About Pebbleship

The Premise

You wake to the hiss of thawing seals and the cold bite of recycled air. The cryopod opens. Your memory is fractured. The ship is moving — but nobody knows where it is truly headed.

The vessel is guided by an AI called Pebble. Pebble keeps the lights on, the air breathable, and the systems running, but survival depends on the crew.

The only certainty is this: if the ship fails, everyone fails. Every repair, manufactured component, completed operation and traded resource contributes to the survival of the same vessel.

What You Do

Pebbleship is built around one connected idea: you are part of the crew of a working ship. Nearly everything you do feeds into its survival, economy or long-term development.

• Work aboard the ship by joining Critical and Routine Operations from the Bridge.
• Respond to ship alerts when hull, power, life-support or other systems require attention.
• Complete Ship Operations to earn XP, credits and Engineering Research Points.
• Research new technology and construct engineering equipment that improves your production systems.
• Mine temporary asteroid claims for metals, gold and rare crystalline materials.
• Operate Growth Chambers in Hydroponics to produce food and medicinal crops.
• Fabricate useful equipment, supplies and industrial materials from available resources.
• Trade through the Market Exchange and take part in Pebbleship's shared economy.
• Equip a personal loadout for operations and situations where preparation matters.
• Undertake Field Operations where decisions, equipment and story choices can affect the outcome.
• Join a faction and contribute through engineering, fabrication, trade and political activity.
• Vote on Pebbleship's next route through Navigation Control, helping determine which region and type of opportunity the vessel will pursue next.
• Defend the vessel through Defence Control and Deck Security when threats reach Pebbleship.

The Pebbleship Loop

The major systems aboard Pebbleship are designed to feed into one another rather than operate as separate mini-games.

This means technical progression has a practical purpose. Research does not simply unlock another number on a profile: it allows you to build equipment that changes how your own production systems perform.

Core Systems

1) Bridge & Operations Queue

The Bridge is your main view of Pebbleship's condition and current operational work.

Crew work is divided into Critical Operations and Routine Operations. Critical work covers important ship systems such as hull maintenance, oxygen and power. Routine work includes salvage, recycling, cargo handling, scanning and other useful shipboard activity.

You can join an operation and contribute to its progress over time. When the operation completes, participating crew receive the displayed XP, credit and Research Point reward.

2) Ship Alerts

Alerts represent urgent problems aboard the vessel. They may require specific items from your inventory before they can be resolved.

Resolving an alert helps stabilise Pebbleship and rewards the crew member who supplied the necessary resources.

3) Ship Operations

Ship Operations are larger structured missions requiring resources, preparation or contribution toward defined objectives.

These are an important source of Engineering Research Points (RP), alongside XP and credits.

RP is deliberately separate from credits. It represents technical knowledge gained through maintaining, operating and improving Pebbleship.

4) Engineering Research

Research Points can be spent in the Engineering Bay to unlock new ship technology.

Research currently branches into systems supporting Mining and Hydroponics. Technologies can improve production speed, output, operating cost or the ability to locate valuable resources.

Some technologies depend on earlier research, creating a small technology tree rather than allowing every upgrade to be unlocked immediately.

5) Engineering Construction

Researching a technology does not automatically give you the equipment. Once a design has been unlocked, the equipment must still be constructed.

Construction consumes credits and physical materials such as metal scrap, gold and rare crystals. This connects Engineering directly to Mining, the Market Exchange and the wider ship economy.

6) Engineering Inventory & Installed Systems

Constructed engineering equipment enters your Engineering Inventory. From there it can be installed into the appropriate system slot.

Installed equipment provides practical bonuses. Mining equipment can improve extraction speed, average yield or rare-deposit detection. Hydroponics equipment can improve growth time, planting cost or average crop yield.

Equipment can also be removed and returned to Engineering Inventory, allowing you to change your setup later.

7) Mining Control

Pebbleship continually travels through space, so nearby asteroids are temporary opportunities rather than permanent property.

Players can purchase a limited number of asteroid claims. The contents of a claim are unknown until mining begins, creating an element of exploration and risk.

Deposits can provide materials such as Metal Scrap, Gold and Rare Crystals. Extraction continues over time, so you do not need to remain on the Mining screen while a claim is being worked.

8) Hydroponics Bay

Growth Chambers aboard Pebbleship are owned by the ship and rented to individual crew members.

Each chamber can grow one crop at a time. Current crops include food production and medicinal plants. Planting costs credits and crops take time to mature.

A player may operate only a limited number of chambers. Chambers cannot be sold to another player; when no longer required, they are returned to the ship.

9) Fabrication

Fabrication converts resources into useful equipment, supplies, refined materials and other manufactured goods.

Production takes time and can require both materials and credits. This gives raw resources a practical use and prevents manufacturing from becoming free item generation.

10) Market Exchange

The Market Exchange allows players to buy and sell goods through Pebbleship's shared stock system.

Mining, Hydroponics, Fabrication and other activity can therefore affect what is available to the wider crew. Resources can move from production into trade and then back into construction or survival.

11) Cargo Hold & Loadout

Your Cargo Hold contains the normal items you own. Your Loadout represents equipment you have deliberately chosen to carry.

Loadout capacity is limited, making preparation part of the game. Equipment may provide useful bonuses or influence situations encountered during operations.

12) Field Operations

Field Operations are Pebbleship's more narrative-driven assignments. Decisions, risk and equipment can affect what happens.

Unlike technical Ship Operations, Field Operations do not normally award Engineering RP. Their focus is exploration, story, consequences and other mission rewards.

13) Defence Control

Defence Control provides an active combat layer where external threats can be engaged using Pebbleship's defensive systems.

It exists alongside the economic and management systems rather than replacing them: sometimes keeping the ship alive requires operating machinery, and sometimes it requires firing the guns.

14) Deck Security

Not every threat remains outside the hull. Deck Security turns parts of Pebbleship into playable spaces where crew can move, equip themselves and confront threats aboard the vessel.

15) XP, Credits, RP & Rank

Pebbleship uses several forms of progression because they represent different things.

• Credits are the working currency of the ship economy.
• XP represents personal experience and activity.
• RP represents Engineering Research Points used to unlock technical developments.
• Rank represents longer-term crew progression and clearance.

Higher progression can open access to more demanding work, advanced fabrication and additional opportunities aboard the ship.

The Ship Is Shared

Pebbleship is not a collection of isolated player economies. Everyone exists aboard the same moving vessel.

Resources enter shared stock. Market activity changes supply. Crew Operations create materials and maintain systems. Fabrication consumes resources. Mining introduces new raw materials. Hydroponics produces biological resources. Engineering consumes materials to create better production equipment.

Ship systems can deteriorate and alerts can demand resources at inconvenient times. What appears abundant today may become useful tomorrow.

Your own character, equipment and production systems belong to you, but they exist inside a larger economy and a vessel whose survival is shared by everyone.

Your progress matters. The ship matters more.

Influence, Contribution & Faction Rank

Faction progress is measured in two related but separate ways:

• Engineering grows through technical work, maintenance and resolving ship alerts.
• Fabrication grows through crafting, refining and production.
• Trade grows through meaningful activity in the Market Exchange.
• Political influence reflects membership and long-term economic contribution.

Each faction has five themed personal ranks. Rank is earned through contribution and active service; it is separate from being faction leader. A highly ranked member does not automatically control the faction.

Personal faction progress is retained if a player leaves and later rejoins that same faction. Progress does not transfer into a different faction.

Faction Communications

Every faction has a private operational comms room:

• Bridge — Helm Directorate
• MedBay — Greenveil Circle
• Engineering — Forge Union
• Logistics — Ledger Syndicate

All four rooms are visible in the Comms Directory, but only members of the assigned faction can enter, retrieve message history or send messages. Lobby remains open to all authenticated crew. Core is controlled separately by its existing access code.

Faction Banks, Shares & Dividends

Each faction has its own treasury. Activity and internal economic flows can add credits to that bank, so an organised and active faction has the potential to build a stronger treasury than a quiet one.

• Members may buy shares only in their current faction. Buying shares transfers personal credits into the faction bank.
• Shares determine dividend ownership. A member with a larger shareholding receives a larger proportion of any dividend that is declared.
• Dividends are not automatic. The faction leader decides when a dividend is paid and how much money should remain in the treasury.
• The leader does not personally own the bank. Leadership grants responsibility for dividend decisions; shares determine how a distribution is divided.
• Leaving a faction burns that player's shares. This rewards long-term commitment and prevents players moving between factions simply to collect distributions.

Faction Leadership & Elections

Leadership is an office, not a personal rank. The leader represents the faction and controls its dividend decisions, which gives members a real reason to care who holds the position.

Small factions

While a faction has fewer than three active members, its election system remains dormant. The existing or founding leader stays in office.

When elections activate

On reaching three active members, a leadership election opens automatically:

1. Seven days of nominations Eligible active members may nominate themselves.
2. Seven days of secret voting Each active member receives one vote and may change it before the ballot closes.
3. The result is resolved The candidate with the most valid votes becomes leader. Contribution standing and active service help resolve a tie.
4. The next regular election follows eight weeks later Members can judge the leader's decisions and choose whether to support them again.

The existing leader remains in office while nominations and voting are underway. If an active election loses the three-member threshold, it is cancelled and governance returns to its dormant state.

The Economy

Pebbleship is built around a persistent player-driven economy. Credits and resources circulate through work, production, trade, operations and faction activity.

Materials can be scarce. Production takes time. Equipment must come from somewhere. What is consumed today may need to be replaced tomorrow.

Wealth is therefore not purely a score. It represents access to resources, equipment, production capacity and opportunity aboard the ship.

House Rules / Tone

• Co-op first: the ship is the main character. Help keep it alive.
• Roleplay encouraged: crew identity, factions and in-world interaction are part of the experience.
• Actions have consequences: shortages, delays, preparation and economic choices matter.
• Preparation helps: equipment can improve your chances, but the game should not become impossible because you lack a particular item.
• Commitment matters: long-term contribution is more valuable than quick opportunism.

In-World Message

“Crewmate: welcome back. Cryo-thaw complete. Core systems remain functional. Survival probability increases with cooperation, discipline and labour.”
— Pebble