← The Pilot’s ManualChapter 11

Beacons & Travel

The water got wide enough that crossing it unaided is a real trip — a Survey Beacon is the reward for having crossed it once: plant one, and the Chart can put you back on that exact water any time you like.

01 Planting a beacon

Press B anywhere in open water and, if the drone can pay for it, a beacon crimps onto that exact spot — a small toast confirms it, named after the zone and the depth it went down at. It’s real hardware with a real price, not a free bookmark.

Fig. 1

Survey Beacon kit

Cost150 ⬡

And1 ⚙ Part

Max planted4 at once

A placement can be refused, and the game always says exactly why:

Full — all 4 are already in the water; pull one up before planting another.

Too close — you’re standing near a beacon you already planted; two that close together would mark the same water twice.

Cost — the crystals or the Part aren’t there yet.

Not in water — beacons mark the sea, not the Berth’s dock.

02 Travelling from the Chart

Every beacon you’ve planted shows up as its own mark on the Chart, at any range, on whichever map it stands on. Select it the same way you’d select anything else on the glass — click it, or arrow-key to it and press Enter — and its chip offers a Go button that runs a real trip straight to it, the same kind of passage travel that brings you home. The full legend for every mark the Chart draws, beacons included, lives in Sonar & Chart.

03 Recovering a beacon

Pulling one back up hands back half its crystal cost — recovering your own hardware was never meant to feel like a punishment for changing your mind, only its full price to plant a new one somewhere better.

Scarcity is the point: with only four in the crate, deciding where a beacon actually earns its keep — the far edge of a zone, the mouth of a passage, wherever your own runs keep starting from — is a real call, not a formality.