Player controls a space-exploitation corporation.

::Set-up::
The player names their corporation, sets their logo and chooses two 'edges':
 * Military - Starts with a head start in Weapons Tech. Can manufacture and sell weapons from the start. Combined with the other edges provides more specific milispee gear to sell.
 * Rocketry - Starts with a dedicated Launch Pad they can use to launch vehicles. Can rent the launch pad to their rivals for income.
 * Communications - Starts with head start in satalites and sensors technologies. Combined with rocketry they can launch comms satalites and sell bandwidth from the start.
 * High-Energy Science - Starts with a Particle Accelerator and gets a headstart in researching exotic and advanced tech paths.
 * Industry - Starts with factories and a head start in industrial technology paths.

They must also select a nation to place their HQ in - providing an initial relationship bonus with that country. The Earth has 5 nations/spheres the player can establish themselves in, each of which maintains an opinion of the player and also acts as a minor-actor in the Early Game.
	* USA
		1x Launch Pad
		Lots of mines (metals + hydrocarbon), Power Plants (Hydrocarbon) and farms.
	* European Union
		Factories
		Labs
		Power Plants (Nuclear and Renewable) and Farms.
	* Russian Federation
		1x Launch Pad
		Factories
		Power Plants (Hydrocarbon), Mines (Hydrocarbon) and Mines (metals)
	* China
		Lots of Factories and Power Plants (Hydrocarbon)
	* Asia - holds 2x factories that can be used at a fee or purchased.
		Mines (Hydrocarbon) and Factories
As a nation's opinion drops Tax obligations and asset upkeep costs will increase and assets located in that sphere may be seized. Material can be sold to these nations and they will produce material for the game's supply/demand engine.

Spheres also have a stability score which, when it reaches a critical value, will cause that nation to have 'failed', rendering any assets in the zone free from tax at the cost of needing military protection until a successor state emerges or the sphere is seized by an extra-territorial corporation.

A corporation starts with a HQ, a Factory, a Lab and the following assets:
	Rocketry - 1x Rocket Launch Pad
	Communications - 4x Telecom Satelites
	High-Energy Science - 1x Lab (/w Particle Accelerator), 1x Fission Powerplant
	Industry - 2x Mine (Random), 1x Factory

::Early Game::
The player, and their rival corporations, compete for 'prizes' for being the first private company to complete certain randomised milestones. For example:
	Landing on [planetary body].
	Geological survey of [planetary body].
	First returned mineral sample from [planetary body].
	First habitat in orbit around [planetary body].

This will, hopefully, lead to the players establishing resource and research installation in the solar system and becoming more self-sufficient.

Once the player builds a HQ in an orbital habitat they will gain the option of declaring extra-territoriality. This reduces the opinion of all nation-states of Earth massively but frees them from tax and legal obligations. Any corporation doing this must be prepared to defend themselves from aggression and will likely have earth-bound assets seized in any spheres that have not 'failed'. This is an excellent tactic if the state you are located in has 'failed', as you can immediately seize that sphere and become a corporate state.

::Mid-Game::
The earth-bound supply of Power will steadily decrease and demand for Power and Commodities, making space-mining extremely lucrative.

High-Energy research may unlock one of three FTL technologies:
	* Gate - permits the construction of space-gates that provide instant travel between gates you own, control or rent access to.
	* Jump - allows large distances to be traversed instantly, at the cost of the ship being paralysed for a time before and after the jump.
	* Warp - allows the ship to move at relativistic, but not superluminal, speed without accellerating.

Alternatively a random event may cause the Traveller to appear - who will sell Exotic/Advanced technology for resources.

With FTL travel the player can explore near-by stellar systems and encounter randomised Alien races. The aliens are, largely, a force of nature and do not follow the same rules as the players and nations.

::End-Game::
Dedicated military ships are expensive. Once the player is in a position to be able to build (and need) large fleets they can begin seizing colonies from their rivals (provided they are extra-territorial). Seizing assets from a corporation that is not extra-territorial will bring their parent nation in to the war.

High-Energy research may upgrade the FTL technologies:
	* Single-point Gates allow ships to travel to any point from a positioned gate - gates themselves no longer need to slowboat into position.
	* Tactical Jump - jump drives no longer paralyse the ship for as long before or after a jump.
	* Superluminal Warp - allows luminal speeds to be exceeded by Warp Drives.

::Insallations/Colonies/Habitats and other Assets::
Ground-facilities and mines have a location in a sphere on the planetary body is it located. Small moons only have one sphere. Earth-sized planets may have 5. Planets significantly larger are not colonisable but usually have a number of moons that are.

Habitats built in orbit do not require a sphere and can be located anywhere. However there is typically a transport cost involved in moving material to and from them - limiting their usefulness. Habitats themselves can contain most types of Ground Asset and behave the same as a Nation.

Ground Assets include: Mines, to extract materials; Factories, to convert materials into parts for ships, weapons and assets or to produce commodities if there are no orders; Labs, to research new tech; Power Plants, to convert materials into Power that can be sold or used to power facilities in that planet or habitat.

Power Plants are the only facility that does not require a Power-producing facility to be located in that sphere, as such all Habitats should have a Power-Plant (ie Solars) on launch.

Unless automated each Facility must have appointed a 'Head', whose competence will affect efficiency and upkeep costs as well as random events.

Automated Mines will extract and package materials to be collected by cargo ships, but will eventually fail. Similarly for Automated Factories. They are primarily to be used in the Early Game and to establish colonies by producing material that can be used to build 'real' facilities, for this reason they are assumed to come with built-in Power Supply.

::Habitats, Nations and other Spheres::
Each sphere has a population, stability and an opinion of each player. A sphere with a low stability descends into Anarchy. A sphere with a low opinion of its owning player descends into Revolution. A sphere with low population simply goes extinct.

As population rises so does demand for materials, especially Food and Power. Failure to provide adequate food will cause population to drop sharply. Failure to provide food and power causes stability to drop sharply. Failure to provide food, power and commodities causes opinion to drop sharply. Providing materials, especially if you do not own that sphere, causes opinion to rise.

Each Sphere has either a Governor (if owned by a corporation) or a Head (if free) whose competence will affect stability and opinion as well as random events.

::Ships::
Ships are difficult and expensive to produce, maintain and supply. The vast majority of your fleet will be transport ships running a defined trade-route between your Spheres.

In the midgame, once FTL is researched, you will produce, maintain and supply a small number of scout ships.

In the late game, you will produce, maintain and supply a fleet of battleships.

Ships are made up of assorted components with different functions. All ships will have a Control component, either an Automated Control (for an unmanned ship) or a Bridge (for a crewed ship). Crewed ships will also have Quarters and Life Support. Both will need some combination of Reactor and Engine components, noting that some Engines produce power and some consume power.

::Aliens::
All the Aliens should be, Alien, and are not bound by the rules of the game. They are a force of nature, not actors in their own right. The names and descriptions of aliens will be randomised.

The Traveller - is a nomadic trading ship that will trade advanced technolgies and exotic matter in exchange for being resupplied. Resupplying the Traveller is not an easy task and it will hunger for large quantities of common material or smaller amounts of extremely rare elements or exotic matter.
	A single super-ship with all technologies available for its construction.

The Uplifted - are created as a servitor race by an Alien consciousness from material harvested by one of your scouts that goes missing trying to survey the system in which it exists. Lacking any commonality the Dreni allow the consciousness to communicate and even understand Humans at the expense that the Dreni may, eventually, become a race unto themselves later in the game. Of all the aliens this is the only human-like race, because fundamentally they are human.
	Unlike other races they are bound by the rules of the game. They begin with whatever technologies the lost ship had as their master race does not use tools in the same way humans do, plus a bonus when researching certain advanced technology due to their expanded consciousness.

The Consciousness - see the Uplifted. Bound to a single planet deep within Uplifted space.

The Artifacts - All that remains of a species similar to humans that never discovered FTL technology. Lacking the means to reach the stars themselves they sent machines, probes and artificial intelligences in their place. A major event wiped out the maker race, and all that remains are their machines.
	Automated facilities
	Ships are highly disparate in technology but never have FTL drives and are always designed to minimise resupply requirements. May have Automated Mines and Factories.

The Zombies - An adaptable parasite that burrows deep into the brain of a host. As it links with the hosts brain it gains a lesser and highly variable set of the hosts mental capabilities. Even after death it may still be possible for them to reanimate the rotting corpse, albeit with very little mental or somatic coordination.
	Discovered by a Colony the Zombies will steal technology as well as hosts until they can adapt to human brains more precisely, slowly becoming more and more intelligent and more and more deadly.

The Insects - An advanced race of insect-like creatures that will react with xenophobia to any colonies and ships approaching. Comunication may be possible, but difficult.
	Advantage in ground combat, begins with high technology but is slow to develop new tech. Favours Gates for FTL travel.