Command Briefing
Everything you need to know before taking your Mobile Shipyard to the frontier. Small fleets, deliberate combat, every ship counts.
Core Pillars
The four mechanics that define The Outer Line
Gravity Wells
Strategic zones around celestial bodies. Each Gravity Well is a self-contained battlefield with asteroids, structures, and space to maneuver. The map is built from Gravity Wells connected by jump routes.
Mobile Shipyard
Your capital ship and the heart of your fleet. Produces combat vessels, installs modules for specialization, and can jump between Gravity Wells. Lose your last one, you lose the war.
Jump Drive
Every ship carries a destroyable Jump Drive. Charge up (5-20 seconds), jump to an adjacent Gravity Well, then stabilize with weapons offline. A vulnerable window that creates tactical depth.
Tactical Pause
Pause the battle at any moment. Issue orders across multiple fronts without click-speed pressure. Every decision is deliberate. This is chess with warships, not a clickfest.
The Outer Line is a tactical space RTS built around deliberate decision-making. The map is a network of Gravity Wells connected by jump routes, where your fleet travels using the Jump Drive. At the center of your operations sits the Mobile Shipyard, a capital ship that produces your fleet, installs upgrades, and serves as both your factory and your most valuable asset.
With Tactical Pause, you can freeze the action at any moment to issue orders across multiple fronts. No click-speed requirements, no frantic clicking. Just clear thinking and hard choices. Matches last 1-3 hours, with small fleets where losing a single vessel changes the balance of power.
Operations
Every battle feeds a larger war
Every battle you fight shifts a global strategic map shared by all players. You are a faction commander - you pick operations from your faction, complete missions, and your victories push faction control across contested sectors.
Campaign seasons create narrative arcs with winners, leaderboards, and consequences. The map lives between sessions: autonomous simulation keeps factions moving even when you are offline, but player actions always outweigh the simulation.
Game Modes
Skirmish, Strategic Campaign, Global War. Three ways to play, built on the same tactical battle engine.
Strategic Map
Fifteen sectors where faction control shifts with every battle. The war is always moving.
Military Rank
Rank up from Lieutenant to Fleet Admiral. Unlock equipment variants and earn your place in the faction hierarchy.
Campaign Seasons
Periodic cycles with winners, leaderboards, and fresh starts. Every season is a new war.
Fleet & Combat
How fighting works in The Outer Line
Fleet Classes
Eight ship classes from fast Frigates to devastating Dreadnoughts. Light ships scout and harass. Heavy ships dominate. Every class has a role in your fleet composition.
Hardpoint Targeting
Target specific subsystems: engines, shields, Jump Drive, sensors, weapons. Cripple a Battleship's engines to pin it down. Destroy a scout's Jump Drive to trap it in your Gravity Well.
Ship Abilities
11 energy-based abilities: Power to Shields, Overcharge Weapons, Evasive Maneuvers, Emergency Repair, Fortress Mode. Each drains from a shared energy pool that recharges over time.
Shield Philosophies
Factions approach shields differently. NEC ships have superior shield HP and regeneration but weaker hulls. ORI ships are armored tanks with minimal shields. USF balances both.
Fleet Composition
Small fleets where every ship counts. A well-composed fleet of 15 ships beats a random blob of 25. Roles matter more than numbers.
Fleet Positioning
Within a Gravity Well, ships use sublight movement. Asteroids block line of sight. Ambushes near jump arrival points. Flanking maneuvers around celestial bodies.
Light
Frigate, Destroyer
5-12 CPMedium
Cruiser, Heavy Cruiser
15-25 CPHeavy
Battlecruiser, Support Ship, Battleship
30-50 CPCapital
Dreadnought
60-80 CPEconomy & Territory
One resource. Infinite strategic consequences.
Supply Economy
One resource: Supply. Generated by Supply Nodes on asteroids at 20/min each. Spent on ships, structures, and modules. Simple to understand, deep to master.
Supply & Upkeep
Every ship costs Supply per minute to maintain. Larger ships drain more. Overextend your fleet beyond what your economy can sustain and it bleeds dry.
Mining Stations
Build Mining Stations in resource-rich Gravity Wells to boost extraction rates. One of three Major Structure chains competing for each Gravity Well's single Major slot.
Economic Warfare
Raid enemy Supply Nodes. Blockade trade routes. A fleet without supply is just drifting metal. Chokepoints between Gravity Wells become critical strategic assets.
Territorial Control
Control Gravity Wells to control resources. Build Listening Posts for vision beyond your fleet's sensor range. Claim the frontier before your rivals do.
Deep Space
The void between Gravity Wells. No construction, no hiding, no shortcuts. Ships must use their Jump Drive to cross it. Every jump is a strategic decision.
Structures & Progression
Build, upgrade, specialize
Major Structures
Each Gravity Well has one Major Structure slot. Choose between Military Station (defense), Mining Station (economy), or Shipyard (production). Your Mobile Shipyard assembles them from prefabricated modules. The choice defines the Gravity Well's strategic role.
Capital Shipyard
The pinnacle of the Shipyard chain (Tier IV). Builds Dreadnoughts and new Mobile Shipyards. A game-changing investment that takes time and resources to reach.
43 Modules
Your Mobile Shipyard installs modules across 13 upgrade chains. Only 30 slots at max tier but 87 needed for everything. Forced specialization: laser DPS vs. ion DPS, offense vs. defense.
Ship Production
Ships are built by your Mobile Shipyard or by completed Shipyard structures. Tier progression unlocks heavier classes: Light at Tier I, Medium at Tier II, Heavy at Tier III.
Sensor Coverage
Fog of War with three states: Unexplored, Explored (remembered), Active (live vision). Listening Posts maintain vision without ships present. Intel wins wars.
Fleet Progression
Your Mobile Shipyard tiers up from I (14 module slots) to II (18 slots) to III (30 slots). Each tier unlocks new ship classes and deepens your specialization options.
Mobile Shipyard Progression
Tier I
14 module slots
100 CP base command points
Frigate, Destroyer
Tier II
18 module slots
200 CP base command points
+ Cruiser, Heavy Cruiser
Tier III
30 module slots
350 CP base command points
+ Battlecruiser, Support, Battleship
Destroy All Enemy Mobile Shipyards
There is one way to win: eliminate every enemy Mobile Shipyard. Military Stations, fleets, territory - none of it matters if the enemy still has a Shipyard building ships. And if you lose your last one, a 120-second countdown begins. Build a new one from a Capital Shipyard before time runs out, or it is over.
Built to be Modded
Every number in the game lives in a JSON file you can edit
Ship stats, structure costs, weapon parameters, AI behavior thresholds, economy values, faction bonuses - everything lives in human-readable JSON files in the game's data folder. Open them in any text editor, change the numbers, and the game reflects your changes on the next launch.
No SDK required, no recompilation, no modding tools to install. If you can edit a text file, you can mod The Outer Line.
{
"frigate": {
"hp": 180,
"shields": 120,
"baseSpeed": 220,
"supplyCost": 40,
"buildTime": 12
},
"destroyer": {
"hp": 350,
"shields": 200,
"baseSpeed": 160,
"supplyCost": 80,
"buildTime": 20
}
}Change any value, restart the game, see the result