9 kinds of asteroid·6 hulls·6 materials to refine·no edge to the map·free in the browser
Welcome to For The Company!
It's a free game and it runs in your browser. You get a ship with a laser bolted to the front of it and an asteroid belt that never runs out. Fly over to an asteroid, keep the laser on it until there's nothing left of it, refine what you brought back or drop it in a container for the shuttle, buy something better. Bigger ships fly drones. The nastier sectors have pirates. It also keeps mining while the tab is in the background.
“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 map
The map is endless.
There is no edge to the map, and a fog of war hides everything you have not explored yet. Every sector comes out of a seed, a short text you can type in yourself, so a sector you like can be found again.
The asteroids rotate, take the colour of the sector's sky and crack open as you mine them. Volatile asteroids discharge if you mine them for too long: the ship is pushed back, waits about twenty seconds and goes back to mining on its own. They only show up in sectors that pay hazard rates.
Mining
An asteroid comes apart as you mine it.
Every asteroid is made of one to three materials and a survey tells you which. Then the laser goes on and the ship orbits the asteroid. It cracks first, then it breaks up, and the pieces come away and shrink until there is nothing left of it. A hull with more than one laser mines more than one asteroid at once, each turret aiming on its own.
The hold is measured in cubic metres and a full hold stops the laser. Either refine what is aboard into something smaller and worth more, or drop a container and a shuttle from The Company comes and collects it. In the dangerous sectors pirates may get to the container first.
Drones and pirates
The big hulls fly drones. The dangerous sectors have raiders.
The Hopper and the Tender have a drone bay. Mining drones fly to the asteroids around the ship and mine them at the ship's own rate, two on one asteroid when nothing else is left, and survey drones read whatever the sensors have found. Anything off screen gets a mark on the screen edge, so the drones are never lost.
They jump in outside the view, skim a container you left standing and leave with part of it. Close to the ship your own lasers turn on them, and you can build a turret station out of refined plate and leave it standing next to your containers.
The base
A base grows where you put it.
Research the Station Core and you can place one where the ship is. It stays in the sector and it takes eight modules. Storage bays the drones deliver into instead of the hold. A solar array to run them, and a reactor once there is a crew to run that. Quarters, air, water and food for the crew. Then the working modules: a refinery bay that refines what the base is holding on its own clock, a cradle that flies two mining drones of its own, a fabricator that builds ship components and drones out of the base's stock, a laboratory that gets you through the file on your desk half again as fast, an exchange that sells the surplus onto the books while you are elsewhere.
Power and crew are what you are actually playing. The core runs four modules by itself and everything after that has to be paid for, and the modules that do the real work need people, who need somewhere to sleep and air to breathe. Nothing comes back off a base once it is on, so the order you build in is a decision.
Nine asteroid types
Nine kinds, sixteen shapes of each, and not one of them drawn by hand. The kind of asteroid decides what is in it and how hard it is to mine, from the first one you put the laser on. A Crystalline is worth a lot and takes a while to get through. A Carbonaceous is worth less and falls apart in seconds.
The Shipyard
Six hulls, eight module slots, one power budget.
The hull decides what fits on it. Generator, lasers, engines, sensors, hold, plating, drone bay and refinery each have five tiers. The hull has a power budget, a better generator raises it and everything else draws on it. Switch the refinery off mid-contract to power a third laser, or the other way round. The Shipyard is a fitting editor: build the whole loadout, see the power and the bill, pay once. Tier three and up need a blueprint, which is researched while you fly.
Each company builds its ships in its own design language, so you can tell whose ship it is at a glance.
The fleet
The Company's six hulls
Surveyor
The one you are issued. Fine at everything.
Kestrel
Scout. Finds asteroids fast, mines them slowly.
Dray
Hauler. Bigger hold, in no hurry.
Ordinal
Excavator. Carries two mining lasers.
Hopper
Heavy miner. Three lasers and a bay for two drones.
Tender
Carrier. A bay for four drones and the largest hold.
Four design languages
There are four design languages in the game, and a company sticks to one of them across all six of its hulls. The six above are The Company's, from the Surveyor you are issued up to the Tender. Work for someone else and the whole fleet changes shape, not just the paint.
- Bulwark
- Trellis
- Monolith
- GantryThe Company
Contracts
One contract at a time.
A contract says what The Company wants, what it pays and how much standing it is worth. Standing is what unlocks hulls and discounts. Sign it and you are in that sector until the objective is met. Then a memo arrives with the figures, the credits land and the next contract is on the board.
The last contract has no end. A quota of 3,000 resources at 0.15 credits each, paid out when you request recall.
Skills and other employers
Skills stay with you. Employers do not.
Mining, movement, sensor radius, range, survey and refining all level up by doing them. Mining, movement, radius and range are the four you can also buy upgrades for inside a contract, and every level of those takes 5 % off that upgrade's price, down to half. Eight of each is as far as one contract goes. Research keeps going while you are away.
Reach the top of an employer's ladder with every contract signed off and the other companies start posting work. Taking one of their offers starts you over: new ship, new livery, bottom of a new ladder. Skill levels and researched blueprints come with you.
How it plays
On a computer
Left click selects an asteroid, right click sends the ship over or puts the laser on it, and shift queues the next job up. There's an auto-mine that works through whatever you have found already and an auto-explore that goes and finds more.
On a tablet or phone
Tap where you want to go, long press an asteroid to mine it, pinch to zoom. Everything else sits on one bar of buttons: the ship, the modules, the pilot, the contract, the upgrades, the inventory and what you can build. Each opens one window above the bar, and its button starts pulsing when there is something to do in there. Between contracts the rooms are one long strip that you swipe.
While you are away
The ship keeps mining in a background tab, and research keeps going even when the game is closed. Come back to a lot of time owed and it plays it through while you watch, and you can pause that if you want to get at the settings first.
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.
Newsletter
Or follow along on YouTube.