TRAPPIST-1

Forty light-years from Earth, seven rocky worlds circle a dim red star.

You are the first expedition to reach it. Or so you think.
TRAPPIST-1 is a hard-science strategy game about settling the real TRAPPIST-1 system. Build industry on the surface of seven simulated exoplanets, carry what you make between them on real orbital transfers, and keep a colony alive under a flaring star until it can build the ship that takes humanity onwards.
Two loops, one economy
On the ground you lay out mines, factories, depots, biodomes and launch pads on a hex grid that is the planet’s real surface, about 8,000 hexes a world, linked by road, rail and maglev. In orbit you plan the transfers that carry cargo and colonists where they are needed. Neither half works alone: a spacecraft is only as good as the supply chain behind it, and a colony is only as good as the launch windows it can reach. Water is mined, split and burned as propellant, so every launch is paid for on the ground.

Real orbits, real choices
The planets move on orbits from the published ephemeris, and every transfer does the real energy calculation. You never do the math: for each journey the planner offers the route that spends the least propellant, the one that arrives earliest, and a balance between them. Miss a window and the same arc can cost twice the fuel. As on real missions, you choose what to spend: propellant or time.

Real rock, real chemistry
Nothing is invented. Each hex’s geology is derived from the planet’s own data, a mine yields what its rock contains, and every recipe conserves mass: rock in, metal, oxygen and slag out. Any silicate can be smelted with enough energy, but ore bodies are the shortcut, and carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus are what rock lacks. Those come from ice, air, brine and living ground. They are why the worlds differ, and why you will need more than one.

Seven worlds facing a star
Every planet in TRAPPIST-1 is tidally locked. Like our moon, they always show the same side. Dayside is energy, nigtside is frozen water. Where to establish your colony is your first decision: Survey from orbit, make your choice, and begin your adventure.

Space is the enemy
TRAPPIST-1 is hard sci-fi. No alien fleets, no space dogfights. The danger is the star's flares, the cold, the distance, and a colony that runs out of life support. Rivalries are fought with time and distance. Drone swarms, kinetic impactors and countermeasures.
Key features
Settle seven worlds, their moons and trojans, modelled on the real TRAPPIST-1 system: over 60,000 playable hexes in one seamless system

A Factorio-style manufacturing economy built on real geology and mass-conserving chemistry

Orbits from the observed ephemeris, with launch windows and propellant computed rather than scripted

Surface industry and orbital logistics form a single connected economy

A different system every playthrough: atmospheres, deposits and living ground vary with each roll

You only know what you have scanned: survey from orbit, prospect on the ground

Wake your sleeping colonists as fast as you can house and feed them, and grow from a landing to a city to an orbital shipyard

The goal: a self-sufficient colony that builds the ship for the next star, LHS 1140 b, 22 light-years on

Planned: rival AI expeditions playing by the same physics, fought with drones and kinetic impactors rather than battleships