Navigation

Navigation — Warps and Turn Economy

The galaxy is a grid. You are a ship. Between you and every credit, every drone slot, every hostile node, are warp connections that each cost one turn. Understanding which route to take — and when paying that cost is worth it — is most of what navigation is.

The Warp Grid

Nodes are connected by warps — directional corridors in space that your ship can transit in a single action. Most warps are bidirectional. A few are one-way, indicated on the navigation chip.

Turn Cost

Every warp costs 1 turn, regardless of ship class. Speed modifiers are visual only — they affect how your ship looks in motion but not how many turns a hop costs.

Lane Types

Some warps are part of Trade Lanes — established commercial corridors. Trade lanes appear brighter on the map and are slightly favored by the route planner. Guardian drones cannot be deployed in trade lanes.

Route Planning

Tap any non-adjacent node on the map to get a route. The planner runs Dijkstra across the warp graph, using hop count as the sole cost. The route cost shown in the bottom-left corner is the total turn cost.

Autopilot (⊕ Fly all) executes each hop in sequence with a brief pause between hops. You can abort at any time using the ✕ button.

Waypoint shortcuts appear automatically: if the route passes through a Port, Planet, or the Nexus, a dedicated chip lets you autopilot to that stop specifically without committing to the full route.

One-Way Warps

Some warps are one-way — you can transit in one direction but not return. These are indicated by · One-way on the warp chip. Check your surroundings before committing; you may need to find a longer return path.

The Passive Scan on Arrival

Every time you fly to a new node, the server performs a passive scan of all 1-hop neighbors automatically. You don't spend turns on this — it just happens. This means every move you make also extends your sensor picture one node in every direction.

See also: Ships for ship classes · Beacons & Scanning for active intelligence