Asteroid Lanes

Asteroid Lanes is a space logistics sim about mining asteroids, refining what you dig up, selling it, and pouring the money back into more ships and more lanes.

Everything on screen is a symbol: ● for asteroids, ◎ for stations, ▲ for ships, the lanes between them, the rings of pirate territory, and terrain such as currents and reefs.

Connect a mining site to a trade hub, drop a ship on the lane, and it will shuttle back and forth forever, mining, hauling and selling.

Your job is deciding what connects to what, and with how many ships. That is enough to set the universe in motion.

■ One universe, no loading screens

The whole galaxy is one continuous map. Hundreds of regions sit side by side, each with its own resources, prices, refining recipes and terrain.

Ride a current and your ships go faster; fight it and they crawl. Reefs bend your lanes, stars force detours.

Unexplored regions stay in the fog until you pacify the frontier and see what lies beyond.

■ Scarcity decides where you go next

Something is always missing here, and that is what pulls you forward.

Mining a new ore needs research. Research needs refined goods. Refined goods need a processor and a lane feeding it.

Every step forward runs on what the step before it produces, so however deep you push, the regions you opened first keep working.

What is missing, how many, and what for is always on screen, pointing at the next lane you should draw.

■ Longer lanes draw more pirates

Pirates hunt your lanes. The wider your network, the more of it they can see, and anything in their sight is a target.

Put turret ships on the lane, chase off patrols, break garrisons, dismantle their territory. Every stretch you secure becomes new economy.

Dead jump gates sit out there, waiting. Connect two and your ships cross whatever lies between them in one step.

What you need to connect them comes from taking down the big pirate bases. That is how a region too far to reach opens up. You fight to draw the next lane.

■ Build it locally, fly it fleet-wide

Build regional turrets and mining rigs on site, make one of them your fleet standard, and every new ship launches with that gear.

As the gear you can build gets better, so does the supply network it takes to build it.

■ No waiting, and idling is fine

Speed time up to x4. Your logistics also keep running while the game is shut down, and the results are waiting for you the next time you launch. There is a limit on how much of that time counts, and research raises it.

Start with one ship and one lane. Look up later and dozens of ships are crossing dozens of lanes across the map. A long climb, made of small decisions.