Badges & Onboarding — What to Do Out Here

SPACE has no opponent to beat and no ending to reach. The moment you undock, the universe simply opens, and what you do next has always been entirely up to you. For people who set their own goals that is freedom — for a newcomer it can also be an empty screen.

Badges fill that gap. They are both a list of what there is to do out here and a record of what you actually did. There are 73 of them right now — 59 visible from the start, and 14 that only reveal themselves the moment you meet their condition.

At a glance. ① Right after undocking an eight-step guide appears, one card at a time · ② when it finishes, 🎯 standing orders suggest what to try next · ③ your progress lives in the tablet under 📓Log → Badges · ④ the full list and other people's records are at /badges. All three can be switched off.

① Right after undocking — the eight-step guide

On your first connection a Control card appears at the top right. It says one thing at a time and moves on by itself once you have done it. The order runs undock → attitude → delta-v → destination → book the autopilot → file a flight plan → enter orbit → sign a guestbook — not the game's buttons, but the game's verbs.

Docked at the ISS above Earth. At the top right a card reads 'Control 1/8 — Time to let go. Press the 🚀 undock button.' — **1 / 8 — the first step.** The card sits where it covers neither the toast stack at the bottom right nor the control panel below. Stall on a step and **one hint line** is added; stall longer and the card folds itself away — it does not nag. **"Skip"** passes over this step; ✕ turns the guidance off entirely (⚙️Settings brings it back any time).

A step counts as done when the server sees the state, not when you press a particular button. Turn the guidance off and do it yourself and you clear exactly the same steps. All four start sites — Earth, Alpha Centauri, Barnard's Star and Sirius — can complete all eight.

② Standing orders — what's worth trying next

When the guide is done, 🎯 standing orders take over the same corner: a short list of things worth doing from wherever you are. They are suggestions, not assignments — anything you don't like can be dismissed, and it will not come back.

A 'Standing orders' panel on the right lists First Undock, First Landing and Mars Landfall, each with a rough duration (short, days, long) and a Dismiss button. — **Three suggestions, and how long they take.** Each carries a rough cost — **short · days · long** — so you can pick by whether you have half an hour or half a week. **Dismiss** on the right means "not my kind of thing", and something else takes that slot.

③ Your own badges — the 📓Log tab

What you have done so far lives in the tablet inside your ship. Open the 📓Log tab and you will find two segments at the top: [Logbook | Badges]. Where you have been is the logbook; what you have accomplished is the badges.

The SPACE Pad inside the cockpit with the Log tab open and the Badges segment selected: a 0/59 total, a row of category icons, and the Navigation entries First Undock, Attitude Control and First Burn. — **The badges segment.** Total at the top, category filter below it, then the list. Each entry shows a **grade icon and a date** once earned, or **n / m with a thin bar** while in progress. Hidden entries you have not revealed **are not counted in the denominator** — no wall of "???" to push a completion rate at you.

The same tablet screen scrolled down, showing entries in the Records & Society and Ship & Ops categories. — **Seven groups.** 🧭Navigation · 🪐Worlds · ⏱Relativity · 🔭Sky & Almanac · ⚫Deep Space · 📓Records & Society · 🛠Ship & Ops. Not only piloting skill: **where you went, what you saw and who you met** are all part of the record.

④ The full list — /badges

You can browse the whole catalogue without launching the game, at space.woojinkim.org/badges. It answers "what is there to do in this universe?" and doubles as a menu for picking your next voyage.

The /badges web page: a '59 badges + 14 hidden' total, a category filter, and Navigation entries such as First Undock, Attitude Control, First Burn and Set a Destination, each with a description. — **59 plus 14 hidden.** Hidden entries are announced only as **a count**; their contents stay covered until the moment you meet the condition. Each description is not a requirement list but a line about **why that thing is remarkable out here**.

What badges promise not to do

They grant no abilities. Collecting them makes no ship faster and unlocks no feature. What remains is a record and a name — and ignoring them costs you nothing at all.
Nothing counts consecutive days. Whether you came yesterday, or return after a month, nothing is lost.
There is no leaderboard. The tablet's 🏆Rank and your badges are deliberately separate — badges are a record of your own voyage, not a contest.
Completion pays nothing. Reaching 100% does nothing, and the hidden entries mean "all of them" is not even a fixed number.
Everything can be switched off. Guidance, orders and unlock notices are separate switches; silent mode keeps recording quietly and shows you nothing.

There is no risk of running out, either: 96 star systems, 160 solar-system bodies, 57 nearby stars, 15 comets and 35 real spacecraft, plus sky appointments and the extremes of physics. Every time new research lands in the game, more things to do land with it (→ Research in the Game).

Read on. 🚀 First-Flight Tutorial walks the same eight steps in prose, and 🔭 Sky Appointments · Logbook covers when things are visible. The release summary is in Recent Changes.