A game of buoyancy, load paths and experiments

FLUIDTORIO

Your lander broke up over Strata, a world of stacked, unmixing seas under a waking volcano. One survivor, one raft, a sea full of wreckage. Fish it in, find the others, and build a floating colony out of materials no one has ever tested. Then launch before the mountain does.

Nothing here comes with a datasheet. Every chunk you haul in, every joint that creaks, every tower that falls tells you something. The fastest way off this planet is to learn fast.

Planet seed

Hold Shift anywhere to look through a schlieren lens: it shows density itself.

Field manual

The goal

Launch a rocket that reaches escape speed (170 m/s) before the volcano erupts. Rockets burn propellant: fuel from the deepest liquid, refined with oxidiser from the highest air.

Your people

You start with one survivor. Click something floating and they walk to the edge and cast a line for it. Click a survivor to steer them directly, or set them to fish by themselves. Others are out there; a flare means someone is waiting.

Plan a block and your people fetch the materials and build it. A Crane fishes further out than anyone can cast.

Everything weighs something

Whatever you haul in lands on the deck and stays there: it has weight, it slides when the raft rolls, and it can go over the side. A Stockpile holds it. Every block, crate and person pushes the raft down, and the marks on the hull show how far.

Floating and load

Every block is pushed up by the weight of the fluid it displaces. Floats add lift but are weak. A heavy, deep keel steadies a tall tower; a buoyant one tries to flip you. Weight flows down through joints; joints that are overloaded creak, crack and snap, and brittle ones barely warn you.

Finding out

Nothing comes with a datasheet, and there is no lab. Everything you know, you see happen. The notebook keeps the range each property could still be in.

Throw a test cube (G): see where it settles, how deep it floats, and what each layer it sinks through does to it.
Watch the waterline: anything added to the raft pushes it down. Calm water reads better than a swell.
Load a joint: a joint that holds sets a floor on strength, and one that cracks sets a ceiling.
Smelt a pair: the only way to learn an alloy. Some pairs explode.

Previews and the stress view use only what you know. Green is certain, amber depends on what you don't know yet, red will fail.

Controls

Click flotsam	fish it in
Click a survivor	select; click the deck to send them
Click the lander core	row, anchor
Click a block or item	its options
`1`–`0` `T` `C`	plan a block
`Q` `E`	cycle material
Right-click	dismantle a block, cancel a plan
`G`	throw a test cube
`R` `J` `X`	patch, jettison, dismantle
`Esc`	back to pointer
Right-drag, `WASD`, wheel	pan, zoom
`F`	find the colony
`Space`, `,` `.`	pause, slower, faster
Hold `Shift`, `Tab`	density lens, density view
`V`, `N`, `M`	stress view, notebook, mute

Hover anything for a short explanation.