The launcher#
The Freight & Fire launcher is a single Windows program. Every time it starts it updates itself, then the game, so you are always on the build everyone else is playing. Then:
- Your company's name (3 to 20 letters) and a password. A name nobody has used yet makes a new company, and what you type becomes its password; after that, the same name and password sign you back in to it. Pick the name well: it is how the whole world sees you.
- Where to start. Choose one of the start cities from the list (a dozen or so of Europe's, mapped and ready), or type any town on Earth into the search under it: Bristol, Lyon, Kraków, Lagos. A place that has not been mapped yet is mapped as you arrive (see The map).
- PLAY. The game starts, signed in to the shared server, with the camera over your start.
The tutorial#
New to the game? Press TUTORIAL in the launcher (or choose Tutorial in the game's menu, ☰) and learn on Larkspur Island, a small island of its own in the North Pacific: a port town, a village among farms, woods, a river and a lake, a quarry, a trading estate and a railway.
- Nothing you do there touches your company. The tutorial is played on a server of its own, with a company of its own and plenty of money to learn with; its clock runs fast, so nothing keeps you waiting. When you leave, you are back in the shared world as your company was.
- Nine short lessons, a card in the corner with the step you are on and an amber ring round what to use: getting about and the hotbar; buying land and drawing a field; storage; a truck line; selling from storage; a factory (a floor plan, machines, recipes, power and a substation); lines to and from it, and selling bread to a town; trains between rail yards; and the war (an army, the lobby, deployment and defences).
- Skip a lesson, restart, or leave at any time, from the card or the menu.
The screen#
The game is drawn in one look, the Board: dark boards with cream cards on them, amber for money and what you have picked, pink for trouble.
- Top left: ☰, the menu (Esc also opens it), and your company's card with the place under the camera.
- Top middle: the search. Type any town on Earth, or
lat, lon, and the camera flies there. - Top right: your cash, yesterday's result, and the world's clock. There is one clock for the whole world; the server sets its speed.
- Notices come as small cards under the search; pink ones are trouble (a line with nothing to carry, a storage that is full).
- The hotbar along the bottom.
The hotbar#
Each button opens a panel; its key toggles it, and Esc closes it.
| Key | Panel | What it is for |
|---|---|---|
| B | Build | Buy land and draw fields on it (Land), place storage (Storage) and farm buildings (Farm buildings) on it |
| L | Lines | Freight lines: trucks and trains between your places |
| V | Vehicles | Every truck and train you own |
| F | Factories | Your factory buildings, their floors and machines; your fields and storage |
| M | Market | Goods and prices, your orders, and the towns near you |
| C | Company | Your books: cash, income, costs, what you own |
| A | Army | Buy and sell units |
| W | War | The battle lobby: set up a battle, or join one |
| Tab | Map layers | What the map shows |
If you turn on the WASD camera in Settings, the hotbar keys take Shift first (Shift+B, Shift+L…). See Controls & settings.
The camera#
- Wheel to zoom, toward the mouse: from a street all the way out to the whole Earth.
- Right-drag to grab the ground and move it. From high up it spins the globe.
- Arrows, or push the mouse against the edge of the screen, to pan.
- Q / E or middle-drag to turn; PgUp / PgDn to tilt.
- Click a building for its card: what it is, what it is worth, who owns it.
Time#
A game hour is 10 seconds, so a game day is 4 minutes at normal speed. Money on every card is per game day unless it says otherwise. Trucks and trains move at real speeds, so a long haul takes real minutes; loading and unloading take game hours.
Your first goal#
You start with $600,000 and nothing else. The quickest way to grow it is the loop on Making money: buy a parcel of good land, draw a field on it, put storage beside the field, run a truck between them, and sell from the storage.