Combat and control

Rulebook index · Ships and defenses · Population damage

Where combat happens

Combat occurs at asteroid habitat sites after every arrival due that year has been processed, once per year. Each ship remains a separate fleet with its own owner, order and HP. Fleets still in transit, including automatic flybys, do not join a site battle. Denied arrivals physically return when affordable or wait off port with finite supplies. A line crossing another line, passing through an influence sphere or passing through dust has no combat effect.

An attack-stance ship starts an engagement with a ship from another clan when those two clans are neither allied nor covered by nonaggression and neither is protected. Their allied ships at the same asteroid join the engagement, including armed ships set to hold or scout. A colony ship adds no attack. Every ship can be hit separately. Each ship-to-ship and ship-to-ground pairing still checks its own clans' treaty and protection status; an ally's attack does not override a supporter's separate nonaggression agreement. Passage does not prevent combat. A treaty signed in the diplomacy phase can prevent combat later that same tick. No separate declaration-of-war command is required.

Simultaneous damage

For each fleet, calculate:

attack = role base attack × (1 + warfare level × 0.15).

Split this attack equally among every fleet in the ship's active, legally permitted engagements plus one ground-defense target if it is an eligible attacker or armed allied supporter at a hostile owned habitat with surviving defenses. The entire defense stack counts as one target, not one per level. Apply any qualifying betrayal bonus to each victim's share separately. Also apply that ship role's matchup multiplier to each victim's share after splitting. There is no range, hit probability, critical hit, armor reduction or HP-based attack reduction.

A site's defense stack has 80 HP and 20 attack per level. All defense levels combine and split their attack equally among eligible invading attack-stance fleets and armed allied supporters that attack the defenses. Defense attack has no warfare or betrayal multiplier and does not attack a peaceful visitor merely for lacking passage. Ground damage is saved as a fractional building level: 20 damage removes 0.25 defense level. The fraction contributes proportionally to future HP, attack and power use; it does not regenerate.

All attacks use the pre-damage force and are applied together. A ship destroyed this round still fires its calculated attack. Dead ships are then removed before conquest and colonization. Fleet HP can remain fractional internally. Battles continue in later ticks if hostile forces remain; arrival does not resolve an entire battle to completion at once.

Example: two equal full-health frigates, warfare 0, with one in attack stance deal 12 damage to each other in one tick and each ends on 33 HP. A frigate attacking one enemy frigate and defenses splits its 12 attack into 6 against the ship and 6 against ground. If it has +20% directed betrayal surprise against that ship's owner only, only the applicable share becomes 7.2.

If an allied holding frigate joins a frigate's attack against one holding enemy frigate, both allied ships deal 12 damage and the defender splits its 12 return damage between them. Each ally ends on 39 HP and the defender on 21 HP. A scouting ally with a weapon joins by the same rule; its smaller attack and HP remain its own.

Marine assaults

Dedicated unarmed troop transports carry one marine type. Warships secure the approach; only landed marines can conquer an owned habitat. Civilian convoys do not carry military forces.

Recruitment converts civilians at an owned, powered habitat for 2 credits and 1 alloy each. Up to 40 marines per whole habitat level can become ready at the scheduled tick. Recruitment and ground-stance orders resolve before embarkation and disembarkation, which resolve before departures. Multiple recruitment orders share the yearly capacity. A transport has 120 troop berths, 20 crew, 60 HP, no attack, speed 1 and upkeep 3; construction costs 140 credits, 100 alloys and 40 propellant and takes four completed ticks.

Use move with stance: "assault" for a loaded transport. After orbital combat, it waits until hostile defenses are zero and no legally hostile armed stationary fleet remains. Protected or nonaggression visitors and unarmed orbital ships do not veto landing. Surviving transports then land automatically and ground combat resolves that same tick. Waiting transports can be hit. A supply-only Assault requires an existing friendly ground force at the destination; it cannot establish a landing by itself.

Each marine contributes 0.25 casualty pressure multiplied by the normal warfare bonus. Divide pressure among eligible enemy forces; divide pressure against the habitat owner by 1.25 for defensive cover. Round the total down, with at least one casualty pressure, and allocate integer casualties by largest remainder with stable force-ID ties. Apply all losses simultaneously from pre-round strength. Troops do not bombard ships and warships do not substitute for marines. Treaties, protection and allied support use pairwise legality checks. A 120-versus-60 assault at warfare zero leaves 105/36, then 96/15, then 93/0 marines over three rounds before supply losses.

A surviving assault force captures when no legally hostile living ground force remains and the orbital approach is clear. Protected or nonaggression third-party troops retain their people and ownership without vetoing capture. Allied claims resolve by earliest landing tick, then stable force ID. Mutual elimination leaves ownership unchanged. Surviving troops remain owned by their original clan; holding troops cannot initiate a capture. An occupied site, active assault, or surviving hostile attack posture contributes to contested status. Orbital and ground fighting together still cause only one siege penalty per site each tick.

troops transfers marines and supply cargo between your stationary transport and your ground force. The approach must be clear. Disembark at an owned/allied habitat or reinforce an existing landing. Embarkation changes the carrier to hold, allowing extraction without immediately landing again. garrison changes a force to hold or assault, or demobilizes a specified count into civilians at an owned uncontested habitat. Holding stops initiating attacks but still permits defensive fire.

Settlement

Colonization requires an unowned site and a surviving colony ship in colonize stance after combat. The presence of a non-allied attack-stance fleet prevents settlement, even if it cannot itself conquer. Friendly fleets and neutral non-attacking visitors do not prevent settlement.

If several frontier colony ships qualify, the winner is selected deterministically by (numeric sector ID + tick) mod number of colony ships, in fleet array order. The winner is consumed; the others remain. There is no bidding or random roll.

The frontier settlement starts with one habitat, power plant and ice processor, integrity 100, the winner's remaining crew as population, and its carried supplies as local reserves. It can produce in the next production phase. It participates in the current survival phase and may immediately consume reserves or grow. Colony ships do not settle an already owned but empty site; use passenger shipment for repopulation.

Scouting and contested status

Any stationary ship in scout stance records that site's current building levels and the role/rounded-up HP of other nations' stationary fleets after the combat and control checks. The record has a tick timestamp. It remains in the owner's private intel until replaced; it is not a live sensor subscription and does not expose rival treasuries, research or queues. A scout stance is not invisibility.

After combat, a site is marked contested if the owner and surviving unprotected attack-stance parties include at least two unrelated clans without nonaggression. This public marker blocks convoy delivery and makes peaceful accession ineligible while it affects either clan's holdings. It is rebuilt each tick; it does not itself change ownership or halt occupation consolidation. Its visual hatching does not define an additional area of influence. Siege damage is driven by battle or conquest events, not by hatching alone.

Public battle records identify their event, site, phase, involved nations, destroyed-fleet count, precombat ship IDs/nations/roles and confirmed losses. They retain public firing pairs. Landing records identify the transport that landed. These presentation fields are captured before casualties are removed. Exact before/after fleet HP records are private to the involved combatants, including allied supporters that joined the fight. The live transmissions panel shows the public result and any private HP record authorized for its viewer. The public archive retains the public presentation fields but no HP, manifests, troop strength, orders or combat calculations. The frontier map still exposes public fleet roles and movements, as described in Map and visibility.

Sources: packages/engine/src/engine.ts (arrivalsAndCombat); politics.ts (surpriseMultiplier, captureAssetsAndLoot); frontier.ts (frontierAfterCombat); visibility.ts.

Battle presentation

The map animates confirmed ongoing engagements throughout the interval between yearly resolutions. Firing, maneuvers, cosmetic wear, landing craft and impacts are illustrative; they do not reveal intermediate HP, hidden troop counts or predicted casualties. Scouts make fast passes, frigates flank, torpedo ships approach and break away, and cruisers make slower turns. Forward weapons, steam and camera tracking follow the displayed hull pose. These flight paths and their visual clearance around rocks do not change authoritative fleet coordinates, range or combat calculations.

Visible surviving opponents continue to exchange cosmetic fire when an original target has become wreckage. Return fire shares the effects budget before smoke and repeated impact decoration. Replies require confirmed public opposing pairs and visible endpoints; the recorded battle evidence and damage calculations stay unchanged.

A public landing record sends a boat from the named carrier to the modeled dock opening. Small illustrative fireteams deploy onto its deck, advance along lanes and crouch around cover while defenders hold the inner dock. Their model count is fixed by graphics detail, never by private marine strength. Ground combat can continue after the boat returns. Sites without a modeled dock retain the public battle indicators.

Committed losses and ownership appear at tick boundaries. Only a confirmed loss triggers the full destruction sequence: a short flash, expanding hot material, directional fragments, hull breakup and cooling vapor. Ordinary firing produces smaller cosmetic impacts and does not establish damage or a casualty. A loss resolved at tick R leaves nonselectable cooling wreckage during [R, R+1) and disappears at R+1; the longer battle-record retention does not extend it. Current orbital and ground fighting, landings and previous-round wrecks can share a site. Focus battle uses the ordinary camera flight; Watch battle follows actual ships, landings, the dock fight and confirmed wrecks at that site, then holds its aftermath. Pausing freezes the scene; reduced motion keeps static indicators and uses Next shot. Inactive maps and hidden tabs do not render battles. Public Archive reconstructs effects from its displayed public record and playhead only.

Soft warship counters

Other matchups use ×1. The modifier applies after target splitting and stacks multiplicatively with warfare research and directed betrayal bonuses. A torpedo boat additionally deals ×2 to its habitat-defense share. Defense return fire is unchanged. For example, a warfare-0 torpedo boat facing a cruiser, frigate and defense stack splits 18 into three shares of 6: the cruiser takes 7.5, the frigate 4.8, and the defenses 12. Both sides still fire simultaneously. Greater numbers, research, construction time and finite supplies can outweigh a favorable role.

Torpedo boats require warfare 1, have 50 HP, attack 18, base speed 1, upkeep 3 and 20 crew. Current costs and build times are in the numerical reference. Shipbuilding and fleet inspectors show their matchups. Scouts, colony ships and transports retain their roles.

Blockade and relief

A surviving hostile attack-stance warship controls an owned habitat's orbit once defenses are zero and no legally hostile armed fleet remains there to challenge that warship. Multiple allied or treaty-compatible blockaders may share control; independent hostile armed claimants prevent one another from establishing control. Armed scouts can challenge a blockade but cannot establish one. Unarmed or protected visitors cannot veto it. Current treaties, protection, stance, departures and losses determine control anew whenever it is used; last year's contested marker is not the authority.

While blockaded, local credit and data production is reduced by 25%, commerce is suppressed, and automatic military top-ups cannot purchase treasury propellant. Local reserves remain usable, including a partial top-up, and civilian life support continues normally. Relief fleets challenge control on arrival; destroying the blockaders, restoring defenses, a departure or a new nonaggression treaty can end the blockade. Relief after the production phase affects the next production, while military survival uses the end-of-combat situation. Convoys face interception and prepared raiders can board cargo within their remaining capacity.

Recruitment cannot execute at a habitat while living, legally hostile assault-stance marines are present. Prepared garrisons and transported reinforcements matter: defenders cannot train replacements continuously inside an ongoing assault. Recruitment runs before this tick's new landings, so a newly arriving invasion does not retroactively cancel training already completed. A treaty, extraction or destruction ending the hostile assault restores recruitment eligibility.

Small engagements

A prepared raid fires one orbital round and withdraws. Defenses return fire, but raiders do not themselves bombard those defenses or conquer. Only survivors with no hostile armed defender remaining can board bounded physical loot or damage the local economy. Patrols return fire against legally hostile attackers. See sorties and recovery.

Ordinary orbital skirmishes and convoy boarding no longer inflict blanket civilian siege damage. Deliberate bombardment (actual damage to habitat defenses), ground combat and conquest retain integrity loss and civilian casualties. Economic raid damage is separate and does not weaken defensive fire or life support. Simultaneous arrivals still all precede the combat round, including one-tick reinforcements sent during an approach warning.

Sustained battles and occupied ports

Orbital ship and installed-defense damage is multiplied by 0.75 after ordinary attack calculation. Counters, simultaneous fire and physical travel remain unchanged. Similar forces commonly fight for three to six ticks; overwhelming force can finish sooner. Raiders do not bombard defenses. Ship damage and fractional installed-defense damage persist across ticks and capital changes.

Ground victory transfers only the captured port. It becomes Occupied, producing at 50% with merchant departures, recruitment, new ship construction and refits suspended. Housing and life support continue. Securing it requires three consecutive ticks after capture with clear orbital access and an adequately supplied garrison: 50 marines for a captured capital, 20 elsewhere. The requirement is recorded before capital designation is removed. Orbital contest, hostile ground assault or insufficient troops/supplies resets progress. Removing a garrison never transfers ownership by itself.

Losing a capital removes its designation immediately, without moving ships or transferring remaining holdings. Public records announce capital loss, establishment and secured ports. Continuing battle records report rounds, ship losses and labelled outcomes for three ticks; exact HP and troop counts remain private. Both parties may explicitly accept surrender through an offer: the sender offers their remaining clan to the recipient. Peaceful NPC accession remains available under its existing eligibility rules.

Alpha-9 temporary mine seizure

Use a Seize task force against a rival temporary mining outpost. At least one assigned surviving warship must hold clear orbital access with provisions for two consecutive ticks. Scouts, route crossings and incidental fleet presence cannot seize it. Opposing warships or inadequate supplies reset the claim. Success transfers the site and its on-site equipment, work and inventory, then keeps the force guarding it. The former owner's charter is removed; the conqueror must establish its own authorized charter. Committing a seizure expedition also ends any starting protection, with explicit acknowledgement when applicable.

Permanent mining settlements use the ordinary Invade objective, orbital superiority and landed marines. Ground victory produces occupation and the existing three-tick supplied consolidation requirement. Capital capture still records the larger garrison requirement before removing capital designation, and never transfers the remaining empire. Recapture and manual capital replacement remain possible.