11 places, 14 links: how travel works in Hostile Flagship
Published · Updated
Between the far side of the Moon and 25 km over Sumatra there are 11 places a fleet can be, and 14 links between them. Every trip in Hostile Flagship is a walk along that graph.
Eleven fixed places
| Where | Nodes | Height |
|---|---|---|
| Geostationary orbit | 100° E, 140° W, 20° W | 35,786 km |
| Low Earth orbit | over Sumatra (0°, 100° E), over Ecuador (0°, 80° W) | 400 km |
| Surface zone | Bukittinggi, Bangkok, both under the Sumatra point | 25 km |
| Earth–Moon L1 | 1, on the line to the Moon | 326,400 km from Earth’s centre |
| High lunar orbit | far side, east, west | 10,000 km above the Moon |
The Ecuador point sits exactly opposite Sumatra on the globe. The game starts in the 25 km surface area over Bangkok, at the Top height band.
Each node is a fixed circle, the same for everyone: 800 km across in space, 200 km across near the ground. Ships stop at its edge and leave only by a travel order. Where a ship arrives is right above or below where it was; if that spot is outside the new circle, it comes in at the nearest point of the edge, 10 km inside.
Fourteen links
A link is a jump the game allows. The rule is simple: nothing jumps through Earth or the Moon. The game draws a straight line from the centre of one area to the next, and if that line passes through a body, there is no link.
- The Moon’s far side links to its east and west points. East and west do not link to each other: they are exactly opposite, so the line between them runs through the Moon.
- East and west each link to L1. The far side doesn’t: from there, Earth and L1 are behind the Moon.
- L1 links to all three geostationary points, and the three geostationary points link to each other.
- Each low-orbit point links only to the geostationary points it can see. Sumatra sees only 100° E; Ecuador sees 140° W and 20° W. The two low points never link: Earth is between them.
- Sumatra links down to Bukittinggi and Bangkok.
So the way from the Moon to the ground is step by step: far side → east or west → L1 → a geostationary point → low orbit → the surface. A shortcut from L1 straight to low orbit was tried and dropped.
One link per jump, or a route
A jump order moves a fleet one link. Longer trips are routes, ordered from the node map: one order, and the ships arrive directly. They pay the fuel of every link added up, and the drive spools for as many times as there are links. A three-link carrier route spools 36 seconds, a window in which it can be caught. The route chosen is the one that needs the least change in speed. How that fuel is worked out is in Jump drives and fuel.
Travel is by icon only. The node above you shows as an icon in the sky like any other; there is no Up button. A plain left-click on a travel icon does nothing, so nobody jumps by accident.
The node map
F4 opens the node map: a flat, full-screen map while the game runs on behind it. Earth’s surface, low orbit and geostationary points sit on rings at their true longitudes, L1 between Earth and the Moon, the Moon’s three points on a ring of their own. The links drawn are exactly the links you can jump.
- Hover a link: its trip time at 1 g, and each selected ship’s fuel for it.
- Left-click a node: select your ships there.
- Right-click a node: a route order, confirmed first. The confirm shows the ships, the links, the spool time, the trip time, the fuel and, in red, “can’t return” if the fuel left won’t bring them back.
Why these choices were made: travel nodes and command range.