Any route is good if it leads to more weapons.

Hey everyone,

Today, we’re taking a closer look at exploration in Hull Rupture: how you navigate the galaxy, what you can discover along the way, and how your choices and modifiers can reshape an entire run.

Exploration isn’t the sole focus of Hull Rupture. It’s an additional strategic layer built around the core loop of managing, expanding, and defending your ship. But choosing where to fly (and knowing what your ship needs when you make that choice) can make the difference between a thriving war machine and a very expensive drifting coffin.

Choose Your Route

Every star offers a choice. I choose whatever pisses off the Galactic Union. 

The galaxy map gives you short-term goals between battles. Not every destination is equally valuable, and you’ll need to decide which stars are worth visiting based on the current state of your ship.

Do you fly toward the Arachnids in search of a special artifact, picking up new turrets along the way? Or do you head for the Great Old One and its cursed modifier, with a quick stop at the market to buy some Mystic Goo?

Everyone gets to choose their own route and, eventually, develop their own method of dealing with the galactic consequences.

Speaking of modifiers, they’re among the most valuable rewards you’ll be planning your routes around. Modifiers are upgrades installed in individual ship modules. You can purchase them in Shops or obtain them through narrative events, but each source draws from a largely different pool. Some Shop modifiers never appear in events, while most event modifiers cannot be purchased at all. But we’ll take a closer look at the modifier system in a future devlog!

The map itself also adds another layer to the gameplay. Its generation follows certain rules and patterns, and the more you play, the better you’ll become at recognizing them. You won’t be able to predict everything, but you’ll gradually learn how to plan more efficient routes and make better strategic decisions.

Our goal is to make you look at the map and think: “I wonder what’s waiting on that star?”

Eventually, this becomes: “I know exactly what might be waiting on that star, and I have decided that the potential profit outweighs the risks.”

What the Stars Have to Offer

The map shows every star. Unfortunately, I only have time to ruin a few.

Our galaxy map generator is fairly complex, but its basic rules should become familiar after a few runs. There are around 15 types of stars, each offering different opportunities and bonuses, and it’s impossible to visit all of them during a single run.

Parts of the map begin hidden behind fog of war. As you explore and uncover more of the galaxy, you’ll reveal the types of stars around you, but you still won’t know exactly what awaits at each one. 

Random-event stars are the most common example. They’re one of the main sources of modifiers, but there’s no way to predict which narrative event will appear. At a Black Market, meanwhile, you know you’ll have an opportunity to buy turrets, and with enough experience, you can learn which turrets may appear there and which ones never will.

You’ll have enough information to make a plan. Whether it remains a good plan is another matter.

Risk, Reward, and More Aliens

A safe route saves lives. That is why I avoid it.

Guarded locations, which weren’t included in the demo, are planned for the full release. These will only appear at higher difficulty levels, so new players have time to learn the basics before the galaxy starts punishing curiosity more aggressively.

When you arrive at a guarded star, your ship will be attacked by additional enemy waves. These don’t count toward the 20 waves you normally need to survive, meaning that any reward found there comes with extra danger (and additional strain on your ship’s economy).

One of the constant trade-offs is how much of your economy you’re willing to invest in travel speed.

You can keep your engine investments to a minimum, travel slower and focus on collecting resources from the map. Without the cost of upgrading your engine or building additional ones (and with less Fuel spent to power them), you’ll have more resources available for immediate needs such as production or defense. Even if this means collecting fewer modifiers from random events, it is still a valid strategy.

The other option is to invest heavily in your engines so you can reach more locations during a run. Engine upgrades and additional units require a significant amount of resources, while a more powerful setup consumes more Fuel. In return, you’ll have a chance to encounter more events and find more modifiers, which can kickstart your ship’s economy and produce enormous long-term benefits.

Some events may cost you resources as well, but those losses are usually small compared with the value of a powerful modifier. The real question is whether your production can support faster travel long enough for that investment to pay off.

The Physics and Other Inconveniences

The ship is too slow. Tell the humans to get out and push.

WIP sketch of our low-mass, high-speed starting ship.

Your ship’s travel speed depends on the number and level of its engines, as well as the total mass of the ship. The more you expand with modules, the heavier your ship becomes and the slower it travels.

One of the three starting ships supports a playstyle built around keeping your mass low and visiting as many destinations as possible. But even that ship won’t be able to reach every star in a single run. You’ll still need to adapt and prioritize whichever opportunities your current build needs most. This is, of course, only a small teaser. We’ll take a much closer look at all three starting ships in a future devlog.

Choosing a less-than-perfect route won’t directly end your run, but good prioritization can be crucial. In one run, you may desperately need Adamantium to construct more powerful turrets. In another, you might search for a market where you can trade Fuel for Minerals because your Fuel production is booming while your Mineral economy has never really taken off.

Making Your Own Luck

The RNG gods ignored my demands. Bring me their address.

We don’t want players to feel entirely dependent on the mercy of the RNG gods. Exploration gives you another way to compensate for unlucky Shop rerolls, or encourages you to pursue a completely different strategy after receiving an unexpected modifier from an event.

As in any good roguelike, a deep understanding of the game should allow skill to compensate for bad luck. Luck will still matter, of course. It simply needs to be reminded who’s in charge.

We’re also planning to add wormholes to the map. These will work similarly to teleporters in Heroes of Might and Magic, connecting distant parts of the galaxy. But if you haven’t discovered the other end of a wormhole yet, you won’t know exactly where it leads.

Strange Encounters, Stranger Rewards

The galaxy is full of moral dilemmas. Fortunately, I have no morals.

Narrative events provide a brief change of pace from managing modules, resources, and incoming alien waves. They’re also an opportunity to learn more about the world and atmosphere of the Despotism universe.

More importantly, they give you access to modifiers, and a single modifier can change how you approach the rest of your run.

For example, one modifier adds mushrooms to the Mineral Generator. These significantly increase Mineral output, but only while you have fewer than 10 units of Mystic Goo. Receiving it may convince you to abandon Goo production entirely and restructure your economy around mining Minerals instead.

The events contain our usual blend of dark humor, absurdism, and occasional pop-culture references. One of our personal favorites was inspired by a Junji Ito manga. We won’t spoil it, but it can reward you with an awesome modifier for the Mystic Goo Generator.

Events aren’t selected entirely at random. The state of your ship can determine whether an event is able to appear during a particular run. Individual choices may also have their own requirements. If an event offers you the option to sacrifice 20 puny humans, but an unfortunate series of completely avoidable workplace incidents has reduced your workforce below that number, the option won’t be available.

The rarest events are tied to rare and expensive modules. Even if you begin seeing familiar encounters between runs, that doesn’t mean the galaxy has run out of secrets. It merely means it has started repeating its threats.

That’s all for today! We’ll share more about the three starting ships, difficulty levels and game modes in future devlogs.

Until then, choose your routes carefully!