How to play
Open space, no lanes, no walls — just a drifting asteroid field. The ship fires itself
the way you tuned it: fly with the stick, work the throttle, and shatter rocks for
score. Rocks that crash into each other break into smaller rocks; the small ones just
bounce. Past the first stretch, pirates fly the same field: chaser saucers wake and
hunt, watcher pods drift like rocks and fire aimed plasma, strafers sweep the top lane —
and the field fights them too: a rock breaks on a pirate hull and batters it, for your
score. Deeper still come the capitals: corvettes that turn, charge with a burning bow,
and fire a lance that obliterates everything on its line — step off it while they charge
— and frigates crossing on a broadside pass with twin turrets and a limited rack of
homing torpedoes.
-
🕹 stick — drag to fly: left and right, and up and down the screen — the ship
stays where you put it
-
throttle — + and − on a keyboard: how fast the field flows past (and where a
fresh drift opens on the screen)
-
⏸ — centre bottom (or Space): the frame holds exactly where it is and the ship
grows large as its own console — drag the turret dials to aim, tap a mount to switch a
gun, read the systems and stocks; Space again resumes
-
🚀 missiles — a rack of three, bottom left: press, the frame freezes, tap an
asteroid or a pirate — the missile homes in and vaporizes everything in its blast for
double score; salvage crates reload the rack
-
◈ shield & systems — the shield eats hits until it fails; with it down, big
rocks end the drift while small ones damage the system on the side they strike (nose →
cannon, wings → turrets, stern → engine). Wrecked systems bleed hits into life support
— at zero the drift ends. The crew slowly repairs the worst damage.
-
◎ shield pulse — above the missile tube (or E): a panic nova every 30 seconds
that clears everything close — rocks, raiders, plasma, torpedoes — staggering the
capitals. It pays no score; it saves your hull.
-
🎇 flares — automatic decoys: a torpedo closing in pops one, and torpedoes
chase the flare instead. Four in stock; salvage restocks them.
On a keyboard: ← ↑ → ↓ or WASD fly, + − work the throttle, E fires the pulse, P opens
the config, Space pauses (and resumes) — after a death it starts the next drift
· R restarts anytime.
Blockades
Every 2000 m a ⚔ capital bars the way and the drift slows to a crawl —
waiting never breaks a blockade, guns do. The line rotates: the destroyer volleys
aimed plasma, fighters and torpedoes; the cruiser fires its torpedoes in
pairs, both tubes at once; the battleship hides behind a broadside of
cannons that must be silenced first — its hull deflects everything while any
cannon lives. Every 6000 m the whole task group arrives in formation:
carrier, battleship and destroyer with corvette escorts — the carrier launching fighters
and punishing anything inside its deck guns. Flares and the ◎ pulse earn their keep, the
rock field chips every hull, missiles lock any of them. Each capital pays on its own
kill; the last one breaks the blockade for the lump, the haul and the waystation.
The worlds on the way
Midway between blockades a world drifts through the field — fly into it and the run
dives to its surface. They rotate: the magma planet (spouts that
arc under gravity), the ice moon (geysers that fly
straight and fast), the gas giant (storm cells bursting in
full circles, dense but slow). Every vent glows before it erupts — watch the
ground, not just the sky. Down there an alien mining operation works the seams:
ore-hauling miners (civilians — but their scrap spills when broken, and every protector
turns on you), escort fighters, gunners lobbing the world's own hazard, and
missile-defense turrets that swat your 🚀 out of the air. At the vault a
warden rises — obsidian, glacial or tempest: break it and the
ancient core is yours — a big score and a permanent
⚛ reactor overcharge past the stock cap. Grabbing the core flies you back up to
the drift exactly where you left it; skipping a world costs nothing but the prize.
Scrap & the waystation
▣ Scrap is material, not score: rocks shattered by fire sometimes shed a chunk
(the big rocks shed the most), every pirate kill sheds some, and a broken blockade pays
a lump. Past every broken blockade a ⬡ waystation drifts down to meet you — fly
into its dock and spend: repair the whole ship (life support included — billed by
the damage, so a scratch is cheap and a wreck is not), restock missiles and flares, buy
modules off the rack (weapon modules, then drones, then the dear ⚛ overcharge) — or the
big one: wing mounts, extra hardpoints bolted to the wingtips (two on the
fighter), fixed-aim ahead, each upgradable like any mount and each dearer than the last
— a blockade's lump never buys one; a station or two of everything else forgone does.
New mounts join the reactor budget — more guns thin every gun's power, and ⚛ overcharges
are how a broadside build keeps its pace. And the biggest buy of all: the
⬆ corvette — a bigger hull (and a bigger target) with two more wing hardpoints,
four in all; everything you fitted carries over. Miss the dock and the station is gone
until the next blockade.
The reactor
Three weapon mounts — a forward cannon and a turret on each wing, aim adjustable — share
three units of power. Every mount you switch off makes the rest fire faster: two run at
1.5×, one runs at 3×. All off is allowed; distance still scores. Salvaged
⚛ reactor modules overcharge the budget itself — up to five units — and the whole
battery quickens.
Chains & salvage
Destruction chains: every rock you shatter and every pirate you break inside the window
grows an xN multiplier on the next payout — rams and lucky collisions never
chain. Broken pirates drop salvage. Supplies restock on the spot:
🚀 crates reload a missile, ◈ charges restore the shield projector,
🎇 flares restock the countermeasures. Weapon modules freeze the frame
into an install chooser — the ship itself, every mount a target on the hull: a lit mount
is an upgrade, a dim one a refit, and ⬆ UPGRADE (or Enter) fits the module to the
best upgrade in one tap. Every run opens with three level-1 bolt mounts, and it is one
weapon type per mount: fit a bolt, beam or scatter module to a
mount of the same type and it levels up (harder and faster, to level 3) — and one more
of the same type opens the next mark: Mark II starts over at level 1 but already
out-hits the old level 3, with a new bolt shape and a wider beam, then Mark III (a Mark
III level 3 mount is maxed); fit a new type and the mount refits to Mark I; or scrap it
for score. 🛸 drone modules deploy companions that orbit the craft and fire their
own guns in tandem — three drones, then the wing levels up — and
⚛ reactor modules overcharge the power budget. Everything resets with the run:
the drift is a fresh build every time.