Combat & Missions

From fleet skirmishes to planetary invasions — understanding combat mechanics and mission types is crucial for both offense and defense.

How Combat Works

When an attacking fleet arrives at a target, combat begins automatically if hostile forces are present. Battles are fully simulated — the outcome depends on fleet composition, weapon-armor matchups, rapid fire bonuses, and planetary defenses.

Round-Based Simulation

Battles play out for at most 15 rounds. Each round:

1. Both sides normally fire simultaneously — ships select targets and deal damage without an attacker-first advantage. Surviving Scouts make an opening strike only when their fleet has a valid priority target configured.
2. Damage is applied — effectiveness depends on weapon type vs armor type. Each side also receives a fresh random damage modifier for that round; its exact range is intentionally not published.
3. Destroyed ships are resolved — permanently lost hulls contribute to the debris field. Hulls recovered after combat as damaged, repairable ships do not.
4. Retreat check — if retreat is enabled for that side, it will pull out once its loss percentage crosses the configured threshold (see Retreat Mechanics below).

If neither side is destroyed or retreats by the end of round 15, the battle ends and the defender holds the field.

Weapon vs Armor Matchups

The core of combat strategy. Bringing the right weapons against the right armor types makes an enormous difference. There are five weapon types and four armor types:

• Kinetic — best against light armor (scouts, fighters). Cheap and effective for swarm warfare.
• Laser — perfectly balanced against all armor types. The safe choice when you don't know what you'll face.
• Plasma — strong against shielded targets but weak vs heavy armor. Good for cracking Titan shields, and it additionally chews through shield HP faster.
• Missile — strong against medium armor. Guided warheads designed to penetrate balanced defenses.
• Ion — the ultimate anti-shield weapon. Weak against regular plating, but outstanding against shielded hulls and great at burning down shield HP.

Rapid Fire in Combat

Some ships fire multiple shots per round against specific target types. This creates hard counters where one ship type devastates another:

• Interceptors shred fighters, scouts, and probes.
• Cruisers hunt small ships (scouts, fighters, interceptors).
• Torpedo Frigates are built to spike capital ships (battleships, dreadnoughts, titans).
• Battleships dominate cruisers and missile cruisers.
• Bombers demolish planetary defense buildings (all defense weapon types plus EW).
• Missile Cruisers punish small fighters and interceptors plus bombers.
• Dreadnoughts crush the entire large-ship class (battleships, bombers, missile cruisers, cruisers) and still clean up smalls.
• Titans have rapid fire against almost everything in the game — the single most dangerous unit on the field.

The complete numerical rapid-fire table, including planetary and lunar defenses, is published under Ships & Weapons: Rapid Fire. Always scout first and build counters against what the enemy is actually flying.

Carrier, EW, and Repair Support

• Carriers are assigned a hangar role before battle. They can improve supported fighter attack and evasion, improve bomber survivability, or protect assigned assault shuttles from planetary anti-air fire.
• Electronic Warfare Ships reduce incoming damage through jamming. Their intensity fluctuates each round, and extra EW ships contribute with diminishing returns.
• Repair Ships do not repair hulls during the firing rounds. If one survives, it increases the share of destroyed losses that can return as damaged, repairable ships after combat.

Civilian Ships in Prolonged PvE Battles

Mining pirate raids and the mixed NPC battles used by guarded surveys, salvage, and wormhole operations protect civilian ships while combat or EW escorts remain during the first 10 rounds. From round 11 onward, civilian ships can be targeted even if an escort still survives. If every combat and EW escort is destroyed earlier, protection collapses immediately.

This special protection does not apply to an ordinary Attack Pirates mission. It also does not make civilian ships safe from environmental hazards or mine damage.

Planetary Defense in Combat

When attacking a planet, the defender's defense systems participate in battle alongside any stationed fleet:

• Railgun, laser, missile, plasma, and ion defense systems all fire at attackers each round.
• Electronic Warfare reduces enemy accuracy.
• The Shield Generator adds a planetary shield that regenerates over time and retains a protected floor. Dead Space weakens its normal regeneration.
• Reinforcement activates only after an attack drives the shield to that floor. While reinforcement is active, incoming hostile missions are turned away. Launching a hostile mission from the reinforced planet requires confirmation, ends the reinforcement, and prevents it from reactivating for one hour.
• Plasma and ion weapons are especially efficient against shields; researched ion hits can also collapse the current shield of an individual target.

Retreat Mechanics

By default, fleets fight to the death. Retreat is opt-in on a per-mission basis — when dispatching an attack or raid, you can choose a retreat threshold (% of fleet lost). If that threshold is crossed mid-battle, your fleet breaks off and heads home. A separate option lets you force "no retreat" to fight to the last ship regardless.

• Retreat is configured per mission, not globally.
• In PvP, automatic retreat for the defender requires the AI Officer Protocol research — otherwise the defender always stands.
• Retreating ships return to their planet of origin, but the retreating side forfeits loot and debris collection from that fight.

Building Damage

Victorious PvP attacks no longer spread leftover fleet firepower across the whole colony. Post-battle damage is focused in two places:

• One basic resource building can receive PvP economic damage per victorious attack; unrepaired repeat hits can degrade its level.
• Planetary defense buildings can still take combat damage and fight at reduced strength until repaired.

Commander Bonuses in Combat

• The Warlord gets stronger ships (more ATK and HP), faster shield regen, cheaper ship builds, and an extra fleet slot — the most direct combat commander.
• The Industrialist makes losses cheap to replace thanks to raw production output.
• The Explorer reaches the fight first and carries more loot home.
• The Diplomat can swap into the Military doctrine for a lighter version of the Warlord's bonuses when needed.

Debris & Salvage

After a battle, a portion of the resources used to build destroyed ships becomes debris that can be salvaged.

• Both attacker and defender losses create debris at the battle location.
• Send cargo ships on a Collect Debris mission to salvage the resources.
• Participants get immediate private visibility. Some debris becomes public only after a short delay; once public, collection is first-come-first-served.
• Separate Collect Salvage missions can recover special components from wrecks.

Damaged and Repairable Ships

Some battle losses return as damaged hulls rather than disappearing permanently. They do not create debris and cannot join ordinary missions until repaired. They may be moved only by Transfer and require at least one healthy ship to tow them. A surviving Repair Ship improves recovery, and also enables field repairs at planets, moons, and outposts where an ordinary shipyard is unavailable.

Minefields

Minefields provide area denial around your planets. Mine Layer ships deploy space mines that damage incoming hostile fleets before combat even begins.

How Minefields Work

• Requires Mine Warfare research (Era 3).
• Mine Deploy targets one of your colonized planets, accepts Mine Layers only, and is unavailable in Sentinel.
• Covert Mining targets an enemy planet and requires at least one Stealth Ship, one Mine Layer, and one EW Ship and Hacker Ship for every Mine Layer. Only those four ship types are accepted. It cannot launch from, target, or complete in Sentinel.
• Mine Warfare research level sets the cap on how many mines a planet can hold.
• Your own mines and mines owned by your alliance are safe. Personal pacts and relations between allied alliances do not grant safe passage.
• Ordinary defensive mines trigger on hostile arrivals. Covert enemy mines can also threaten peaceful arrivals and returning fleets. Minefields do not block fleet departure.

Countering Minefields

• Stealth Ships passively neutralize a few mines each when arriving with a fleet.
• Mine Sweep targets an enemy planet and accepts Stealth Ships only.
• Mine Scan targets one of your own planets and accepts Scouts only.
• Mine Clear targets one of your own planets after enemy mines there have been discovered and accepts Scouts only.
• Patrol Sweep coverage can keep working on mines over time, while Watch patrols can sometimes catch incoming minelayers before they finish the job.
• Minefields can also be reclaimed by the owner for a partial refund of their cost.

Cyberwarfare

A cyber fleet with at least one Hacker Ship can attack an enemy planet; other eligible ships may accompany it. The mission requires Cyberwarfare research and is unavailable against Sentinel targets.

Hack Types

Resolution and Cooldown

• Success depends on the attacking cyber capability and the target's counter-intelligence.
• Each attacker has a 12-hour cooldown before launching another cyber attack against the same target planet.
• Sabotage effects do not stack — a new successful sabotage replaces the previous one.

Defending Against Cyber Attacks

• Counter-Intelligence research (Era 3) hardens you against hacks.
• The larger your Counter-Intel advantage over the attacker, the more reliably enemy hacks fail.
• You receive a notification when a cyber attack is attempted against your planet, whether it succeeds or fails.

Auto-Evacuation

Because the default behavior for a stationed fleet is to fight, the AI Officer lets you configure per-planet responses to incoming hostile fleets.

This requires the AI Officer Protocol research (and its upgrades) to take effect in real combat.

How a Rule Is Chosen

• AI Officer reacts to incoming planetary Attack and Raid missions. Each incoming mission schedules its own check. Active rules for that planet are considered from highest priority to lowest, and only the first matching rule is used.
• Any threat and Enemy detected both match an incoming Attack or Raid. Enemy stronger and Enemy much stronger use a rough strength comparison, not the combat simulator; the latter uses the threshold selected in the interface.
• The comparison uses healthy ship counts and each hull's base durability and attack. Combined-assault fleets are added together; research, modules, commanders, damaged defenders, the command vessel, planetary shields, turrets, weapon matchups, and combat bonuses are not included.
• An Alcubierre fleet remains hidden from the defender's incoming-fleet display, but that invisibility does not suppress the server-side AI Officer check.

Exact Scatter Timeline in Season 0 and New Frontiers

• Scatter is the available action. The server schedules a final re-evaluation exactly one minute before hostile arrival; if less than one minute remains, it checks immediately.
• At that final check the incoming mission must still be an outbound Attack or Raid. The server reloads the current rules, their priorities, the current ships, and the current rough strength comparison. A recalled attack therefore does not trigger a late Scatter.
• If reinforced planetary protection or applicable Dead Space protection is guaranteed to cover the attack's arrival, Scatter is skipped and no fuel is spent.
• When Scatter fires, every healthy and damaged ship currently stationed on the planet leaves together. A ready Leadership command vessel at that planet joins too. Ship-type filters do not split a Scatter fleet.
• The scattered fleet returns to the same planet exactly 30 minutes after it leaves. Every incoming mission has an independent final check and uses the planet state that exists at its own check time.

Requirements and Failure Conditions

• Scatter needs one free ordinary fleet slot, enough hydrogen for the displayed round-trip cost, and at least one stationed ship or ready command vessel. Fuel depends on the actual fleet and its slowest ship; the AI Officer screen shows the current estimate.
• Hostile mines that block departure also block Scatter. Missing fuel, no free slot, no ships, or a blocked departure causes a failure notification instead of moving the fleet.
• Advanced AI Officer can attempt to load resources into available cargo space after reserving Scatter fuel. This cargo loading is disabled in Dead Space; if cargo validation fails, the ships still attempt to Scatter without cargo.

Combined Assaults

Alliance members can coordinate combined assaults — multiple players sending fleets to attack the same target simultaneously. Requires the Combined Operations research.

How Combined Assaults Work

1. An alliance member initiates a combined assault by selecting an attack target and marking it as a combined operation.
2. Other alliance members can join the assault by dispatching their own fleets to the same target.
3. All participating fleets are grouped into a convoy that arrives together at the designated time.
4. A joining fleet may delay the convoy, but its own travel time cannot exceed three times the initiator's travel time; a slower fleet cannot join.
5. The combined fleet fights as one force — all ships from all participants engage the defender simultaneously.
6. After combat, a single battle report is generated and shared with all participants.

Assault Status

• Gathering — the convoy is forming, more alliance members can join.
• In Combat — the convoy has arrived and battle is underway.
• Completed — combat resolved, battle report available.

Patrols

Patrols are local security operations for ships that would otherwise sit idle. They no longer behave like a single "fishing trip" slot: they use a separate patrol capacity, cover a chosen area, and provide passive protection while the mission is active.

Patrol Mechanics

• Requires Navigation Computer Lv.1.
• Patrols consume Patrol Capacity, a separate bucket from normal fleet slots.
• Patrol Capacity sources: Navigation Computer Lv.1 gives +1, Lv.3 gives +1, Lv.5 gives +1; Advanced Navigation Lv.1 gives +1; Warlord or Military doctrine gives +1.
• Coverage matters: Orbital focuses one planet, System protects your holdings in the same system, and Route watches the corridor between two of your planets.
• Available durations are 2, 4, 8, and 12 hours. A normal Route patrol must connect two different planets you own.
• Patrols work in Sentinel, Open, and Dead Space, but dangerous space is harder to police.
• Dedicated mining, construction, logistics, and repair hulls cannot patrol.
• Duration affects how long the protection lasts and how many patrol ticks can happen, but the useful result depends heavily on ship mix and patrol mode.

Patrol Modes

• Watch is the defensive default: it improves counter-espionage coverage, suppresses pirate raids against mining fleets, and can intercept hostile minelayers.
• Sweep focuses on mine clearing. Stealth, electronic-warfare, and probe support are the ships you want here.
• Hunt searches for hidden pirate camps over time and requires at least one Probe, Spy Probe, Scout, Stealth Ship, or EW Ship. Hunt's Route Interdiction targets a different discovered system in the same security zone rather than another owned planet.
• Salvage leans back toward the original "idle fleet finds something useful" fantasy. Cargo ships and haulers matter because finds still need room to come home.

Ship Mix

The patrol UI grades your fleet by broad bands instead of exposing hidden math. Combat ships improve security, scouts and probes improve recon, stealth and EW ships improve sweeping, and cargo capacity controls how much salvage can actually be brought back.

Warden System

The galaxy is divided into security zones, and the NPC faction known as The Wardens enforces order in protected space. Warden behavior depends entirely on the zone you attack in.

Zone Rules

Fleet Missions

The Fleet page is the single most important interface in the game — almost every meaningful action goes through a mission. Each mission type has its own rules: who's the valid target, whether the fleet returns, whether cargo is loaded, what research is required. Below is the full catalog, grouped by purpose.

Three legend codes make the tables quicker to read:

• Return — the fleet flies out, does the thing, and flies home.
• Stay — the fleet stays at the destination when the mission arrives.
• Consumed — ships used in the mission are spent (colony ship becomes a colony, etc.).

Combat Missions

Intelligence & Cyberwarfare

Scouting is cheap compared to the cost of a bad attack. The difference between a success and a wipe usually lives here.

Logistics Missions

This block trips up new players the most. The key question every logistics mission answers is: does the fleet come back or stay? — and whose planet is the target?

The owner of the planet or moon can refuel a stationed Garrison from that location's hydrogen, up to the fleet's cargo capacity. The guide intentionally does not publish the internal hourly-consumption formula.

Exploration & Mining Missions

Minefield Operations

Mines are a full mini-system with both offensive and defensive missions. Unlike weapons, mines persist on a planet until triggered, swept, or reclaimed.

Special Missions

Fleet Management

Fleet Slots

You have a limited number of fleet slots — each active mission occupies one slot. Research technologies like Navigation Computer and Advanced Navigation to unlock more slots. Patrols use separate Patrol Capacity instead of normal fleet slots.

Fleet Speed

A fleet moves at the speed of its slowest ship. Don't mix fast interceptors with slow freighters unless you need to — they'll all crawl at freighter speed.

Fuel Cost

Every fleet mission consumes hydrogen as fuel. Cost depends on:

• Fleet size — more ships = more fuel
• Distance — farther targets cost more fuel
• Ship type — each ship has its own fuel consumption rate

Research Fuel Efficiency to reduce costs.

Alcubierre Drive

An advanced propulsion mode for planetary Attack and Raid missions and for Attack Moon. It greatly shortens travel and makes the fleet invisible to enemy sensors during the flight. The normal hydrogen travel cost is still paid, plus an additional antimatter charge; the internal cost formula is intentionally not published.

Jump Gates & Highways

Moons with Jump Gates can move fleets instantly between your own gate-equipped moons. The same network can also shorten ordinary long-distance fleet routes when a valid entry and exit gate are available, including allied exit gates. Gates have cooldowns, so a well-placed network is powerful but not unlimited.

Raid Mechanics

Raids are different from attacks. Instead of orbital bombardment, raids are ground operations designed to steal a large share of a planet's stored resources — bigger than a pure orbital attack would loot.

How Raids Work

1. Your fleet arrives and engages any defending fleet in orbit (normal combat).
2. If you win orbital superiority, assault shuttles descend to the surface.
3. AA turrets intercept shuttles during descent. Higher AA levels mean more shuttles destroyed on the way down — up to a cap.
4. Carriers in orbit help shuttles survive the descent by suppressing AA fire (also capped).
5. Landed troops fight the garrison. Surviving raiders then move on to stealing resources.
6. Storage cloaking lengthens the time raiders need to find stockpiles.
7. Defense traps deal damage to raiders and slow them down.
8. Hacker ships in orbit speed up the extraction phase by cracking storage encryption.
9. Raiders have a hard time limit before they must leave — whatever isn't loaded by then stays on the planet.