An automation and base-defence strategy game

LINEBORN

Every machine is temporary.
The line is not.

Half factory, half fortress. Your factory builds its own workforce: robots that work, wear out, are recycled, and replaced by the machines they helped build. The same lines make the guns, walls and combat robots that hold the base against waves and hordes.

Inside the factory and the fortress

A combat mech stands in the middle of an alien swarm at a gap in the cliffs while lasers and rockets converge on it, with the factory below. — From the development buildWork in progress

One generation builds the next

Build a factory.
Keep a workforce alive.
Hold the line.

Build the workforce

Mine resources, manufacture parts and assemble the machines that keep your industry moving. Your robots are part of the production chain.

Plan for the next generation

Machines need power and maintenance. As they wear out, recover their materials and build their replacements. Keep the whole cycle running.

Arm the base from the same lines

Ten kinds of gun, three grades of wall and twelve kinds of combat robot, all made by the same economy as your workforce. Combat robots wear out like every other machine. Supply the front while the factory behind it keeps working.

Survive waves and hordes

Hold out for a hundred waves on the Frontier, or against three hordes of more than ten thousand at once in the Siege. Send fleets against the enemy bases that guard oil and uranium, or build the Sunspear, whose one shot destroys every hostile on the map.

How it plays

The rules the line runs on.

Cargo robots carry ore and plate between smelters, ore fields and assembly halls in a dense factory district. — Logistics2× speed

Nothing moves until something asks for it

Every smelter, hall, gun and building site says what it needs, and the nearest free hauler takes the job. You never route a truck. You decide where buildings stand, what they make, and which of them comes first when the fleet is stretched.

A worn-out cargo robot drives into a recycling yard and is taken apart, while an assembly hall rolls out its replacement. — The workforce3× speed

Built on the line, retired on schedule

Every machine comes off your own assembly halls and lives a fixed life, from about ten minutes for the first tier to half an hour for the sixth, serviced along the way. Worn out, it walks into a recycling yard, which returns part of what it cost.

Water, oil, ice and fire

Hostiles, machines and the ground itself can be wet, oiled, frozen or burning, and every weapon meets them differently. A defence line is built from combinations.

A water cannon soaks aliens wading through a marsh, and arc coils send lightning through them and along the wet ground. — Water and lightning1× speed

Wet bodies take half again as much from electricity, and a hit spreads through the water to whatever stands in it close by.

Oil cannons coat an alien column and the ground in black oil, and flamethrowers set both alight. — Oil and fire1× speed

Oil makes every flame hit half again as hard, and the slick on the ground catches and burns.

A fluid cannon lobs cryofluid onto an alien pack, freezing it and the ground, while machine-gun turrets fire into the frozen bodies. — Cryofluid and steel1× speed

Cryofluid freezes a pack where it stands, and frozen bodies take half again as much from bullets, shells and blasts.

Weather changes the fight

Five kinds of weather, each announced four minutes ahead. Rain soaks the whole map, so every electric hit spreads to whatever stands near its target, and fire struggles to catch. A heat wave doubles every flame. Sandstorms and electromagnetic disturbances cut your power.

In heavy rain an alien strike pours through a gap in the cliffs, and a lone combat mech holds it under the swarm's fire. — Rain: electricity +50%, fire −50%2× speed

Brown dust blows across the factory under a dim sun. — SandstormPower −60%

Frost on the ground and rime on the buildings as snow drifts down. — Cold snapEnergy draw +50%

Heat shimmers over orange-grey ground under a hard sun. — Heat waveFire +100%

A green aurora hangs over the base as lightning strikes the ground. — Electromagnetic disturbancePower −30%

The sun sets over the factory, the shadows lengthen and the base's lights come on in the dark. — Day and night12× speed

A day lasts ten minutes

Seven minutes of daylight and three of night. The sun crosses the sky and every shadow swings with it, and after dark the base runs by its own lights.

From the development build