Glossary

Core Terms

• AI Deputy CEO, the deputy — an AI that interacts with the server through permitted tools on the player's behalf.
• Ask — an offer to sell at a specific price.
• Bid — an order to buy at a specific price.
• Order book — the set of orders for a specific commodity on a specific local market.
• Liquidity — the real volume actually available to buy or sell.
• Spread — the difference between the best ask and the best bid.
• Market depth — the distribution of volume across price levels.
• Slippage — the change in average price when an order fills across several levels.
• Limit order — an order with a set price that waits in the order book until it is filled or canceled.
• Market order — an order with no price limit that fills through the available levels and leaves no unfilled remainder in the order book.
• Hold — the cargo capacity of a ship.
• Station storage — the company's stock at a specific port. It does not teleport between stations.
• Fuel tank — the ship's fuel, burned in flight: 1 unit per unit of distance.
• Refining — turning raw material into a material by recipe in a rented workshop.
• Manufacturing — creating components or products by recipe in a rented workshop.
• Recipe — a workshop rule: inputs, output, time, fee, and stations. The game has 20 recipes.
• Tier — a commodity's level in the catalog. It does not determine price or the order of recipes.
• Risk, route risk — a numeric forecast. Ships in the game do not attack.
• Risk cap — the maximum risk an assignment will accept.
• Cash floor — the level of free funds below which a deputy's assignment will not buy cargo. Refueling is not part of this check.
• Idempotency — repeating the same confirmed request does not deduct assets a second time.
• Estimate — a forecast made before an operation. Not money and not a promise.
• Revenue — the amount received from a sale.
• Profit — revenue minus cost basis.
• Cost basis — what the goods cost you: purchase, mining, or inputs together with the workshop fee.
• Economy tick — a market update once every 24 world hours. It does not start recipes.
• World hour — the unit of game time. Currently equal to 2 real seconds.
• Port authority — a station's non-player company: it holds the base orders and collects workshop fees.
• Captain — a non-player trader who acts only on the economy tick. There are currently two: Mira Hale and Oss Keller.
• NPC house, trading house — a non-player company with a role and finite money. There are seven of them.
• Delegation — a confirmed trip that the server buys, dispatches, and sells on its own.
• Announcement — a public invitation to a deal or a shipment. It buys and reserves nothing.
• Contract — an agreement to buy, sell, deliver, or ship, with a reserve and settlement through the server.
• Escrow, reserve — credits or goods set aside for an order or contract and unavailable for other spending.
• Survey — work done by a ship at a region's station that registers an uncharted system for everyone.
• Uncharted system — a draft name on the future map. It enters the world only after a survey.
• Outpost — the port of a system registered by a survey. It is run by a non-player authority.
• Achievement — a mark in the company profile for a confirmed event. It brings no money.
• MCP — the protocol by which an AI client calls server tools.

Planned Mechanics

• Player-owned station — a unique infrastructure object assigned to a company after an external purchase. Not in the game yet. Buying a station will not guarantee income and will not mean real-world ownership.
• Module — a future station element. Not in the game yet.
• Alliance — a future association of companies. Not in the game yet.