FleetForge: Warship Builder & Fleet Command

FleetForge is a roguelike shipbuilder set on a steel-and-coal sea, for fans of FTL, Void War, Cosmoteer and RimWorld. Your navy has lost its decisive battle. Home has not fallen, but your ship is on the far side of a blockade with no supply line, and the only coal, shells and spare guns out here are on the ships you beat.

You design your ship one cell at a time, with guns, magazines, machinery and crew quarters spread across several decks. Crew climb ladders between them, so a magazine below the gun deck saves space above but adds a climb to every ammunition run. Upper decks add weight, and a heavy battery on one side gives her a list. You can turn the 3D ship model to inspect the hull while you build.

Ships turn with the water flowing past the rudder; nothing turns on the spot. You give each ship move and attack orders, choose which battery bears, and pause whenever you need to. Your gunners man the guns and haulers carry ammunition from the magazine, so the layout affects how quickly each gun can fire.

Shells can hole the hull and let water into the ship. It spreads through open doors and between decks through ladder wells. Closed doors contain the flooding while your crew patch the holes and powered Pump Rooms clear the water. The water adds weight, pulling the ship lower until she sinks if you cannot stop it.

You can see an enemy's exposed guns and machinery, but the rooms inside start hidden. Shell hits reveal the rooms they strike, and boarders discover rooms as they move through the ship. A manned Spotting Top can identify a patch of the enemy interior without damaging it first. Leave the lookout to choose where to look, or direct the next sweep yourself; discovered rooms stay known for the rest of the fight.

How a fight ends decides what you get out of it. Blow an enemy apart and you get scrap. Shoot out her Bridge and her guns and machinery survive for you to strip. Board her and take her whole. A beaten merchant may run up the white flag and offer you her ship and cargo, sometimes with a condition attached. Others make smoke and try to slip away.

Load crew into a steam pinnace in your Boarding Bay and send it across. It steers round the hulls, comes alongside and drops its plank, and your boarders fight through the ship room by room with pistols and hand weapons. If the defenders hold their Bridge long enough, they will scuttle her rather than hand her over. Gas shells and a closed door can thin out a crew before you go aboard, as long as your own people are wearing masks.

You can command up to three ships, and every one of them needs a prize crew. Survivors from the ships you take become prisoners in your Brig. Some will sign on, some need winning over, and some never will. Every gunner you send to a captured hull is one fewer on the ship they left. Your crew have names, take injuries and stay dead. Sometimes the ship you stole outlives the one you started in.

Each run crosses a new chart of branching routes, and you can only go forward. Merchants pay in cargo, convoys sail with an escort, and some freighters carry hidden guns until you close. A neutral port might sell you gas masks or shells, if you can pay. The Wardens field things your navy never had, coal-fired arc screens and heat-ray guns, and the only way to get one is to take it off a Warden ship. At the end, the Warden squadron holding the blockade stands between you and home.

FleetForge is in active development. Screenshots and footage are captured from the current build.