The Gate, the Beacon and the Lens.

Before you start

The story begins once your ship reaches space. Read the getting started page first if you are new, and keep the controls page open for the keys. Three keys come up again and again on this page:

• M opens the Star Chart, the map where you pick a destination.
• X is the Slipstream, a fast way through space.
• B is the mining beam when you fly near rock, and the Work key when you stand beside the Beacon.

Chapter 1: A Voice in the Static

Goal: fly to the Space Gate. Pell calls you on the radio, because the Beacon has heard a ship in the sky. The Gate is the large violet ring out past the ocean world, with a very large door in it.

1. Open the Star Chart with M.
2. Pick the Space Gate and set off.
3. Use the Slipstream (X) to make the journey a few minutes long rather than hours.

When you arrive, Pell welcomes you to the Door and the chapter ends.

Chapter 2: The Door the Size of a Moon

Goal: mine 20 tonnes of ore. Maester Oda-Thel explains that the Beacon holding the Door steady is failing. A new Lens is needed, and a Lens is cut from ore: iron, nickel and a little of the bright stuff. Ordinary rock will do.

1. Fly into an asteroid field, which is a place with many rocks floating in space.
2. Point the nose of your ship at a rock.
3. Press B for the mining beam. The ore goes into the ship's hold.
4. Watch the ship panel or the Port screen to see how full the hold is. You need 20 tonnes of ore in total.

Mind the boulders. Pell warns you not to fly into one.

Chapter 3: A Very Particular Part

Goal: have 6 tonnes of machine parts in the hold. The Lens also needs machine parts, which are made by a good machine shop. Brindle Aster tells you to dock at a station where the lights are on.

1. Fly slowly up to a station and dock with it. Stations hang in space above a world. See stations and trade.
2. Once docked, the Port screen opens. Use it to buy machine parts.
3. Hold 6 tonnes of machine parts in the hold. Keep the parts there until you need them in chapter 5.

Chapter 4: Hands Wanted

Goal: hire a hand for your ship. A Beacon is not mended by one pair of hands, so you need a crew.

1. Dock at a station and open its crew lounge from the Crew screen. The Crew key is F7 by default, and it shows the Port when you are docked.
2. Or walk into the inn of a village.
3. Sign on one hand: a gunner, an engineer, a navigator or a helmsman. Each does a different job on the ship. A navigator makes the Slipstream faster, and an engineer stretches the fuel.

Chapter 5: The Beacon Lights

Goal: repair the Beacon at the Gate. This is the first big job. The Beacon takes the parts and the ore from your hold, and the story moves on.

1. Make sure your hold has 6 tonnes of machine parts and 10 tonnes of ore. The ore can be any kind from the list: iron, copper, nickel, titanium, platinum-group metals or carbon.
2. Fly to the Space Gate and stay near it. The game only lets you work the Beacon while you are in the Gate's neighbourhood.
3. Stand beside the Beacon, which is the tall, thin tower by the very large door.
4. Press B (Work). The Beacon takes 6 tonnes of machine parts and 10 tonnes of ore from the hold.

If something is missing, the Beacon tells you what. For example, it says how many tonnes of parts the hold has.

When the Beacon is lit, a violet pulse runs round the great ring, and the stars behind the portal turn the colour of a held breath.

Chapter 6: The Warden Wakes

Goal: pass the Warden's test. The Beacon burns, and the Warden wakes. It believes you may be a thief in a repairer's coat, and it has one test to find out.

1. Stay at the Gate and fight the Warden.
2. Aim for its eye, which is its weak spot.
3. Keep moving. Its fists swing wide, and it lunges, so dodge the lunge.
4. Use your turrets and missiles as well as your guns.

The chapter ends when the Warden is beaten. For the Warden's own entry and its fight, see the Gate Warden.

Chapter 7: The Other Side

Goal: go through the Gate to another universe. This is the part the Gatewrights built the Gate for. The Gate reaches many universes, each with its own worlds and peoples.

1. Fly into the Gate's portal. The map of universes opens.
2. Pick a universe. The easy ones are gentle. Pell suggests you pick one with a moon.
3. Expect a toll of fuel. The harder the universe, the bigger the toll. A navigator and an engineer make the toll smaller.
4. Arrive, and wave. Everyone waves.

The chapter ends when you arrive in a universe other than your own. Once you are there, the emissary greets you, and you learn its name and its people. For more about the other universes, see the multiverse.

Chapter 8: A Place Worth Arriving At

Goal: terraform a world and found a colony. Terraforming means changing a hostile world so that people can live on it. The emissary asks you to make one of the cold or thin worlds a kind place.

1. At a Workbench, make an Atmosphere Processor for the air, a Water Seeder for the ground and a Climate Regulator for the weather. See crafting stations.
2. Set the machines down on a hostile world. Use one of them to read the world's score.
3. Wait for the score to rise. The Atmosphere Processor thickens the air, the Water Seeder brings moisture, then moss, then grass, and the Climate Regulator pulls the day toward a comfortable fifteen degrees. Each machine adds to the rate, and the work slows toward the end. It takes days.
4. When the world is livable with a score of 55 of 100, found a colony there and give it a name. Names matter, Pell says.

The chapter ends once the colony is founded. Its name is used in the story from then on.

Chapter 9: The Crossroads

Goal: decide what becomes of the Gate. Oda-Thel could not decide, so the choice is yours. Open the Story log from the goals panel and choose one of three ways: leave the Gate open, seal it, or share it with the peoples.

The choice cannot be changed once you have made it. Read the crossroads and the endings before you decide, because the choice sets how the Gatewrights and the far people feel about you.

Chapter 10: What the Door Remembers

Goal: see the story to its end. After your choice, the ending is told. Once the ending is told, the story is finished, and the Gate is yours to use as you please.

The last chapter has no steps of its own. See the endings for how the story closes.

← Back to the wiki · Last updated 25 October 2026. Mantlenaut is in alpha, so things change.