Galactic Command Handbook
Codex
Welcome, Commander
You command one homeworld in a shared galaxy. Roids are the biggest part of your score, and an Asteroid Processor turns them into income every tick. The highest score when the eon ends wins it. Here's exactly what to do in your first session.
- 1
Upgrade a mine
BaseUpgrade your Metal Mine a level or two. Mines are your income: everything else is paid for in metal, crystal and eonium that accrue every tick. Your Command Center caps how high any other building can go, so raise it alongside.
- 2
Build a few ships
FleetQueue some Fighters. They're cheap, need no shipyard upgrades, and make a solid early raider. Ships sitting at home defend your planet automatically.
- 3
Raid your first target
MapThe scanner lists a weakly defended NPC world tagged Suggested at the top: send an Attack fleet with 5 or more Fighters, which is exactly what your starter fleet is for. Scouting it first shows you what is waiting, but it is optional.
- 4
Haul the roids home
FleetFighters carry no cargo, so a win with Fighters alone brings nothing back. Send Light Haulers with the attack to carry roids home, or Occupy a world you have cleared: Ore Miners left there earn you resources every tick, and cargo hulls ferry its roids home. Roids count in full once they dock, and an Asteroid Processor turns them into income.
- 5
Set your Night Shield
SettingsPick the 8-hour window you're usually asleep (the welcome flow offers it too). Raids during it carry off up to 75% fewer roids. See Defense.
Every commander starts with 48 ticks of Beginner Protection, and joining late in an eon gets you bigger starting reserves to catch up. While it lasts, raiders do far less damage and carry off far fewer roids. It is a discount, not immunity, so use the time to build a defensive fleet. An empty planet is an easy target the moment protection ends.
Mine, Build, Raid, Haul
Every strong empire runs the same cycle, and each turn of it makes the next one faster: roids you haul home raise your score and, worked by an Asteroid Processor, pay for the next fleet.
The Tick
Actions resolve on a server heartbeat called the tick (normally 1 tick = 30 minutes). Construction, shipyard queues, fleet travel, and battles all complete on tick transitions. You don't need to babysit the game, set things in motion and check back.
Resources accrue continuously and are calculated the moment you log in or act, so being offline never stops your economy (until storage fills up, see Economy).
Where the loop lives
- Base
- mines, buildings and the Power tab (Mine, Build).
- Fleet
- the Shipyard queue and your fleets (Build, Haul).
- Map
- pick targets and send fleet orders (Raid).
- Eon
- the standings and how long the eon has left.
Winning the eon
Eons run 30 days, then the black hole at the galactic core consumes everything and the next eon begins immediately. Your commander name, your history, and your home planet's name survive the collapse; planets, fleets, and resources do not. The winner is the highest score, and not everything you own counts the same:
- RoidsBy far the heaviest. At half value while on a world you occupy.
- ShipsTheir full build value, so losing a fleet costs score.
- BuildingsHalf of what you spent on them.
- Stockpile & queueNothing. Resources only score once spent.
Three resources + one prize
Metal
Hull plating and basic structures. Your cheapest, most abundant income, from Metal Mines.
Crystal
The second resource, for advanced buildings and heavier ships. From Crystal Mines.
Eonium
The scarcest resource, for the strongest hulls and top buildings. Accrues slowly from Eonium Extractors, so plan around it.
Roids (Asteroids)
Your strategic prize, and the only one you cannot build. Roids are the biggest part of your score, and an Asteroid Processor turns the ones you hold into metal, crystal and eonium every tick, so a raid pays twice. You take them by winning attacks and hauling them home.
How income works
Each mine level raises what it produces per tick. Resources accrue continuously: the game computes what you've earned the instant you look, so you never lose income for being away.
The catch: storage has a cap. Once it fills, new production is wasted. Your Command Center level sets the cap, so raise it, and spend down before a long time offline.
Fleet upkeep
Every ship you fly costs upkeep, taken out of your stockpile every tick alongside whatever you earn. Check a hull's Upkeep a day figure in the Shipyard for its exact cost, since it moves with each eon's pace. A fleet bigger than your income can drain your stockpile instead of growing it, so keep an eye on your resource rate.
Run the stockpile dry and the unpaid share becomes a debt, capped at one day of your own upkeep. Your next income or reward pays it down first, before you can spend it. Planet defences are free, and no ship is ever scrapped over unpaid upkeep.
Multipliers worth chasing
- Refinery: +10% mine output per level, stacks with your race bonus.
- Race bonus: e.g. Terellian's +10% production. See Reference → Races.
- Asteroid Processor: the only thing that makes your roids pay. Each level works more of them, and roids beyond what it can work still score but earn nothing. Unlocks at Command Center 3.
Note: Power Plants generate power, which you assign on the Power tab of your Base to Mine Overdrive (more resources), Shipyard Overclock (extra build slots plus slightly faster builds) or Shield Surge (less damage taken). Buildings do not consume it, so power you leave unassigned does nothing. A slider only appears once you own the building it drives. You never have enough for all of them at once, so the split is the decision, and the mine and shipyard boosts only apply to work you start after the change settles. Shields are the exception: they are read when a fleet lands, so a swing to defence can still catch a raid already on its way.
How combat resolves
When a fleet arrives, the server runs up to 4 rounds of mutual attrition, and both sides usually take losses. From the second round, an attacker who is clearly losing starts breaking off: those ships come home alive rather than dying, and fast hulls escape far more often than slow ones. A withdrawal is not a defeat, but it earns nothing. Roids only move on an attacking win: a capped share of the target's belt, and never more than your surviving fleet's hold. A fighter carries none at all.
What beats what
There is no size ladder, a big ship is not automatically strong against the size below it. Each hull is built to hunt one or two specific things, and to struggle against one or two others. Everything else is a fair fight decided by numbers and cost.
Two numbers sit behind every pairing: how hard your shots land, and how much of your fire that target attracts. That second one is why a frigate escort works, everything shooting at your fleet is pulled toward the frigates, and why warships mostly ignore freighters.
Tanks take the killing blow
When one of your ships would be destroyed, a tank may take the hit instead and the ship survives. Your tanks are the Buckler, Frigate, and Bulwark. Tanks never cover each other, so a fleet of only tanks gets nothing from this: about a quarter of your fleet's value in tanks is a strong mix. A Bulwark pairs well with a few Combat Engineers: it survives several killing blows damaged, and they mend it between rounds.
Commanders
Each kind of fighting ship can earn one named commander. Win or survive a fair fight with those ships, against an enemy at least half your strength, and a commander is appointed. You will find them under Fleet, Commanders.
A commander sails with that ship type whenever those ships leave your home world and raises one stat for them, growing each level up to level 5. Their personality decides which: a bold commander adds attack, a careful one adds hull. Their card shows the figure. A fleet carrying many commanders shares one cap, so the bonus helps but never decides a fight on its own. Ships sent from a world you occupy sail without their commander.
Commanders gain experience only from fair fights: a one-sided fight pays a fraction, and fighting the same player again within three days pays half each time. Levels come at 1, 3, 6 and 10 fair fights.
A win is always safe. After any other result, each commander who sailed may not come home: the more of the fleet you lost, the worse the odds. A fallen commander is gone for good, and the next fair fight appoints a new one at level 1.
Don't lose your fleet
- Know what you're flying into. Scouting is optional, but a report is the cheapest way to avoid a bad fight, see Scanner.
- Bring the counters. A mono fleet is a fleet with an obvious answer. Check what the target has, then bring the hull built to hunt it.
- Don't fly naked. A fleet in transit isn't home defending, time your raids so you're not caught empty.
- Watch the clock. Longer travel = more time for the defender to react and reinforce.
Fleet orders
Attack
Assault a target. Survivors take roids off the belt and salvage off the ships they destroyed, both limited by the hold you brought.
Defend
Reinforce an ally, your fleet pools with their defenders in any battle there.
Scout
Gather intel without starting a battle, though the guns there still fire on your scouts. Only recon hulls (Probes, Scout Ships, Occultors and the Privateer) can fly it, and more scan power buys a more detailed report.
Occupy
Take an unclaimed world and hold it. Miners you leave there work it, and cargo hulls ferry the roids home.
Mission
Run a mission site's contract. You pick the difficulty: harder tiers pay more and can be lost, each caps how big a fleet you may send, and your Galactic Council rank sets how high you can go. Some sites need a Scout Ship in the fleet. Win and the Council pays the bounty to your home world, once per mission.
Recall
Turn a fleet around, or pull a guarding fleet home.
Distance & who you can hit
Travel time is set by your slowest ship:
Travel Ticks = ceil( Distance / Slowest Ship Speed )
Bash limit: attacking a player under half your strength launches, but resolves as no contest: no combat, no roids. Strength is your score on the Eon rating board: roids, ships (fleets that are out included) and buildings. Attacking upward is always allowed. NPCs and missions are exempt, so they're fair game at any size. After an attack you must wait a couple of ticks before hitting the same world again.
Watch for Incoming alerts (a fleet launched at you, with an ETA) and Radar Contacts (fleets moving nearby). They're your early warning, react before the fleet lands, not after.
You can't be wiped out
PvP is intense, but the game has layers that stop you losing everything overnight. Learn them and you'll always keep a floor under your empire.
Beginner Protection
Your first 48 ticks in an eon. Damage to your ships is cut 65% and a raider carries off far fewer roids; production, building and shipbuilding all run normally. Joining late gets you bigger starting reserves, not a longer window. Use it to stand up a defensive fleet before it expires.
Night Shield
Pick a daily 8-hour window: set it to when you're asleep.
- Raids during the window carry off up to 75% fewer roids.
- Ship-to-ship losses still apply fully, a shielded planet isn't invincible, so stationed defenders still matter.
- Enemies only learn your window from a full recon report. Changes take about 8 ticks to apply, so you can't dodge an inbound raid by re-timing it.
Structures that guard your roids
- Bunker Network: cuts roids stolen per raid by 10% per level (up to 60%); doesn't stack with Night Shield, the stronger applies.
- Shield Generator: reduces combat damage to your defenders by 1% per level (up to 7%), and unlocks Shield Surge on the Power tab, which takes it further if you commit your grid.
- Turrets / Missiles / Railguns: planetary defenses that fight alongside your stationed ships (see Reference).
Tip: Protection and shields buy time, not immunity. The best defense is a fleet at home, a naked planet invites scouts and becomes an easy mark the moment your protection lapses.
Reading the map
The galaxy is made of local areas: clusters of planets. Your radar covers your own local area from level 1. Your homeworld is the cyan dot at your coordinates. Pan and pinch to explore; other planets fill in as you learn about them.
Intel Levels (0 to 4)
Everything you know about a planet is captured by one number, its Intel Level. The higher it is, the more you see.
| Lvl | You know |
|---|---|
| 0 | A dot: it exists, plus coordinates |
| 1 | Identity: name, owner, race, size + roids |
| 2 | + resources & fleet strength, rough (±) |
| 3 | + exact resources & exact ship counts |
| 4 | + defensive structures (full picture) |
Three ways to raise Intel
Radar Station: free & automatic. Everything in range reaches L2. Higher levels widen the range.
Subspace Scanner: costs eonium + a cooldown. Scans a distant region to L2 (L3 at Scanner L3+). Its edge is reach.
Recon fleet: send Probes, Scout Ships, Occultors or Privateers. The only path to L4, and the surest way to exact ship counts. Optional, but worth it before a serious attack.
Watch for Incoming alerts (a fleet launched at you, with an ETA) and Radar Contacts (fleets moving nearby). They're your early warning, react before the fleet lands, not after.
Races
Chosen at colonization. Each grants a permanent passive and a signature ship.
Terellian Alliance
Industrial. +10% resource production rate. Signature: the Terellian Harbinger (siege engine). Too slow to dodge, too fragile to brawl. Needs an escort.
Xandir Collective
Hive mind. +15% fleet travel speed · Ships build in 15% less time. Signature: the Xandir Raider (the fast swarm). Dies to anything that can track it. Carries nothing.
Centaurian Syndicate
Cartel. +20% cargo hauling · +8% roids per raid · −10% build cost. Signature: the Centaurian Privateer (payload run). You pay for the hold, not the guns.
Buildings
Built on the Base screen, one at a time in a queue (ships use the Shipyard's own queue). Your Command Center level decides what you can build, and no building can rise more than one level above it. Prices shown are for level 1; every level after costs more.
Tier 1 · Foundation
Metal Mine
metalYour main income. Metal pays for most buildings and every hull, and each level raises what the mine produces per tick.
Crystal Mine
crystalProduces crystal, the second resource, needed for advanced buildings and heavier ships.
Eonium Extractor
eoniumProduces eonium, the scarcest resource, slowly. The strongest hulls and top buildings need it, so plan around it.
Command Center
tech level + storageThe spine of your base. No other building can rise more than one level above it, it sets how much of each resource you can store, and new buildings unlock as it climbs.
Radar Station
scanWatches your whole local area from level 1 and reaches further with each level. Every world inside is revealed to Intel L2, and fleets launched at you show up with an ETA.
Orbital Shipyard
ship classesBuilds your ships. Each level unlocks heavier hull classes and raises how many come off the line together: a level N shipyard builds N+1 at a time, whatever class you are building. Level 8 is the top, unlocking Battleships and Dreadnoughts with a batch of 9. Past that, more throughput comes from Shipyard Overclock on the Power tab. It does not make an individual ship build faster.
Armory
weapon capacityManufactures weapons that fit to your ships. It opens with two build bays and each level adds another, so several weapons build at once, and each level unlocks one more weapon to build. Weapons are fitted per ship type from the Loadouts tab. Hulls launch equipped, and lose their weapons when they die. Cargo and mining hulls stay unarmed by design.
War Academy
unlocks commandersTrains the officers who lead your fleets. Level 1 lets you hire commanders for light hulls, level 2 for medium hulls, level 3 for heavy hulls and the Colossus. Each hire is a small one-off payment. Hiring buys a level 1 commander; levels are earned in fair fights.
Tier 2 · Industry
Refinery
+10% mine output / lvlMultiplies metal, crystal, and eonium output. Stacks with race bonuses.
Asteroid Processor
works 50 asteroids / lvlWorks the asteroids you hold, turning them into metal, crystal, and eonium every tick. Each level works more of them. Asteroids you cannot work still count for score, they just earn nothing.
Reclamation Bay
+5% hulls rebuilt / lvl · scraps shipsRebuilds some of the ships destroyed defending this planet, from the wreckage left on your own ground. They fly again two ticks later. If you lost anything at all, you get at least one ship back. It also scraps ships you no longer need, from Manage on any ship card, and returns part of their cost.
Foundry
faster refining, +100 hopper / lvlRefines metal and crystal into Alloy, a dense manufactured good that the heaviest hulls are built from. You load a hopper and it refines over time. Higher levels refine faster and hold more. The conversion cannot be reversed, so what you commit is committed.
Power Plant
+100 power / lvlGenerates power to assign on the Power tab: richer mines, extra shipyard build slots, or stronger shields. Unassigned power does nothing.
Tier 3 · Defense
Laser Turret Battery
+2 turrets / lvlOrbital turrets that fight alongside stationed ships. Counter fighters and corvettes. Requires Shipyard L3.
Missile Platform
+1 launcher / lvlHeavier defensive launchers. Counter frigates and destroyers. Requires Shipyard L4.
Railgun Bastion
+1 bastion / lvlAnti-capital defensive emplacement. Requires Shipyard L5. Its guns are too slow to touch anything fast, a raider walks past it, and siege hulls are what crack it.
Shield Generator
−1% damage / lvlCuts the damage attackers do to you, up to 7% at level 7. It also unlocks Shield Surge on the Power tab, and each level lets you pour more of your grid into it.
Bunker Network
−10% roid loss / lvlCuts what a raider can take, capped at 60%. Doesn't stack with Night Shield, whichever is stronger applies.
Bounty Office
open bounties + pot sizeLets you put a price on another commander. Escrow resources against their name and whoever next beats them in an attack collects the pot. Each level raises how many bounties you may have open at once and how large each pot may be.
Tier 4 · Long Range
Subspace Scanner
regional scanScan an entire region at range, no fleet needed. Reveals every planet's identity, projected resources and an approximate fleet strength. Higher levels scan a wider ring, and level 3 shows the exact ships. Costs eonium per scan with a cooldown.
Trade Hub
exchange + dock leaseOpens a resource exchange and temporary dock leases with the Galactic Council. Each upgrade level improves the exchange rate and unlocks one additional rentable shipyard bay (up to 5).
Wormhole Gate
paid attack jumpsLets an attack from this world jump to its target in a few hours instead of flying there, paid in Dark Matter. The bigger the fleet and the further the trip, the more it costs. The target sees the wormhole open. Each level makes jumps cheaper.
Ships
Built at the Shipyard. Ships defend your planet automatically unless in transit. SY = minimum Shipyard level to build.
Combat & Recon
Expendable eye · No guns, thin armor. A one-way trip.
Overwhelm · Can't dent capital armor. Carries nothing home.
The screen · Beats small things and nothing else.
The bodyguard · Can't win anything alone.
The siege breaker · Can't catch nimble fleets.
The reachable capital · Can't match a battleship head-on.
Siege · Can't react. Eleven ticks to replace.
The patient eye · Slow to fight. Built to flee.
The statement · Everyone sees it coming. Thirteen ticks to replace.
Super capital · Slowest hull in the game. Twenty ticks to replace.
The first tank · Guns are an afterthought.
The ambusher · Its cloak is the edge. Fly it with ordinary ships and it is just a warship.
The quiet eye · Sees less than a Scout Ship. Unarmed.
The medium hunter · Raiders slip under its guns.
The heavy tank · Melts against guns built for heavy hulls.
The fleet healer · A wounded ship hit again before it is mended still breaks apart.
Industrial & Cargo
Raid cargo · Unarmed. Dies to anything. Always escort it.
Heavy raid cargo · Slow and unarmed. Worth escorting properly.
Bulk plunder · Ungainly, exposed, and cannot fight.
Occupation mining · Earns nothing at home and nothing in a fight.
Race Signature Ships
The fast swarm · Dies to anything that can track it. Carries nothing.
Payload run · You pay for the hold, not the guns.
Siege engine · Too slow to dodge, too fragile to brawl. Needs an escort.
Glossary
47 terms you'll see across the cockpit, grouped by the chapter that covers them. The same definitions sit behind every ⓘ in the game.
Core Loop
- Eon
- One season of the galaxy, about a month long. It ends with a winner crowned on score, then the galaxy wipes and the next eon begins straight away. Your commander name and history carry over; planets, fleets and resources do not.
- Score
- What decides the leaderboard and the eon's winner. Roids count for far more than anything else, then your ships, then your buildings. Roids on a world you occupy count for less until they are hauled home. Stockpiled resources and anything still in a build queue score nothing.
- Tick
- The game's heartbeat: a fixed real-time interval that every eon counts in. Resources accrue per tick, builds finish on a set tick, and fleets travel for a number of ticks.
Economy
- Asteroid Processor
- Turns the roids you hold on this planet into a small stream of metal, crystal and eonium every tick. Each level can only work so many asteroids, so more roids only pay if the Processor can handle them. No Processor means your asteroids score for you but pay nothing.
- Crystal
- The mid-tier resource for advanced structures and heavier ships. Accrues per tick from Crystal Mines.
- Eonium
- The scarcest resource, needed for the strongest ships and top-tier upgrades. Accrues slowly from Eonium Extractors.
- Fleet upkeep
- Every ship you fly costs upkeep, taken out of your stockpile every tick alongside whatever you earn. Check a hull's Upkeep a day figure in the Shipyard for its exact cost, since it moves with each eon's pace. Planet defences never cost upkeep, and no ship is ever scrapped over it.
- Metal
- The bulk resource that pays for most structures and ships. Accrues every tick from your Metal Mines, up to your storage cap.
- Mines
- What your on-planet extractors (Metal Mine, Crystal Mine, Eonium Extractor) generate each tick. Upgrade the matching mine to raise this rate, and assign Mine Overdrive power to push it higher.
- Occupied worlds
- Income from Ore Miners you left occupying someone else's world, credited to this planet every tick. Each rock only absorbs so many miners before the extras sit idle, and the total is scaled down so mining at home always outpaces it.
- Power
- Power plants generate power and you assign it on the Power tab of your Base. Buildings do not consume it, so power you have not assigned does nothing. Mine Overdrive raises resource output; Shipyard Overclock adds build slots (which is what speeds up cheap hulls) plus a small cut to build time (which is what helps capitals); Shield Surge cuts the damage attackers do to you. The pool cannot cover everything at once, so pushing one up pulls the biggest of the others down, and a change takes a couple of ticks to settle.
- Production rate
- How much of a resource you gain each tick (shown as +N/t). Raise it by upgrading the matching mine or extractor.
- Roids
- Asteroids: your strategic prize. They drive your leaderboard rank more than anything else you own, and are taken by raiding or carried home from a world you occupy, not mined. Build an Asteroid Processor to turn the ones you hold into metal, crystal and eonium every tick; each level works more of them, and asteroids it cannot work still count for score. You lose up to a capped share when raided; your Night Shield protects ~75% of them.
- Storage cap
- The most of each resource a planet can hold. Once you hit it, further production is wasted until you spend. Upgrading your Command Center raises it.
- Upkeep debt
- What happens when your stockpile cannot cover a tick's upkeep: the shortfall becomes a debt instead of costing you ships. It is capped, and your next income or reward pays it down first, before you can spend it.
Combat
- Attack
- Send a fleet to raid a target. Both sides take losses. If you win, survivors carry off roids and salvage, both limited by the hold you brought; lose or break off and you carry nothing.
- Bash limit
- Attacking a target far weaker than you is a no contest: no combat, no roids. Strength counts every ship a commander owns (fleets that are out included), ground defences and stockpiled roids, so a rich but lightly-defended planet still reads strong. Attacking upward is always allowed. NPCs and missions are exempt.
- Breaking off
- From the second round, an attacker who is clearly losing starts pulling ships out of the fight. They come home alive instead of dying, and fast hulls get away far more often than slow ones. A withdrawal earns nothing.
- Council rank
- Your standing with the Galactic Council, from 1 to 5. Winning missions earns Council points, harder tiers earn more, and each rank unlocks the next mission difficulty: Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, Legendary.
- Defenders
- An NPC planet's defensive force. Wipe it for salvage and to disable that planet for 48 ticks, it stops attacking and producing while down.
- Difficulty
- How strong the enemy is. A harder difficulty brings a bigger enemy and pays more, in bounty and in Council points. Your Council rank unlocks each step.
- Fleet power
- A coarse readiness score: the sum of (attack + defense) × quantity for your ARMED stationed ships, freighters and miners contribute nothing, because they cannot fight.
- Fleet status
- Where a fleet is in its life-cycle: outbound to a target, returning home, guarding an ally, occupying a world you hold, or away on a mission. Ships left at home defend your planet automatically.
- Guard / Defend
- Send a fleet to reinforce an ally, it pools with their stationed defenders in any battle there until you recall it.
- Mission
- A mission site on the map with a Council contract on it. You pick a difficulty and send a fleet with the Mission order; the enemy is sized to what you send, harder tiers pay more and can be lost, and a win pays the bounty to your home world. Each mission pays you once.
- Occupy
- The fleet order that takes an unclaimed world and holds it. Ore Miners you leave there earn you resources every tick, cargo hulls can carry its roids home, and it scores for you at half value until they dock.
- Operation
- What your fleet sets out to do. A Skirmish is a quick raid: a strike team slips in, hits hard and gets out. An Assault sends a battle group to take the site head on. A Siege throws everything you have at it and pays the most. Every operation uses one of your daily missions, and a small site cannot hold a Siege.
- Recall
- Bring a fleet home before it engages: cancel a launch, turn a fleet around in flight, or pull a guarding fleet out of an ally's defense.
- Salvage
- Resources recovered from the ships and defences destroyed in a fight you win, carried home in your fleet's spare hold. It comes out of the wreckage, not the loser's stockpile.
- Scout / Recon
- An order only Probes and Scout Ships can fly. It gathers intel without starting a battle, though the guns there still fire on your scouts.
- Targeting
- Every warship has the hulls it prefers to shoot at. That is why an escort of Frigates works, fire aimed at your fleet is pulled toward them, and why warships mostly ignore freighters.
- Tracking
- How well a gun follows its target. Big guns turn slowly, so against a ship faster than they can follow only part of their fire lands. Ground defences never move, so every shot at them hits.
- Travel time
- How many ticks a fleet takes to reach its target, farther targets cost more.
- When a fleet leaves
- Fleets do not leave the moment you launch. Your order is queued and the fleet departs on the next tick, so a launch just after a tick waits almost a full one.
Defense
- Beginner Protection
- For your first 48 ticks you take much less damage and raiders take far fewer roids.
- Night Shield
- An 8-hour window you set in Settings, usually your sleep hours. Inside it, a raider can carry off far fewer of your roids. Ship combat still happens normally. Changes take about 8 ticks to apply, so you cannot dodge a raid already on its way.
Scanner
- Coordinates
- A planet's address, written region:system:position (e.g. 5:2:3). The region is the broad cluster, system the neighbourhood, position the slot. Distance between coords drives travel time.
- Intel
- What you know about a target: roids, resources, the defending fleet. Your Radar Station, the Subspace Scanner and Scout orders all gather it, and each scan carries a timer. While it is live you can watch that world's fleets leave. When it runs out the numbers stay on screen but are marked out of date.
- Local area
- A cluster of nearby planets (the first number in your coords), also called a region. Your local comms channel is scoped here, and your radar covers it from level 1. Distance within and across regions sets fleet travel time.
- Scan level
- How much you know about a world, from 0 to 4. L1 names it: owner, race and roids. L2 adds rough resources and fleet strength. L3 makes them exact and shows its guns. L4 adds its shields, bunkers and Night Shield hours. Radar gets nearby worlds to L2; only a recon fleet reaches L4.
Reference
- Cargo
- A fleet's carrying capacity. It caps how many roids and how much salvage the fleet can haul home from a raid.
- Dark Matter
- A dense manufactured good refined at the Foundry, which the heaviest hulls are built from. Loaded onto a fleet, it flies as a Dark Matter shield. The conversion cannot be reversed.
- Ship stats
- Attack is firepower and defense is hit points, so armor decides how much punishment a hull absorbs. Speed sets travel time and how well a hull breaks off a losing fight; cargo sets what it can haul home (a fighter carries none). Counters are per hull, so a fleet built for the target beats a bigger blind one.
- Shipyard
- The Base structure that builds ships. Higher levels do two things: they unlock heavier hulls (the ship table lists the level each one needs), and they raise batch size. A level N shipyard rolls out N+1 ships per batch. Level 8 is the top; past it, extra throughput comes from Shipyard Overclock on the Power tab. It does not speed up an individual ship.
Everything else
- Interloper
- A body drifting through from outside the galaxy, carrying metal, crystal and eonium and leaving on a deadline. The pot only grows while somebody occupies it, faster with more Ore Miners aboard. You bank what you recall; whatever is still aboard when it leaves goes with it.
- Operation
- How much the client wants moved. A Parcel is a small load a few cargo ships can run past the raiders. A Shipment is a proper haul. A Convoy carries the whole job, draws the most raiders and pays the most. Every run uses one of your daily missions, and a small site cannot fill a Convoy.
- Operation
- How hard your scouts look. A Flyby is a quick pass that a few scouts can make. A Survey maps the site properly. A Deep Scan takes most of your scouts, finds the most and pays the most. Every look uses one of your daily missions, and a small site cannot take a Deep Scan.
How combat works, in full
Rounds, damage, targeting, tracking, breaking off, who wins, and a ship versus ship grid of every counter in the game.
Read the combat rules