Far Haul: docs and launch

Build your ship. Haul the freight. Push the frontier.

Far Haul is a first-person freight, ship-building and exploration game. You own a small, secondhand ship, take contracts, and move goods between worlds. This page shows what you can play today and what is still to come.

Launch game What is built so far

Runs in your browser with no install. About 20 MB on the first load. Works best on a laptop or desktop with a mouse.

Version: 0.1.0, prototype
You can: Build and name a ship, take freight from a living economy, fly local runs and dock, fit an FTL drive and jump between stars, get up from the helm and walk the ship
Not yet: Planets, space walks, crew

The ship at the middle of a star jump, with the stars stretched into long white streaks. — Mid-jump. The stars stretch into streaks, then a flash, then the ship slows at the other end.

The game, and where it is today

Far Haul is about owning a working spaceship. The ship is a place you walk through, and freight is how you pay for it.

You start as an independent operator with a cheap ship and enough money to keep it flying. You take contracts, load containers, work out whether a job is worth the fuel, and run goods between established worlds. Over time you build bigger, buy range, and head out past the end of the charts, where there is no repair yard, no fuel depot and nobody to call. The farther you go, the less is there to help you.

What you can play today: design a ship from modules and check that it works, take freight from a simulated economy of eighteen systems, and fly it. You start with a sublight ship, so your first jobs are runs between the port, fuel depot, moon and belt of your own system, flown by hand or left to the autopilot. Save up for an FTL drive and the other systems open up, with a jump that takes you there without a cut. You can also get up from the helm and walk the ship while it flies. Landing and space walks are still on the drawing board.

Build order

Ship builderPlayable now
FlightPlayable now, with star jumps
Walking insidePlayable now, rough
Landing and exploringFlat procedural planets first
Tethered space walksRepair the outside

Area by area

Area	What the game will be	Today	Status
Ship building	Ships assembled from physical modules: cockpit, hull, cargo holds, tanks, engines, radiators. Every compartment exists in the world. Balance, power, heat and thrust all matter.	A 3 m grid builder. Parts snap together at doors and mounts. Live checks for sealed hull, airlock, power, cooling, thrust-to-weight, centre of mass and an FTL drive. Undo, redo, autosave.	Playable
Menus, saves and the dock	A proper start: pick who you are and where you begin, keep several games, and always return to the last place you stood.	New game with name, species, difficulty and starting system. Five save slots. A dock at your starting system's yard with the contract board, the shipyard, the helm and your running costs. The theme song plays from the splash and loops on the title screen. Settings are placeholders. Species gives no bonuses.	Playable
Known space	Eighteen systems from the five home worlds out to the last settlement at Lastlight, joined by trade routes and named corridors. Every place needs something from somewhere else.	Written as data and now running: five species, eighteen systems, nineteen routes. The economy simulation uses all of it, and the new game screen reads it for species and starting systems.	Playable
Interiors	Cramped, practical, lived-in. Cabins, galleys, engine rooms and cockpits that look like they were built to do a job.	Each part has its own fitted interior: cockpit seats and controls, a reactor room, crew quarters with bunks and a galley, an airlock with suit lockers. You can see them from the builder camera.	Rough
Freight and contracts	Cargo in standard containers, with real mass, value and handling needs. Demand that follows what each place makes and uses.	A contract board with live freight, deadlines and pay. You load, deliver and get paid. Sublight ships get in-system runs between the port, depot, moon and belt; interstellar freight needs an FTL drive. The hold is limited by what the tank can lift.	Playable
Flying	Fly from the pilot seat. Fuel, range and an off-centre thrust line that costs manoeuvring propellant.	Free flight from the dock, flown local runs (burn, flip, brake, time compression, docking at the far station) and star jumps with a spool-up, streaking stars, a flash and a slowdown. Fuel, heat, power and hull damage all count. Jump sounds are synthesised placeholders.	Rough
Walking the ship	Leave the seat and walk the corridors while underway. A longer ship means a longer walk to engineering.	Press G at the helm to get up and walk in first person, with deck gravity. Walls, doorways, furniture and loaded containers block you. Ladder shafts change deck, and the airlock lets you off at a berth. The ship flies on as you left it.	Rough
Landing and exploring	Land on rocky worlds and moons, then explore by ship, rover and on foot.	Nothing yet. Flat procedural terrain comes first.	Planned
Space walks and repair	Go out through the airlock on a tether to fix radiators, engines and hull damage.	Airlocks exist and the builder checks for one. Nothing outside the hull yet.	Planned
Living economy	Freight demand that comes from what places produce and need. Frontier outposts that grow because you supplied them.	A simulation of production, stock, orders and shipping carriers across all eighteen systems runs alongside you. Easy, Normal and Hard change your costs and pay, not the world; Hard sits close to insolvency. Frontier growth is not built.	Rough
Manufacturers and wear	Parts from companies with recognisable engineering habits. Components wear and fail where you can see it.	One generic part for each job. Hull damage from collisions is charged as repairs.	Planned
Crew, passengers, salvage, combat	People who live aboard, wrecks worth boarding, and danger that is a cost to avoid rather than the main event.	None of these yet.	Planned

Screenshots

All taken from the game itself. Select any image to see it full size.

The ship in the middle of a star jump, with the stars stretched into long streaks around it. — **Star jump.** Spool, streaks, a flash and a slowdown. No cut scene: you stay in the ship the whole way.

Standing in the cockpit behind the seats, looking at the dash of screens and switches and the windscreen. — **On foot.** Get up from the helm and the cockpit is a room you stand in. E sits you back down.

Looking aft down the empty cargo hold's aisle, with hazard stripes on the floor and the glowing reactor in engineering beyond the far door. — **Down the hold.** The aisle runs aft to engineering, where the reactor glows behind the far door.

The flight view on a local run, with the ship, a diamond marker for the destination and a panel of speed, fuel and delta-v readouts. — **A local run.** Point at the marker, burn, flip and brake. The readouts show fuel, delta-v and the cost of a perfect run.

The dock at Roosevelt Orbital Freight Terminal with credits, running costs per day, the FTL drive price and the dock actions. — **The dock.** Credits, daily running costs, how long your cash lasts, and what an FTL drive would cost.

The ship builder with a freighter and the hold filled with water. — **Shipyard.** Design the ship and check the engineering numbers. The cargo preview fills the hold so you can see it loaded. The cargo preview does not buy or sell anything.

Title screen. The starter ship drifts past while you pick Continue, New game, Load game, Settings or Quit.

The new game screen with name, race, difficulty, starting world and save slot choices. — **New game.** Choose a name, race, difficulty, starting world and save slot.

Five save slots, two of them filled, each showing the captain, place, ship and credits. — **Load game.** Five save slots. Each shows who, where, which ship and how much money.

The dock screen for Port Ketterick with the captain, ship, credits and the way into the shipyard. — **The dock.** Your starting world decides which yard you begin at. The shipyard opens from here.

The cockpit module from outside, with a wide windscreen and a small side window showing seats and switches inside. — **Cockpit, outside.** A wide windscreen and a window each side, so you can see in from the builder.

Inside a cockpit: two pilot seats facing a windscreen and a dash with glowing screens and switch rows. — **Cockpit.** Two seats, a dash of screens and switches, a throttle pedestal, and stars through the windscreen.

The engineering room: a glowing reactor core beside a wall of control cabinets with indicator lights. — **Engineering.** A glowing core, coolant plumbing and control cabinets.

Crew quarters with bunk beds, a table with stools and a galley counter. — **Crew quarters.** Bunks, a table, a galley and a desk in one room.

A cargo hold seen along its aisle, with coloured containers on both sides and an overhead gantry. — **Cargo hold.** Containers on both sides of a marked aisle, with a gantry overhead.

Crew quarters seen from the galley end, with a desk, a table and a bunk. — **Crew quarters, other end.** A desk with a screen sits beside the table.

The ship builder at Ketterick Slipways with the ship named Dunlin and an empty hold. — **Starter ship.** Every new game begins with this hauler. Name it in the box at the top right. Starting credits depend on difficulty.

Intro. A placeholder video plays before the title screen. Any key skips it.

Help

You start with a ready-made sublight hauler and 110,000 to 220,000 credits, depending on difficulty. Take local freight, save for an FTL drive, then go further.

Your first ship

Press Launch game, then New game. Pick a name, race, difficulty, starting world and save slot, then Begin. Later, use Continue or Load game to return.
You arrive at the dock. Press Enter shipyard to open the ship builder.
Look at the ship. Click a part in the palette on the left, then click next to the ship to place it. Green means it fits. Red tells you why not.
Watch the power, cooling and cargo meters and the warnings on the right. Each warning says what is missing.
Use Cargo preview to fill the hold and see the ship loaded. This only changes how the ship looks and weighs. It does not buy or sell anything.
Type a name in Ship name. Press S to save. Your game also autosaves. Leave shipyard (Esc) saves and takes you back to the dock.
Open the Contract board, accept a run and load it. A sublight ship sees runs inside its own system. Press Depart to let the autopilot fly it at the textbook fuel cost, or Fly the run to do it yourself.
Fit an FTL drive in the shipyard (about 48,000 cr with its radiator) to take freight to other systems. At the dock, Fly the jump undocks you and lets you press J once you are clear.

What makes a ship valid

A cockpit to fly from.
At least one engine pointing aft.
A sealed hull. Cyan rings mark doorways that open onto space; cap them with a module.
An airlock, so the crew can get in and out.
Enough power for everything that draws it.
Enough cooling for the heat you make.
Enough thrust for the loaded weight. The stats panel shows thrust-to-weight empty and loaded.
An FTL drive, if the freight crosses between systems.

Controls: shipyard

Place a part	`Left click`
Remove a part	`Shift` + `Left click`
Rotate the part	`R`
Choose a part	`1` to `9`, `0`, `[` `]`, or click it
Build deck down or up	`Q` / `E`
Undo and redo	`Ctrl` + `Z` / `Ctrl` + `Y`
Orbit the camera	Right-drag
Zoom	Mouse wheel
Pan	Middle-drag
Frame the whole ship	`F`
Hide the decks above	`H`
Save, clear	`S`, `C`
Leave the shipyard	`Esc`
Mute sound	`M`
Show the help text	`F1`

Controls: flying

Throttle up, down, cut	`W` / `S` / `Z`
Pitch and yaw	Arrow keys
Roll	`Q` / `E`
Brake autopilot	`X`
Rotation assist	`R`
Camera	`C`
Time compression	`,` / `.`
Dock	`F`, or `Esc` to autopilot in
Engage the FTL drive	`J`, when clear of the station and cool
Get up from the helm	`G`

Controls: on foot

Walk	`W` `A` `S` `D`, `Shift` to run
Look	Mouse, or arrow keys
Take the helm, climb a ladder, leave by the airlock	`E`
Free the mouse	`Esc`, click to look again

Questions

Where is my game saved?

In this browser, automatically, every time you change something. Clearing your browser's site data erases it. Another browser or device starts fresh, because saves are not shared between them yet.

I cannot place a part. Why?

Move the cursor over the ship and read the red message under it. The usual reasons are overlapping another module, no matching door or mount on the neighbouring part, or not enough credits.

Why can I only see a few jobs?

Without an FTL drive your ship only sees runs inside its own system, and only ones its tank can lift: the hold is limited by fuel, so a long hop means a lighter load. Fit an FTL drive and the interstellar board opens up.

There is no sound.

Browsers block audio until you click the page once, so the theme song may start only after your first click or key press. Click anywhere in the game. Press M to check that sound is not muted.

It runs slowly.

The game uses the simplest rendering mode so that it works on integrated graphics, but a browser still adds overhead. Close other tabs, make the window smaller, or press H to hide decks you are not working on.

Does it work on a phone or tablet?

Not properly yet. The builder expects a mouse and keyboard. Touch controls are not built.

How do I get to another star?

Fit an FTL drive in the shipyard, accept an interstellar contract, and use Fly the jump at the dock. Get 3 km clear of the station, slow down and let the engines cool, then press J. A jump costs fuel, fees and days of crew wages, and the world keeps moving while you travel.

About Far Haul

A game about owning a spacecraft and being free to go somewhere.

Not a magical ship, and not a legendary warship. A machine you designed, paid for, patched together, overloaded and eventually know well enough to hear when something is wrong. There is no chosen hero and no galaxy to save. There is always another shipment, another settlement, and another star past the edge of the chart.

What it is built around

Function over formShips are boxes, frames, tanks, engines and radiators. A strange-looking ship that obeys the engineering is a perfectly good ship.
The ship is the placeEvery compartment is a real room. Cockpit, hold and engine room all exist, and walking between them takes time.
Freight is the economyCivilisation needs things moved. You earn by moving them, and what you earn becomes a better ship.
The frontier gets thinPast the core worlds there is less help. Eventually there is no repair yard, no fuel depot, and no rescue.

Known space

Humans, Kesh, Ilyan, Vey and Orun each have a home system and an engineering tradition. Trade has mixed them for generations, so a Kesh captain at a human-built terminal is ordinary. Your species shapes where you come from, not what you can do. The core is crowded and well supplied. Further out there are fewer ports, fewer repairs and less rescue, until Lastlight, where ordinary commerce runs out.

Humans: Sol. Modular, repairable, improvised. Many makers and standards.
Kesh: Keshar. Heavy, redundant, very durable. High gravity.
Ilyan: Ilos. Light, efficient, precise. Low gravity, great engines.
Vey: Veyara. Water, life support and biotechnology. Semi-aquatic.
Orun: Orun. Compact, accessible machinery and thermal control. Communal and underground.

The prototype

Version: 0.1.0, prototype
Built with: Godot 4.4, written in GDScript. Runs in the browser through the Compatibility renderer.
Art and sound: The textures, sky, jump sounds and logo are generated in code. The theme song is a custom track. The intro video is a placeholder.
Placeholders: Prices, part stats and the intro video will all change.
Source: github.com/benjaminarthurt/FarHaul