Trader
Independent commerce, real equity, secured debt, finite markets, and the freedom to decide which risks are worth taking.
Read the termsTrade // Command // Survive
Someone else is already
changing the map.
Cepheus Trader is a persistent multiplayer space-trading game played through participating BBSs. Command a captain, a living crew, and a starship in a universe where distance, debt, law, and delayed information matter.
- Shared universe
- Persistent time
- BBS multiplayer
- Field alpha
MARCHES / 77
J-2 VECTOR
◆
01 / Incoming dispatch
The papers on the desk carry your name.
Beyond the port glass, ships are lifting for worlds whose news has not arrived here yet. Some carry cargo, some carry warrants, and some carry guns. One of them can become your command.
You are creating a captain, not solving an entrance examination. Every starting command is playable. Choose the kind of problems you want: trade and debt, licensed private force, or naval duty and authority.
02 / Choose a commission
Three ways into trouble
Career changes ownership, authority, obligations, acceptable conduct, and the terms for leaving. It is not a difficulty selector.
Privateer
An armed charter, sponsor-owned hull, prize rights, operating credit, and legal authority that ends exactly where its terms do.
Know the obligationNavy
Public property under your command: rank, orders, service pay, restricted accounts, and consequences that travel by mail.
Review service accounts03 / Operating principles
No omniscient map.
No paused universe.
Information has a location
News, contracts, market observations, warrants, and replies travel. Two honest captains can know different versions of the same event.
Your ship is a place
Crew, fuel, ammunition, provisions, cargo, prisoners, and damage remain attached to physical vessels—not abstract menu inventories.
Promises outlive logoff
Flight plans continue, deadlines approach, wages come due, and other captains act while you are back on the BBS.
Authority is specific
A weapon gives capability. A commission, warrant, order, or local law determines whether using it is privateering, enforcement, or piracy.
04 / First watch checklist
Look before you launch.
A cheap, well-crewed, fuelled ship with a feasible plan is safer than a grand vessel sent out on an assumption.
- U Inspect Crew and Ship Management.
- J Read jobs without accepting blind obligations.
- C Compare cargo, cash, and free hold space.
- F Verify fuel, provisions, and ammunition.
- K Read the destination dossier and plot a course.
- D Preview every warning before filing departure.
05 / Captain's library