Dustline Outpost

Run a lunar logistics company.

You are not the astronaut. You are the operator who decides where the drill goes, which contracts are worth signing, and who loses power when the batteries run low.

Distance has a cost.

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An isometric lunar outpost at midday: landing pad, cargo depot, regolith processor, battery banks, rover garage, habitat dome, two solar arrays and an oxygen plant, with a loaded rover crossing the regolith.
Sol 0, midday. Twenty three power in, twenty one out, and a rover already on the road.

The loop

  1. 1

    Read the site

    Every site is generated from a seed: one mineral deposit in a far corner, scattered rock that blocks construction, and a starter base on the flat ground near the pad.

  2. 2

    Sign the right contracts

    Offers arrive about twice a sol. Deliver processed regolith, produce oxygen, hold a reserve for a research crew. Reputation unlocks the big orders. Miss a deadline and you pay for it in reputation.

  3. 3

    Build the chain

    Drill on the deposit, processor near the base, depot for export. Nine module types, each with one clear job and a power bill attached to it.

  4. 4

    Route the rovers

    Rovers haul on the routes you assign. They drain battery per cell travelled and divert to the garage to charge. A rover idling at an empty source is your bottleneck, made visible.

  5. 5

    Survive the night, then scale

    Solar output falls to zero after sunset. Batteries decide whether the refinery keeps running or the habitat gets the last kilowatt. Research points buy fifteen upgrades across two tiers.

Time, and the six things you count

The whole game runs on one clock and six numbers. Knowing what they mean before you start saves the first ten minutes of squinting.

One sol is six minutes

A lunar day is called a sol. Each one is 1440 simulated minutes, which is six real minutes at normal speed, and you can pause or run at three or eight times. Daylight is 06:00 to 18:00: solar arrays make nothing outside it, so half of every sol runs on whatever you stored. Speed changes how fast time passes and never what happens, so nothing is decided by how fast you can click.

Systems you can actually see

The power overlay, showing a green footprint plate under each fully powered building.

A power grid that sheds load, not games

Production follows a daylight curve. Surplus charges batteries, deficit drains them, and when the reserve is gone the network throttles in priority order: drills first, habitats last. Nothing explodes and there is no game over. Buildings run at a fraction of their rate until you fix the layout.

The logistics overlay, showing a route line running from the processor out to the distant drill.

Logistics on a map where layout hurts

The rich deposit is deliberately far from the habitat. Every cell between them is battery drained and minutes lost. Put the processor next to the drill and you shorten the ore haul but lengthen the export run. There is no correct answer, only the one your contracts can live with.

The contracts panel with an offer to deliver forty regolith ore within four sols for 220 credits.

Contracts with real opportunity cost

Four active jobs at a time. The lucrative refining order wants the same power your habitat expansion needs. Deliveries settle the moment the goods are sitting in a depot or on the pad, so hitting the target early pays early.

The same outpost at half past nine at night, with a Skip night button in the heads up display.

Night is a constraint, not a waiting room

One sol is 1440 simulated minutes and six real ones. When the sun is down and there is nothing to decide, Skip night fast forwards to sunrise: every minute still runs, so batteries drain, crew breathe and deadlines advance. It saves your time, not your outpost.

Built to be a game first

Your site is waiting.

Twenty two by twenty two cells of regolith, one deposit, and a supply of contracts.

Start an outpost