Player contracts

Jobs on a board every pilot shares: take one, fly a ship with the parts it asks for into the orbit it names, to the place it says to land, or to the ship it names to dock, hand the ship over, and the reward is yours. Or post your own, and the ship comes to you.

A board every pilot shares

The company contracts are dealt to you alone. Player contracts are different: they hang on one board that every pilot in the shared world reads, and a contract somebody takes is gone from everyone else's board until it is done or fails (a race stays on it while it is open to take: see Destroying a ship). The board opens from the Administration once it is at level 2, with a second button on its sheet, Player contracts.

Each card is one glance: the title and what it pays you (+1,900 cr, the fee already taken off), the world and the band of orbit or the place on the ground it wants, the parts the ship has to carry, the poster's record, the two clocks and the penalty. A card never names who posted it. What it shows instead is how that poster has behaved: Poster: 4 posted · 3 paid · 0 cancelled.

A card that asks for a part you have not unlocked stays on the board in amber, with no button, and says which part: it is a hint at what to research next.

Taking one

The Administration says how many you may hold at once: 2 at level 2 and 4 at level 3. The line under the board's title counts them: Rating 640 · fair · Holding 1 / 2.

Taking a contract costs nothing, but it sets the penalty aside: that many credits leave your purse the moment you accept, and come back when you deliver. You need them in hand to take it. Once taken, the contract is yours alone and nothing in it changes, unless it is a race, which other pilots may hold beside you (Destroying a ship).

Your pilot rating decides what you are shown. A poster may ask for a minimum rating, from 250 up to 1,000, and a contract asking for more than yours is simply not on your board. Under 250 no contract can be taken at all: the open ones are hidden and an amber card, No contracts for now, says why. The contracts you already hold carry on either way. The rating is the same one that prices insurance cover, and it climbs back on its own a little every day.

Delivering

Any ship of yours that carries every part a contract asks for can fill it, one already flying as much as one you launch for the job. Fly it to the world the card names and put it into the band: its low point and high point both have to sit inside the heights the card gives. If the card asks for a resource, enough of it has to be aboard, and none of your Meek may be: the ship is handed over empty of crew, flown by its probe core.

While you fly a ship that carries a contract's parts, a CONTRACT button sits under MAP, amber, counting the lines it meets: CONTRACT 4 / 5. Tapping it opens the checklist, every line with what is asked and what the ship has, and under them the one thing to do next — Raise the low point above 300 km. When every line is met the button turns green and reads DELIVER.

Deliver hands the ship over: it leaves your fleet for good, and any cover you had on it ends. You receive the reward less a 5% fee, the penalty you set aside comes back, and your rating rises 10 — at most once a day for any one poster, and three times a day in all. A ship that fills two contracts you hold fills one: the sheet asks which.

A rocket carrying several satellites delivers them one at a time. Separate them, and after the first is handed over, control passes to another ship of the flight; take each satellite in turn and deliver it.

Landing at a place

Some contracts ask for a landing instead of an orbit, and their card reads like Moon surface · within 10 km of 30°. The ship has to stand on that world, at rest on the ground, no further from the place than the distance given, either way along the surface. Flying low over it does not count, and neither does touching down and bouncing on.

The angle says where on the world. You do not need to work it out: the map marks the place of every landing contract you hold on its world's edge, a cyan diamond with the stretch of ground that counts traced beside it, and the contract's name once the world is drawn big enough. It turns with the world, as the launch pad does. In flight, the checklist's place line says how far from it you stand, or not landed while you are in the air.

Docking contracts

A docking contract asks for a module brought to a ship and docked to it: its card reads Dock to and the ship's name, with the world it flies around. The module has to carry the parts asked for and be held to that ship by a docking port when you deliver it. It is handed over as it is, still docked, and becomes the poster's own; it stays a ship of its own beside theirs.

The ship you are sent to is on your map while you hold the contract, and it stays open to you whatever its owner's switch says, so you can always dock with it. Docking with another player's ship takes cover on both, as it always does. Deliver it from the flight as any contract: it leaves your fleet then, and the poster's ship keeps it.

If the ship you are sent to is gone, lands, has no docking port left or loses its cover, or has every docking port taken by someone else's ship when your time runs out, the miss is not yours: your penalty comes back and your rating does not move. When it was the poster's doing (their ship recovered, landed, left without a port, uncovered because their pilot rating fell, or its ports filled with ships of their own) you are also paid 30% of the reward, as if they had cancelled. A port your own ship holds is yours to clear. A collision counts only for what it did: a ship destroyed, or its docking ports broken off, is nobody's doing, unless your own ship did it, and then the miss is yours.

You post one from the ship that will receive it: a free docking port's sheet has Post a docking contract. With the reward you set aside the ship's cover for the contract's whole life, so the cover cannot run out under a taker; it stays on the ship whatever becomes of the contract. While the contract stands, other players see the ship marked CONTRACT on their maps, never your tag. Keep it flying, covered and with a port free for the module: recovering it while a pilot holds the contract ends it as your cancellation, and so does a ship still landed, left without a docking port, uncovered because your pilot rating fell under 250, or with its free ports taken by ships of your own, when the pilot's time runs out.

Carrying a Meek

A passenger contract asks you to carry one of its poster's Meek: its card reads like Carry Doss Nix to GATEWAY · from the Space Center, or Carry Doss Nix home to Earth · from OUTPOST. The board's Meek button lists these alone.

A passenger waiting at the Space Center joins you as soon as you take the contract: they are on your roster as a passenger, to seat in the hangar like any tourist, and they never fly the ship. One waiting aboard a ship comes over when your ship is docked to theirs or a spacewalk away: the checklist then has a button to take them aboard, named for them (Take Doss Nix aboard), and they are seated in the first free seat. Deliver them where the card says, landed on Earth or beside the ship they are going to, and they leave your ship there; your ship stays yours.

If the contract fails or you give it up, the passenger goes home. If they are lost on the way, the contract fails at once: a ship that carries somebody else's Meek is flown with care. The ships the card names are on your map while you hold it, and open to you while their owner's cover runs where cover is needed: dock with the ship, or come within a spacewalk of it, to take the passenger aboard or let them off. If one of them is gone before you arrive (the ship you are taking them to, or the one they wait on before they board), lands, or has no free seat for them when your time runs out, the miss is not yours: the passenger goes home, your penalty comes back, and you are paid 30% of the reward, as if its poster had cancelled. A collision is judged by whose ship did it: your own ship's makes the miss yours, the poster's makes it theirs as above, and another pilot's makes it nobody's, which gives your penalty back with no 30%. That holds for the passenger too: lost because another pilot's ship broke yours, or broke off their seat, they are still lost, but the contract ends as nobody's doing instead of failing.

To post one, choose Carry a Meek under The ship must, then Who, one of your Meek at the Space Center or aboard one of your ships, and To, another ship of yours or, from a ship, home to Earth. Your Meek is away while the contract runs, and back with you at its end, however it ends, unless they are lost.

Destroying a ship

Some contracts ask for a ship to be destroyed: the card reads like Destroy ROGUE SAT · Earth, it asks for no part, and any ship of yours will do. While one is open to you, the board has a Destroy button that lists these alone. You cannot post one yourself.

The ship is on your map while you hold the contract, marked CONTRACT, and open to you, so it is solid when you meet it. There is no weapon: you ram it, again and again if it takes that, until it breaks up. The moment your ship destroys it you are paid, the fee taken off and your penalty back, with nothing to deliver; with notifications on, your phone tells you even if the game is shut. Ramming the ship you were paid to destroy costs you no rating, though your own ship takes the knocks as in any collision.

If another pilot destroys it first, or it is gone some other way, the miss is not yours: your penalty comes back and the contract ends. If it is still flying when your time runs out, the contract fails as any other does.

Some are races: the card says so, and how many pilots are already after it, never who. A race stays on the board after somebody takes it, so several pilots may hold it at once while it is open to take, each setting the penalty aside and each with their own clock from the moment they took it. The first to destroy the ship is paid. Everyone else in the race gets their penalty back, loses no rating, and is told the contract was completed by another pilot; it leaves their list. Your own clock running out, or giving up, is a miss as for any contract, and the race goes on without you.

The clock is real time

A contract has two clocks. The first is how long it stays open to take: a few hours to a few days, on the card as Take within 3d 0h. The second starts when you take it and is how long you have to deliver: from an hour to 30 days. Both run in real days, whether the game is open or not, and the card turns amber in the last hours. With notifications on, your phone reminds you a day before and an hour before.

Thirty days is shorter than the cheapest trip to any planet, so a contract at a planet is for a ship that is already there, or for a warp drive.

Posting your own

The board takes work from every pilot, yours included. Post a contract at the foot of the board opens the form: a name other pilots see, an orbit or a place to land, the parts the ship must carry — only parts you have unlocked yourself — and, if you like, a resource it must have aboard; then the reward, the penalty a taker sets aside, who may see it, how long it is open to take and how long a taker then has. You may have as many posted at once as you may hold.

The reward is set aside when you post: it leaves your purse at once, and that is what the taker is paid from. It is capped by what getting it there costs: at most 3 times the launch of everything you ask for to that world's orbit or ground, by its weight, plus the price of the parts and resources themselves. The farther the world and the heavier the load, the higher the cap: a landing costs more than an orbit of the same world, and the giants and the edge of the system the most. A passenger weighs 80 kg and counts as 1,000 credits, priced at whichever end of their trip is farther to launch to. The slider stops at the cap. The taker receives it less the fee; the ship they deliver becomes yours, in your fleet like any other.

While nobody has taken it, Withdraw gives every credit back, and a contract nobody takes in time gives them back by itself. Once a pilot has taken it, the card under YOUR POSTS says who — their tag, their rating and how many contracts they have delivered and failed — and taking it back costs: Cancel keeps you 40% of the reward, the taker is paid 30% and gets their penalty back, the rest is gone, and your record counts the cancellation for every pilot to see. If the taker misses the deadline, the whole reward comes back to you.

A ship that has just been delivered fills no other contract for 7 days, so it cannot be passed back and forth.

Your phone tells you how your contracts go while the game is shut: when one is taken, when its ship is delivered to you, and when one closes without a ship, with what came back (News from the world).

Missing one

If the clock runs out, the contract fails. The penalty you set aside is gone — paid to nobody — and your rating falls 50. Giving one up from the board costs exactly the same, at once; Give up arms on the first tap and names the price in red, and goes through on the second. Either way it may go back on the board for other pilots, or close and give its reward back to whoever posted it.

A contract you have delivered is not offered to you again.