A ship management game where every upgrade changes the voyage.

How to upgrade your ship during a run

Start with a hull, then choose upgrades as the voyage offers them: install a module in an available slot, recruit a specialist, add a command card, repair damage or take supplies. This is a ship upgrade game within a roguelike run, not a blank-canvas ship designer.

A reward is not automatically useful because it is rare. Modules must fit available slots, supplies occupy limited capacity and command cards need the rest of the vessel to make them effective. A broadside plan, boarding plan or curse-driven build asks for different equipment and different crew.

Those constraints make the vessel legible. Instead of accumulating every upgrade, you decide what this particular ship is becoming and which attractive options no longer belong aboard it.

• Hull-defined slots and capacity
• Modules that support or change commands
• Repairs and supplies with opportunity costs
• Build paths shaped by the current vessel

Crew are capabilities, not passive portraits

Specialists affect the information and actions available to the ship. A navigator may improve route knowledge, while other roles support combat, repairs, salvage or event choices. Their value depends on the current route and the systems already installed.

Crew condition and loss matter because a person can connect several parts of the build. Replacing a specialist is not merely restoring a number; it can change which encounters the vessel can read or answer.

Management stays inside a focused roguelike voyage

Beyond the Chart is not a port tycoon, shipping-company economy or large fleet simulator. Markets and trade encounters create choices, but the central management problem remains one ship trying to finish one dangerous route.

That scope keeps consequences immediate. The module chosen after one battle can alter the next hand of commands, and the supplies spent on repair can close an opportunity only a few nodes later.