PvE Content

The galaxy is full of dangers and opportunities beyond other players. Pirate camps, wormholes, asteroid mining, expeditions, outposts, artifacts, and field scanning provide rich PvE content for every stage of the game.

Pirate Camps

Pirate camps are NPC fleets that occupy systems across the galaxy. Players can scout camps first to assess enemy strength, then launch an attack for loot. A bounty system rewards players for defeating camps.

Pirate Tiers

Four tiers of increasing difficulty and reward:

Scavenger

The weakest pirates — small groups of drones and scouts. Found in Sentinel and Open zones. A solid first target for new players with a handful of scouts and fighters.

Loot: Basic resources (ore, silicates). Occasionally some cryo-ice.

Raider

Organized pirate bands with fighters and interceptors. Found in Open and Dead zones. Requires a proper combat fleet to engage.

Loot: Larger basic resource hauls, plus some rare materials.

Marauder

Dangerous pirate formations including cruisers and bombers. Found in Dead and Rift zones. These require a strong, well-composed fleet to defeat.

Loot: Significant resources, higher chance of rare materials, and a chance at Precursor Fragments.

Dread Fleet

The most formidable pirates — massive formations with battleships, carriers, and bombers. Found only in the Rift zone. Requires a powerful late-game fleet.

Loot: Massive resource hauls, rare materials, and a chance at Precursor Fragments.

Scouting & Bounties

Scout first — send scouts to a pirate camp before attacking. Scouting reveals enemy fleet composition, ship types, and strength so you can prepare accordingly.
Hunt patrols — active patrols in Hunt mode can uncover hidden pirate activity over time in covered systems.
Bounty system — defeating pirate camps earns bounty rewards on top of regular loot. Higher-tier camps offer larger bounties.

Respawning: Pirate camps may reappear after some time. It's worth revisiting systems you've cleared — new camps bring new loot.

Danger: Pirate camps in more dangerous zones are tougher but offer substantially better rewards. Risk matches reward.

Wormholes

Wormholes are temporary anomalies that appear in star systems. Sending a fleet inside triggers a multi-phase run — a gauntlet of encounters with escalating danger and better discoveries the deeper you push. You can retreat mid-run if things get too dangerous, keeping whatever loot you've collected so far.

Wormhole Classes

Class	Difficulty	Reward Profile
C1	Low — introductory wormhole content	Starter salvage and materials
C2	Moderate — requires a solid combat fleet	Better caches and stranger contacts
C3	High — dangerous encounters and hazards	High-value salvage and rare finds
C4	Extreme — the deadliest PvE content	The best discoveries, guarded by serious danger

How Wormholes Work

Discovery — you need anomaly-scanning capability, and a system must be surveyed after a wormhole appears before it becomes visible to you.
Multi-phase runs — each wormhole consists of multiple phases. You progress through encounters one at a time, with escalating difficulty and rewards.
Retreat option — you can pull your fleet out at any time between phases. You keep all loot collected up to that point, but forfeit deeper rewards.
Temporary — wormholes disappear after a period of time. Enter before they collapse.
Preparation gates — higher classes expect deeper research and a more capable fleet.
Mass limit — you can't send an infinite fleet. Each class restricts the scale of the fleet that can enter.
Rewards escalate — each phase can drop resources, rare materials, and Precursor Fragments.
Hazards — some encounters involve gravitational anomalies that can damage your fleet even without enemies.
Support ships help — scouts can improve your read on danger between phases, and spy probes can sometimes blunt the worst hazard outcomes. Bring more support if you want a safer run, but do not expect perfect certainty.
Cargo matters — a fleet that survives but lacks cargo room can still leave value behind.

Encounter Varieties

Inside wormholes you might face:

Pirate patrols — hostile NPC fleets
Debris salvage — non-combat, free resources
Supply caches — hidden stockpiles of materials
Precursor guardians — ancient automated defenses (higher classes)
Ancient armadas — remnant war fleets (very dangerous)
Dark matter wells — rare resource deposits
Gravity collapses — hazards that can damage your fleet

Strategic retreat: If your fleet is battered after a tough phase, consider retreating with what you have. A destroyed fleet earns nothing — a retreated fleet keeps everything collected so far.

Higher risk, higher reward. C4 wormholes contain the most dangerous NPC enemies in the game — but the highest-value discoveries can make them worth it for well-prepared fleets.

Asteroid Mining

Asteroid fields scattered across star systems contain extractable resources. Mining is a critical part of your economy, especially for rare resources not easily produced by buildings.

Field Types

Field Type	Resources	Found In
Ore	Ore, some silicates	All zones
Ice	Cryo-Ice	Open+
Gas	Hydrogen	Open+
Plasma	Plasma Core	Open+
Quantum	Quantum Dust	Dead Space
Dark	Dark Matter	Dead Space

Field availability: Security zone controls which field types can appear and how rich they tend to be, but the system's star type still matters. A permitted field type is never guaranteed in every system, and some high-value fields may stay hidden until deeper scouting, station control, or later field activity reveals them.

How Mining Works

Send mining ships to an asteroid field.
Ships extract resources in cycles — each cycle yields a batch of materials that fills your mining cargo.
A mining run has a cycle cap. When the cap is reached (or cargo is full), ships automatically return home.
Each cycle carries a small drill-breakdown chance. A breakdown ends that ship's mining for the run — the remaining ships continue.

Mining yield depends on ship type, field type, field richness, cargo space, and active bonuses. Early salvaged freighters can perform light mining on compatible fields, but dedicated mining hulls are still the backbone of serious operations.

Specialized Mining Ships

Ship	Specialization	Notes
Mining Vessel	Ore, Plasma fields	The basic mining workhorse
Gas Collector	Gas, Quantum fields	Atmospheric/gas field scooping
Freighter / Salvaged Freighter	Ore fields	Light mining and recovery work; useful early, but not a replacement for specialized miners.
Ice Drill	Ice, Dark fields	Handles exotic frozen materials
Excavator	Ore, Ice, Gas, Plasma fields; support for every field type	Universal miner. Grants a fleet-wide yield bonus to every ship in the mining fleet.

Excavator bonus: Including an Excavator in your mining fleet boosts the yield of every ship in that fleet, not just the Excavator itself. Even one Excavator in a big fleet is worth it.

Pirate Raids! Mining fleets can be intercepted by pirates. Small starter operations in Sentinel space have weak, hard-to-read ship signatures, but larger or riskier operations should use escorts, outpost defenses, or both.

Field Scanning

Before committing a mining fleet, you can scan asteroid fields to learn exactly what they contain. Field scanning uses at least one recon ship equipped for field analysis.

Standard Field Survey

Requires: Navigation Computer research
Ships: At least one recon ship
Result: Detailed composition data for the asteroid field — resource types, richness, and estimated yields per cycle

Xeno Survey

Requires: Xenoarchaeology research
Ships: Hacker Ships instead of standard recon ships
Result: Detects alien artifacts hidden within asteroid fields. Xeno surveys reveal artifact locations that standard surveys miss entirely

Tip: Always scan a field before committing your mining fleet. Knowing the exact composition lets you send the right specialized ships and avoid wasting cycles on low-yield fields.

Expeditions

Expeditions send fleets deep into the Dead and Rift zones to discover unique encounters, resources, and Precursor Fragments.

Requirements

Zone restriction — expeditions can only launch into Dead or Rift space.
Dead Space expeditions — built around stealth and hacking capability, with ships chosen for quiet entry, data recovery, and survival in hostile space.
Rift expeditions — require deeper navigation research and scout-led exploration. Advanced research can open stranger encounter branches.
Fleet composition — the dispatch screen enforces the required ship roles. A token fleet can launch only if it meets the mission profile, but a better-balanced fleet is safer and more profitable.

How Expeditions Work

Depth-based exploration — expeditions progress through increasing depth levels. Deeper levels take longer but yield better rewards.
Multi-phase — each depth level can trigger one or more encounters. The expedition progresses phase by phase.
Random encounters — ancient wreckage, void anomalies, precursor vaults, hostile contacts, and more. What you find depends on depth and luck.
Risk escalates with depth — deeper expeditions face stronger enemies but find better loot.
Cargo and support matter — combat power helps you survive, but cargo capacity and mission-specialist ships decide how much value you can actually bring home.

Expedition Rewards

Industrial salvage: ore, silicates, alloys, and other useful materials
Exotic traces: unusual materials from deeper or stranger encounters
Large hauls: bigger cargo opportunities when the fleet is built to carry them
Resource beacons: some discoveries leave a beacon in space. Send a follow-up collection fleet before someone else claims it or the signal fades.
Precursor vaults — can yield Precursor Fragments
Void anomalies — dangerous, but worth investigating with the right fleet

Commander synergy: The Explorer commander boosts expedition loot directly — if you plan to run expeditions often, Explorer (or Diplomat with the Expedition doctrine) is the natural pick.

Tip: Expeditions are one of the best repeatable sources of unusual discoveries once you can operate in Dead or Rift space. Treat them like a fleet-building puzzle, not a single "send your strongest ships" button.

Outposts

Outposts are autonomous facilities built on asteroid fields. They passively extract resources, store them, and serve as forward operating bases for your mining and military operations.

Building an Outpost

Research Outpost Engineering.
Build an Engineer Ship.
Send the engineer to an asteroid field.
The engineer is consumed — dismantled to become the outpost foundation.

There is a cap on how many outposts one player can own at the same time. Pick locations strategically.

Outpost Buildings

Building	Purpose	Details
Extractor	Passive mining	Automatically extracts resources from the asteroid field over time
Shield	Defense	Protective barrier that reduces incoming damage during attacks
Turret	Defense	Automated weapon system that fires at attacking fleets
Dock	Fleet operations	Expands the fleet garrison at the outpost with every level.
Storage	Resource storage	Adds basic and rare resource capacity per level.

Garrison & Fleet Operations

Base garrison: Every outpost has a small garrison capacity by default, before any Dock is built.
Dock expansion: Building a Dock grows that garrison capacity with each level.
Mining missions: You can dispatch garrisoned ships on mining missions directly from the outpost — no need to send them from a planet first.
Supply missions: Send ships loaded with resources to your outpost to resupply it.
Collect missions: Send ships to pick up accumulated resources from the outpost and bring them home.

Storage Capacity

Base storage: Every outpost has a small baseline storage allotment without any Storage building.
Storage building: Each level adds both basic and rare resource capacity.
Resources produced by the Extractor accumulate in storage. If storage is full, production pauses until you collect.

Zone Production Bonuses

Outpost Extractor production scales with the security zone it sits in:

Sentinel — baseline output.
Open — modestly better than Sentinel.
Dead — the best outpost production in the galaxy.
Rift — expedition and special-event space rather than a normal asteroid-mining zone.

Advanced Outpost Systems: Research Advanced Outpost Systems to raise the maximum building levels for all outpost structures, unlocking higher Extractor output, stronger defenses, and more garrison capacity.

Outpost destroyed? If your outpost is destroyed while a fleet is on a mining mission dispatched from it, the fleet will redirect to your nearest planet — the emergency return takes a long time regardless of distance, so don't count on that fleet coming home quickly.

Artifacts

Artifacts are rare relics found throughout the galaxy. They can be activated for powerful temporary boosts or permanently transcended for lasting benefits.

Finding Artifacts

Expeditions — deeper expeditions can discover artifacts
Wormholes — certain higher-risk wormhole encounters can yield artifacts
Special encounters — some rare events in the galaxy can reward artifacts
Xeno surveys — scanning asteroid fields with Hacker Ships can reveal hidden artifacts

Using Artifacts

Activate — apply an artifact to a planet for a temporary boost. The effect lasts for a set duration, then the artifact is consumed.
Transcend — permanently activate an artifact for a lasting bonus. Transcending is irreversible but provides a permanent effect that doesn't expire.

Artifact Effects

Artifacts provide various bonuses, including:

Increased planet resource production
Enhanced planetary defense strength
Boosted research speed
Improved ship construction rates
Other unique bonuses depending on the artifact type

Tip: Save your best artifacts for transcending. Temporary activation is useful in a pinch, but permanent bonuses compound over time and become far more valuable in the long run.

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