How the galaxy works. Numbers may change during the beta; this page changes with them.
Time
The galaxy runs in real time, around the clock, whether you are online or not.
Builds take minutes to hours. Travel takes hours. Research takes minutes once its materials are in place.
Reports record everything that happened while you were away.
Your civilization
You start with one home world and one probe.
Civilization names are unique. Look-alike spellings count as the same name.
A civilization still on its first world is removed after 14 days without an order. With an email linked in Settings, after 30 days. A civilization with two or more colonies is never removed for inactivity.
After the same time without an order, ships away from your colonies are lost, and your routes and survey protocols stop. Ships at your colonies stay.
Your home world cannot be invaded during your first 7 days, unless you have declared war, attacked or invaded anyone. Your other colonies can be.
A last world falls like any other colony.
A civilization that loses its last world starts again on the same account: the same name, a new home world, starting stock and the 7-day home world shield. It carries the Exiled mark.
Restart, at the bottom of Settings, Account, removes your civilization and starts a new one on the same account. Once per 24 hours. Not while a colony of yours is besieged or an enemy landing is on its way.
Abandon colony removes a colony and leaves the planet unclaimed. Not your home world, your last world, a besieged colony, a colony with an enemy landing on its way, or one whose system has your open trade offers. Its queued work is lost, and so is the system's stock unless you hold another colony there.
Resources
Four core resources: metals, volatiles, energy, organics. Research points are shared across your civilization.
Stock is kept per system. Buildings, ships and recipes pay from the system they are in. Freighters move stock between systems.
Every system has a storage cap per resource and per good. Output above the cap is lost.
Buildings, ships and research materials are paid from the stock of one system, so a cost can never be larger than that system's storage. Cargo held in freighters does not count until it is unloaded.
Buildings draw energy upkeep and crew rations from organics.
If a system's energy stock is empty and upkeep exceeds output, its industry runs at half speed. The same holds for organics.
A powered-down building costs no upkeep. Switching it on again takes 30 minutes to warm up.
Refineries turn core resources into goods. Factories turn goods into components. Rares raise yields; every hull and building below the top tier can be built from common resources.
Research
A tech costs research points. Higher techs also consume materials, which must be together in one system when research starts.
One tech researches at a time. Up to eight can be queued; a queued tech starts when its cost is met.
Techs unlock buildings, hulls, recipes and civilization-wide bonuses.
Fleets
Ships are built at a colony with a Shipyard. Heavier hulls need a higher Shipyard level.
Ships parked at the same star can be merged into one fleet. A fleet moves at the speed of its slowest hull.
A fleet is named after its most numerous hull until you rename it. A merge or a split renames a game-given name to match the ships; a name you chose stays.
Each fleet has a home port that pays its fuel and rations: the system whose shipyard built it, or your home system. Base here moves it to the system where it is parked, if you have a working Shipyard there and room.
A fleet whose home port cannot pay, or is blockaded, goes unfed. Readiness falls by the unfed share of your navy and recovers once paid.
Ship capacity: a system can base 500 hull points, plus 1,000 per Shipyard level and 1,500 per Shipyard Annex level. A full system builds no new ships and takes no new home ports; fleets already based there stay.
A full system: base fleets elsewhere with Base here (fleet parked at another of your shipyard systems), build at another shipyard, raise the Shipyard level, or scrap ships. Fleets from before 0.6 are based at your home system.
Rally point: a shipyard can send every ship it finishes on to another system you hold. The ships stay based at the yard that built them.
Every hull has a stock design, the hull as built, which never changes. Fitting modules and saving makes a named design; a civilization keeps up to three per hull beside stock. Designs are civilization-wide: every shipyard can build any of them, and a yard preselects the design it last built. Changing a design refits every ship of it at once, paid from one system; stock ships stay as they are. A design can be renamed at any time and deleted only while none of its ships are in service.
Refit: at your shipyard, ships can be turned into another design of the same hull. You pay only the modules the new design adds; removed modules are scrapped. The ships stay in the fleet while the yard works; leaving cancels the refit with a refund. Damage carries over.
A fleet parked at your own shipyard can scrap ships. The yard returns half their base price in metals, volatiles, energy and organics: no rare goods, no modules. Each ship takes a quarter of its build time. The ships leave the fleet at once, and the order cannot be cancelled.
Probes and scouts scan the star they arrive at. Freighters carry cargo. Colony ships found colonies. Troop Transports carry 100 troops each.
Travel and warp gates
Travel time depends on distance, drive tech and modules. The move button shows the arrival time.
A fleet in flight can be redirected. The new course starts from where the fleet is now.
A warp gate jump needs a usable gate at both ends and takes 3 hours whatever the distance. A fleet jumps when that is faster than flying.
A gate is usable by its holder and the holder's allies only, at war included.
A Warp Gate is held by the owner of the colony it stands on.
A Nocturne gate is held by the owner of the oldest colony in its system who has Gate Attunement. With no such colony it is dormant.
Taking a colony takes its gate.
Routing: a move order flies to the best gate, jumps once, and flies on, when that is faster than flying direct. The move button shows the route.
An armed fleet of a civilization at war with you, parked at a gate star, closes that gate for you.
Intercept: with Gravimetric Tracking, select one of your armed fleets, then a foreign fleet you track in flight, and press Intercept. Your fleet flies to where that fleet will be and fights it there, between the stars.
After an intercept battle, the survivors fly on to the target's destination. If the target arrives or turns out of reach first, your fleet flies on to its destination.
A fleet in a warp tunnel cannot be intercepted.
Intercepting a civilization you are not at war with declares war. Its owner is warned only if their sensors, or an ally's, cover your fleet.
Destroy gate: once a siege is won, the besieger can destroy the colony's Warp Gate. It is gone at the next siege tick. Nocturne gates cannot be destroyed.
Sensors and intel
You see what your sensors cover. Colonies, Sensor Arrays and parked ships each have a range. Allies share sight.
The map remembers where you last saw other civilizations. A claim not seen for three days reads fainter.
Gravimetric Tracking shows foreign fleets in flight within your sensors. Long-Range Telemetry warns you when a fleet sets course for one of your systems.
Shadow hulls leave no trace for telemetry and are revealed only by a presence at their star.
Combat
A battle starts whenever two civilizations at war share a star: a fleet arrives, an attack order is given, war is declared, a ship launches, a colony is founded or a fleet regroups there.
An attack order engages enemies at war; with none present, any non-allied fleet, which declares war. Allies are never engaged.
A battle resolves at once and runs until one side has no ships left; a fleet facing a colony battery alone exchanges one round with it. Each round every gun fires its volley in order of initiative, quickest first; equal initiative fires at the same time. Shots land on the other side's weakest ships first. Every colony of the defender in the system fires a battery each round, one shot per Defense Grid level.
A battle ends as a stalemate only when 20 rounds in a row hurt no ship on either side.
Firepower varies by up to 15 percent each round. Weapons and hull techs, modules and readiness all count.
Shields absorb a shot before the hull: all of a ballistic shot, 30 percent of a beam, 20 percent of a missile. Shields recharge each round and are full at the start of every battle.
Armor cuts a fixed amount from every shot that reaches the hull, twice as much from a beam; penetration ignores that much armor. A shot always lands at least 25 percent of its damage, and no combination of shields, armor and countermeasures takes more than 90 percent.
Countermeasures blunt incoming missiles, one missile per countermeasure shot per round; a blunted missile lands a fifth. A missile rack carries salvos and is re-armed at a shipyard.
Evasion and tracking: a shot at a quick target hits with the chance 1 minus (evasion minus tracking) out of 100, never below 10 percent.
Craft (fighters, interceptors, bombers) live in hangars and never travel on their own: a Carrier holds 12, a Fighter Bay adds 4, an Expanded Hangar 6, a colony Hangar 4 per level. A carrier launches with 12 fighters. Craft fire each round before any ship; a shot kills one craft at most; fighters and interceptors engage enemy craft first, bombers go for ships; a ship's gun fires at craft only with tracking 70 or more while enemy ships remain. Craft cannot attack a colony.
Craft lost in battle are replaced only at your own shipyard, paid per craft; leaving the system cancels the rest with a refund. A carrier lost takes its craft with it. A colony Hangar refills one fighter at a time from the colony's stock and its craft defend the system.
A carrier design sets its complement in the Outfit editor: the craft its carriers launch with and replace to, optionally a second type at 25, 50 or 75 percent. Each craft is one type. Stock carriers launch with fighters. A fleet can change its own complement in its hangar row.
Damage stays. A ship that survives keeps its remaining hull and its spent missile salvos into the next battle. Merging keeps every ship's damage; splitting takes the healthiest ships first; scrapping takes the most damaged first.
Repair at your own shipyard: most damaged first, paid when ordered at half the missing share of the base price, taking half the missing share of the build time. The ships stay in the fleet and fight if attacked. Leaving the system or merging the fleet cancels the rest with a refund. Magazines refill at your shipyard at no cost.
The report lists both sides, losses, rounds, hull left and what decided it. Recent battles are listed under Fleets.
Stations and sieges
An Orbital Station carries up to four tiers, each built onto it: Defense Platform, Shipyard Annex, Depot and Sensor Tier. Others see which tiers a station has, not their levels.
The Defense Platform fights in orbit for its system. Destroyed in battle, it takes the whole station with it: every tier is gone and is rebuilt from level 1.
A civilization at war holds a colony's orbit when its armed fleet is parked there, no armed fleet of the owner is, and no Defense Platform stands. Holding orbit is a siege.
Every hour the besiegers bombard the colony for 3 rounds. Each Defense Grid level is a battery with 400 hull, 1.5 times more for each higher level, and armor 6. The Shield Generator protects them. Its shield starts full and is worn down across the bombardments; it does not recover while the siege lasts. Batteries fire back at 20 percent of their strength.
Each battery destroyed is a Defense Grid level lost. A siege never touches troops. It is won when no battery is left.
A Defense Grid switched off is still bombarded. It does not fire back.
A civilization at war with the besieger that drives it off takes the siege over. Anyone else waits for the siege to end.
A Defense Platform finished during a siege is fought at the next hour.
While your siege holds a colony, your ships do not fight its batteries in battle: only the bombardment reaches them.
A siege ends when orbit is lost for 6 hours, or at peace.
When your last world is besieged you are told in the game and by email, and your allies are called to arms.
Invasion
Planetary Invasion unlocks Troop Transports. Put them in a fleet, select the target planet and order Invade.
Defenders in orbit fight first. If any armed defender survives, the landing is called off.
Troops land only once the siege is won: no battery and no Defense Platform left. Invade is available to a fleet with transports in the colony's orbit. A colony without batteries is won the moment you hold its orbit.
Invade given in orbit before the siege is won arms the landing: the troops land by themselves when the last battery falls. Leaving the system, or the siege ending, disarms it.
Transports in orbit during a siege are in the bombardment: batteries fire back at the weakest ships first, so transports are often hit first.
Only the besieger can land on a besieged colony.
Landing takes 5 minutes once the fleet is in the system. Then troops face the garrison: 100 militia plus 150 per Garrison level.
More troops than defenders takes the colony with its buildings. Fewer loses the whole landing force.
Taking a colony gives you the stock its owner held in that system, up to your storage there, unless they still hold another colony in the system.
Invading declares war if you are not already at war.
Diplomacy and war
Contact is made when your fleets or colonies meet another civilization's. Only civilizations you have met appear in Diplomacy.
Relations: neutral, peace, allied, war. Peace and alliance are proposed and accepted; war is declared or provoked by an attack.
A proposal can be declined. Declining costs no reputation and starts no war. The same proposal cannot be made again for one day.
A war ends when both sides agree to peace. Peace calls off any landing still under way between the two.
Reputation records broken agreements and refused calls to arms. It fades over time.
A blockade is an armed enemy fleet at war parked in your system. It stops deliveries, instant trades, gate use, freight routes, cargo loading and unloading, and the supply of fleets based there, until it is driven off. Blockades are reported when they start and when they lift.
Alliances
An alliance has a name, a colour and a two to four character tag shown before its name on the map and in panels.
Members are allied with each other. Roles: founder, officer, member. Officers invite; the founder sets roles.
Allies share sight, an alliance room, map pings and calls to arms.
A call to arms asks allies to join a war. It can be answered, refused or withdrawn while open. A refusal is remembered.
A member can leave. The founder can disband. The founder and officers can expel members of lower rank.
Declaring war on a civilization you expelled within one day counts as betraying an ally.
Trade and freight
A trade offer names what you give and what you want. It goes to a civilization you have met and expires if not answered.
Instant trades hand over at a system where both sides hold a colony. Otherwise the goods travel by freighter and complete on delivery.
Freighters load and unload at your colonies and can follow a standing route between two of your systems. A route can carry goods back on the return leg. Cargo that does not fit in the system's storage stays aboard.
A blockaded system holds deliveries aboard until the blockade is broken.
A blueprint can be traded. The buyer can then make it; the seller keeps theirs.
Marks
✦ Pioneer: a civilization from the Brackeys Game Jam with a linked email.
⚑ Exiled: lost a last world and started over. It can be hidden in Settings, Account.