9 kinds of asteroid·6 hulls·6 materials to refine·no edge to the map·free in the browser
You mine asteroids for The Company.
For The Company! is a space mining game and it runs in your browser, for free. You get a ship with a laser on the front of it and an asteroid belt that goes on as far as you want to explore it. You take contracts from The Company, find the asteroids, mine them down to nothing and get paid, and the credits go on bigger hulls, better lasers, drones and later a base of your own.
The ship keeps mining when the tab is in the background, and research keeps going even when the game is closed.
“Routine survey and extraction of the assigned sector. Standard rates apply. Objectives are listed below; deviation is not required.”
No account, nothing to install. Mouse and keyboard, or touch on a tablet.
General survey. Issued.
The trailer
How it plays
What you do in the game.
01
Take a contract
You start at the dock with a small ship. The contract board says what The Company wants from the next sector, like ten asteroids found and ten mined, and what it pays.
02
Explore and mine
The sector is under a fog until you explore it. Right click an asteroid, or long press it on a tablet, and the ship flies over and mines it until there is nothing left.
03
Get paid for the hold
When the hold is full you drop a container and a shuttle comes and pays you for what is in it. In the dangerous sectors raiders try to get to it first.
04
Let the ship do it
At first you give every order yourself. A few cheap blueprints later the ship explores and mines on its own, and it keeps going in a background tab.
05
Spend it at the dock
Between contracts you buy bigger hulls, better lasers, drones and blueprints to research. Research keeps running even when the game is closed.
06
Later on
You build a base out in a sector and it keeps working while you are away. Finish the board at the top of the standing ladder and another department of The Company offers you a transfer, with its own contracts and its own ships.
The map
The map is endless.
There is no edge to it. Everything you have not explored yet is under a fog, and the fog lifts around the ship as you go. You can explore by hand, or research auto-explore and let the ship do it. With auto-mine on as well it explores, mines whatever it finds and goes on exploring.
Some sectors are dangerous. Out there a Volatile asteroid can discharge while you mine it, which pushes the ship back, and the ship waits for it to settle and then goes back to mining on its own.
Mining
Asteroids break apart as you mine them.
Pick an asteroid and the ship flies over, circles it and the laser goes on. The asteroid glows red along its cracks, then it breaks up, and the pieces come away and shrink until there is nothing left of it. Once you can survey, the ship tells you what an asteroid is made of before you mine it. The Ordinal, the Hopper and the Tender have more than one laser, so they mine two or three asteroids at the same time.
When the hold is full the laser stops. Drop a container where you are and a shuttle from The Company jumps in, picks it up and pays you for what is in it. The first container on a contract is free and after that they cost credits. The bigger hulls also have a refinery that turns the raw material into something that takes less room and is worth more, and it runs by itself while you mine.
Drones and pirates
Some hulls carry drones.
The Hopper and the Tender have a drone bay. You buy drones in the Market and load them into the bay, and the mining drones fly out to the asteroids around the ship and mine them into its hold. Escort drones stay with the ship and shoot at raiders. The Kestrel has a bay as well, but it only takes survey drones, which go and find out what the asteroids around you are made of.
In the dangerous sectors raiders jump in, go for the containers you left standing and fly off with part of what is in them. If they come close to the ship your lasers and your escort drones shoot at them. For the containers further away you can build a turret out of refined plate and leave it next to them, or next to your base.
The base
You can build your own base.
Once you have researched the Station Core you can put a base down wherever your ship is, and it stays in that sector. You build it up one module at a time, paid for with refined material out of your hold, and every module goes up piece by piece while you watch. There are storage bays for your drones to deliver into, power, and quarters and life support for a crew. Then the modules that do the work: a refinery, a cradle with mining drones of its own, a fabricator that builds components and drones, a laboratory, an exchange that sells the surplus while you are away, and a berth to dock at. Repairs at your base are free.
Everything you build claims the ground around it, and you can see your claim on the map in your colours. And when fuel and shielding run low out in a sector, you can call a service vessel out to you instead of going back to the dock. It costs a bit more.
Nine asteroid types
The kind of asteroid decides what is in it and how hard it is to mine. A Crystalline is worth a lot and takes a while. A Carbonaceous is worth less and falls apart in seconds. Near where you start they are easy to mine, and further out they get bigger and harder and the valuable kinds turn up more often.
Market, Inventory and Fit
The Market sells hulls, fittings and drones.
What you buy goes into your Inventory, and in the Fit room you put it on a hull. Every hull keeps its own fit, so a spare laser can come off the Surveyor and go on the Ordinal. Every part comes in five tiers, and the top three need a blueprint from Research first. You buy a blueprint and then it takes a while to study before you can use it.
Everything you fit draws power and the generator only makes so much, so on the bigger hulls you have to choose. You can also switch a module off in the middle of a contract, the refinery for example, to get a third laser running.
The fleet
The Company's six hulls
Surveyor
The one you are issued. Fine at everything.
Kestrel
Prospector. The fastest, sees the furthest and carries survey drones.
Dray
Hauler. A big hold and a refinery.
Ordinal
Excavator. Carries two mining lasers.
Hopper
Heavy miner. Three lasers and a small drone bay.
Tender
Drone carrier. The biggest drone bay and the biggest hold.
Three design languages
There are three design languages in the game, and every department of The Company builds all six of its hulls in one of them. The six above are from the department you start in. Transfer to another department and you fly their version of them instead.
- Bulwark
- Trellis
- GantryThe Company
Music
The music is made while you play.
The game plays its own music with its own instruments, a piano, strings, a choir, brass and bells, and every career gets its own key and theme. It follows what the ship is doing, so exploring sounds different from mining, a raid or sitting at the dock, and it keeps going without repeating itself. The sound effects are played in the same key, so the laser coming on is a note in the song. It is off by default for now, you switch it on in the Sound tab.
Contracts
One contract at a time.
Every contract sends you to a sector with a job to do there, like finding and mining a number of asteroids, hauling a certain material or surveying. It says what it pays and how much standing it is worth, and your standing is what gets you the bigger hulls and better prices. When the job is done a memo comes in with the figures, you get paid and the next contract goes up on the board. Back at the dock the ship gets serviced before it can go out again.
The last contract on the board has no end date. You mine for as long as you like and get paid when you call the ship back in.
Skills and other departments
Your skills come with you when you transfer.
You get better at mining, flying, surveying, refining and the rest by doing them. Inside a contract you can also spend credits on boosts, and set a boost to buy its own next level while you are busy with something else.
The Company has other departments working the same belt. Get to the top of the standing ladder with every contract signed off and one of them offers you a transfer. You start there with a signing bonus and some of your standing, in their colours and their ships, with a new board of contracts. Your skills and your blueprints come with you.
Play
Play it in the browser.
Free, no account, nothing to install. Or leave your email and I will write when there is something new.
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