Frequently Asked Questions

Just click "Play Now" - that's it. No downloads, no account signup, no installation. The game runs in your browser and you'll be flying in seconds. Pick a ship and you're in space.

Two things to remember: Right-click to fly toward your mouse. Left-click to shoot. That's enough to explore and fight. Everything else you'll pick up naturally - press 1 to toggle auto-fire, press 6 to toggle auto-mining, and right-click on anything for a context menu with all available actions.

No tutorial needed. The controls are simple enough to learn by doing. You start in a safe zone with no enemies, so take your time. Fly around, shoot some asteroids, dock at a station. The game is designed to be picked up and played immediately.

The game automates the tedious stuff. Toggle auto-fire (key 1) and your ship automatically targets and shoots enemies. Toggle auto-mining (key 6) and it extracts from nearby asteroids without holding buttons. Your tractor beam pulls loot automatically. Right-click on anything for a context menu. Less clicking, more playing.

MultiPirates is a free browser-based space pirate RPG. Click Play and you're flying in seconds - no downloads, no signup. Explore an infinite procedural galaxy, battle pirates, complete quests, trade contraband, and upgrade your ship. Simple controls with smart automation let you focus on the adventure, not the interface.

MultiPirates runs in any modern web browser including Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge. It works on Windows, Mac, and Linux computers. The game requires a keyboard and mouse for optimal controls.

Yes, MultiPirates is completely free to play. There are no purchases, subscriptions, or ads. Just visit the website and click Play Now to start your space pirate adventure.

MultiPirates is a solo dev project created by Philip Radvan and published by Blue Coast Water, LLC. No team, no publisher - just one person building the space game they always wanted to play.

MultiPirates is built with Phaser.js 3 (game framework), TypeScript and JavaScript, React (for UI components), Firebase (hosting and backend), Google Fonts (Press Start 2P), and developed in Visual Studio Code. Pixel art was created using Piskel and Adobe Photoshop.

It started with Super Star Trek on a Commodore - ASCII art, sector grids, photon torpedoes. Then came the Atari years, followed by Elite, Dope Wars, Wing Commander, Another World, Civilization, Star Control 2, X-Wing, Privateer, Masters of Orion, TIE Fighter, Escape Velocity, Freespace, Homeworld, Space Pirates, Space Rangers, Freelancer, and Eve Online. Games that let you be anyone in a universe that didn't care. MultiPirates is a love letter to all of them.

This game has been over 20 years in the making. Dozens of prototypes, different engines, different languages. Life kept getting in the way - jobs, moves, all of it. But the idea never left: a living galaxy with real consequences, your ship, your rules. MultiPirates is the game that refused to stay unfinished.

Use WASD or Arrow Keys to fly: W/Up to thrust forward, S/Down to brake, and A/D or Left/Right to turn. Hold right-click to thrust toward your mouse cursor. Left-click fires your weapon (hold for continuous fire). Press Tab to cycle through targets. Keys 1-6 activate your ship abilities. Press M for map, I for inventory, J for quests, and K for skills.

Ships have 6 abilities on keys 1-6: (1) Fire - shoots your weapon and toggles auto-fire, (2) Boost - 3-second speed boost at 1.5x speed with 10s cooldown, (3) Scan - pulse that reveals entities at 2x scanner range, (4) Suppress - hold to actively fight fires, (5) Vent - toggle to increase heat dissipation but take hull damage, (6) Mine - toggle auto-mining that automatically extracts from nearby asteroids, wrecks, and debris. Plus Warp Jump on key 8 for experimental FTL travel.

Warp is an experimental FTL jump available to all ships - no module required. Press 8 to open warp targeting mode on the map, which shows range circles colored by risk (green=safe, yellow=risky, red=danger). Click to select destination, then confirm via context menu. All timing scales with distance - short jumps are fast (under 1 second), long jumps take more time (up to 2.5s charge). Short jumps are safe with low cost; long jumps (~40,000px max) cost most of your energy, generate more heat, and have higher mishap chance. You're vulnerable during charging and warp-out phases, but completely immune during warp-in. Mishaps can cause extra heat, hull damage, fires, or forced venting. NPCs can also warp to escape when critically damaged - watch for "charging warp drive" warnings! Six skill tree skills can reduce costs, mishap chance, and cooldown.

Your ship generates heat from online modules, active thrusting (+8/sec), and fires (+2 per fire intensity). Heat has four levels: Normal (0-50%), Warning (50-75%), Danger (75-90% - modules may malfunction), and Critical (90%+ - forced shutdowns and heat damage). Reduce heat with passive dissipation, cooling modules, the Suppress ability, or emergency Venting.

Fires can ignite when your hull drops below 75% (higher chance at lower hull) and spread to other modules when below 50%. Each module tracks its own fire with intensity from 0-1. Use Suppress (key 4, hold) to reduce fire at -0.3 intensity/sec, or Vent (key 5, toggle) for -0.5/sec but at the cost of -2 hull/sec. Fires naturally decay when hull is above 75%.

Dock at any station or planet and interact with the mechanic NPC. Two options: Self-Repair uses metal scraps from your inventory (2 HP per metal, free but slower) or falls back to credits (1cr per HP). Mechanic Repair costs 2cr per HP but is much faster. Skills like Field Repairs (+25% speed), Scrap Utilization (+50% HP per metal), and Bulk Discount (-25% mechanic cost) improve efficiency.

Right-click on a station or planet and select Dock from the context menu. While docked, your ship is completely immune to damage - NPCs can't target you and projectiles pass through. The space simulation continues in the background: planets orbit, NPCs follow their schedules, and the map updates in real-time. Trade, repair, browse SpaceBook, or accept quests, then undock to continue exploring.

At stations/planets, interact with the trade terminal to buy and sell goods. In space, right-click on Trader or Freighter NPCs and select Trade. Different sources carry different inventory: stations sell T1/T2 goods, small traders carry T1 only, and Merchant Freighters carry all tiers including rare T3 contraband like Clone Blanks and Xeno Relics.

Mining uses a toggle-based auto-mining system. Press key 6 to toggle your mining module ON/OFF. When enabled, your ship automatically mines any valid targets in range - asteroids, wrecks, debris, and derelicts. The system prioritizes your manually selected target, otherwise mines the closest mineable object. Resources extract continuously and drop to your cargo hold. When a target is depleted, your ship automatically switches to the next closest target.

When targeting a mineable object (asteroid, wreck, debris), you'll see an orange ore bar below the hull bar. This shows remaining extractable resources as a percentage. As you mine, the bar depletes and the object darkens visually. At 0% ore, the object is depleted but can still be destroyed for fragments. Different rock types have different ore capacities - large asteroids can take minutes to fully deplete.

When your cargo bay is full, extracted resources drop into space as loot objects instead of going to your inventory. You'll see a warning message. Good news: loot persists forever and survives zone transitions and save/load. The dropped items will be waiting exactly where you left them when you return. This creates a natural gameplay loop: mine until full, sell at station, return to collect your dropped loot and continue mining.

Wrecks use the same continuous extraction system as mining. Target a wreck and use your mining laser to salvage components, scrap metal, and energy cells over time. Larger wrecks have more salvage capacity based on their loot value. Like mining, if your cargo is full, salvaged materials drop to space. Salvaging gives 20% more XP than mining asteroids.

Yes! The galaxy state persistence system tracks ore remaining for each rock. If you mine an asteroid halfway and leave the zone, it will still be half-depleted when you return. This means you can work a rich asteroid field over multiple trips without losing progress.

Absolutely. Mining and salvaging provide a fully viable non-combat path. Work asteroid fields in safer Core and Frontier sectors, salvage debris from old battles, and trade your haul at stations. The Economy skill tree has mining-focused skills like Motherlode (bonus ore from depleted rocks) and increased cargo capacity. You can build significant wealth without firing a shot at another ship.

Start in Asteroid zone roles (dense mining fields) within safe sectors. Target large asteroids - they have the most ore capacity (up to 300 units). Invest in Economy skills for cargo space and mining efficiency. When your hold is full, sell at the nearest station. Return and continue - your partially mined rocks will be waiting. For more risk/reward, try Industrial or Contested sectors for XP multipliers.

The galaxy is infinite and procedurally generated from a master seed. It's organized into sectors, each containing a 5x5 grid of zones (25 zones per sector). Each zone is 20,000 x 20,000 pixels. The game loads a 3x3 grid of zones around your position and preserves your discoveries and changes through a state persistence system.

Sector type is determined by Manhattan distance from the origin (0,0): Core (distance 0) is safe with friendly stations. Frontier (1-2) has light enemies. Industrial (3-4) focuses on mining and trading. Contested (5-6) has mixed factions and valuable loot. At distance 7+, you'll find Pirate territory (hostile with smuggler dens) or Wilderness (no stations, rare anomalies).

Each zone within a sector has a role: Hub (center) - contains a sun with orbiting planets and a station. Outpost - sparse with POIs, derelicts, and debris. Asteroids - dense mining fields with hidden caches. Corridor - empty travel lanes between points. Gate - sector edges with jump points to adjacent sectors. Each sector uses one of 8 layout templates for variety.

Space is full of discoveries: Asteroids (mine for metal and resources), Cargo Containers (destroy for contraband loot), Ship Wrecks (salvage with tractor beam, some have distress beacons), POIs like Derelicts, Hidden Caches, and Anomalies. You'll also encounter NPC ships - traders to trade with, miners working asteroids, and hostile pirates looking for easy marks.

Every planet is procedurally generated from a seed. 13 unique planet types exist: Earth, Desert, Jungle, Ice, Volcanic, Toxic, Rocky, Water, Gas Giant, Swamp, Tundra, Savanna, and Ash. In space, planets appear as rotating 3D spheres with realistic lighting, swirling cloud layers, and city lights visible on the dark side of inhabited worlds. When you land, each planet generates a unique parallax terrain with 5 depth layers, day/night cycles, weather effects, and world assets like vegetation, ruins, and structures specific to that planet type.

Press M to open the map overlay which shows three views: Zone (local area), System (current sector's 5x5 zones), and Galaxy (sector overview). Fly to the edge of a zone to transition to the adjacent zone. For faster travel between sectors, use Gate zones at sector edges which contain jump points.

Yes! Inhabited planets have life and activity. Planets with life have birds flying across the sky - solo birds and occasional V-formation flocks. Advanced civilizations (tech level 3) have satellites visible both orbiting in space view and crossing the sky as bright dots when landed. Jungle planets get swarming flies with erratic buzzing movement near the terrain. Each planet's tech level (1-3) is deterministically generated, with about 25% reaching the advanced level with satellites.

When you land on an inhabited planet, you'll see a procedurally generated cityscape with buildings, rooftop details (AC units, satellite dishes, water tanks), and glowing windows at night. Flying cars stream through the background - foreground vehicles with headlights and taillights pass closer. The skyline style changes based on planet type: urban cities have dense skyscrapers, spaceports have control towers, industrial zones have smokestacks, and frontier outposts have scattered buildings.

Each planet has interactive POI (Point of Interest) buildings you can click to access services: Market for trading, Repair for fixing your ship, Cantina for SpaceBook and jobs, Clone Lab for identity changes, and Spaceport for launching. Beyond these, each planet gets 1-4 random flavor buildings to add atmosphere: casinos, dive bars, smoke lounges, tattoo parlors, noodle stands, fight clubs, pharmacies, arcades, pawn shops, flophouses, and more. Each building has its own neon sign that flickers at night, and hovering shows a procedurally generated shop name.

Four starter ships, each suited to different playstyles: Fighter - balanced workhorse with enough guns and speed for any situation. Scout - fast glass cannon that excels at hit-and-run tactics. Freighter - heavy cargo runner with thick armor for smuggling operations. Miner - resource extraction specialist with expanded cargo hold and mining efficiency.

Every ship in the galaxy is procedurally generated from a seed. The system creates unique ships with 11 hull shapes (submarine, wedge, diamond, box, arrow, disk, hammerhead, needle, bulb, falcon, and asymmetric scrap). Ships are built from modular components: cockpits, engines, power cores, scanners, cooling systems, CPUs, and weapons. Five design styles (military, industrial, sleek, pirate, civilian) influence color palettes and hull preferences. Each module has indicator lights that respond to power state and damage. Pirate ships often feature the jagged asymmetric "scrap" hull - cobbled together from salvaged parts.

Eight NPC job types with unique behaviors: Combat roles - Pirates (attack traders and players), Bounty Hunters (hunt wanted targets), Patrol Guards (defend territory), Escorts (protect convoys). Economic roles - Traders (transport goods between stations), Miners (extract asteroid resources), Salvagers (collect debris and wrecks), Smugglers (illegal cargo transport).

NPCs use a state machine with states: Idle, Patrol, Pursue, Attack, Flee, Dock, Guard, and Work. They have full ship systems like the player (heat, fire, modules) and personality modifiers affecting behavior. NPCs follow server time-based schedules - miners work 8 hours then rest 4 hours, pirates operate at night, guards patrol 24/7. They'll send distress calls and react to your actions.

When you destroy an enemy ship, it leaves behind a wreck containing their cargo inventory. But that's not all - ship modules have a chance to survive destruction and drop as loot. Each module has a 25% base drop chance, with bonuses if the module was online (+10%) and penalties if it was damaged (-15%). Salvage enemy wrecks to recover their cargo and potentially find valuable modules like weapons, engines, and power cores.

SpaceBook is the galaxy's social media platform, accessible when docked at any station or planet. Browse a feed of social posts (complaints, rumors, jokes, drama, tips), job listings shown as sponsored posts, news headlines at local/sector/galaxy scope, and world-building ads. The feed is seed-based so each location shows consistent content. Accept quests directly by clicking View on sponsored job posts.

Every NPC in the galaxy has a unique procedurally generated 64x64 pixel portrait. The portrait system uses 11 layered features - background, hair (front and back), face, eye sockets, irises, facial features, facial hair, headwear, and accessories. Each layer is rendered with parallax depth for a pseudo-3D effect. Portraits are deterministically generated from a seed, so the same NPC always has the same face, even across game sessions.

Portraits are fully animated to bring NPCs to life. Eyes track your mouse cursor with smooth interpolation. Heads turn slightly using parallax layer offsets. NPCs blink every 2-6 seconds with proper eyelid animation. Expressions change periodically - eyebrows raise, furrow, or go asymmetric; mouths smile, frown, or breathe subtly. Combat NPCs like pirates get harsh red lighting, while traders at stations get warm ambient lighting.

Yes! Create your own unique pilot with the character creator. Choose gender, face shape, skin tone, hair style and color, facial hair, eye color, headwear, and clothing. Your portrait appears in the cockpit HUD and reacts to gameplay - flinching when hit, smiling when you score a kill.

Your portrait follows your mouse cursor, blinks naturally every 2-6 seconds, and changes expressions based on game events. Take damage? Your character flinches and looks worried. Score a kill? They smile. Heat warnings? Rising concern. It's not just a static image - it's YOU in the cockpit.

Yes! Visit any station and access the ID Forge service to redesign your pilot. Keep your credits, inventory, and progression - just change your look. Perfect for when you're tired of that mohawk or want to go incognito after earning a reputation.

Yes! Choose from 3 preset identities on the landing page, or hit "Deal Me Another" to generate a random unique face. You can also click "I'll Make My Own" for full customization. Pick a face, any face - the galaxy won't know the difference.

Trade contraband goods across three tiers: T1 Common (25-75cr) - Synth-Stims, Bootleg Holovids, Gambling Chips, Entertainment Licenses. T2 Valuable (120-220cr) - Nova Spice, Companion Parts, Street Implants, Old Earth Whiskey, Stolen Nav Charts. T3 Rare (350-500cr) - Unmarked Hardware, Clone Blanks, Xeno Relics. Plus resources like metal from mining.

Different sources carry different tiers: Trade Stations sell T1 and T2. Small Traders carry T1 only. Merchant Freighters carry all tiers including rare T3. Cargo Containers have 15% chance of T1 loot. Ship Wrecks with good salvage can drop T1 (20% chance), T2 (16%), or T3 (4%). The best rare loot comes from freighters and lucky salvage operations.

13 quests are available with rewards from 500cr to 3,000cr. Quest types include delivery, fetch, kill, patrol, and more. Easy quests (no level requirement) are supply runs worth 500-750cr. Medium quests (Level 5+) include smuggling, bounties, and salvage for 800-1,800cr. Hard quests (Level 10+) involve arms deals, relic hunting, and clone transport for 2,200-3,000cr. Find quests on SpaceBook or talk to NPCs.

Earn XP through activities: killing enemies (25-200 XP based on tier), completing quests (75-400 XP), discovering new zones (10-50 XP), mining asteroids (5-15 XP per rock), and trading goods (1 XP per 100cr sold). Max level is 50 with exponential XP curve. Dangerous sectors give bonus multipliers: Contested 1.4x, Pirate 1.6x, Wilderness 1.5x.

Three skill branches with 40 total skills across 5 tiers: Combat (red) - weapon damage, fire rate, critical hits, heat efficiency, and the Devastation execute skill. Survival (green) - hull plating, energy regen, fire resistance, repairs, and Phoenix Protocol (survive lethal damage). Economy (blue) - haggling, mining yield, cargo space, and Motherlode. All branches include warp-related skills: Assault Jump (faster cooldown), Stable Jump (fewer mishaps), Efficient Drives (less energy), and more. Earn 1 skill point per level (49 total). Higher tiers unlock at levels 5, 15, 25, and 40.