Make the next run count
Buy where goods are cheap and sell where demand is high. Fuel, cargo space and a damaged hull all compete for your credits.
NetBBS / Door games / Voidrunner
Space trading & explorationVoidrunner
A ship of your own. A galaxy to make a living in.
Available · bundled with NetBBS- Play
- Single player
- Progress
- Persistent pilot careers
- Availability
- Bundled with NetBBS
· . . · · . + · · + · + · * + · · TACTICAL DEEP-SPACE TRADING & EXPLORATION ⟦NODE⟧ Harbor Lights ⟦PILOT⟧ nova ⟦GALAXY⟧ 48 Star Systems press any key to launch
Voidrunner — launch splash
The game’s own launch screen, captured at 80 × 24.
The game
A ship of your own. A galaxy to make a living in.
In the tradition of Elite and Trade Wars, Voidrunner puts you in charge of a small ship and a career that carries on between calls. Learn the markets, chart unfamiliar systems and grow from a lone trader into a captain with a crew and a place in the galaxy. On a modern terminal, every screen is a console on tinted glass in front of the view outside your ship. Busy screens read as data sheets, with the figures you decide on picked out in color. On a terminal 130 columns wide or more, the console grows wider and your recent results appear beside it.
Choose your work
Take delivery, escort, survey and bounty contracts. Hire specialists, build faction ties and fight or talk your way past raiders.
Keep a career worth remembering
Return to the same pilot, upgrade your ship and earn achievements. Retire a successful career into the Hall of Fame.
At the keyboard
Inside Voidrunner
Build a space-trading career across a 48-system galaxy. Haul cargo, take contracts, recruit a crew and decide how much danger your next jump is worth.
╭─ ◤ VOIDRUNNER · Command Deck: 1,766cr ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━─────────────────── 1/1 ╮ │ ◢ YELLOWSTONE FREEPORT Agricultural · Outer Fringe CALM 1 ●○○○○ │ │ Day 1 Rank Rookie Hauler ◈ 1,766cr │ ├─ SHIP ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ HULL ━━━━━━━━━━━╾──────── 34/60 Scuffed │ │ FUEL ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╾── 21/24 Shuttle │ │ HOLD ━━━━━━━━━━────────── 12/24 1 lot │ │ │ ├─ STATION SERVICES ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ [M] Market: 7 goods [Y] Yard: 6 upgrades affordable │ │ [B] Board: 4 offers [C] Chart: 4 links │ │ [S] Status [H] Hall of Fame │ │ [G] Guide [N] Archive │ │ [T] Ledger [V] Viewport │ │ [O] Display [Q] Disembark │ │ [P] Concord [W] Blackwake │ ╰─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯ [X] Expand [Q] Exit: + · · · · ·
Voidrunner — Command deck
A pilot with a fight behind them and a first cargo aboard: a scuffed hull, twelve units of food in the hold and the station’s services one key away.
╭─ ◤ VOIDRUNNER · Market: 1,766cr ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━─────────────────────── 1/1 ╮ │ YELLOWSTONE FREEPORT Agricultural hold ━━━━──── 12/24 │ │ COMMODITY BUY SELL STOCK DEMAND HELD SPREAD │ │ [A] Food 8 7 84 48 12 ●────── cheap │ │ [C] Textiles 11 10 96 48 0 ●────── cheap │ │ [D] Machinery 104 96 48 96 0 ──────● dear │ │ [E] Electronics 176 162 48 96 0 ──────● dear │ │ [F] Raw Ore 30 28 48 48 0 ──●──── typical │ │ [G] Refined Metals 75 69 48 48 0 ──●──── typical │ │ [H] Medicine 95 87 48 48 0 ──●──── typical │ │ Prices per unit. Only jumps advance days; reopening does not replenish │ │ stock. │ │ Workshop upgrades, optional: Refined Metals 2 → Rivet House · Machinery 2 │ │ → Tuning Fork · Electronics 1 → Far Lantern. │ ├─ PRICE MEMORY ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ COMMODITY HERE BEST KNOWN AT SEEN │ │ Food sell 7 sells 17 Freeport, 1 jump 1d ago │ │ Textiles buy 11 sells 17 Freeport, 1 jump 1d ago │ │ Prices seen when docked; they may have moved since. │ ╰─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯ [A,C-H] Trade [X] Futures [B] Back: ·
Voidrunner — The commodity market
Food bought cheap at an agricultural station. Stock, demand and the price spread show what else to buy, and the price memory shows where food sells for more.
╭─ ◤ VOIDRUNNER · Combat 972cr ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━───────────────── 1/2 ╮ ├─ CONTACT ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤· │ Nullshade ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 35/35 tier 1 │ │ Your hull ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 60/60 Intact │ │ ⟦Fuel 23/24⟧ ⟦Hold 12/24⟧ 1 lot ⟦day 1⟧ │· │ Nullshade flies Bulwark; intent COVER incoming 5-8 if it survives or you │ │ fail to disengage │ │ [G] Guard: your shot at 55%, incoming 2. Fire recharges Guard. │ ├─ OPTIONS ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ [F] Fire: one shot; a surviving enemy returns fire. │ │ [E] Evade: about 36% success; failure draws enemy fire. │ │ [D] Dump: jettison one unit of a random held commodity to try to break │ │ contact; about 56% success; failure draws fire. │ │ [P] Pay bribe: 270cr only if accepted (about 25%); Blackwake +2 if │ │ accepted; refusal draws enemy fire. │ ├─ IDENTIFICATION ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤ │ Identity unverified: 12% of posted matches are incorrect. Wrong-ID │ │ penalty: +2 notoriety and Concord -3, in addition to combat rewards. │ ╰─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯ [F] Fire [G] Guard [E] Evade [D] Dump [P] Pay bribe [V] Verify [W] Withdraw [I] Info [<>] Page: · ·
Voidrunner — Combat
A bounty target meets a laden ship on arrival: both hulls, the cargo at stake, the odds of each option and an identity check to make before you fire.
In motion
Jumps, encounters and the Viewport
Watch a jump, a docking or a close look at your ship and discoveries. These are recordings of the game’s own terminal output.
JUMP >> KEPLER REACH Day 41 · 3 fuel burned, 9 left
Voidrunner: the jump
Your own hull class leaves the system. The caption gives the destination, the day and the fuel the jump burned.
Recorded in an 80 × 24 terminal, at the game’s own timing. Motion pauses when the player leaves the screen. With reduced motion enabled, use Play to start; without JavaScript the still image remains visible.
Play on NetBBS
Open Doors on a NetBBS node that offers Voidrunner and choose the game. Your pilot is saved between visits. Each caller has their own career.
The game is bundled with NetBBS. A node’s SysOp decides which doors callers can access. Connect using Telnet, SSH or the browser terminal, then open the door menu.
For installation and supported host configurations, read the door setup guide or the game’s own README.