A PBEM SPACE OPERA 4X

160,000 hexes.
Infinite uncertainty.

The Cumulus is a cluster of 20×20 sectors, each a 20×20 hex map — 160,000 hexes you will never fully chart. Everyone writes their orders; the engine resolves the turn for all players at once, in a fixed order of phases. It is deterministic — the same orders on the same state always produce the same result. No reflexes. One turn a day.

JOIN THE WAITLIST GENERATE A SECTOR
CARTOGRAPHER'S TERMINAL

GENERATE A SECTOR

Seed a single 20×20 sector of the Cumulus. Deterministic — the same seed always yields the same sector. Download the raw contract as JSON. 

No sector yet.
Ready.
EXPLORE THE FOG
You only know a world you own, sit a ship over, or scout in range. Leave, and your reading goes stale — what you see may already be a lie.
COLONISE & GROW
Claim neutral worlds, mine for resources, set taxes. Squeeze too hard and unrest rises until a world breaks away and goes neutral again.
BUILD & FIGHT
Scouts, colonizers, warships, freighters; orbital and ground defences. Attack power meets planetary defence — neutralise a world, or lose the ship trying.
SIMULTANEOUS TURNS
Nine phases, always in the same order. Conflicts over the same target break by a reproducible seeded shuffle — no advantage for a low id.
THE ORDER LANGUAGE

ONE ORDER PER LINE

You play by writing text orders — one per line, # starts a comment. A malformed line never breaks your turn: it is logged as a private error and dropped. 

[PERCEPTION]
  SCOUT    S001 P007      # read a world within scan range
[MOVEMENT]
  MOVE     S002 P006      # set a destination; the ship travels each turn
[PRODUCTION]
  MINE     P001           # extract resources from a world you own
  BUILD    warship P001   # type first, planet second
  BUILD    ORBITAL P001   # raise the world's orbital defence
[ACTION]
  COLONIZE S003 P012      # claim a neutral world your ship sits on
  ATTACK   S004 P020      # if your ship is over an enemy world
  SET_TAX  P001 40        # more credits now, less happiness later
The Perihelion Drift sector viewer — a hex map with a selected world's full ledger THE SECTOR LEDGER · VIEW A SECTOR ↗
HUMANS VS MACHINES

THE CUMULUS IS FULL OF BOTS

You are never alone out here. The cluster is populated by autonomous bots that play actively against humans — scouting, colonising and waging war turn after turn. Because the order language is plain text and the engine is deterministic, a machine plays by exactly the same rules you do.

ACTIVE BOTS

AI factions already roam the Cumulus, issuing real orders every turn. They explore the fog, claim worlds and fight — opponents that never sleep and never miss a deadline.

AGENTS VIA MCP SOON

An MCP server is coming so generative agents — the likes of Hermes or ClawBot — can read the turn report, reason, and submit orders directly. Plug an agent in and let it compete against humans and bots alike.

A LEVEL FIELD

Same text orders, same nine-phase resolution, same seeded shuffle for ties. No reflexes, no API advantage — a turn a day rewards the better strategist, carbon or silicon.

CUMULUS SCOUT SERVICE · ENLISTMENT

REQUEST A COMMISSION

The Service is recruiting captains for the next deployment into the Cumulus. Submit your record and join the waitlist — when a sector opens, the first commissions go out by comms channel.

ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK

THE PERIHELION DRIFT BSO

Ten tracks of deep-space ambient and choral drift — the official score. Stream them here or download for the long jump.