A salvage tug with orange grab claws tows a cylindrical habitat with glowing windows on two taut cables above an ochre desert planet, while a broken orbital ring sheds debris behind them and two long-railed gunships close in.

Superior Tactics II

Broken Orbit

Choose what comes home.

A real-time tactics game about keeping a salvage fleet, and the people it has rescued, alive inside a collapsing orbital shipyard.

In development for iPhone, iPad and Android

Everything you tow has mass

Winning a fight is rarely the point. Every operation asks what you can carry out of it, and what it will cost to bring it home.

01 · Tow

Haul it out

Hook a dead reactor, an occupied habitat or a disabled enemy. Cables pull taut, heavy loads swing, and your fleet moves differently with something on the line.

02 · Shelter

Hold the lane

Drag loose armor plates across firing lanes, flank to reach exposed subsystems, and pause the battle whenever you need to give orders.

03 · Return

Bring it home

Every sortie ends at the Hearth Anchorage. Repair at the Workshop, refit at the Fleet Berth, and turn what you salvaged into the next ship.

A low sun shines through the broken end of a lit orbital ring above a rust-colored planet; a habitat ship hangs on cables beneath the ring while a clawed tug and other ships fly in on blue engine trails.
Hearth AnchorageOut of the sunset, the fleet comes home.

24 hulls · 3 factions

Three powers in a broken sky

The shipyard is coming apart, and everyone left in orbit wants something from what remains.

The Union

Your fleet. Tugs, tenders and inhabited drums rebuilt by the people who live aboard them. Slow to anger and hard to kill.

Mule · Hearth · Bulwark · Lantern · Ferryman

The Authority

The yard's enforcers. Long rail gunships, mine layers and missile keels built to keep traffic predictable and gates closed.

Needle · Rampart · Censer · Bellwether

The Choir

The maintenance machines that kept the shipyard running, still bound to a command lattice nobody should be obeying.

Weaver · Prism · Sextant · Crucible

Four grey Authority gunships with long twin rails fly in a staggered line; one fires a bright orange rail shot into the blue hexagonal shield of a small escort ship, framed by a broken ring and drifting debris above an ochre planet.
The AuthorityRail gunships close the gates on a Union escort.

Field manual

What's aboard

144operations: 72 story missions and 72 optional expeditions
18regions of a shipyard in collapse
24hulls to earn, fit and command
30weapon, shield and utility modules
4research tracks, each to level 15
5skirmish difficulties, plus an endless patrol

The campaign

The route home

Eighteen regions between the Breakyard and free orbit. Optional expeditions branch off along the way and never block the story.

  1. The BreakyardRestore power and learn to carry a fragile home through hostile space.
  2. Copper WakeFree the civilian traffic trapped behind the Authority's industrial gates.
  3. Glass OrchardCross the collector fields, where shade is a tactical resource.
  4. Silent FoundryInterrupt the Yard Choir's work and teach its tools to build again.
  5. Night ChainFind the habitats whose navigation lights have gone out.
  6. CrownfallBring the Anchorage through the breaking ring. Carry what you can.
  7. Pilgrim ReachRejoin the scattered settlements beyond the fallen Crown; establish a route that belongs to its travelers.
  8. Stormglass BasinTurn the storm machinery against its owners, and learn the receiving stations' short safe docking windows.
  9. Rust DeltaWin passage through a working industrial delta by saving its transports and reopening its shared infrastructure.
  10. Tide ArchiveRecover a displaced civilization's records from an archive whose instruments depend on one another.
  11. Cinder MeridianBreak furnace blockades by shutting down their heat channels while carrying the workers to safety.
  12. Stillwater LatticeBuild a quiet crossing through defensive arrays that answer every restored connection.
  13. Pale GardensCarry living collections and occupied garden sections through the damaged irrigation network.
  14. Pilgrim AnvilGive the traveling settlements a shipyard of their own without feeding their homes into its assembly line.
  15. Black SutureTrace the evacuation routes cut out of the charts and rescue the crews left between them.
  16. Choir HorizonSeparate the maintenance Choir from its coercive command lattice and recover the people inside its machines.
  17. Open SpindleAssemble an independent transit network from gates, moving berths and civilian navigation stations.
  18. Free OrbitKeep several settlements moving together; the final crossing succeeds by carrying people forward, not by erasing every enemy.
A broken orbital ring arcs above a dark rust-colored planet at sunrise, its far sections burning into the atmosphere, while a tiny convoy of salvage ships with blue engine trails slips through the wreckage.
CrownfallBring the Anchorage through the breaking ring. Carry what you can.

Scrip and Insight

Earned in the field

Scrip pays for hulls, repairs and equipment. Insight funds research. Both come from playing, and every blueprint can be earned through the story.

An optional Exchange sells supply packs for players who want them. The campaign is built and tested to be finished without it.

Where it started · 2014

Superior Tactics

Jon Renner created Superior Tactics, a real-time tactics game first released for Android in 2014. Players designed and upgraded their own fleets, chose from missiles, lasers, cannons and beams, and fought enemy fleets in real time.

Tiny Machines Workshop is bringing the original back to iPhone, iPad and Android. Broken Orbit is its sequel.

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