MANIFEST

About This Game

The Cold Prospect is four days out from Titan Refinery and her drive is starting to go. The Steady Return is sitting at Ceres Station waiting for a cargo, and somewhere out past the Belt a solar flare is on its way. You're the dispatcher. The captains fly the ships, and you decide where they go and how hard they burn.

MANIFEST is a hard-SF freight tycoon set in one solar system, with the planets moving round the Sun while you work.

The desk

You start as a small company based at one of the many ports in the solar system. Freight comes up on the board from all over the system, from the smelters at Caloris to Phoebe Far Terminal out beyond Saturn's rings. Each consignment has a deadline. You pick the ship and plan the flight: fusion torch ships burn the whole way, flip at the turnover point and brake into port, the choice is how hard. Burn hot and you arrive early with a light tank and a worn-out drive. Take it gently and you're counting on nothing going wrong. Meanwhile the planets go on round the Sun, and the lane that paid well last month might be the long way round now.

The fleet

Every ship is an individual. The cheap ones in the yard have been flown by somebody already, and they may not have been the best at taking care of them. Drives, thrusters and hulls all take a toll when pushed hard, so a ship you've run into the ground is slower and more expensive to operate, a tired drive gets throttled back until you book it in for repairs.

Each ship has a captain with a name. Captains get good at the cargo they carry, and a veteran of the ore runs will turn a ship round in port faster than a new hire. Leave one in the wrong job long enough and they'll go and work for somebody else.

The system

Solar flares roll out from the Sun, and a ship caught in the front takes a dose. Dock workers walk out and a port closes, if they're feeling generous, with a few days' warning. Some crews weren't so lucky, and what's left of their ships can be salvaged. Most of the job is seeing it early enough to stop and see if it's worth taking.

As the company grows you take on operating rights at ports and commit to serving them, and the ports you serve well grow with you. The hulls get bigger, up to XL, and you can refit one for a different cargo or lease a ship while you're one short.

The flight deck

You run all of it from a screen laid out like a flight deck, with three or four displays and a column of keys down each side that double as warning lamps. On a good day the room is dark and quiet and the ships crawl across the map. When something breaks its key flashes and an alarm sounds, the lamp stays lit until you've dealt with it.

Where it's at

MANIFEST is in active development by one person. The demo is the current build and gets updated often, and I expect a lot of the numbers to move once more people have played it.