FAQ
Short answers to the questions the game raises, each with the page that explains. The list grows with the manual.
New to all this
I have never played a space game. Where do I start?
Fly Your first flight, which takes ten minutes and explains nothing you do not need. Then read Space school: eleven short lessons on gravity, thrust, fuel, orbits and landing, each with a flight you can do to prove it.
What does TWR mean?
Thrust-to-weight ratio: how hard your engines push divided by how hard the world pulls on your rocket. Under 1.0 it cannot leave the pad. The hangar prints it in the top strip. See Thrust, weight and TWR.
What is Δv, and why is it in metres per second?
It is how much your ship can still change its speed, which is what actually limits a rocket: space has nothing to rub against, so distance is free and changing speed is not. Every destination has a price in m/s. See Fuel, Δv and Isp.
What are apoapsis and periapsis?
The highest and lowest points of your path around a world, marked AP and PE on the map. Burning at one of them moves the other. See The shape of an orbit.
I reached space and fell straight back down. What did I do wrong?
Nothing, except go the wrong way. Space is a height and orbit is a sideways speed: you have to be travelling fast enough across the world, not just high above it. See Orbit is sideways, not up.
Why does everybody tip the rocket over instead of flying straight up?
Because every second spent pointing straight up is a second of thrust spent fighting gravity rather than building the sideways speed an orbit is made of. See Getting into orbit.
Can I practise without spending credits?
Yes. Sandbox is your own copy of the sky: launches cost nothing, you can speed the clock up and save a flight to retry it, and nothing you do there is earned or spent. See Switch to sandbox.
Money and progress
Why won't my rocket fly?
One of four things. Your credits do not cover the rocket's price, which is charged when its first engine lights. Or the rocket is heavier or taller than your Launch Pad allows, and the hangar's readout says so. Or a pod aboard has no astronaut in it. Or you are signed in without an Online Pass, which the shared world needs; sandbox is always free. If it lifts off and a Launch refused sheet comes up, the game has said which of these it is, and the flight ends there with nothing charged. See The Space Center for the pad's limits and the Launch Pad's levels.
What does a launch cost?
The rocket's price: every part's cost added up, shown as Cost in the hangar's top strip. Standing on the pad is free. It is charged the moment the first stage fires, once per launch. See Your first flight.
Do I get anything back?
Yes, if the rocket comes home whole. A rocket standing still on Earth's ground can be recovered from the flight menu, and every part still aboard is refunded, along with any of your debris lying within 2 km of it. A crash refunds nothing. See Your first flight.
How do I keep earning discovery once the achievements are gone?
Measure places you have not measured, and fly research contracts. The first time an instrument reads a given place — a world, a band of altitude, and on the ground the biome you are in — you are paid for it, and there are hundreds of them across the system. Research contracts pay discovery for a reading a company names, and they keep coming back to the Administration's board. See Science and readings and Research work pays discovery.
I can't afford the next tech node and don't know what to do. Where's the discovery?
Tap the node on the tech tree, then Where to earn … more discovery on its card. It lists every source still open to you — contracts paying discovery, places nobody has measured, achievements you can build for — with what each pays. See Find more discovery.
The same contract asked for 3 km yesterday and 6 km today. Is that a bug?
No. Most jobs leave their figures open, and each offer draws its own: a height, a number of parts, how long to hold a burn. The harder the figure, the more the offer pays. What the row says is what your flight is judged on. See Figures that change from offer to offer.
I took another reading in the same spot and got nothing. Why?
A place pays once per instrument. The second reading is still filed in your log, but the discovery was for being there first. Fly higher, land somewhere else, or bring the other instrument. See Science and readings.
Does my scientist make a new place pay more?
No. A scientist raises what a reading achievement pays; a place is worth the same whoever is aboard, because it pays for the flight getting there. See The Meek.
What is the Programme, and do I have to follow it?
It is the ordered chain of missions at the top of the contract board, and it is the game telling you what to fly next — 66 of them in 10 chapters, from a hop off the pad to a relay network at four worlds. You never have to fly one: it takes no advance, has no deadline, cannot be failed, and any mission can be skipped for nothing. See Contracts and the Programme.
A Programme mission wants three relays "held for a week". How do I do that?
You do not fly it — you build it and leave it. The game counts your fleet whether the app is open or not, and pays when the count has stood for the days it asks. Any break puts the clock back to zero, so a relay whose battery dies in eclipse stops the count until the sun comes back. See The Programme and Electricity.
I skipped a Programme mission. Have I broken the chain?
No. A skipped mission is gone for good and its reward is never paid, but everything that was waiting behind it opens exactly as if you had flown it. Nothing in the Programme can dead-end. See Skip a Programme mission.
I have plenty of credits and still cannot buy anything. What am I missing?
Discovery, almost certainly. Credits buy launches, buildings and crew; nothing on the tech tree is bought with them. Most discovery is paid the first time you do a thing, so a programme that keeps flying the same profitable trip banks money and stops progressing. Go and do something you have not done. See Find more discovery and From the pad to Mars.
What should I fly next?
Whatever the Programme at the top of the contract board names — it is the game's own answer and following it works. If you would rather see the whole arc and spend ahead of it, From the pad to Mars lays out every act from the first hop to standing on Mars, with what to buy before each one.
What is discovery for?
Tech nodes. Credits buy launches, buildings and crew; discovery buys the nodes on the tech tree, and a node is what puts new parts in the palette. Achievements pay both; an ordinary contract pays credits, a research contract and a Programme mission pay both. See The Space Center.
Is there a Launch Pad on the Moon or Mars?
No. There is one Launch Pad, on Earth, and every building stands once, there, for your whole game: the pad, the Research Centre, the Administration, the Astronaut Center and the Comm Station. See The Space Center.
Why can't I see other players' ships on my map?
Your Comm Station is still at level 1. Other players' ships go on your map from level 2, which needs the Deep Space Comms node; your own ships are on it at every level, and so is the ship a player contract you hold sends you to. See the Comm Station's entry and Other players' ships.
Why is there no Comm Station on the Moon?
There is one home station and it is on Earth, beside the one Launch Pad, so everything out of Earth's sight is reached through relay satellites of your own — which is the reason to build a network at all. See Communications and Keep a probe in contact.
Why can't I launch from the Moon or Mars?
Because the only Launch Pad in the game is on Earth. The hangar's Fly button always goes straight to it; a ship on another world got there by flying, and leaves the same way. See The Space Center.
A red COLLISION COURSE chip appeared in flight. What do I do?
Another player's ship that is solid to you will come within the world's collision distance of yours, faster than a docking approach, in the time the chip shows. If you set that course, you are the one at fault when the ships meet: you lose rating and your ship is not rebuilt. If they did, their ship is the one that pays. Either way the safe move is a burn that opens the pass; the chip clears as soon as the two orbits no longer meet. See Insurance cover, claims and pilot rating.
Why is every other player's ship a ghost to me?
Your ship carries no insurance cover. Turn on Insurance cover (or Open to other players) on a command part's sheet in flight: the switch shows the premium for the next 24 hours, and confirming it buys the cover; each renewal after that is priced from where the ship is then. You need the First dock achievement, enough credits for the premium and a pilot rating of 250 or more. Under 250 you can still fly, and salvaging another player's wreck brings the rating back. Your rating is under Account in Settings. See Insurance cover, claims and pilot rating.
Another player broke my station. Do I pay for it?
No. If the station carried cover (an open ship always does), the insurer puts it back as it stood: about an hour later around Earth, three around the Moon, a day around Mars. The pilot who broke it loses rating, which makes their own cover dearer. Crew are not insured, but their loss is not held against you and each one earns a free hire of the same trade. See Insurance cover, claims and pilot rating.
Can I sell fuel to other players?
Yes. Share your station's resources, then put a price on each one from its command part: visitors pay you for what they take, and you pay them for what they bring, if you set a buying price. The player who asks for a transfer pays a 5% fee on top, which leaves the game. See Put prices on your station.
Building
Can I save a satellite once and put it on other rockets?
Yes: save it as a sub-assembly. Build it on its own, tap the satellite on the hangar's bottom bar, name it and tap Save. From then on a tap on its picture there puts a copy beside whatever rocket you are building, ready to drag on. See Save and reuse a sub-assembly.
There are rockets in my ship library I never built. Where did they come from?
A new game starts with a few ready-made rockets in your ships (the rocket on the hangar's bottom bar), so there is something to fly before you have built anything. They are ordinary designs: fly them, change them or delete them, and a deleted one does not come back. One that needs a part you have not discovered yet shows up once you have it. Your sub-assemblies (the satellite beside it) can start with a few ready-made pieces the same way. See Your account.
How do I get a part out of the palette?
Tap a category tab to open the parts drawer, then pull a part sideways out of the drawer onto the canvas. A vertical drag scrolls the list instead, and a long press opens the part's info card. See Building a rocket.
Why does my part snap somewhere I did not want?
Parts join at their attachment points, and a part let go near one snaps to the nearest that fits. Drag it a little further from the point you do not want, or drop it on empty canvas and try again. See Building a rocket.
How do I take one part off a finished rocket?
Press and hold it. A third of a second is enough: a ring fills at the joint above it, and when it closes that part — with everything still hanging off it — comes away in your hand. A plain drag moves the whole rocket instead, joints and all. See Building a rocket.
How do I delete a part I have already placed?
Hold it for a moment to break it off, then drag it off the side of the canvas. On a desktop, right-clicking it deletes it too. Dragging a whole ship off the side puts it back rather than deleting it; the trash can at the top right clears the build. See Building a rocket.
How do I put a narrow pod on a wide tank?
With an Adapter, sold by Wide Stacks on Tier 5 of the tech tree. It is a cone of tank whose two ends you size yourself, from 2 m to 8 m each, so it steps an 8 m Fuel Tank L down to a 4 m pod, or a 4 m tank down to a 2 m booster, and holds fuel while it does. See Set an adapter's widths.
How do I make a fuel tank longer?
Tap the tank, tap it again to open its sheet, and move the Length slider. Mass and capacity follow the length. See Resize a tank.
How do I mount something halfway up a part instead of on its end?
Offer it to the part's flank rather than its top or bottom. A fuel tank's side and both sides of a beam are a line, not a single spot, so whatever you drop against one stays at the height you let it go. See Building a rocket.
What are beams for? They do not do anything.
That is the point: a beam is bare frame, so it gives you somewhere to bolt things a plain stack has no room for — an engine below a gap, legs out past the tanks, an arm for a station. They are also the toughest parts in the game, rated to between 1200 g and 1500 g, to ground strikes of 60 to 80 m/s and to 3500 K, so the frame is never what breaks. See Parts: Beams and Build with beams.
Is there an empty part I can put where a tank would go?
Yes: the BX-6 Stack Truss, sold by Stack Trusses on the tech tree. It is a tank wide, holds nothing and stretches like one; being all metal, it weighs a little more than an empty tank. It carries no fuel either, so draw a fuel line across it if an engine below has to reach a tank above. See Parts: Beams.
How do I get a beam to drop off?
You cannot: a beam has nothing to stage and nothing to fire. Put a Decoupler or a Separator between it and the rest of the rocket, and stage that. See Staging.
My engine will not burn the tank on the other side of a beam.
A beam carries no fuel, and neither does a pod. Draw a fuel line from the tank to the engine, or to a tank the engine already reaches. See Draw a fuel line.
How do I make the side boosters empty before the core?
Draw a fuel line from each side tank into the core. The side tanks then keep the core full while every engine burns, the side engines stop drinking from the core, and the core is still full when you drop them. See Empty the side tanks first.
Where are my fuel lines in flight?
Still there. Fuel lines are drawn only in the hangar, where you build with them; in flight they carry fuel exactly the same and nothing shows them. See Where the fuel goes.
All my solid boosters run out at the same moment. Why?
Because they were all cast the same way, and a booster's burn is set in the hangar, not by how it flies. Every booster you place starts at the same Length and the same Burn rate, so every one of them lasts the same time. Make one longer and it burns proportionally longer at the same thrust; wind one's Burn rate up and it pushes harder and finishes sooner. Each case holds its own grain and nothing pools between them. See Solid boosters.
How do I make one pair of boosters drop before another?
Cast them to different burn times, then give each pair's decouplers a stage of its own. See Stagger two boosters' burnout.
I made a booster longer and it did not push any harder.
That is right: the nozzle is cast into the base and is the same size however much grain is stacked above it, so a longer case is a longer burn, not a harder one. The Burn rate slider is the one that changes the push. See Solid boosters.
How do I put a fin on both sides at once?
Mirror it. The two fins are then linked, and moving one moves the other. See Mirror a part.
What does the Stages list do?
It is the order things fire in flight. Each tap of STAGE runs the next entry: engines ignite, separators let go, a parachute deploys or is cut. See Staging.
Why won't the game take my ship's name?
A ship name or visible name with a swear word or another rude word in it is refused, however it is spelt, because other players can see your ships' names. The line under the field says so and the old name stays; pick another one. See The ship library.
Why does FLY put my ship on its side?
Your ship stands on landing gear, so Fly takes it to the runway instead of the pad and lays it on its wheels, nose along the runway. Every ship is built nose-up, and an aeroplane flies nose-first along the ground. The flank the wheels hang from is turned down, so put them on the side away from the canopy. See Aeroplanes.
Where is the runway?
Beside the Launch Pad, on Earth: a strip of flat ground east of the tower, and part of the pad itself. Its length grows with the pad's level, from 300 m to 2400 m. Any ship standing on landing gear takes off from it. See The Space Center.
My aeroplane is too long for the runway. What can I do?
Upgrade the Launch Pad. The runway holds a ship to the pad's own caps: its MAX MASS, and its MAX HEIGHT as the longest ship it takes, since an aeroplane built nose-up in the hangar is as long lying down as it was tall standing up. A higher level lays a longer runway and takes a longer, heavier ship. See Buildings.
How do I make my aeroplane faster?
Raise the PR-9 Propeller Nose's Engine power, shorten the wing's Wingspan, and raise the gear once you are off the ground. Each one costs something: a bigger engine is heavier and burns more methane, so the aeroplane goes less far, and a shorter wing stalls at a higher speed and needs a longer run down the runway. See A faster aeroplane.
Flying
Why won't my propeller work on Mars?
A propeller burns its methane with oxygen it takes from the air, and Mars's air has none. A jet is the same. In space it has no air at all. The card's AIR row says it: Earth only. Fly rockets everywhere else. See Aeroplanes.
My aeroplane rolls down the runway and never lifts off.
The nose has to come up. At 30 m/s, hold the turn button that lifts the nose until PITCH reads 7°, and the wing does the rest. A tap is not enough: the tail's elevator springs back the moment you let go. Without a TL-1 Tail, an aeroplane has little to turn its nose with. See Flying an aeroplane.
My aeroplane's engine blew up when I landed.
The propeller touched the ground while it was spinning, and a spinning propeller that touches the ground destroys the engine at once. The blades reach past the cowling, so come down on the main wheels with the nose up a little, and do not let the nose tip onto the runway with the engine running. See Aeroplanes.
My aeroplane's nose drops back when I let go of the button.
That is the elevator springing back. The pitch buttons move it only while you hold them; let go and it returns to its trim within half a second. To make the aeroplane hold an attitude hands-off, set the tail's Elevator trim slider: Trim the elevator.
Why does my aeroplane show 0 m/s of Δv?
The Δv figures count what a rocket throws out of its nozzle, and a propeller throws nothing: it pushes on the air. An aeroplane's reach is its methane, its speed and its throttle instead. See Aeroplanes.
My aeroplane landed but will not stop.
The brakes hold only while the throttle is at zero. Slide it all the way down and the autobrake takes hold. If it still rolls, a wheel's Autobrake switch has been turned off on its sheet. See Raise and lower the landing gear.
My jet's engine runs but it will not move.
It has nothing to breathe through. A jet carries no oxygen and takes its air only through the air intakes aboard, so a ship with a JE-1 Jet Engine or a JT-1 Jet Tail and no AI-1 Air Intake makes no thrust at all. Put an intake at the nose. If it pushes, just weakly, the intake is too small for the engine: turn its Intake slider up or add another. See AI-1 Air Intake.
My jet will not go faster than the speed of sound.
Drag climbs steeply near Mach 1, and near the ground the air is too thick for the jet to push through it. Climb to about 12 km, keep the nose close to the direction you are flying, and leave the throttle open. For more, turn the jet's Thrust up and give it a bigger intake. See Aeroplanes: jets.
A part blew up with no warning. How do I see it coming?
Watch the left side of the flight screen. A HEAT or LOAD chip comes on, naming the part, once it is 60 % of the way to breaking, and from 85 % it turns red and an alarm sounds. It stays up 3 s after the danger passes, so even a moment's peak can be read. HEAT means slow down or climb into thinner air; LOAD means pull less hard. See Air, heat and speed.
My jet's fuselage burned up at Mach 2.
Its long side heats up that fast, meeting the air at the angle the wing flies at. Mach 2 is a dash: reach it high up, with as little nose-up as the wing allows, and come back down to a slower speed before the fuselage glows red. See Air, heat and speed.
My aeroplane's wheel blew up on the runway.
Its tyre burst. A tyre rolled along the ground faster than 85 m/s is lost. Touch down slower, with flaps out and the nose a few degrees up. See LG-1 Landing Gear.
The throttle is up but nothing happens.
On the pad the throttle does nothing until the first stage has fired. Tap STAGE; the engine lights and the throttle jumps to full on its own. See Your first flight.
I tap STAGE and nothing happens.
It is locked: a padlock shows over the word, and a line above the navball says so. Hold STAGE and pull up until the bubble pops to free it. If it keeps locking itself after every stage, Auto-lock staging is on in Settings → Flying. If the button is greyed instead, nobody aboard can stage: your pilot is blacked out, or a probe has lost its link. See Lock the stage button.
My throttle will not move.
It is locked. The yellow grip sits at the left end of the throttle's handle with a padlock beside it; slide the grip to the right to free it. If the throttle is greyed instead, nobody aboard can work it: your pilot is blacked out, or a probe has lost its link. See Lock the throttle.
My parachute tore off.
It opened too fast, too low in thick air. Open it once the rocket is falling and still high, or wait for the air to slow it. See Your first flight.
My parachute will not deploy.
A chute only opens in the air. Standing on the pad or landed, Deploy is dead and a stage that names it says so, because there is no airflow to fill a canopy. If the button is dead in flight the chute is already spent. See Landing and recovery.
Can I use a parachute twice?
Only with an engineer aboard. A canopy is spent once it is cut or once it collapses at touchdown, but the canister stays on the ship, and an Engineer can tap Repack on the part's sheet to fold it away for the next descent. See Landing and recovery.
There is no RECOVER in the menu.
The ship is still moving, or it is in pieces. RECOVER appears only while a whole ship stands still on the ground. See Your first flight.
Where did my dropped stage go?
It kept flying. A separated stage is a ship with nobody at the controls: a lit booster burns until it is spent, a stage with a chute keeps dragging, and anything falling breaks where it lands. See Staging.
My ion engine is lit, the xenon tank is full, and nothing happens.
The ship is out of power. An ion engine spends electricity as well as xenon, 2 u/s for the small one — more than eight SP-6 Twin Arrays make in sunlight — and it stops the moment the batteries are flat; the game says so once. A B-400 Battery Bank runs it for about three minutes. Carry a wall of arrays for long burns, or burn in pulses and let the arrays recharge between them. It also does next to nothing in air. See the Ion Engine and Electricity.
Why is the ion engine so weak?
That is the trade it makes. It pushes with 2 kN, a tenth of the smallest chemical engine, but gets ten times as much speed out of every kilogram it throws: a small probe gets about ten times the Δv out of an XT-1 Xenon Tank that the same weight of methalox would give it. Burns take minutes rather than seconds, so start them early. See the Ion Engine.
Why does the engine push harder in space?
Air presses on the bell. Every engine is quoted as a range, sea level to vacuum, and the info card shows both ends. See Air, heat and speed.
My part exploded with no warning.
It got too hot. Every part has its own temperature limit on its card, and a wing's is far lower than a tank's. Slow down before the air thickens, or put a heat shield in front. See Air, heat and speed.
Why doesn't my orbit change while I coast?
Because nothing pushes the ship. An orbit changes only under thrust; between burns it repeats itself exactly. See Orbits.
What is the ring around my orbit on the map?
A maneuver node being placed. Hold on the orbit line until the ring fills, then drag the node's handles to plan a burn. See Plan a maneuver node.
Tapping a planet on the map does nothing.
Hold your finger on it instead. A world is selected by a still press: a white ring fills around your finger and the world is picked when the ring closes. A plain tap only shows HOLD TO SELECT, so a tap meant for a ship flying over a planet never throws the camera onto the planet. Ships are still selected with a tap. See Look up a world.
Why was my ship gone when I came back?
The world kept going while the app was closed. A ship coasting in orbit was simply moved along it. A ship left in the air, or under thrust, was lost after a short grace. See Orbits.
Can I fly the booster I just dropped?
Only if it carries a Sat Controller, or a pod with a Meek seated in it. Then a switch button appears and you may take it over, or tap the piece itself and choose Take control on its sheet; otherwise it is debris. See Switch to a dropped stage.
Can I land a whole stage instead of throwing it away?
Yes, once you have Heat Tiles. Tile the side of the stage, hold that side into the wind on the way down, and the tank behind the tiles never heats at all — then recover it like any other landed ship and get every part refunded. See Bring a stage home on heat tiles.
Why did my rocket break on landing?
The part that met the ground was going faster than its own impact limit: a rocket that explodes the moment it touches down came down too fast on the wrong part. Land on legs or a shield, under a canopy, and slowly. See Landing and recovery.
Why can't I speed up time?
Everyone flies in the same solar system on the same clock, and no player can push it forward. Time warp exists only in sandbox, which is your own world and spends and earns nothing. What there is instead: every countdown on the map is real time with the clock time beside it, a node's panel says when its transfer arrives before you burn, and a reminder speaks on your phone when the moment comes. How long each leg takes is tabled on The shared world and its clock; past Mars, a warp drive is how the wait is paid for rather than sat through.
It is too dark to see where I am landing. What can I do?
Bring your own light. The night side of a world is dark on purpose, and an FL-30 Floodlight on the lander's flank lights the ground under you; aim it with its Aim slider and switch it on before you come down. See Light your ship at night.
Does a blinking light save power?
No. A lamp draws its power the whole time it is on, blinking or steady; only switching it off, or turning down its Brightness, draws less. See Night, lamps and shadows.
My big ship takes forever to turn. How do I point it without burning thruster propellant?
Put a reaction wheel in the stack: an RW-100, or an RW-500 on the wide stack. It turns the ship many times harder than a pod's own wheels and spends only charge, so bring a battery bank and panels to refill it. If it now turns too sharply, lower its Wheel strength. See Steer on reaction wheels.
My booster flips over on the way back down. How do I keep it engines-first?
Give it grid fins near the top, folded for the climb, and swing them out as it starts to fall. Falling engines-first, the top of the booster is its tail, and a fin there keeps it pointed and steers it with your turn input. Folded, they add no drag or heat on the way up. See GF-1 Grid Fin.
The tech tree and achievements
I bought the wrong nodes. Can I take them back?
Yes, all of them at once. Reset in the tech tree's header resets the tree for gems, once a week: every node and building level goes back, and all the discovery they cost comes back to spend again. Ships in flight keep their parts. See Reset the tech tree.
Where do I find the tech tree?
Tap the branching mark at the foot of the parts column in the hangar. It also lives behind the Research Centre: tap the Space Center button (the dome), tap the Research Centre on Earth's strip, then Open tech tree on its sheet. See The tech tree.
Why is a tech node greyed out?
One of three reasons, and the line under its card names the one: you do not own a node it requires, its whole tier is closed until your Research Centre is extended, or you are short of the price. See Buy a tech node.
How do I open the next tier of the tech tree?
Extend the Research Centre. Tapping any node in a closed tier turns the card's button into that extension, priced and bought right there, so you never have to leave the tree. See the Research Centre's levels.
Do achievements pay every time I do the thing?
No. Each one pays once, for the life of your account. That is why the far ones pay so much: the whole reward for landing on Mars arrives in a single go. See Achievements.
Why does the achievements list get longer as I play?
Because most achievements need a particular part aboard, and one you cannot build yet is not listed — it is counted into a padlocked row at the bottom instead. Buying the tech node that sells the part puts every achievement it makes possible back on the list. See Achievements.
What are the hidden achievements?
Twenty-one feats the game will not describe until you have done one. The sheet counts them into one row at the bottom and says nothing more, and neither does this manual. See the achievements reference.
I earned an achievement offline. Where is the reward?
Waiting. The row shows "reward pending" until the game reaches your account again, and it is paid then. Nothing is lost. A flight in sandbox is different: its feats go on sandbox's own list and pay nothing. See Achievements.
What does sandbox remember?
Its own achievements, the discovery they would have paid, and its own crew of up to five Meek with a memorial of those it lost. They are kept on this phone only, the same whether you are signed in or not, never counted on your account, and gone if you delete the app. See Your account.
Why can't I launch a crewed capsule in sandbox?
Probably all five of sandbox's Meek are already in flight: a Meek who launches stays aboard that ship until you recover it or they are lost. Bring one home, or fly a probe. See The Meek in sandbox.
I lost my astronaut in sandbox. Can I still fly?
Yes. Another of the same trade signs on in their place the moment one is lost, and you can sign on more for free, up to five. See The Meek in sandbox.
Instruments and readings
My instrument says "no power".
The ship had no charge left to pay for the reading, so nothing was measured and nothing was filed. Every reading costs electricity: 0.2 u for the Thermometer, 0.3 u for the Barometer, 0.8 u for the Mass Spectrometer. Add a battery, or wait for a solar panel to put some back. See Science readings.
I took the same reading again and got nothing.
A reading pays through an achievement, and an achievement pays once, ever. The second temperature reading at the same height earns nothing. Go somewhere you have not measured, or measure something else there. See Science readings.
Where do my readings go?
Into a log kept under your account, so it is the same on every phone you play on. Open it from the hangar: tap the purse at the top left, then Readings. See Take a reading.
Is a scientist worth hiring?
If you fly instruments, yes. With a scientist in a seat, every reading achievement pays 10 % more credits and discovery for each point of their science, and their science grows every time you bring them home from a flight that filed one. See Science readings.
Can I refuel a ship in orbit?
Yes, from another ship: dock a tanker to it. A docked pair is one ship, so tap one of the tanker's tanks, tap Transfer resources, then a green tank on the other ship (or LIST and All of the other ship), and Transfer — then the same for Methane. Charge, food, waste and hypergolic propellant move the same way; solid fuel and heat-shield ablator cannot be pumped. Nothing makes fuel out of nothing: it only moves through the joints and fuel lines that carry it, and no part makes more of it or of thruster propellant. Electricity is the exception: a solar panel makes more of it whenever it is in sunlight. See Transfer resources between stores and Resources.
Why is my parked ship losing electricity?
A pod, a capsule or a probe core draws a trickle all the time to stay awake, and antennas draw more. The flight readout shows the net rate in brackets beside the level. Give anything that has to sit in orbit a solar panel or a bigger battery. See Resources.
I landed next to a point of interest and got nothing.
You came to rest outside its radius, or it only counts when you fly low over it and you were too high. The posts on the ground mark the edge of the circle, and the list gives each point's radius and height limit. See Find a point of interest.
What are the diamonds on the edge of a world on the map?
Points of interest: named places that pay credits and discovery the first time a ship of yours reaches one. Amber is one a survey contract under way is sending you to, green is found. A cyan diamond is the place a player contract you hold asks you to land. See Points of interest.
Can I find points of interest without landing?
Yes, though landing is the simplest way: a ship that lands inside a point finds it with no contract at all. A survey contract under way also lets a low pass over a wide point count. A GI-1 Ground Imager in orbit one world radius above the ground (570 to 630 km over Earth) has a 5 % chance of finding a point each time it passes over one, while it has power and a radio link home — so it finds them over days, with no survey contract and no landing, and each pays as usual. A point found that way is never dealt as a survey afterwards. See Image points of interest from orbit.
Why are there no points of interest on the map?
A point is only drawn while you have its survey contract under way, or once you have found it. Surveys for a world are dealt on the Administration's board only after a ship of yours has landed on that world. A point you land inside is found whether it was on your map or not. See Find a point of interest.
Contracts
How do I keep earning credits once the easy achievements are gone?
Take contracts. A company pays an advance when you sign and a reward when you meet its goals, and the board refills for as long as you keep flying. See Contracts.
Which contracts are worth taking for the money?
The ones marked TRANSPORT. Those carry something for a client — a package, a satellite, a passenger — they pay the best of their tier, and unlike the part tests they never stop being offered. Two of the board's ten offers are kept for them, so there is nearly always one there. See Carrying work.
A freight job says "recover the ship". Is landing not enough?
No. Landing puts the ship on the ground; recovering it is the RECOVER chip in the flight menu, which ends the flight and sends the ship home. That is what the client is paying for, and it also refunds every part still aboard. See Contracts.
Why is the Accept button greyed out?
Every slot is taken, or you are in sandbox. The Administration's level is how many contracts you may hold at once, three at level 1, and the amber line under the board's title says which is stopping you. See the contracts reference.
Can I take a contract while I am already flying?
No. Goals are counted from the launch, so a contract has to be signed before the rocket leaves the pad. The board you can open in flight is read-only and shows only what is already under way. See See your contracts in flight.
What happens if I run out of time?
The contract fails: the advance comes back out of your credits with a tenth of it on top, and the row moves into the recent list with a ✕. Nothing else is lost. The Fresh Start Grant is the exception: it costs nothing to miss. See Contracts.
I crashed all my credits away. Can I still fly?
Yes. While your credits are under 1,000, the contract board shows a RESCUE card, the Fresh Start Grant. Accept it and your credits are topped back up to 1,000, enough for a starter rocket, and nothing is ever taken back. It comes at most once every 48 hours. See When the credits run out.
Is dropping a contract cheaper than letting it expire?
No. Giving one up costs exactly what missing the deadline costs. All it buys is the wait and the free slot on the board. See Give up a contract.
A contract I liked has stopped appearing. Why?
Most flight tests are asked once. Accepting one is what decides whether that company ever offers it again, and for the one-off jobs it usually does not. The steady work, the kind that carries passengers or brings a capsule home, always comes back, though a job finished 5 times in one day leaves the board until a day after the first of them. See the contracts reference.
Who are the people that appeared on my crew roster?
Passengers from a tourist run. Accepting that kind of contract hands them to you free, they take no room at the Astronaut Center, and they go home when the contract ends. Seat them in a Crew Capsule beside an astronaut. See Contracts.
Who posts the player contracts?
The card does not say. A player contract shows its poster's record — how many contracts they have posted, paid and cancelled — and never a name. See Player contracts.
My credits went down when I took a player contract.
That is the penalty, set aside while you hold the contract. It comes back when you deliver, and is lost if the contract runs out or you give it up. See Taking one.
Why is the Player contracts board empty?
Nothing is open that you may take: a contract somebody else holds is off the board until it is done (a race stays on it while it is open to take), one asking for a higher pilot rating than yours is never shown, and under a rating of 250 none are. The board needs the Administration at level 2 to open at all. See Player contracts.
Where is the place a landing contract asks for?
On the map: every landing contract you hold is marked on its world's edge with a cyan diamond, the ground that counts traced beside it. The ship must come to rest there, on the ground. See Landing at a place.
My docking contract ended before I could dock.
The ship it asked for went, landed, or had every port taken when your time ran out. That is not counted against you, unless your own ship broke it in a collision: your penalty is back, and if the poster caused it you were paid 30% of the reward too. See Docking contracts.
My station opened to other players by itself.
A docking contract on it is open or under way, or a passenger contract names it as where a passenger waits or goes: the ship stays open while one is, whatever its switch says, so whoever takes the contract can come aboard. It closes again when the contract ends. See Docking contracts.
What happens to my Meek if their contract fails?
They come home to the Space Center, back on your roster. Only a passenger lost on the way does not come back: they are on your memorial, and the contract ends at once with your reward back, unless your own ship broke the one carrying them: then you keep 40% of it and the pilot is paid 30%. See Carrying a Meek.
Do I get my reward back if nobody delivers my contract?
Yes, all of it: when nobody takes it in time, when you withdraw it before anyone has, and when the pilot who took it misses the deadline. Only cancelling it once taken costs you: you keep 40% of the reward. See Posting your own.
I destroyed the ship my contract named. Where is DELIVER?
There is none for a contract to destroy a ship: you are paid the moment your ship destroys it, and a notice says so. If another pilot's ship destroyed it first, the contract ends and your penalty comes back. See Destroying a ship.
A contract I held vanished, and a notice said another pilot completed it.
It was a race: several pilots may hold one at once, and the first to destroy its ship is paid. Your penalty came back and your rating is untouched. See Destroying a ship.
Do I get my ship back after delivering it?
No. A delivered ship leaves your fleet for good; that is what the reward pays for. See Deliver a player contract.
Your crew
The hangar says "Seat an astronaut in the Command Pod".
The pod is empty, or the only person in it is not an astronaut. Only the astronaut trade flies a ship. Tap the pod, tap it again to open its sheet, find the Crew row, and tap a seat button until an astronaut is in it. See Seat crew on a pod.
My satellite has a spare capsule on it and won't launch unmanned.
The pod that needs an astronaut is the one you are flying from, and by default that is the first command part on the ship. Tap the Sat Controller and turn on Control from here: the capsule then counts as a cabin, an empty cabin is freight, and the rocket flies with nobody aboard. See The Meek.
Where do I hire crew?
On the Recruit tab of The Meek. The helmet at the foot of the parts column in the hangar opens it; so does the Astronaut Center: tap the Space Center button (the dome), tap the building on the strip, then Open the Meek. See Recruit a Meek.
Can I move somebody between two pods once I am flying?
Yes, as long as the ship has a second crew module and a free seat in it. Tap a pod or a cabin, tap Transfer crew, then tap a module ringed in green. A docked pair counts as one ship, so that is also how crew cross from one ship to the other. See Transfer crew between modules.
Can a Meek move to another ship without docking?
An astronaut can. With a ship of yours within 50 m, drifting apart at under 2 m/s, above the air and neither ship burning, tap a pod and tap Transfer crew: the other ship's pods and cabins are ringed green when in reach, and LIST says how far away each is. Only astronauts go outside. See Walk across to another ship.
The game will not let my pilot leave the capsule.
They are the only astronaut in a pod, and moving them would leave a crewed ship with nobody able to fly it. Move a second astronaut into the pod first, or move somebody else. A ship with a probe core aboard flies itself and will let the pilot go. See Transfer crew between modules.
Do the Meek cost anything after I hire them?
No. The hire is the only credits a Meek ever costs. Flying them is free, and there is no wage. What they cost you is the risk of losing them. See The Meek.
Why did every price on the recruit board go up?
You lost someone. Every Meek lost adds 5 % to every hire from then on, and every crewed flight you bring home takes 0.5 % off again, so ten safe flights pay for one loss. The line above the cards says the current rate. See Reputation.
My controls went dead in the middle of a burn.
Your pilot blacked out. Every Meek stays awake through a load of 4 G plus 0.6 G per point of their G-tolerance, and three seconds past it they are out. While the pilot is under, the throttle freezes, the turn controls read zero and nothing stages. They come to five seconds after the load drops back under. See The Meek.
Why is the screen going dark at the edges?
Your pilot is greying out. The world starts to close in from two G under their limit and is black but for a trace once they are out. Every instrument stays readable throughout. Ease the throttle back. See Read the crew chip.
My crew died in a crash. Can I get them back?
No. They go to the Lost tab at the Astronaut Center with how and where it happened, and nothing brings them back. Leaving a flight while the ship is still in the air loses everyone aboard the same way. The recruit board always carries a raw astronaut so you can replace a lost pilot. See The Meek.
How do I make a Meek better at their job?
Fly them and bring them home. Stats move only on a recovery: a crash, a terminated flight or a ship abandoned in the air grows nobody. Nerve grows for everyone aboard, piloting for whoever held the controls, G-tolerance for a hard flight or a long one. See Crew.
Who are the tourists that appeared on my roster?
Passengers a contract lent you. They cost nothing, they ride outside the number of Meek your Astronaut Center holds, they have no Dismiss button, and they leave when the contract ends. They still need a seat beside an astronaut, and a recovery is what gets them off the ship. See Contracts.
What happens when the waste store fills up?
Nothing bad. Every unit of food eaten leaves a unit of waste, which goes into any store aboard with room; once they are all full, the rest goes overboard and the crew eats on as before. A pod keeps as much room for waste as it keeps food, so this only happens when you carry extra food. Give a cargo bay some room for waste as well if you would rather keep it. See Waste.
How long does the food last?
The crew chip in flight says, in days, for the whole ship. Only filled seats eat, and food travels the joints, so a cabin eats out of the pod's larder as readily as its own. Under a day left and the chip turns amber and reads HUNGRY; run it dry and everyone eating from it is lost. See Read the crew chip.
My greenhouse's crop keeps going back to zero.
Its grow lights lost power, most likely on the night side of the orbit. A crop needs a whole day of unbroken power, and the moment the battery runs short it is lost and starts again. Carry a bigger battery and enough solar arrays to fill it before the shadow. See Grow food in orbit.
My greenhouse broke up on the way to orbit.
It was open. With its shutters open the glass takes only 2.5 g and 380 K; closed, it rides a launch like a pod. Launch it closed and open it in orbit. See Grow food in orbit.
Why hasn't my new greenhouse harvested anything?
A harvest turns waste into as much food, and every waste store launches empty; and nothing grows at all until you open it and a botanist is aboard the ship. The crop waits, ripe, until the crew has eaten enough to leave that much. See Grow food in orbit.
My greenhouse says there is no botanist aboard.
Nothing grows on a ship with no botanist on it. One botanist anywhere aboard — in a pod, in a cabin, in the greenhouse itself — works every greenhouse on the ship; a second and a third raise every harvest from 5 units to 8 and then 10. Botanists come onto the recruit board at the Astronaut Center's third level. See Grow food in orbit.
Power, contact and instruments
My crew passed out and the ship was barely pulling a G.
You were spinning. Rate of turn puts a Meek under just as load does: the frailest lose their bearings around 19 rpm and the hardiest around 34 rpm, and six seconds past that they are out. The chip reads DIZZY on the way there. Stop the tumble on the reaction wheels, on fins if there is air, or on the thrusters, and they come round five seconds after the ship has settled. See The Meek.
My probe's controls went dead and nobody is blacked out.
You lost the link. An uncrewed ship is flown by radio, so with no contact there is no steering, no throttle, no staging and no tapping a part. A burn already running keeps running. The chip in the top left says why, and everything comes back the moment the ship is in view again. See Communications.
Why does my crewed rocket have no radio chip?
Because it does not need one. A pod with an astronaut in it answers the hand on its stick, so nothing about contact can go wrong and there is nothing to show. Only a ship whose every command part is empty flies by radio. See Communications.
My antenna says its range is 50 Mm, so why did I lose contact at 20 Mm?
A range is not how far a part reaches. Two aerials reach the square root of their two ratings multiplied together, so what you get depends on the dish at the other end as well. Every antenna's card carries the answer against a new Comm Station on its VIA L1 STATION row. See Communications.
What is the difference between the CW-1 Whip and the CR-1 Relay Whip?
The role, not the reach. Both are rated the same. The relay also carries other ships' commands through it, which is what lets a satellite hold up a chain; a plain antenna only ever flies its own ship. See Parts: Comms.
My probe went quiet and the relay is right there, working.
The relay is probably full. A relay only carries as many ships as its Clients carried setting allows, and when more are in reach than that it keeps the ones it hears best — so a new probe arriving in a busy neighbourhood can find no room. The map's NETWORK view labels each relay with what it is carrying over what it will take, in amber when it is full. Turn the setting up if its power can stand it, or fly another relay. See Communications.
Why does my relay carry fewer ships at night?
Because it ran out of power. A relay pays for every ship it passes on, and when its batteries go flat in a planet's shadow it carries only what its panels alone can pay for, dropping the rest until the sun comes back. It never goes silent itself — you can always still reach it to turn its setting down or fit a bigger panel next time. See Communications and Electricity.
How do I fly a probe on the far side of a world?
Put a relay of your own somewhere that can see both ends. A world's solid body blocks a radio path outright, so the fix is height and geometry, not a bigger antenna. A probe network builds one.
The chip says NO ANTENNA but I fitted a dish.
A dish is folded in its housing when it leaves the hangar, and folded it is worth nothing. Tap it and tap Deploy, or put it in a stage so it opens on its own. A whip has no latch and never needs this. See Keep a probe in contact.
Do I have to point my solar panels at the sun?
No. Which way a panel faces never matters. All that counts is how much sunlight reaches the ship, so a panel makes its full rated figure in the open and nothing at all in a world's shadow. See Electricity.
My solar panel exploded and nothing hit it.
An open panel is far weaker than a folded one: the SP-1 takes 3 g out where it takes 20 g stowed, and its skin gives out at 800 K instead of 2600 K. Deploying during a burn or an ascent, or coming back into air with the wings out, is what breaks it. See Deploy a solar panel.
How do I keep a small probe awake through the night?
Either carry a battery big enough for the shadow and panels to refill it, or fit an RTG-1 Radioisotope Generator. It makes 0.06 u/s all the time, sun or no sun, which is enough for a Sat Controller turning at full command and a CW-1 Whip together. Anything hungrier still needs panels and a battery. See Electricity.
Where do I put the battery so it powers the right part?
Anywhere. Electricity runs along every joint on the ship, so any battery feeds any part and any panel charges all of them. Put it where the ship balances. See Electricity.
Shells, stages and docking
How do I destroy a stage instead of letting it fall in one piece?
Bolt an FTS Charge to its side and fire it, from its part sheet or in a stage. One second later it destroys every part it is attached to, however heavy, and a tank it destroys goes up with its own blast, which reaches everything close by — your own stage too, if the tank still holds fuel. In a stage it fires last, after that stage's separators, so the same stage can drop a booster and destroy it. It never goes off by accident: heat, load, a crash or an explosion beside it leave it whole until it is fired.
My boosters keep hitting the rocket after I drop them.
A Decoupler springs the case off the flank at about 2.5 m/s and no more, and an empty case in the airstream can still swing back into the stage it left. Bolt a Separation Motor high on each booster's outer flank and stage it with the Decoupler: one second of solid thrust throws the booster outward and back. See Throw a booster clear.
My fairing broke up the moment I launched.
Something inside it was standing through the skin. The fit is judged against the shell's taper, not its widest point, and the hangar warns you before you fly: a line under the ship's mass names the part that is outside the fairing. Widen a ring, lengthen the shell, or move the payload down. See the Payload Fairing.
I can't pick the part inside my fairing.
The fairing sits over it and takes the tap. Select the fairing and tap its lock button: a locked part lets taps through to what it covers, and a tap on its padlock unlocks it. See Lock a part.
Why are two of my parts drawn red in the hangar?
They are inside one another, and they will both break apart the moment the first stage lights. The line under the ship's mass says how many parts overlap. Move one of them until the red goes. A wing lying over a tank is fine (it stands beside the tank, out of the picture's plane), and so is anything carried inside a fairing or a payload bay. See Building a rocket.
My upper stage's engine blew up the moment it lit.
The Separator or Decoupler under it had not fired yet, so the engine was burning straight into it, and the two explode together. Put that separator in the same stage as the engine, or an earlier one, and the stage below is gone before the flame reaches it. A rocket launched with nothing staged lights every engine at once and does this to every stage above the first. See Staging.
A piece of debris barely touched my solar panel and it broke.
An open panel or dish breaks at a touch, and a fin, a sensor or a whip antenna at a few metres a second. A part that is hit is judged on its own, against its STRIKE figure, whatever it is bolted to. Stow panels and dishes before anything comes close. See Debris and dropped stages.
Nothing happens when I tap the instrument in my payload bay.
The doors are shut, and a shut door covers what is behind it. Tap the bay itself, choose Open doors, and the cargo answers a tap once the leaves are clear. See Open a payload bay.
Do I have to wait for orbit to open a payload bay?
No. The doors work on the pad as readily as in space, and they stay however you leave them, so a satellite abandoned with its bay open is found open. See Open a payload bay.
How do I mark another ship as my target?
Open the flight's map, tap the ship to bring up its card, and tap TARGET. The button only appears while you are flying. See Rendezvous and docking.
My thrusters stopped firing and the sliding keys went grey.
They overheated. A thruster block fired flat out for 5 s overheats and stops until it has cooled, 10 s from full. The red bar along the foot of the mode switch shows it cooling, and the keys come back when it empties. Fly them in short presses. See Flying.
My throttle, STAGE and RCS buttons disappeared and the throttle dropped to zero.
You are in docking mode. DOCK is flown on thrusters alone, so it closes the throttle on the way in and takes the three controls a berth has no use for right off the screen — the turn keys move out into the corners they leave. Tap the mode switch, above the left-hand turn key, to leave the mode and all three come back. See Flying.
Where has the TGT button gone?
You have no ship targeted, so there is nothing for it to aim at and it is not drawn. Mark one from the flight's map and it comes back, set the way you left it. See Rendezvous and docking.
The whole screen turned when I switched TGT on.
That is the docking view: with the toggle on, the camera is held to your ship rather than to the local vertical, so your hull stands still nose-up and the world turns around it as you steer. It means forward on the pad is always up the screen while you berth. Switch TGT off and the horizon goes back to level. See Flying.
In docking mode I pressed forward and the ship went sideways.
The TGT toggle is on, so the six keys are read against your target rather than against your hull: forward means toward the target whichever way the nose is pointing. That is what it is for — turn it off and every key is the ship's own axis again. See Flying.
My two ships touched but nothing docked.
Every latch condition has to hold at once: within 1.0 m, closing under 0.8 m/s, pointing into each other inside 40 °, not turning against each other, and actually coming together rather than drifting apart. Steady both ships and come in slower. You do not need to have targeted the other ship — that is only how you find it. See Rendezvous and docking.
There is an amber ship on my map that is not mine.
It is another player's, coasting on its orbit with nobody flying it. You can follow it, target it and fly to it. Whether you can touch it is up to its owner: unless its label ends in OPEN it is a ghost, and your ship passes straight through. Other players' ships has the whole rule, including how to open (or never open) a ship of your own.
I docked with another player's station. Whose ship is it now?
Nothing changed hands. Two players' ships are never merged: yours is still yours and theirs is still theirs, held rigidly together as one body. You fly your own engines, thrusters and wheels and they fly theirs — but whatever either of you does moves both. Undock with your own ring and each is exactly the ship it was. Docking with another player's ship has the details.
I docked with my station and the ship is called the wrong thing.
It is called the right thing, if the ship you docked with has its Space station switch on: a station absorbs the ship that docks with it, so the pair keeps the station's name and the visiting ship stops existing separately. Without that switch the ship you are flying is the one that survives, and it keeps its own name. Either way you go on flying from the pod you flew the approach in. See Rendezvous and docking.
I undocked and ended up flying the wrong half.
You stay with the half holding the pod that has Control from here turned on. On a ship with several command pods, tap the one you want to fly from and turn that switch on before you cut the joint. See Rendezvous and docking.
Can I join onto a ship that has no docking port?
Yes, with a Grappling Claw. Its jaws close on the side of any part of another ship of yours — a spent stage, a derelict, a full station — and the two become one ship until you tap Release. Grab a tank if you want its propellant: fuel only crosses the grip into a part that carries fuel. A claw never takes hold of another player's ship; join theirs port to port. See Grab a ship with a claw.
Can I join two docking ports in the hangar?
Yes, and that is the point of doing it: a joint built on the ground can be cut in flight, so a lander can be bolted to a transfer stage and undocked when it is time to go down. A port's face takes nothing but another port. See the Docking Port.
The booster I dropped flew into my rocket.
It was still burning when it let go, and a dropped stage has no steering to turn it away. Debris is solid and a hard enough hit breaks what it strikes. Cut the throttle before you stage. See Debris and dropped stages.
Will the stage I left on the ground still be there?
Yes. Anything lying still on a surface stays exactly where it is, on every world, for as long as nothing moves it — a parked ship, a spent tank that came down gently, a wreck. Only debris on the launch pad itself is cleared away. See Debris and dropped stages.
Why is there no RECOVER on the Moon?
Recovery brings a ship home to the hangar, and that only happens on Earth. A ship landed anywhere else stays where it stands until you fly it off again. See Landing and recovery.
There is a ship called DEBRIS on my map. What is it?
A stage you dropped that ended up coasting in space. Anything that stops being pushed above the air gets an entry of its own in the world, named after the ship it came off. It keeps orbiting until its path meets the air or the ground. Debris is left off the map unless the SHIPS chip reads +DEBRIS (everyone's) or MINE (yours only). See Debris and dropped stages.
Helium-3 and antimatter
Why won't my Mining Rig mine?
Tap it and read the greyed line. No deposit here: survey one, or image it from orbit means the ship is not standing still inside a helium-3 deposit that is yours. Landing inside a field finds it on touchdown. Nowhere to put it: every store is full means there is no helium-3 tank aboard with room. No power usually means night, which on the Moon lasts half of a 38.6 hour day. See Mine helium-3.
Why did my Antimatter Container explode?
It came down loaded. A container holds only in space: landed, or anywhere inside an atmosphere, a loaded one starts a 60 second fuse, says CONTAINMENT FAILING, and then goes off with its load added to the blast. Tap Vent antimatter before a landing or an aerobrake, or get back above the air in time. See Keep antimatter safe.
Why is my antimatter leaking?
The container is getting less power than its upkeep. It loses antimatter by the share that is missing, up to 0.02 μg a second, and a one-minute fuse is burning: get the power whole again inside the minute or the trap opens, and that blast is the largest in the game. The usual cause is the orbit's shadow with too small a battery, or a converter drinking the same battery. The upkeep itself depends on where you are: the gravity gauge on the sheet says how much. See Helium-3 and antimatter.
Can I sell helium-3 or antimatter?
No. Neither can be bought or sold, and recovering a full tank or trap refunds the part alone. Finding a deposit pays once, its Prospect contract pays, and the chain has achievements of its own. What antimatter is actually for is the Antimatter Reactor and the warp drives, which burn it. See Helium-3 and antimatter.
Which mining parts do I need first?
The small ones. Tier 3 of the tech tree sells a 4 m mine — the MR-4 Mining Rig, the H3-4 Helium-3 Tank, the AC-4 Antimatter Converter and the AM-4 Antimatter Container — which fits the stack you already fly and fuels a probe's warp. The 8 m parts of the same names come on tier 5, for the crewed drives. See Two sizes of mine.
Why is my helium-3 tank empty on the pad?
Helium-3 is never loaded, only mined. Every store of it launches empty, and so does every Antimatter Container. See Resources.
Where do I get antimatter for my first warp?
You make it. No trap launches with any in it, and there is none for sale: land an MR-4 Mining Rig on a helium-3 deposit you have found, lift what it digs to orbit, and let an AC-4 Antimatter Converter fill your traps. A Coil probe's leg to Mars is about 94 μg, which one small mine on the Moon's richest field makes in under a fortnight. See Warp a ship.
Reactors, heat and the warp
My reactor makes no power at all. Why?
Tap it and read the greyed line. No nuclear scientist aboard means nobody of that trade is alive on this ship, and no other trade stands in: a scientist, an engineer and your best pilot are all the wrong Meek. No way to shed 60 kW: deploy a radiator means no fin aboard is out. No antimatter means every container is empty. See Run a reactor.
Why is my reactor only making half its power?
Because your radiators only carry half its heat. The plant is held to whatever share of the ship's heat the fins can shed, and the sheet says which: held to 50 % by heat. Add fins, or fit ones with a hotter working fluid. It will never overheat or explode for want of cooling. See Reactors and heat.
Which radiator do I need?
Whichever is hotter than the sky it will be under. In the open, any of them works and the water fin is the cheapest. Inside a warp bubble the sky is the bubble's wall: water works under a Warp Coil only, potassium under a Coil or a Ring, and only sodium sheds anything into a Warp Lattice. See the working-fluid ladder.
Does a warp drive make my ship go faster?
No, and it never will. It carries the ship forward along the orbit it is already on, so you arrive on the same orbit at the same speed that orbit travels at. What it buys is the waiting: a four-day climb to apoapsis in one step. See Warp drives.
I warped a month and the Moon has not moved. Is that broken?
No. That is the whole idea. Nothing ages but the ship: no clock moves, and every planet, moon and other ship stays exactly where it was. So a warp can never catch a transfer window or bring a rendezvous closer. See What a warp actually does.
My ship lost parts when I warped.
The bubble is a sphere centred on the drive, and when it closes it cuts whatever it passes through: anything outside the wall is destroyed. A drive at the tail of a long stack cannot reach the nose. Put it amidships — in the hangar, tap the drive and the circle is drawn round it at its true size, with anything outside it outlined and named under the mass. See Your ship has to fit inside the bubble.
My crew died in the warp.
The whole span passes aboard in one step: a day warped is a day of food eaten and a day of charge drawn, and no sunlight passes the wall, so the panels make nothing in there. The Warp sheet forecasts every load and writes in red anything that runs out on the way. Shorten the span until nothing is red, carry more, or fit a reactor. See Warp a ship.
The warp used up all my antimatter.
The wall's bill comes out of your containers when it closes, and an antimatter reactor aboard burns what is left for the whole span. The Warp sheet's Antimatter row counts both, and turns red when together they run it dry: the reactor goes cold before the wall opens, and the batteries follow it. Shorten the span or carry more. See Warp drives.
The Warp sheet's button will not press.
An amber line above it says why. The usual ones: you are still on the ground, the engines are still burning, the ship cannot shed its heat into a wall that hot, the orbit comes down inside the span, the route would leave the world's sphere of influence, or another ship of yours is parked on the path. When it refuses lists all of them.
Why is warping so much dearer from a low orbit?
The charge that forms the wall is multiplied by how strong gravity is where you light it, adding 18 % for each point on the gravity gauge. That is ×1.69 in a 100 km parking orbit over Earth and ×1 far from any world. Raise the orbit first. What it costs to hold the wall does not change. See What a jump costs.
The worlds
How many worlds are there?
Twenty-nine bodies: the Sun, eleven worlds going round it, and seventeen moons going round those. Every one of the 28 worlds and moons has ground your ship can reach and stand on. Each has a page of its own under The worlds.
Why do the planets have such odd names?
Because only the shape of the system is borrowed, not the names. The planets sit in the same order at the same relative distances as the real ones, and each world's entry in the reference names the real planet it stands for. Earth, the Moon and Mars kept theirs. See The solar system.
Can I land on any world?
Yes. Every world and moon has a surface, and none of them is out of bounds. What is restricted is starting there: the one Launch Pad is on Earth. The Sun is the one exception, and falling into it is not a landing. See the Worlds reference.
Which worlds have seas?
Of the worlds on the charts, three hold a liquid you can come down in. Earth's oceans are seawater. Gazorpazorp's seas and lakes are liquid methane, so light that a ship sits deep in it and one with full tanks sinks. Lookatme's lava lakes are so heavy and thick that a ship floats high and is stopped at once. Each world's page says where its liquid stands. See Splashing down.
Why is my parachute useless out there?
Because most worlds have no air. Nineteen of the 28 have no atmosphere at all, so there is nothing for a canopy to catch and the whole descent is flown on the engine and taken on the landing legs. See The solar system.
Where should I go after the Moon?
Mars. It is the next rung up: landing there costs 6,048 m/s from Earth's pad against the Moon landing's 4,863. See what each destination costs.
Is the outer system much harder than Mars?
Not in fuel. The burn that throws a ship out of Earth's orbit does most of the work whichever way it is aimed, so every planet past the belt sits within a thousand metres a second of every other. What grows with distance is the time the crossing takes and how far your radio has to reach. See what each destination costs.
My probe at the edge of the system has no signal.
It is out of range. The strongest dish and the strongest Comm Station each reach 500.00 Gm, which is past Squanch's orbit but short of Pluto's. Park a relay where the geometry helps, or send a crew, who need no link at all. See Pluto's page.
What is a biome, and where do I find out which ones a world has?
A biome is a band of a world's surface with its own colour, its own typical height and its own kind of ground — desert, ice, crater floor, methane sea. Where you land is recorded as one, and the first reading taken in each biome earns discovery. Every world's page lists all of its biomes, where each one runs and how rough it is. See The worlds and Science and readings.
What is the air made of on other worlds?
Different things at different heights, and every world with air says so on its page. Earth is nitrogen and oxygen with water vapour low down and ozone around 25 km; Mars is almost pure carbon dioxide at under a hundredth of Earth's pressure; Existence is carbon dioxide at ninety-two atmospheres and 737 K; Gazorpazorp is nitrogen with methane. See The worlds.
Which worlds have named landforms?
Every world you can stand on — all 24 of them, and 231 landforms between them. Their ground is drawn from a table of named ranges, plateaus, valleys, craters, volcanoes, escarpments and dune fields, and where a ship comes to rest is recorded by name — which is why some achievements ask for a summit or a crater floor. Each world's page lists its own; start at the worlds. The four gas giants are the exception: there is no ground down there to name, only cloud.
Why does one of the giants have no ground?
Because it is gas the whole way down. Meeseeks Prime, The Box, Cronenberg and Squanch have air standing hundreds of kilometres deep over nothing solid, so a ship sent in is torn apart long before it reaches anything. What they have instead of biomes is named cloud bands, and what you go there for is their moons. See The worlds.
How high is geostationary orbit?
Round Earth, 2.87 Mm up, flown in a circle at 1,009 m/s the way the planet turns; a ship there stays over the same spot on the ground. Mars, the gas giants, the dwarf planets and the Sun have one too, and moons have none. See Stationary orbits and every world’s height.
Can I fly to the Sun?
You already do. Every trip between planets is a fall around the Sun between one world's sphere of influence and the next, and reaching that state pays an achievement of its own. You never land on it and it is never offered as a launch site. See the Sun's page.
I found something built out there. Can I land on it?
Yes. Anything standing on a world is solid: set down on a flat top and the ship parks there, with the altimeter reading that top as the ground. Fly into its side and the ship breaks as it would against a cliff. Nothing you do moves or damages it. Setting down beside it counts as finding the place, the way landing inside any point does, and some of them have a tune of their own. See Points of interest.
Is there anything out there this manual does not list?
Yes. The charts show what is known, and the system holds more than that: on worlds you have already visited as well as out where nobody has looked. What it is and where it is are yours to find. See Not everything is on the charts.
The account
Can I play on a Mac?
Yes. The Mac version is a download from orbital-frontier.world/download, not a store listing: open the disk image and drag the game into Applications. If macOS refuses to open it the first time, System Settings › Privacy & Security has an Open Anyway button for it. See Install and sign in.
Can I read this manual inside the game?
Yes. Tap the small figure under the parts column to open Settings, then Open beside Player manual under Help. It opens over the game, so closing it puts you back where you were and nothing is lost. See The screens.
Does my progress follow me to another phone?
Yes. Everything is kept under your account: credits, discovery, tech, buildings, crew and the ship library. Sign in with the same Google, Apple or email account on the other phone. Signed in with a different one there? Generate a code on the phone that has the program and type it on the new one within a minute. See Your account.
I have gems I never bought. Where are they from?
Every new player is given 100 gems to start with, to spend on a cloak, on burns the world flies for you or on resetting the tech tree. More are bought in the Store. Starting over from Settings does not give the 100 again. See Gems.
Can I hide a ship from other players?
Yes, for gems: tap its pod or probe core in flight, then Cloak this ship. From then on no other player sees it, meets it or touches it, and nothing of theirs is solid to it either. It is once and for good, on that ship only: a satellite it releases comes out uncloaked. An open ship, one docked to another player's and a docking contract's ship cannot be cloaked. See Cloak a ship.
Can a burn be made while my phone is off?
Yes. On the map, tap the node, then FLY IT FOR ME, and the world flies that burn at its time, exactly as you planned it. It costs a few gems, paid when you mark it and given back if the burn is not flown. Leave the ship first, back to the hangar or into another ship: the world never flies a ship you are flying. See Let the world fly a burn.
My credits went down when I asked Apple for a refund.
That is the refund at work. When you ask Apple to refund a one-time purchase such as Seed Money, whatever is left of what it added is set aside while Apple decides: it comes back if Apple says no, and stays gone if Apple refunds you. A refund takes back only what you still have, so your purse never goes below zero. What you had already spent is owed instead: your next purchase of credits pays that first and adds the rest (a pack of gems the same, in gems), and the Store says how much before you buy. See The Store.
What works offline?
The hangar and flying, once the game has downloaded its pictures the first time. Nothing is charged or banked until the game reaches the shared world again. See Install and sign in.
The game says Update required and will not let me play.
Your version is too old for the shared world as it stands now, and the only way on is the newer version. Tap Update to go to the store, update, and open the game again. If it still says so, tap Check again: the store can take a little while to hand a phone the new version. See The screens.
I closed a message by mistake. Can I read it again?
Not from a list: a message is not kept anywhere once a button has put it away. Most are shown once on each device; one meant to come back does so on its own, a day or a week later. A message that is still running also shows again on another phone, or on this one after the game is deleted and installed again. See The screens.
Why does the game download something when it opens?
The planets' maps, the worlds' ground and the crew's faces are not inside the app; they come in one download the first time the game opens, and again whenever one of them changes — so a world can be redrawn without an app update. After that a start needs nothing, and a game with no connection plays on with what it has. The very first start does need the internet. See The screens.
How long can I leave a rocket flying while I look at something else?
Five minutes. A ship still in the air, under thrust or tumbling is flown on for you through a gap of up to 5 minutes, just as you left it, and lost past that. A ship coasting above the air whose path comes down into the air while you are away gets the same five minutes, flown on into its re-entry. One coasting on a path that stays above the air, or parked on the ground, keeps for as long as you like. Your phone warns you a minute before a ship would be lost. See The shared world and its clock.
The game closed itself in the middle of a flight. Do I have to start over?
No. The flight writes itself down every ten seconds and again the moment the app leaves the screen, so opening the game hands you straight back to the ship, moved along by however much time passed. See The shared world and its clock.
Can I park a ship in orbit and come back to it next week?
Yes, as long as the orbit is clear of the air all the way round. It waits on the map with the rest of your fleet, and the map's CONTROL chip puts you back at its controls. An orbit that dips into the air is a ship on a timer. See The shared world and its clock.
My phone said the same reminder three times.
That is on purpose. One chime through a pocket is how a burn gets missed, so every reminder is said three times over. There is no dismiss button: opening the game is what stops the rest. See Reminders.
I set a reminder and my phone never said anything.
Either it was set in sandbox, whose clock only runs while you are playing, so it can only speak in the game, or your phone is not allowed to notify you. The game asks for that the first time you set one. See Reminders.
I tapped a reminder and it did not take me to my ship.
Only a reminder set on the map is about a ship; one set with + Remind me later is about nothing but the time. If it was about a ship, the game says why it stayed put: the ship is no longer in the world, nobody can fly it, it was set in the other world (sandbox or shared), or the ship you are flying cannot be left where it is. See Reminders.
How many reminders can I have waiting?
Twenty-one. That is as many as a phone will hold once each one has its repeats, and the list simply stops accepting more. Drop one you no longer need with the ✕ beside it. See Reminders.
Do I have to sign in to play?
No. The sign-in sheet has Play in sandbox, which needs no account: the tech tree up to tier 2 and a level 3 launch pad are yours to fly with, and nothing reaches the shared world. Signing in is what the shared world needs — leaving sandbox asks for it. See Your account.
I made an account with my email. Why does it say "Check your email"?
The game sent a link to that address, and the account opens once you tap the link, so nobody can sign up with an address that is not theirs. Open the email, tap the link, then tap I've confirmed it. Not there? Look in spam, or tap Send the link again. See Your account.
What is the code under Account for?
Bringing your program onto a second device that is signed in with a different account. Tap Generate code on the device that has the program, type the code on the other one within a minute, and that device's sign-in opens your program from then on. The program it was on before is deleted — the button says what that is before it does it. See Your account.
Can I start my space program over?
Yes, from Reset account under Account in Settings. It asks first, then puts you back where a new player starts — the starting credits, the root tech, a launch pad on Earth and one founding astronaut — and everything you had flown for goes with it, designs, fleet and achievements included. Your gems stay just as they are, and a reset adds none: a new player's 100 come only once. Your phone lets go of it too: the hangar's canvas is the starter rocket again, your reminders go, and every achievement can be earned afresh. You keep the account and stay signed in. You can start over up to five times in a week; ask again sooner and the sheet tells you the day it is yours again. See Your account.
Can I delete my account?
Yes, from Delete account under Account in Settings. It removes your program from the shared world and the sign-in with it, on every device, and asks twice. If what you wanted was a clean slate rather than no account at all, Reset account beside it is the one. See Your account.
How do I get in touch?
Write to [email protected]. The address is the Contact row at the bottom of Settings, under About: tap it and your mail app opens a new email to us with the address already filled in. Say which build you are on (the Version row just above it) if you are telling us about something that went wrong. See Check the About list.
Where can I ask other players a question?
On the game’s Discord, at discord.gg/XqGnpcjZz. Open the ask-anything forum and make a post: one question per post, with a tag for what it is about, and mark it Solved once someone has answered it. Posting needs a free Discord account; the Discord is a separate service, not part of the game.
Does the game send statistics about how I play?
Yes. The game counts how long you play, which screens you use, what you launch, and what you do with it — which parts you fit in the hangar, which upgrades and contracts you take on, and the moments the game refuses you, such as a rocket too heavy for the pad — and sends that to our own statistics server so we can see which parts of the game people use and where they get stuck. It never includes your email or your ship designs, and it works the same signed in or out. There is no switch for it in the game. What is collected, why, and how to ask for it to be deleted are set out in the privacy policy.
My Science Lab says it is out of data. What now?
It has analysed everything you have brought it. A lab only takes data from a place it has never analysed with that instrument before, so reading the same orbit again gives it nothing — fly somewhere new and read it there, or carry the instruments you left behind. See The Science Lab.
My lab has been working for days and my discovery has not gone up. Why?
Nothing sends it for you. Findings sit aboard the lab until you take the ship’s controls, tap the lab and press Transmit — and that only works while the space centre can hear the ship, so a relay may be needed. If you leave it long enough the store fills and the bench stops. See The Science Lab and Communications.
Is a Science Lab worth it near Earth?
It works there, but it pays the least and it starves quickest: Earth's places are worth ×1 and you will have measured most of them already. A lab earns what it earns by being far away — Mars is three and a half times Earth, and a moon of the outer giants more than eight. See The Science Lab.
Do rockets I save in sandbox survive when I switch back?
Yes. A saved rocket is a design, not progress, so the ship library keeps it. What does not survive is the flying: everything you launched in sandbox is dropped when you leave it. See Switch to sandbox.