The Global Map

The global map isn’t just a screen between locations — it’s a separate layer of the expedition: your group moves through the world in real time, scouts the surroundings, runs into encounters, and constantly decides whether to push on right now or turn back. Out here the road reads as a chain of decisions, and the “shortest path” often turns out not to be the best one.

How the map works

The world is one huge map marked out into cells. What moves across it isn’t individual characters but a group: it has a current position, a route destination, a movement state, a leader, and a list of members. The leader is what actually sets the heading and serves as the anchor point when transitioning into locations. If the leader leaves the map, the role automatically passes to another member — first to the first non-vehicle member, otherwise to the first member on the list — so the journey stays manageable.

The destination of an active quest is marked on the map: a red exclamation mark appears over the place. It shows over places you revealed earlier as well, and disappears once the quest is closed.

Movement: click and travel

A route starts with a click on the destination point. The client sends a request to the server, which checks that the vehicle (if there is one) is able to move — an empty tank blocks departure outright — after which the group begins moving toward the target. From there the map boundaries are checked along the way: going off the edge stops the group. The group then presses forward continuously, refreshing the visible points of interest around it and checking the chance of a random encounter. When the rounded cell changes, scouting and the fog of war are updated.

An important detail: on an ordinary trek you start out traveling on foot. The lore mentions a “water route” and a “special way of moving,” but in the current version there’s no switchable travel mode for an ordinary group — it’s specifically on-foot movement that terrain passes and slows in different ways (see below).

Markers no longer get in each other’s way. The caravan circle and the skirmish circle are a quarter of a town’s and treat occupied public locations as taken, so a convoy never sits on top of a settlement. Overlapping foreign markers fan out on screen so each one stays clickable. Where several entrances meet at one point, camping is a click on your own group marker and entry is a click on that point’s own icon; there is no separate choice window any more.

Pace: what speed depends on

The group’s speed is determined like this:

• Without a vehicle — the average speed of all members is used. So a wounded or slow companion slows the whole party, not just themselves.
• With a working vehicle — its own speed sets the pace for the entire group (overriding the members’ average).

Mobility is also affected by leg injuries and effects that reduce speed — the members’ condition directly changes the pace. Each step costs more the worse the ground’s passability: off-road, the group advances noticeably slower.

Terrain and passability

Distance isn’t the only thing that matters. The terrain is read by the server from a semantic terrain map and sets a speed modifier and passability for each area:

• Ordinary ground, snow, ice, river — passable on foot at full speed.
• Foothills — passable, but noticeably slower: such a path may be shorter on the map but longer in time.
• Highlands — also slow you down slightly, forcing you to weigh whether the direct route is worth the time spent.
• Coastline and ice edge — passable on foot at full speed.
• Open water — impassable for an on-foot route: the party doesn’t force a path straight across the water.

Passability is checked as you move: if the next cell is blocked for the current movement type or lies out of bounds, the group stops. That’s why water, ice, and mountainous or heavy terrain aren’t background — they’re a reason to think about a backup heading ahead of time.

Route hints

Small warning icons light up next to the group marker. They are deliberately blunt: this is not a route calculation, it is a reason to slow down and think before you set off.

• A heavy crate on a plinth, lit red from below — the character is overloaded: weight above what they can carry.
• A boot inside a broken orange ring — the group is moving very slowly.
• A road running into the distance with a yellow centre line — route length of 700 cells or more.
• A red triangle with a skull — the destination is more dangerous than the current point by 5 encounter difficulty levels or more.
• An hourglass — the group is waiting: an encounter or camp is being prepared.

The cost of the road and the weather

Time on the road is time under risk: the longer the group is traveling, the higher the chance of running into an encounter. A vehicle speeds up the trip but burns fuel, and an empty tank really does halt movement, so a fast departure has to be calculated together with the trip back. The limits of a route are set by survival (cold, fatigue, radiation, poison, wounds) and overload — in the north the main environmental pressure is the cold.

A separate note on the weather: the lore mentions it among the considerations on the road, but in the current version there’s no dedicated “weather affects travel” mechanic on the global map — the real route modifier is terrain and passability. Treat the weather as atmosphere, not a rule.

What to keep in mind

Plan the way back, not just the destination. Look at the group as a whole — the pace is set by the slowest member or by the vehicle. Route around heavy terrain and water in advance, keep a fuel reserve, and watch the icons by the group marker: overload, slow going, a long haul, and a dangerous destination all tell you when it is time to change the target or turn back while the road is still under control.