Orbit

In Orbit you don’t fly upward — you roam freely through an entire star system. The Core sits at the center and keeps pulling you inward: barely noticeable at the edge, an enemy of its own near the middle.

The game itself is in German; in-game names are given in parentheses where it helps.

The three rings

Further in, ore gets more valuable and enemies tougher. The outer ring is a refuge: no reinforcements arrive there.

Stations

The trading posts are large space stations. Fly into the docking ring to open the station; Escape undocks. Every station is surrounded by a safe zone — nothing spawns there, and pursuers turn away.

• Shop: three offers paid in ore — repairs, shield charge, capsules, skill points, wreck parts, further in also weapon levels, boons and lives. Each station keeps its stock.
• Ore trade: sell ore for ions, which you keep after the flight. The rate rises toward the center (3, 4 and 6 ions per ore) and drops with every sale, down to half, before it recovers. Ore itself doesn’t carry over past the flight.
• Contract board: each zone has one mandatory contract and two optional ones — rescue survivors, secure signals, map the area, deliver cargo, intercept convoys, bounties, relics. Only contracts you have accepted count. Every completed contract pays ions, ore, experience and a token (Marke) right away.
• Modules for tokens (see below), the three targeting upgrades and the auto-aim.

The contract panel below the timeline shows your progress, an arrow at the screen edge points to the next location. N (controller: Y) switches to the next contract.

Modules

Tokens only buy ship modules. The ship has six slots; the radio receiver is built in, everything else you buy. A flight starts without a system map — the first token usually buys it.

There are more modules than slots. Anything without a free slot goes into storage; swap modules in and out in the SHIP tab (Tab, then 2).

Aiming and auto-aim

In Orbit your ship fires wherever its nose is pointing.

• Aim yourself: on a controller, the right stick sets the direction while the left stick flies independently (twin-stick). If you fly with WASD or the arrow keys, you aim with the mouse. If you fly with the mouse only, you aim by flying — the ship turns toward its direction of travel. Phones don’t have a second stick yet.
• Auto-aim: if you don’t aim yourself for 3 seconds, it takes over. At first it is weak: it turns only about 80° per second, scatters by ±9° and needs 0.7 s to lock onto a new target. A thin cyan frame shows what it is aiming at.
• Upgrade it with ore at any station, in three levels for 40, 80 and 140 ore. Level III turns about 340° per second, scatters only ±1.5° and locks on in 0.15 s.
• Aiming cone: the auto-aim only reaches what sits within a cone of 60° to each side of the nose — a thin arc on the ship shows it. Three upgrades for tokens widen it without using a module slot: Aim Gyro (Zielkreisel, 1 token, 100° per side), Aim Computer (Zielrechner, 1 token, 150°) and All-Round Targeting (Rundumzielung, 2 tokens, everything).
• Guided weapons are exempt: Homing Missiles, the Drone Swarm and anything a boon has made homing attack in every direction.

In focus the cone narrows to about a third and turns magenta — see Focus. Arcade has no aiming cone.

Dangers

• Nests are where enemies come from: enter their territory and they send reinforcements. In the middle and inner rings, patrols pass by as well.
• Scouts (cyan, with an arrow at the screen edge) don’t shoot — they radio. Once their ring fills up, the nearest nest raises the alarm and sends a squadron. Shoot them down first and it stays quiet.
• You can shake them off. Heavy enemies give up after half a minute, or as soon as you leave their ring outward, and head home.
• Wrath: every enemy type remembers its losses and gets tougher, faster and redder the more you hunt it.
• Solar wind: every two to three minutes the Core erupts. Three seconds beforehand, a line from your ship to the Core shows whether you are covered — amber means exposed, cyan means in shadow. Obsidian between you and the Core, or a nebula, gives cover.
• Nebulae in three colors: violet makes projectiles sluggish, cyan slows enemies, green stops your shield from recharging.
• Local events are tied to places, not to the clock: ambushes in wreck graveyards, meteor storms while mining, an elite patrol in the Shipyard, a line of fortresses in front of the Core.

Loot

• Asteroids: stone is only cover, iron and copper give ore, copper also ions. Obsidian is nearly indestructible and swallows projectiles in both directions.
• Wreck graveyards in every ring: large pieces block shots; shot apart, all pieces give ore and ions, large ones wreck parts as well.
• Signals (amber): hold your position in the circle for 30 seconds to earn a boon. Standing still charges it up to three times as fast.
• Relics in the Ember: hold for 20 seconds and they offer three Orbit boons you can’t get anywhere else — free and without using a cargo slot.
• Escorts: captured ships that fly with you and intercept projectiles, up to three.

Zones, keys and the Core

A zone is secured once its mandatory contract is done. That strengthens you and weakens the Core:

Once the Scrapyard and the Shipyard are secured, the Shipyard guardian reports in with key half I. Once the Ember is contained, the Ember guardian appears there with half II. Both wait at their posts and only attack when you get close. With both halves the gate opens at the center — the Core waits only behind it.

After the Core you jump to the next system: new map, new nests, new keys; skill tree, boons and weapons stay. If you haven’t opened the gate after 30 minutes, you are recalled — the flight ends normally and you keep your loot. A banner warns you from minute 25.

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