The game's primary mode of play is flying space ships. Players can dock at stations, where they are safe and can use station services such as repairing, refitting, and the regional market. All space combat takes place in real time at sub-light speeds from around 100 m/s to in excess of 8000 m/s, depending on ship size and setup. While players can manually control their ships as in space combat simulators such as "Wing Commander" or "" following the release of the Rhea expansion on December 9, 2014, most opt instead to give commands such as Orbit, Approach or Align to their flight computer, which does its best to comply. Weapon aiming, however, cannot be done manually; instead, the player locks on to an opponent and orders their weapons to fire, and the result is determined through calculations based on factors such as range, velocity, weapon tracking, and a degree of randomness.