OPERATIONS MANUAL
Run the company. Dispatch the exceptions.
You are the General Manager and Lead Dispatcher of a global 3PL. Protect customer promises, stay solvent, and build a resilient worldwide network. Departments handle routine work inside policy; you own the operating exceptions, staffing, capacity, carriers, working capital, and growth decisions.
Your first morning
The first exception is a U.S. truck breakdown because it teaches recovery quickly, but the company is already moving freight worldwide through factories, ports, airports, distribution centers, trucks, vessels, and aircraft.
A first-run overlay uses curved white arrows to point out the company objective, network clock, customer decision queue, Cash/A/R/A/P, live map, and department controls. Completing the walkthrough is saved with your career, including the signed-in account copy.
Your role
- General Manager: cash, receivables, payables, staffing, policy, carrier relationships, fleet strategy, leases, procurement, international expansion, and company trust.
- Lead Dispatcher: difficult loads, driver coordination, exceptions, expedites, mode changes, threatened promises, and recovery.
- 3PL network builder: decide what to own, lease, contract, or access through partners and which lanes are worth pursuing.
Customer decisions
Tap a contract to open its Dispatch Decision Portal. It shows the true origin, where the freight is now, destination, promise clock, current risk, a control-tower recommendation, alternative operating choices and each tradeoff. A manual planner can tie From, Via, Destination and Mode together before you commit.
Departments and staffing
Manage departments opens Dispatch & Capacity, Production Control, Customer Operations, and Global Trade. Cards show active people, pending hires, payroll, next-hire salary, agency fee, hiring lead time, policy, and current queue.
Request 1 hire is a staffing-agency requisition, not an instant headcount increase. The game models a 20% first-year salary placement fee plus onboarding cost, and the person joins only after the simulated hiring lead time.
Fleet & capacity
Capacity is separated into Owned, Leased, Contracted/on hand, and Partner accessible. Partner access is potential capacity, not inventory. Procurement and carrier contracts show upfront cost, recurring cost where applicable, lead time, and before/after capacity before confirmation.
Cash, receivables and payables
The top metric strip places A/R and A/P directly under Cash. Click Cash, A/R, or A/P to open the Working Capital console.
The accounting rule is simple: delivery creates A/R; customer settlement creates Cash; carrier, fuel, payroll and lease obligations create A/P; vendor settlement reduces Cash. A delivered contract therefore does not magically become cash on the same game hour.
Accounts receivable
Normal customer terms are modeled at Net 30. New invoices have a deterministic 3% late-payment path so the result remains the same after reload or on another computer. Only some late invoices become disputes. Late invoices can receive collection follow-up; disputed invoices can be reviewed for arbitration, which costs cash and resolves over game time with scenario probabilities.
Accounts payable
Carrier linehaul is generally modeled Net 14, road-diesel bills Net 7, payroll biweekly, and lease/fixed-asset commitments monthly. If a payable comes due without enough cash, it remains visible as overdue.
Ledger, calendar and projection
The finance console includes a transaction ledger showing Cash/A/R/A/P deltas, a daily balance calendar, regional fuel inputs, and 30/60/90-day projections. The projection prints its full cash equation so the displayed total can be reconciled directly.
Regional road fuel
Truck fuel is modeled as representative route kilometers × 0.34 litres/km × regional diesel price. Official public sources are used where practical: U.S. EIA weekly diesel and the U.K. DESNZ public weekly CSV. Other countries are explicitly labeled scenario baselines until a stable official adapter is configured. Road diesel is not substituted for marine bunker or aviation fuel.
Authoritative network time
At 1×, 15 real minutes = 1 game hour. You can run 1×, 2×, 4×, or Pause. The clock, physical shipments, staffing/procurement lead times, A/R collection, A/P settlement, payroll, lease accrual, and arbitration all use the same saved game time.
When you return, elapsed time is reconciled. On opening the map, Atlas Harbor runs an approximately 18-second catch-up replay of the previous operating window: ships, trucks, aircraft, the network-time rail, and the displayed working-capital balances visibly fast-forward toward the authoritative current state. The replay is visual history; it does not duplicate transactions.
Live global supply chains
Global movement speed is a gameplay assumption tied to route distance: truck/drayage about 68 km/h, ocean about 35 km/h, and air cargo about 820 km/h, with gateway dwell. Multiple aircraft are active from the opening network, including China→Australia, Korea→U.S., Japan→Netherlands, UAE→Kenya, and Kenya→U.K. flows.
Click a moving vehicle to inspect current game time, customer, cargo, current leg, kilometers moved, kilometers remaining, modeled speed, and distance moved during the last game hour.
Global markets
The operating network includes the U.S., Colombia, Netherlands, U.K., UAE, India, Kenya, China, South Korea, Japan, Indonesia, and Australia. Fit global network returns to the worldwide view; Focus active chapter zooms to the immediate exception.
Persistence
The game intentionally works offline. Progress is saved on the device and, for signed-in users, in user_metadata.atlas_problem_spaces.logistics_game.progress. Newest valid progress wins during synchronization, with account isolation on shared browsers. Time, finance, management, tutorial state and operations all travel inside the same career object.
Reality boundary
Customer, carrier, employee, salary, agency fee, rate, fuel baseline, probability, speed, reputation, and capacity values are gameplay assumptions unless explicitly labeled as an official data input. Routes are representative simulation corridors, not AIS, flight tracking, quotations, customs advice, or navigation.