back: the count stays as it is.

They say the front uncovers things it passes over, if you are brave or foolish enough to go back for them.

Weight & fuel#

Rooms, plating, weapons, a few fittings, cargo and bolts past the first 20 all weigh something, and Ship → Cargo lists each one. Crew, crystal, provisions and constructs weigh nothing. Over 90% of lift you are Heavy: +1 crystal per passage and −5% evasion. Over 100% you are Overweight: she still flies, at +1 more crystal a passage for every tenth of her lift she is over, and −10% evasion in battle. Cargo jettisoned from the hold (Ship → Cargo) counts at once. Flying the High route costs +1 crystal but avoids ground batteries and many patrols. Ley currents make each passage cheaper.

Crystal grows scarce from Act III. In Acts IV and V dead air gives no lift: a passage into or out of dead weather costs 1 more. Refineries turn your crystal into flasks and run steam baths for the crew; anchorages burn it in the stoves for a second night's rest.

Your crystal rides in the racks along the Keel: 30 at Keel 1 and 10 more for every level above it. The Crystal Racks fitting holds 20 more.

The higher levels of the magical systems (the Keel, the Ward Loom, the Casting Room and the Construct Bay), and Hearth Flow past 10, are charged with crystal as well as silver: it comes out of your fuel.

Events#

A tagged option needs someone particular aboard, and names who answers it. Grayed options say who could ("Needs a stone mage"): recruit that crewmate and choices like it open up. The small chips show what an option costs and what it gives or takes: silver, supplies, items, crew, healing, heat and standing. A dashed chip happens only on some outcomes.

Waypoints#

Guild ranks#

Waypoint

A map node (port, wreck, storm, quarry, magehold, or open sky). Flying to a connected waypoint takes 1 passage.

Passage

The move from one waypoint to the next on the map. Each passage uses crystal (fuel) and provisions (food), and advances the pursuing enemy front by 1 step.

The front

The pursuing threat advancing from left to right across the map with every passage (the Collector's sweep in Act I; the Hush in Acts II–V). Waypoints overtaken by the front trigger hard fights.

Crystal

Ship fuel. Traveling between waypoints uses crystal, and activating constructs in battle uses crystal. If you run out, you drift and the enemy front catches up.

Provisions

Crew food. Consumed on every passage. If you run out, your crew starve and take damage each passage.

Silver

Currency used to buy repairs, supplies, crew, weapons, and ship upgrades, or to pay off your ship's debt.

The debt

The loan you owe the Carriers' Guild in Act I. Pay it off at a Guild port office, or fight the Collector boss at the Act I exit.

Region

A map zone (1 per Act across a 5-Act run), each with its own factions, weather, and end-of-act boss.

The Harbor

The safe hub port between Acts where your crew rest, get a free refit bonus, and access full shipyard services before choosing the next region.