OUT TO THE BLACK

Every time you sign in to Out to the Black, you choose a faction. There are four. Each faction has a home sector at one of the compass points of the galaxy, a unique harpoon ability that defines its playstyle, and its own ship-name list so you can tell at a glance which side a pilot fights for.

Faction membership controls who you can ram, who you can build alongside, and how the AI in the field reacts to your presence. Same-faction ships pass straight through each other. Different-faction ships collide with full physics — a deliberate ram from a heavy ship can disable a smaller one in a single blow. Your harpoon, the rope-and-hook weapon you fire with the second weapon slot, triggers your faction's signature ability when it sticks to an enemy. Three of those abilities (ARREST, LOOT, LOOT) are available to human players. The fourth (EAT) is reserved for the AI swarms of the Bone Collectors, where it shapes the experience of fighting them more than what they themselves do.

Below: who each faction is, where they live, how they fight, and who tends to play them.

Concordium ↓ Unbound ↓ Bone Collectors ↓ Outlaws ↓

Home sector: North. Harpoon ability: ARREST. Best for: coordinated team players who like to control the pace of a fight.

The Concordium believes the galaxy needs rules, and that without them the asteroids stay drifting and the wormholes stay dangerous and someone, eventually, gets eaten. They are the closest thing to a legitimate authority in the black — patrolling their sector in formation, responding to incidents at the edges of their territory, and tagging known troublemakers with their harpoon's signature blue-strobe lockdown.

An ARREST harpoon attaches to an enemy ship and locks down its engine and weapons for seven seconds. A pulsing police strobe rotates around the target the moment the rope connects, so everyone in visual range knows what's happening. Seven seconds doesn't sound like much. In a real fight it's an eternity. An Outlaw caught mid-thrust loses the ability to bank, to fire, to escape the asteroid she was about to slingshot off of. By the time the strobe stops, two of your teammates have closed the gap with bullets ready.

Concordium pilots tend to play in groups. The faction's strength is in coordination — one ARREST harpoon is a good move; three ARREST harpoons fired in sequence on the same target shuts down even the highest-level enemy for nearly half a minute. Solo Concordium play works, but it works best when you know your teammates are watching the same hit-list target you are.

Common strategy: Stay near the home sector early. Patrol the wormhole approach to your territory. When an enemy ship slips into Concordium space, ARREST first, ask questions never. Mining is acceptable but secondary — your XP comes from killing intruders, not from rocks. Build ANTI-AIR turrets along your sector's flight paths so a single attack run gets caught in interlocking fire.

Counter-strategy if you're up against them: Don't fight a Concordium fleet on their home turf. Wait until their patrol moves to chase a sighting elsewhere and slip through behind them. If you must engage, take out the harpoon-firer first — that's the ARREST threat. Without ARREST they're a normal team with bullets, and bullets you can dodge.

Home sector: East. Harpoon ability: LOOT. Best for: players who want to get rich, build empires, and let other people fight the wars.

The Unbound aren't lawless — they just don't recognize the Concordium's authority to write the laws. They are merchants, miners, fleet operators, asteroid claim-holders. Wherever there's an unclaimed tier-7 rock there's an Unbound ship trying to harpoon it before someone else does. Their wealth is measured in tonnage of refined ore and in the number of asteroids flying their teal-and-amber colors.

The LOOT harpoon attaches to an enemy ship and drains their stored materials at ten percent of their cargo capacity per second. A full hold takes ten seconds to siphon dry. Players new to the harpoon tend to underestimate this — it sounds slow on paper. In practice, ten seconds of unbroken rope contact during which you can keep flying, keep firing your bullets, and keep towing the enemy into your turret crossfire is a brutal combination. The target either breaks contact (losing the rope's tension cancels the drain) or dies still attached.

Unbound players are the most likely faction to focus on the economic side of the game. They harvest the largest asteroids in the field, run mining circuits across the entire eastern half of the galaxy, and use LOOT not so much as a combat tool but as a way to recover from a bad engagement: a single LOOT harpoon on a returning enemy can replace the materials you just lost dying to them.

Common strategy: Build up a network of claimed asteroids in your home sector. Make your sector dangerous to enter by lining the approaches with ANTI-AIR. Mine continuously when no one's around. When an enemy DOES show up, LOOT-harpoon them, drag them away from cover, and let your turrets finish them while their materials drain into your cargo.

Counter-strategy if you're up against them: Don't carry a full cargo hold into Unbound territory — you're a walking payout. Strip-mine your materials into a claimed asteroid (any base you own is a safer storage than your own hull) before crossing the eastern border. If LOOT-harpooned, accelerate against the rope tension to either snap the line or out-thrust the drag.

Home sector: South. Harpoon ability: EAT (bot-only). Best for: players who don't mind being part of an army and want sheer numbers on their side.

Where the Concordium imposes rules and the Unbound extract wealth, the Bone Collectors just want what you have, and what you are. There are more of them than there are of anyone else — by design. The Bone Collectors deploy five AI swarm ships in their southern sector for every one a human Concordium or Unbound pilot encounters. Their southern flight paths look like flocks of starlings. Their bullets come from everywhere at once.

The EAT harpoon — wielded only by the AI swarm, never by the human player — attaches to an enemy ship and drains its health directly. Not shields. Not fuel. Health. Bypasses every defense you've spent levels upgrading. The damage tick is small per second, but the swarm is large, and a Bone Collector AI hit-and-run with three EAT harpoons sticking to your hull from three directions is a death sentence the moment you stop maneuvering.

What a human Bone Collector player has, instead of EAT, is the swarm itself. Your teammates are everywhere. Bot Collectors are the most numerous faction in the field at any moment. When you call a target, three or four AI ships in your sector are already converging on it before you finish your thought. You as a player are the brain; the swarm is the body. You won't usually be the one to land the killing shot. You'll be the one who pointed.

Common strategy: Stay near the swarm — the closer you are to your AI teammates, the more attackers your enemies have to deal with simultaneously. Don't try to be a lone hero; that's not how Bone Collectors win. Use the noise of the swarm as cover to set up perfect bullet shots from outside the engagement.

Counter-strategy if you're up against them: Never enter the southern sector with low health. The swarm density means every encounter is multi-on-one. If EAT-harpooned, the rope drains health regardless of shields, so disengagement is the only response — break the rope's line of sight with an asteroid, snap the tether with a hard accelerate, or destroy the harpooner before it can fire a second time.

Home sector: West. Harpoon ability: LOOT. Best for: players who don't want teammates and don't want allies — just XP, glory, and the freedom to shoot anything that moves.

Outlaws don't have teammates. Other Outlaws are not friends — they are competition. Every Outlaw ship in the western sector is in a free-for-all with every other Outlaw, with every Concordium patrol, with every Unbound trader, and with every Bone Collector that drifts in from the south. There is no faction-passthrough for Outlaws. Every other ship in the galaxy collides with you. Every other ship in the galaxy can hit you. And you can hit them all.

The Outlaw harpoon is LOOT — same drain effect as Unbound's — but unlike the Unbound, you're never doing it for the team, because there is no team. Materials you LOOT off another ship go into your hold and your hold only. Structures you build go on asteroids that only you can extend; no Outlaw teammate can add to your claimed asteroid because you don't have Outlaw teammates.

This sounds like a hard mode. It is. It's also the highest-XP-per-encounter faction by a wide margin. Every kill counts. Every asteroid you mine is your asteroid. Every fight you survive moves you up the hit-list rankings faster than a Concordium pilot who shares credit with three patrol-mates. Outlaws are over-represented at the top of the global leaderboard for a reason.

Common strategy: Move constantly. Outlaws who try to set up a base camp get found, and once found, they're at three-on-one disadvantage from whichever neighbor faction notices first. Hit-and-run. Mine quickly, build sparingly, kill when the math is in your favor. Avoid the southern sector unless you're shield-stacked and ready for a swarm.

Counter-strategy if you're up against them: Outlaws are usually high-level and high-aggression. Don't dogfight a high-level Outlaw — disengage and let your faction's response close the distance. Outlaws have no backup; if you can keep them in a fight for more than fifteen seconds, your teammates will arrive and even the math.

There's no wrong answer. Each faction is competitive at every skill level. The differences are about how you want to spend your time:

• You want structure and a team. Concordium. Patrol with allies, lock down threats, defend the law.
• You want to get rich and build an empire. Unbound. Mine, claim, fortify, repeat.
• You want overwhelming firepower without being the one calling shots. Bone Collectors. Be part of the swarm.
• You want everything to count for you and only you. Outlaws. No team, no rules, no excuses.

Your faction changes every time you respawn. There's no penalty for switching. Spend a session as Concordium and then go Outlaw the next time you die — the game is built to let you try every side.

Tip: Switching factions destroys all structures you owned under the old faction. If you've built up a base, think twice before changing colors mid-session.

• Combat & Weapons — how the harpoon and bullets actually work in a fight
• Building & Claiming — how faction territory is built and held
• AI & Autopilot — the swarm behaviors that make Bone Collectors terrifying
• Highscores — who's currently leading each faction
• Full Guide Index