Welcome to Orbital Frontier
You build rockets out of parts, fly them on real orbits, and climb from a hop over the pad to the far moons of one shared solar system that never stops turning. This is the manual.
What the game is
Every player flies in the same solar system on the same clock. A ship you leave in orbit tonight is still there tomorrow, further along its orbit, and a ship you left tumbling is still tumbling. Nothing you do pauses the world, and nothing anybody else does moves your ships.
The game runs on credits and discovery. Every launch costs the rocket's price the moment its first engine lights, and bringing a rocket home whole refunds what came back. Feats earn both currencies: reaching a height, landing somewhere new, testing a part for a company. Credits buy launches, buildings and crew. Discovery buys tech nodes, and tech nodes are new parts. The ladder is the same for everyone: a hop, an orbit, the Moon, Mars, and beyond, and each rung needs a rocket the last one could not build.
The rockets are honest. An engine pushes harder in vacuum than at sea level, a wing lifts on a real curve and stalls, air heats a hull, and the ground is hills and slopes that a rocket can tip over on. None of that is hidden: the hangar shows the figures, and this manual explains them.
Never flown a rocket before, and words like periapsis and TWR mean nothing to you? Start with Space school: eleven short lessons that explain the ideas from scratch and give you a flight to prove each one.
Where to start
How the manual is organised
Every page is one of a few kinds, and the sidebar groups them:
| Section | Answers | Read it when |
|---|---|---|
| Getting started | What is this, and how do I begin? | First hour |
| Space school | What is TWR? What is an orbit? | New to rockets |
| How the game works | Why does it behave like that? | Something surprised you |
| How do I… | How do I do one specific thing? | Game open, thumb hovering |
| Reference | What are this part's figures? | Planning a rocket |
| The worlds | What is that place like? | Picking a destination |
| Help | Quick answers and the words | Any time |
The search box at the top looks through every page, and a whole question works as well as a word: type can I refuel in orbit and the answer is the first thing listed. Press / on a keyboard to jump to it. Figures in the manual are read from the game's own data and checked against the version in the header chip.