FAQ

A single-player tactical space RTS focused on small fleet combat, deliberate decision-making, and a modular capital ship progression system. Battles take place on a single map composed of interconnected Gravity Wells, strategic zones around celestial bodies.

No. There is no empire building, no diplomacy screen, no technology tree in the traditional sense. Your Mobile Shipyard is your tech tree. You specialize it with modules, and that determines what you can build and how you fight. The focus is on tactical combat, not spreadsheet management.

Real-time with a tactical pause. You can freeze the battle at any moment, survey the field, issue precise orders, then resume. Fleets are small, and every loss changes the shape of the fight. Ships have targetable hardpoints, so you can cripple specific systems instead of just grinding down HP.

A circular strategic zone around a celestial body. Each Gravity Well is a self-contained battlefield with asteroids, structures, and space to maneuver. Ships travel between Gravity Wells using their Jump Drive. The void between Gravity Wells is empty and hostile, so controlling which Gravity Wells you hold and how you move between them is the core of strategy.

Your capital ship. It produces combat vessels, installs modules for specialization, and can jump between Gravity Wells. Lose your last Mobile Shipyard and you lose the war. It has 43 installable modules across 13 upgrade chains, and limited slots force you to specialize rather than build one ship that does everything.

Between one and three hours, depending on map size. Small maps with fewer Gravity Wells play faster. You can save and resume at any point.

Three game modes built on the same battle engine. Skirmish for standalone battles with full customization. Strategic Campaign for a series of battles where your Mobile Shipyard persists and the map evolves. Global War where every player's victories shift a shared strategic map across seasonal campaigns.

Eight: Frigate, Destroyer, Cruiser, Battlecruiser, Battleship, Support Ship, Heavy Cruiser, and Dreadnought. Each class has three faction variants with different stat profiles. Every ship has targetable subsystems and energy-based abilities.

Skirmish: a standalone battle with no progression. Pick a sector from the strategic map, choose your faction, configure difficulty. Strategic Campaign: an offline series of battles where your Mobile Shipyard keeps its tier and modules between missions, and the map evolves based on your victories. Global War: a shared online map where every player's battle results shift faction control across seasonal campaigns.

Every battle is single-player against AI. In Global War, the strategic map is shared: when you win, your result shifts faction control for everyone. You contribute to a larger war without ever fighting another player directly.

No. Skirmish works as a complete standalone experience with full customization: pick your factions, map size, starting conditions, and AI difficulty. Campaign and Global War are there for players who want persistent progression and narrative context.

Skirmish and Strategic Campaign ship first. Global War is the long-term vision and will follow as a post-launch addition.

PC (Windows) via Steam. No console or mobile versions are planned.

To be announced. The game is in active development. Follow the devlog for progress updates.

Yes. Every ship stat, structure cost, weapon parameter, AI behavior threshold, and economy value 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 it on the next launch. No SDK required, no recompilation. There are eleven config files covering ships, structures, weapons, abilities, AI, economy, factions, combat parameters, fog of war, and lore.

Unity 6. The game is developed by a solo developer.

Not planned. The game is designed for deliberate, pausable tactical play. Real-time multiplayer would eliminate the tactical pause, which is core to the experience. The Global War mode provides shared context without requiring synchronous play.

To be announced closer to release. The game uses relatively modest 3D rendering with no massive unit counts, so it should run on mid-range hardware.

Sins is about managing large empires with hundreds of ships across a massive map. The Outer Line is the opposite: small fleets where you know every ship, a single map with Gravity Wells instead of star systems, and a tactical pause so every decision is deliberate rather than a test of multitasking speed.

Homeworld is a linear narrative RTS with full 3D fleet movement. The Outer Line is session-based with high replayability, uses 2D movement within 3D-rendered Gravity Wells, and centers progression on a modular Mobile Shipyard rather than a persistent mothership campaign. The tactical pause also fundamentally changes how combat feels.

Stellaris is a grand strategy 4X game about building a galactic empire over many hours. The Outer Line is a tactical RTS about fighting specific battles in specific places over one to three hours. No diplomacy, no research trees, no population management. Just fleet composition, positioning, and tactical execution.

That is exactly who this game is for. The tactical pause means you never lose because you could not click fast enough. You lose because you made the wrong decision, not because you made the right decision too slowly.