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 over multiple rounds, up to a hard cap. Each round:

Both sides fire simultaneously — all ships select targets and deal damage. There is no "attacker goes first" advantage.
Damage is applied — effectiveness depends on weapon type vs armor type, plus a small random variance each round.
Destroyed ships are removed — ships at 0 HP are eliminated and contribute to the debris field.
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 before the round cap, 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:

Weapon \ Armor	Light	Medium	Heavy	Shielded
Kinetic	Strong	Neutral	Weak	Weak
Laser	Neutral	Neutral	Neutral	Neutral
Plasma	Weak	Neutral	Weak	Strong
Missile	Good	Strong	Good	Weak
Ion	Weak	Weak	Weak	Very Strong

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.

Note: Exact multipliers are intentionally not spelled out in this guide — the numbers live in the combat engine and are subject to balance changes. What stays stable is the rock-paper-scissors shape above.

Tip: Scout your enemy with Spy Probes before attacking. Knowing their fleet composition lets you build the perfect counter-fleet.

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 game screens show the exact rapid-fire multipliers for each ship — no need to memorize them. What matters: always scout first and build counters against what the enemy is actually flying.

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 never fully drops to zero. After surviving an attack, the shield is reinforced for the next 24 hours. Plasma and ion weapons are especially efficient at burning through shield HP during an engagement.

Warning: Well-defended planets can be extremely costly to attack. Bring a large, diverse fleet — or soften defenses with bombers first. Bombers have 3x rapid fire against all defense building types.

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

After a victorious attack, leftover fleet firepower can damage planetary buildings. Two things to remember:

Buildings can be degraded but never fully destroyed — there is a hard cap on how much damage a single attack can inflict.
Damaged buildings can be repaired for a fraction of their original build cost, scaled by the damage percent.

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.

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).
Send Mine Layers on a Mine Deploy mission to your own planet. The fleet deploys its payload on arrival and then returns home.
Mine Warfare research level sets the cap on how many mines a planet can hold.
When an enemy fleet arrives at a mined planet, mines trigger before combat begins and pick off ships — typically targeting the smallest units first.

Countering Minefields

Stealth Ships passively neutralize a few mines each when arriving with a fleet.
Mine Sweep missions — dedicate stealth and electronic-warfare ships to a sweep, and they disarm mines far more reliably than passive detection.
Mine Clear missions — if enemy mines are discovered on one of your own planets, you can send Scouts from another colony to speed up the clearance work already being done by local defenses.
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.

Tip: Layer minefields on your most valuable planets. Even if the mines don't destroy the attacking fleet, they soften it up considerably before your defenses and stationed fleet engage.

Cyberwarfare

Hacker ships can launch cyber attacks on enemy planets, causing temporary debuffs. Requires Cyberwarfare research (Era 4), which itself requires both Encryption Systems and Electronic Warfare.

Hack Types

Hack Type	Effect
Disruption	Temporarily reduces the target planet's resource production.
Intel	Instantly reveals enemy planet details — buildings, fleet, resources. An enhanced spy report.
Sabotage	Temporarily reduces defense system effectiveness — affects shield generator, AA turrets, garrison, and all defense weapons.

Success Chance

Success depends on your Cyberwarfare research level vs the target's Counter-Intelligence level.
No hack is ever 100% guaranteed or 100% impossible — there's always a floor and a ceiling on the outcome.
There is a cooldown between cyber attacks on the same target.
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.

Warning: Sabotage right before a major attack is a powerful combination. If your defenses are degraded when the enemy fleet arrives, your shield and turrets fight at reduced effectiveness for the duration of the debuff.

Auto-Evacuation

Because the default behavior for a stationed fleet is to fight to the death, auto-evacuation is how defenders opt out of that. The AI Officer system lets you configure per-planet rules so your fleet bails out under specific conditions instead of being ground down.

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

Evacuation Triggers

You can set one or more rules per planet. Available triggers:

Enemy Detected — evacuate as soon as a hostile fleet is detected incoming.
Enemy Stronger — evacuate if the incoming fleet's estimated strength exceeds a configurable threshold (e.g., enemy is 50% stronger).
Fleet Losing — evacuate during combat if fleet HP drops below a percentage threshold.
Always Defend — override: never evacuate, fight to the last ship.

Evacuation Actions

Retreat to Planet — evacuating ships flee to a specific planet you designate (must be your own colony).
Defend — stand and fight regardless of losses.

Ship Filters

Evacuation rules can target specific ship types. For example, you might set valuable capital ships (dreadnoughts, titans) to evacuate when outmatched, while leaving expendable fighters to buy time.

Tip: Always configure evacuation rules on frontier colonies near enemy territory. Losing a fleet of battleships because you weren't online is far more costly than the planet itself.

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

An alliance member initiates a combined assault by selecting an attack target and marking it as a combined operation.
Other alliance members can join the assault by dispatching their own fleets to the same target.
All participating fleets are grouped into a convoy that arrives together at the designated time.
The combined fleet fights as one force — all ships from all participants engage the defender simultaneously.
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.

Tip: Combined assaults can also target pirate camps — perfect for high-level camps that no single player can crack alone.

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.
Patrols work in Sentinel, Open, and Dead Space, but dangerous space is harder to police. Rift space is too unstable for normal patrol coverage.
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, giving another path to pirate intel besides direct anomaly scanning.
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.

Tip: Patrols are best treated as local infrastructure. A small focused patrol over a threatened planet often beats a larger patrol spread across the wrong coverage area.

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

Zone	Warden Response	Details
Sentinel	Instant interception	Wardens destroy your fleet on arrival. Attacking in Sentinel space is suicide. A warning is shown before dispatch.
Open	No wardens	PvP is fully allowed. No NPC intervention.
Dead Zone	No wardens	Lawless frontier. No protection, no rules.
Rift	No wardens	Dangerous late-game space. No protection.

Warning: If you attack a planet in a Sentinel zone, your entire fleet will be destroyed on arrival by the Wardens. There is no way to fight them. Move your target's harassment to Open or Dead zones, or use cyber attacks instead.

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

Mission	What it does
Attack Return	Full orbital combat against an enemy planet's fleet and defenses. On victory, you loot a share of the planet's resources and may damage buildings. Survivors return home. Will be intercepted and destroyed by the Wardens if the target is in Sentinel space.
Raid Return	Ground operation that can steal a larger share of planetary resources than a pure orbital attack. Requires Assault Shuttles; Hacker Ships speed up extraction; Carriers suppress AA fire. See Raid Mechanics. Also blocked by the Wardens in Sentinel.
Attack Pirates Return	Attack an NPC pirate camp for resource loot, bounty, and a chance at fragments.
Scout Camp Return	Recon a pirate camp to learn its fleet composition before committing to an attack.
Attack Outpost Return	Assault a player-built outpost. Blocked by Wardens in Sentinel space.
Attack Station	Assault a sector station. On victory the fleet stays at the station to hold it during capture; on defeat the survivors return home.
Field Attack Return	Engage an enemy mining fleet inside an asteroid field. Use this to clear rivals off a field you want to mine yourself.

Intelligence & Cyberwarfare

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

Mission	What it does
Spy Return	Send Spy Probes against an enemy planet. Report detail (fleet, buildings, resources, research) scales with your spy tech vs their Counter-Intelligence.
Spy Outpost Return	Spy probe variant targeting an enemy asteroid-field outpost — reveals garrison, buildings, stored resources.
Spy Station / Recon Station Return	Reconnaissance against a sector station. Returns on success.
Cyber Attack Return	Send Hacker Ships to run a Disruption, Intel, or Sabotage hack on a target planet. Hackers always return, whether the hack lands or not. See Cyberwarfare.
Mine Scan Return	Fly scouts over a planet to check for hidden enemy minefields before you commit an attack or raid. Essential reconnaissance against any fortified target.

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?

Mission	Target	What it does
Transfer Stay	Your own planet	Permanently move ships (and optionally cargo) to another colony you own. Ships unload at the destination and stay there — this is how you consolidate fleets or move garrisons.
Deliver Return	Your own planet	Same route as Transfer but the fleet returns home after unloading. Use this when you want to ship resources between two of your planets without relocating the ships themselves. Fuel is charged for the round trip.
Gift Return	Another player's planet	One-way resource transfer to another player. Fleet unloads, then returns. Requires Basic Trade research. Cannot target your own planets (use Transfer/Deliver) or uncolonized planets.
Deploy Stay	Your own planet / your own outpost	Station a fleet somewhere for defense without unloading cargo like Transfer would. The typical use is reinforcing an outpost or a frontier colony.
Garrison Stay	Alliance member's planet	Defend a fellow alliance member's planet. Fleet stays in orbit and fights alongside the defender if attacked. Requires Combined Operations research and both players must share an alliance.
Supply Return	Your outpost	Deliver resources to one of your asteroid-field outposts. Fleet unloads and returns.
Collect Return	Your outpost	Pick up accumulated resources produced by an outpost's Extractor and bring them home.
Collect Moon Return	Your moon colony	Pick up resources produced by moon buildings and return them to a planet.
Supply Station / Collect Station / Garrison Station / Defend Station	Sector station	Station-specific versions of Supply, Collect, Garrison, and Deploy. Used for interacting with alliance-controlled sector stations.
Recall Return	—	Cancel a deployed / stationed / garrisoned / patrolling fleet and bring it home. Also works on outbound missions that haven't arrived yet.
Market Deliver / Market Pickup Return	Market hub	Deliver sold goods to a market hub or pick up a purchase.
Artifact Deliver / Pickup / Transfer Return	Varies	Move artifacts between your planets, deliver listed artifacts to a market hub, or pick them up after a sale or cancelled listing.
Alliance Trade Return	Alliance member's planet	Execute a pre-arranged alliance trade. Gift on steroids, with both sides committed up front.

Transfer vs Deliver in one line: use Transfer to move ships permanently, use Deliver to move only resources (the ships come back). If you pick the wrong one, you either lose your haulers at the destination or keep paying fuel round trips you didn't want.

Deploy vs Garrison vs Transfer: Transfer is for your own planets (ships and cargo both stay). Deploy is also mostly for your own assets but leaves cargo alone — it's a defensive posture. Garrison is the alliance version — your fleet parks in an ally's orbit.

Exploration & Mining Missions

Mission	What it does
Mine Return	Send mining ships to harvest an asteroid field. See Asteroid Mining. Can be launched from a planet or from an outpost's garrison.
Survey Return	Reveal a star system's full contents (planets, fields, fleets, pirate camps). There is a cooldown between surveys of the same system.
Explore Return	Push probes into unknown systems. Used to peel back fog of war beyond standard scanner range.
Investigate Return	Follow up on a survey discovery or anomaly — triggers the specific encounter attached to it.
Field Scan Return	Detailed scan of an asteroid field — reveals exact richness and resource quantities. Requires at least one recon ship and the Navigation Computer research.
Xeno Survey Return	Specialized scan using Hacker Ships that detects hidden alien artifacts in an asteroid field. Requires the Xenoarchaeology research. Standard field scans miss these.
Expedition Return	Deep-space run into Dead or Rift space. Multi-phase, escalating depth. See Expeditions.
Wormhole Return	Enter an anomalous wormhole for a multi-encounter gauntlet with retreat-between-phases. See Wormholes.
Patrol Return	Local security coverage using separate patrol capacity. Choose coverage and mode to defend, sweep mines, hunt pirate activity, or salvage. See Patrols.
Colonize Consumed	Send a Colony Ship to settle an unoccupied planet. The colony ship is dismantled to become the new colony.

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.

Mission	What it does
Mine Deploy Return	Send Mine Layers to your own planet to reinforce its minefield. Layers deploy their mines on arrival and return home. Requires Mine Warfare research.
Covert Mining	Offensive minelaying — send Mine Layers to an enemy planet to plant hidden mines. A detection roll decides whether your fleet is ambushed or slips mines in cleanly. EW ships help you stay hidden. High-risk sabotage tool.
Mine Sweep Return	Send stealth and electronic-warfare ships to systematically disarm mines at a target location — much more efficient than the passive detection that happens when a regular fleet arrives.
Mine Scan Return	(Also listed under Intelligence.) Reveals hidden enemy mines before you commit an attack fleet.
Mine Clear Stay	Send Scouts to a planet you own where enemy mines have been discovered. The scouts stay on-site, accelerate clearance alongside planetary defenses, then return when the work is done.

Special Missions

Mission	What it does
Build Outpost Consumed	Send an Engineer Ship to an asteroid field to found an outpost. The engineer is dismantled into the outpost foundation.
Relocate Outpost Consumed	Move an existing outpost to a new location using an Engineer Ship.
Defend Outpost Stay	Send reinforcements to an outpost under threat. Ships stay as additional orbital defense.
Collect Debris Return	Salvage the resource debris field left behind after a battle. Participants may see it before it becomes public; once visible, anyone with access can collect it.
Collect Salvage Return	Recover special components from ship wrecks (separate from the basic-resource debris field).
Beacon Collect Return	Pick up loot beacons dropped by expedition encounters or other events.

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 system that warps space around a fleet, making it invisible to enemy sensors during travel. Your fleet arrives undetected — perfect for surprise attacks. Costs antimatter instead of hydrogen, making it expensive but devastating when used strategically.

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

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

Tip: Building up your ground defenses (garrison, AA turrets, traps, cloaking) makes raids unprofitable. The attacker loses shuttles and troops while finding less to steal.

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