Alpha-10 fast matches

Alpha-10 map command mode is the main grand-strategy game. Solar Duel is a separate 1v1 mode with its own clock and victory rules. Practice and competitive play share the simultaneous command loop. New worlds carry commandVersion: 1; active earlier Alpha-10 worlds resolve their already scheduled round and locks, then adopt direct control without losing season progress, identities or history. Archived snapshots keep their recorded meaning. Historical Alpha-9 chapters and synthetic rendering fixtures remain reference material. The numerical reference includes the generated command limits and build catalog.

Clan and asteroid names

Every asteroid has a persistent public name within a named belt region. The original Rime, Aster, Nacre, Vesper, Serein, Thule, Brume, Iskra, Nival, Orison, Morrow and Halcyon names share the regional catalog with Zarya, Zimnik, Sneg and Bereg. A practice belt selects five regions; a competitive belt selects ten. These are names for existing orbital streams, not additional solar systems.

Ship labels use their hull class, stable number when present and actual house name, such as Siege cruiser 218 · House Vuković, throughout Intel, battle rosters, search, orders and map exports. Historic battle participants keep readable labels even after they leave current sight. Labels use only the authorized contact or battle record; a hidden contact's owner is never inferred from its ID. Internal IDs remain unchanged in commands, search, JSON and export attributes. Missiles and railgun darts also have short numbered labels; reference bodies and battle headings use their public names and locations.

Individual asteroids draw from complete landmark names and compatible terrain names: Glasswake, Cinderwell, Lantern’s Rest, Novy Bereg and Tikhaya Gavan are examples. Latin spellings and Slavic names appear alongside other settler traditions. More than 4,000 distinct candidates cover the larger belt. Capture, population growth and fragmentation do not rename an asteroid.

Bot clans use the original 24 houses and an expanded roster of 100 families, balancing Western European, Slavic and East Asian names. Practice arenas use a balanced selection of the original families. Players use their saved clan identity when joining or taking over; a player without one inherits the assigned clan name. Names are recorded at the assignment boundary, so subsequent profile changes do not rewrite a match or its historical public snapshots. Duplicate custom names retain their spelling and show a secondary clan ID where needed.

World focus follows a selected contact or battle as it moves. Scrolling, pinch zoom and zoom controls retain that focus at the chosen distance, making close battles easier to observe. Right-drag or a two-finger drag around a focused object changes the viewing angle while keeping the subject centered. The camera can rotate endlessly through vertical and horizontal revolutions, passing both poles without a stop; command mode retains the same focused touch orbit and pinch zoom. Pan, W/A/S/D movement, World overview or an orbital-stream view releases focus; a selection click alone keeps it. The tactical fallback finder also follows the displayed contact through orbital motion and zoom; chart panning or Fit chart releases that tracking.

The map, inspector, tactical chart, diplomacy and orders show names. Search accepts names, region names, clan names and exact IDs; name searches ignore accents. Order destination fields accept a complete unique name, an ID, or a name followed by its parenthesized ID. Partial or ambiguous input disables saving and locking until resolved. Commands still target IDs such as f4 and clan5; names are display data, never instructions.

Existing Alpha-10 matches gain missing names without a reset. Previously unnamed public replays receive deterministic display names from their original match seed and public snapshot, never today's account identities; stored replay records remain unchanged. Older rulesets keep their existing names. Naming has its own deterministic random stream and changes no routes, starting allocations, resources or victory rules.

Planning and the clock

A match has 32 simultaneous rounds representing five fictional years each. The opening window is 90 seconds; rounds 2–12 allow 60 seconds and rounds 13–32 allow 75 seconds. After each resolution, a shared 12-second result sequence plays before the next planning window opens: six seconds of synchronized world movement, then six seconds for settlement and Earth deployment. Full planning windows plus all 32 result sequences total 43.9 minutes. Unanimous readiness is checked halfway through a window, with one additional check at 75% in rounds 21–32. Early completion can shorten the session. A missed check does not trigger when the last human locks a second later. The deadline resolves regardless of absence. The human roster is fixed when the window opens. Reads expose aggregate human and locked counts; historical replay labels unknown counts explicitly. A delayed worker compares stored lock timestamps with each scheduled check, so later locks cannot satisfy a missed check retroactively.

Plan → Resolve → Watch → Plan. During planning, asteroid centers, planets, the Moon, strategic routes and territory geometry hold at the current resolved state. Ongoing battles continue their full-speed visual performance, with smoke, local maneuvers and fire; these effects do not resolve additional damage. Resolution runs once on the server. Commands stay closed during result viewing; camera controls, inspection and emoji pings remain available. The final result sequence also plays before a completed match settles on its outcome. Replay last round replays the authorized recorded interval locally; Return to live returns to the current state. Replay never changes the shared deadline or grants historical private access. Focus follows translation while retaining the chosen viewing angle and zoom.

New matches persist a versioned timeModel. Five calendar years still drive population, research and mission duration, while asteroid orbits advance only 0.5 equivalent orbital years per round. Each planet advances the smaller of 180° / radiusAU^1.5 and 12° per round; the Moon advances 12° relative to Earth. Launch previews, interception, sensors, maps and result playback share this paced geometry. These rates are game presentation choices, not a real-date ephemeris. Older saved matches without the model retain their original orbital geometry and mission pricing; already-paid paths are never regenerated from new rules.

Each owned unit receives its own Move, Attack, Defend, Hold or Colonize order. Selection groups issue the same intention to several independently owned units; they do not merge hulls or take control of allies. A route contains up to six asteroid waypoints and persists until completed, replaced or canceled. The engine selects executable lattice legs with their fuel, speed and crossing waits. An already committed transit leg cannot be reversed by editing later waypoints. A blocked route holds safely and reports its reason. New purchases, research allocations and expedition launches are one-round commitments and do not repeat after a missed deadline. Rival routes, cargo and budgets remain private.

Valid map edits save automatically in short coalesced batches. The command bar distinguishes Saving, Queued, Not saved and Ready. The latest server-saved plan executes at the deadline even if you never press Ready. Ready is optional: it freezes your exact plan and counts toward the existing scheduled early-readiness checks; ordinary autosaves do not count as ready. If nothing was submitted, surviving standing routes continue and no new purchases or research are invented. An invalid or unconfirmed edit is explicitly marked Not saved, with Retry; the previous saved plan stays queued. The server stores small plan records separately from the world. Lock can atomically submit the full displayed plan, so another tab's newer draft cannot substitute different orders. A repeated lock with different orders is rejected; the original receipt acknowledges the same committed plan. Resolution, public replay and the next schedule commit in one transaction. An interrupted transaction commits none. After downtime the following round receives a full window. Pause suppresses deadlines and command eligibility. Restore preserves submitted plans, locks and recorded public history, expires any interrupted viewing window and opens a full planning window. The previous result remains available for explicit replay. Autosave writes are serialized, intermediate edits coalesce, and uncertain retries retain their receipt keys. No resolution check runs on individual edits or Ready presses.

Joining and command authority

fast_join enters competitive gathering or the shared practice arena. Two verified human accounts start a 60-second competitive gathering period; additional humans may join during that period and bots fill the remaining 100 seats. Falling below two verified queued humans restarts gathering. The server runs one competitive match and one smaller practice match at a time. The worker maintains a continuously running practice arena, starting another when it completes. Bots resolve real rounds even without signed-in humans; anyone can spectate. Joining an existing arena uses the same fair takeover boundary. Seeded bot seats pursue all five routes using the same bounded unit orders, purchases and research rules as humans. Migration leaves saved worlds intact. Worker startup creates only the shared practice arena automatically; competitive launches still require the verified-human gathering.

A verified human can request a bot takeover through the round-16 planning deadline. The request takes effect after that round resolves, choosing an eligible seat near the current median strength; it never transfers a clan already holding its final victory stage. Requests from round 16 may therefore first control round 17. Assets, ships and ownership remain in place. The requester sees pending, accepted or rejected status and the reason for rejection. fast_leave_queue cancels gathering and pending takeovers; it does not abandon an acquired clan. Account deletion removes private records and returns the clan to bot control.

A rejected action, including a practice join after recruitment closes, shows a dismissible notification in the Match panel or on the map. Confirmed errors clear after eight seconds and when another match is selected. Unconfirmed commands retain their receipt and recovery controls until resolved; dismissing a notification never cancels a pending command. Connection failures retain their reconnect action.

Submit fast_* through the existing HTTP or MCP command interface with an idempotency key and explicit ruleset: "alpha-10.0.0". Match actions carry matchId and the current round. An optional seatId binds a prepared command to the displayed clan; the browser includes it, and the server rejects a changed clan before applying the command. Receipt retries still acknowledge an already committed command. They do not use Alpha-9's season context. fast_draft saves a previewable plan that resolves without a lock at the deadline. fast_lock is optional readiness; it accepts an optional complete plan and atomically commits those exact orders; older clients may lock their latest saved draft. Command plans contain bounded orders, builds, a one-round research allocation and an optional expedition launch. Reads use GET /api/v1/fast-matches, GET /api/v1/fast-matches/{matchId}, and exact GET /api/v1/fast-matches/{matchId}/replay?round=…, or read-only MCP fast_matches, fast_world and fast_replay. Round 0 is the initial snapshot. Full HTTP reads include all visible geometry; MCP defaults to a summary with explicit omitted counts. Only the owner sees drafts, locks, standing plans, treasuries, private notices and per-match grants. Replays always use the public recorded view.

Human players alone join, request takeovers and set fast_grant. An agent needs a valid owned connection and the relevant domains in a player-approved grant for that match. A whole round plan or support draft requires economy, research and military; diplomacy requires diplomacy; trade requires economy; public pings require diplomacy and publishing. Private pings require diplomacy. Empty grant domains revoke future writes. Revocation does not remove already saved orders or a previously submitted immutable Ready plan. Standing plans remain the clan's orders for absent players.

Browser planning and map controls

Open / to enter the live Alpha-10 action lobby. Guests automatically spectate the shared practice world without signing in; an existing own match is preferred when no match was explicitly selected. The 3D asteroid world fills the screen, with the existing ship models, surface settlements, camera controls and combat effects. The live clock and public action are visible immediately. A newly created arena begins at round 1 and must play its opening rounds before its first battle. Completed matches stay on the result briefing until you choose View battlefield or Next match. A replacement practice arena is available through Match. A service connection failure is displayed as a connection failure.

Observers see the live match, round, fictional year and countdown in the header. Commanders use a single top instrument strip for their clan, Home, stocks, income, free funds, research, round countdown, save status and optional Ready. The battlefield fills the remaining viewport edge to edge; floating controls do not reserve a sidebar or shrink the world when a panel opens. Phones use two compact instrument rows; short landscape uses one row. Materials, fuel and science retain their labels and income, with full spending details one tap away. Map tools retain readable labels on touch screens, while Match, Comms, Intel and Log share a compact bottom dock. Only the active task panel is mounted; opening a tool closes the previous panel while preserving the draft. Menu → Enter fullscreen expands the game to the display when the browser supports it; audio and the full rulebook remain in the same top strip. An observer opens on the whole belt. When a seat is assigned, the map selects and focuses an owned home habitat (or a surviving ship when no habitats remain). World returns to the whole belt; Focus selected centers the selected site, ship or known event, and the stream selector frames a local neighborhood around a capital or selected rock.

Battles lists each recorded physical encounter with its round, location and known participating clans; each compact encounter card has Focus to frame its location and Watch battle to follow its recorded action. The list scrolls when there are many encounters, and Escape closes it. It never takes the opening camera away from the belt. Ship maneuvers, gunfire and wrecks illustrate that public resolution; animation never advances authoritative movement, damage or orders. Orbital ships circle through attack passes, firing sustained short autocannon and flank point-defense bursts and staggered missile salvos with visible exhaust, hull impacts, cooling fragments and dark smoke. Each public firing pair keeps its own timing, including recorded return fire. Cosmetic impacts do not disclose hull health or confirm a loss; only public loss records produce destroyed ships. Localized flashes and thinning smoke keep hulls readable, without screen shake or full-screen flashes. Low graphics reduces tracer and particle density, and distant effects are culled; pause, reduced motion and the Battle effects toggle remain respected.

Chart is a direct map-toolbar action. Display groups Territory, graphics quality, orbital-stream focus and Legend. Display, Find, Battles, Music and Menu share one viewport-bounded panel system with a visible Close button. Escape closes the panel and restores focus; opening another tool replaces it without losing selected ships or saved orders. Narrow screens use a bottom sheet with a fixed heading and a single scrollable body. In short landscape layouts, command panels occupy one side of the map. Territory starts on and shows merged, angular clan frontiers on the X/Z strategic projection. Adjacent holdings of the same clan share a quiet fill with no internal outlines. Ordinary sites use compact ownership squares while this layer is enabled; selected sites, beacons and special units retain their distinct highlights and symbols. Selection hit areas are unchanged. Rival and unowned rocks constrain the projected regions, leaving neutral gaps; distant outposts remain disconnected. All regions stay inside the 30–70 AU belt. The chart and SVG use the same projected frontier geometry and group each clan’s holdings into one compound region.

In 3D, frontiers sit on a thin reference plane, with faint leaders connecting owned asteroids to their actual orbital heights. They are not bubbles, walls or occupied volumes. A projected overlap does not establish contact, merge the physical sites, or establish a supply connection; vertically coincident sites keep their own ownership marks and inspectable positions even when one projected footprint covers the other. Frontiers stay visible throughout round results: the previous public boundary holds through travel and deployment, then blends into the resolved boundary during the final two seconds. The two cached endpoint layouts are not recalculated on each animation frame or clock poll. The tactical chart uses the same transition; replay or a late arrival reconstructs prior ownership only from the authorized recorded interval.

Conflict hatching marks an asteroid's clipped footprint with alternating faction colors. A current occupation shows the owner and occupying faction. Otherwise, the footprint shows participants in the last resolved battle at that asteroid; historical battle colors do not claim those forces survived or remain there. Off-site space battles retain their actual encounter markers instead of coloring a nearby asteroid. Occupation takes precedence over old battle participants at the same site. Hatching does not change the underlying owner, paint neutral sites as owned, expose hidden ships or predict private attacks. The chart's contact colors match faction frontiers, and SVG uses the same public participant evidence. JSON, Markdown and ASCII retain the existing occupation and engagement records; contestedBy continues to describe occupation rather than historical battles.

The overlay fades continuously at close camera distances and near edge-on views, and disappears during Watch battle. It can also be hidden with Territory. Borders indicate projected ownership, not weapon range or control of empty space. Battle markers continue to identify recorded encounters. Exports use authorized boundary positions; no private orders or hidden industry affect the frontiers.

Legend lists every strategic symbol, including orbital defense platforms, charging railguns and their darts, siege carriers, lunar units and all habitat facilities. Search by name (for example, “defense platform”), or scroll the grouped key; both the 3D world and tactical chart include the complete shared symbol catalog. The search and Close × button stay pinned while scrolling, including on mobile. Close returns focus to the Legend control; Escape also closes the key when a control inside it has focus. View-specific route, targeting, population and territory marks are explained separately. The legend lists object types, not newly detected contacts.

The command surface keeps a compact resource bar, an editable ship-selection strip and asteroid-anchored actions over the map. Selected ships show amber queued routes, mint previews and coral blocked routes. Arrival rings mark fixed intercept positions; they are not tethered to the asteroid’s current animated position. The empire list and detailed order review open only when requested. The command chart keeps Find and Legend in its toolbar, accessible with ships selected. Match handles gathering and seats, Comms handles alliances, pings, supplied trade and grants, Intel explains selected contacts and objectives, and Log opens public history and exports. These utilities share a compact floating row at the lower right. Only the requested panel opens; selecting a utility closes competing empire, research and contextual overlays. Escape or the panel’s close button returns to the map. On mobile the same labeled controls remain within the viewport, above the safe area. Research and construction use map overlays. Opening Rules, account security or agent connections unloads the battlefield and its utility content; the command session retains pending orders and retry receipts. Returning to the battle reloads the current authorized snapshot. Closing a restored legacy order editor also retains its pending save and retry state.

My empire stays in the resource HUD with your clan name and counts. It opens a complete owned-habitat and fleet list; selecting an asset flies the camera there. The home button uses a surviving owned habitat if the original capital is lost. Your rendered territory and fleet markers use mint green, and selected owned asteroids are labeled YOUR ASTEROID. Browsing your empire cancels destination targeting without changing drafted orders. A persistent map hint explains direct selection and building; each destination card explains its action and pending state. Pending practice assignments display that you are still an observer until the named round resolves; accepted control closes the lobby and takes you home automatically.

Click a ship, then click an asteroid: Move is drafted immediately and a compact action card opens at that asteroid. Choose Attack, Defend or Settle there to change that destination's action; changing it does not add the waypoint twice. Move never silently becomes an invasion. Attack against an ally explicitly warns of betrayal. Settle maps to the engine's colonize order and requires loaded colony transports; attack requires armed ships. Mixed selections show incompatible actions as unavailable rather than silently omitting ships. Local orders cannot redirect ships on a special interplanetary flight.

Drag with the left mouse button to select your visible ships. Shift-click a ship toggles it in the selection; Shift-drag adds to it. The selection strip shows each hull and pending movement, with an individual remove button. Removing a ship from the selection does not delete its drafted order. Shift-click an asteroid adds a waypoint; touch users can enable Add waypoints. All stops in one unit's route share the selected action. Undo this destination restores the affected ships' preceding routes while retaining other orders and purchases. Hold cancels future travel; a ship already travelling completes its current leg. An empty map click clears selection. Escape closes the contextual card first, then the open overlay or selection.

Click an owned asteroid with no ships selected to open its shipyard at the rock. Ships and facilities have separate visual catalogs with costs, availability and their ready round. A compact Habitat status disclosure shows production and protection at a glance; expand it for powered capacity, care and upkeep details. The asteroid heading and Close button stay outside the scrolling build catalog. Canceling a queued purchase releases its reservation. With ships selected, that same asteroid is a destination; Open shipyard on its action card switches to construction. Ordinary purchases enter service next planning round; sequencers and vaults take their stated construction time. Manual camera movement dismisses contextual cards without changing the draft. Locked and paused players can still inspect assets.

On touch, one finger pans and two fingers pan/zoom. Select area temporarily changes one-finger dragging into rectangle selection and switches off after a completed selection. A second finger cancels the rectangle. On desktop, middle drag or W/A/S/D pans, right drag orbits, and the wheel zooms. Camera focus is explicit through Focus selected or asset navigation; a second click does not accidentally append a route. Crowded contacts offer a short choice list at the tap location.

A bot-seat request reports its pending boundary and subsequent acceptance or rejection. Match selection survives sign-in and reload.

Menu holds the rules summary, Full rulebook, account security, agent connections, and announcements. The Music speaker control stays visible beside Menu: open it for playback, mute and the volume slider. Its loading ring and moving bars indicate buffering and playback; reduced motion keeps these indicators still. Rules and account navigation retain the mounted match plan. The complete field manual remains available at /rules/. Agent keys are created without match permissions; grant authority to the selected connection from Comms. Legacy controls are development-only synthetic fixtures, not another playable world.

The resource bar labels current materials, fuel and science stock, income per round (+…/rd), and free funds after upkeep and queued orders. Click it or Review orders to separate upkeep from spending and inspect available funds, next-round balances, route checks and pending purchases. Opening stocks fund this round; projected income cannot be spent early. Automatic saving validates the whole plan and returns executable routes and the authoritative forecast. Local changes remain marked unsaved until acknowledged. Ready submits the displayed plan atomically and is irreversible for that round. Failed responses retain the local draft; an unconfirmed write retries with the original receipt key. The interface blocks a new write until that receipt is resolved. Old-round acknowledgments cannot replace a newer draft. Research focus and an explicit points allocation are available over the map, along with objective progress and the relevant construction or launch actions.

Observer and replay views retain drag to pan, scroll/pinch to zoom, right drag to orbit and double-click focus. Command mode uses the direct selection controls above. Focus selected and the finder focus a contact without issuing an order. The inspector’s sticky header also places Focus beside Close, including in the WebGL fallback; a flying projectile is focused at the projectile rather than its launch site. Expeditions appear by a short, stable call sign such as Earth expedition E-10, with their clan named in the inspector, search results and public round record, including replay. Their full IDs remain in map data and order fields for exact targeting. Low graphics reduces presentation detail while retaining selectable contacts. For commanders, Tactical chart replaces the 3D canvas within the same command interface; Return to 3D switches back. Direct orders, drag selection and construction stay available. Observer and replay charts open in a single-viewport lightbox: selecting a contact opens its inspector, and Escape or Close returns to 3D. The chart includes all/stream/holdings/Earth–Moon focus, search, pan, zoom and a symbol legend. The same chart becomes the automatic fallback when WebGL is unavailable, without unusable 3D controls. Chart fit uses playable rocks, so a long expedition path cannot shrink the belt into one corner. Stream and holdings focus dim unrelated rocks while leaving them selectable. Route lines start off and can be enabled when needed; a saved weapon preview remains visible. The inspector shows habitat capacity and powered production, labeling private foreign industry unknown. Coordinates and travel paths come from authorized round boundaries. Between live updates, spectator versions of the 3D world and tactical chart advance a presentation clock through the planning window's five fictional years: rocks follow their orbits, and visible ships, expeditions and projectiles follow their published trajectories. Early resolutions and changed berths ease into their new positions at a bounded speed. Brief rendering stalls and hidden tabs do not consume arrival or battle animation time; repeated updates keep their current progress. This motion previews known travel only; ownership, damage, arrivals, visibility and orders remain authoritative resolution results. The presentation stops at the next boundary if updates stop. Picking and camera tracking follow the drawn positions, including in low graphics. A live pause or completed match lets an observed arrival finish without teleporting its carrier or resetting the sky. Reduced-motion views and explicit public replay selections show exact boundary positions; JSON, Markdown, ASCII and SVG exports also remain boundary snapshots. Earth and Moon share the selected match's phase; lunar separation and vessel berths are enlarged for legibility. A missing enemy contact remains unknown.

Alliance controls cover invitations, acceptance, veto, announced departure, supplied trade, explicit beacon sponsorship and short pings. A support response prepares your own draft and preview; it does not lock or command another clan’s ships. Per-match agent grants remain owner-only. Full snapshots load when selection, round or authority changes; unchanged rounds poll compact summaries every five seconds. Private plans and fleet supplies disappear in public replay, which remains available from the snapshot selector and all five map exports.

Recognizing strategic assets

The system expedition has a distinct interplanetary silhouette: forward colonist wards and engineering cargo, insulated liquid-hydrogen tanks, a continuous pressure spine braced by an exposed truss, an aft reactor and shadow shield, and broad heat-rejection radiators. Flush navigation and communications arrays replace a protruding ship dish. Its bimodal fission drive has separate central nuclear-thermal hydrogen engines and outboard reactor-powered electric thrusters. Narrow blue-violet jets illustrate electric cruise; bright blue-white exhaust illustrates braking or an evasion maneuver. It does not use the local ships' water-expulsion drive. This is an illustration of the studied, unflown architecture, not a flight engineering specification. Mission phase and the fuel-bounded transfer in the inspector remain authoritative.

Fracture missiles have a segmented payload, armored nose, guidance collar and rocket bus. Their orange exhaust is distinct from the expedition's drive. The unguided railgun dart has no engine or exhaust; its public charging installation has twin accelerator rails and capacitor banks. A charging installation appears only when evidenced by a public charge event. Siege carriers have broad armored assault bays and landing pods, with compact recessed pressure thrusters fed from water tanks. Their local ice-propellant drive produces pale steam rather than luminous rocket flame. These silhouettes persist at reduced detail and have matching chart/SVG marks.

Beacons are instrument masts with flat communications arrays, optical transceivers and radiator wings. Powered relays have cyan instrument lights; dormant relays have amber indicators. Clinics have medical wards and a cyan care mark; sequencers have optical racks; sanctuary vaults have shielded domes and armored gates. Genome archives, medical fabrication and power utilities have distinct modules when alone. Every site with a known living population shows a habitat complex, including a newly founded settlement with only a power utility. When at least two of those ordinary services share a site, the 3D view combines them into one connected habitat complex instead of scattering separate models. Its compact deck, paired pressure modules, lit windows, airlock and heat exchangers sit on a terrain-fitted foundation. Surface facilities search deterministic outer surface patches and keep a readable footprint on low machined pads. Habitats can occupy a broad lobe of an irregular asteroid. The shared mount clears the actual high and low detail terrain, including peaks between support samples; switching graphics quality keeps its position, orientation and size. Orbital yards do not reduce the space allocated to surface buildings. The inspector, tactical chart and map exports still identify every actual facility. Alpha-10 rocks keep a solid surface. Known inhabited sites also show a fitted external pressure port on the lower flank, clear of the battlefield: a recessed airlock, supported cargo apron, clamps, water-service plumbing and radiator. The port is a generic public habitation illustration, independent of actual facility counts, operating status and trade links. Its foundations follow the local slope and fit both terrain detail levels; graphics changes do not relocate it. Shallow lower-flank patches and a bounded footprint keep the port from becoming a large projecting foundation wedge. Legacy decorative buildings and orbiters remain omitted. Legacy world scenery retains its earlier rendering. An unfinished public objective shows a bolted foundation, assembly gantry, delivered cladding, suspended panel and amber work lights. Sequencer sites expose rectangular cleanroom framing and unpacked instrument racks; sanctuary sites expose curved dome ribs and their first armor courses. Completed buildings do not gain a construction marker. Owner-visible mining industry has a drill derrick, sealed excavation collar, enclosed ore transfer, recovery tanks and a faint outward vapor plume when powered. The haze is illustrative vented material, not atmospheric smoke or a production counter; it requires no server updates. Private industry remains absent from foreign and public replay views, including their map exports. An owner planning the Earth route sees an orbital preparation drydock above an owned capital (or fallback habitat): clamps surround an incomplete pressure spine, tanks and utility racks with clear separation from the rock. This is a private preparation illustration, not paid construction, a launch guarantee or a new unit; it disappears after launch or a focus change. It is omitted from public replay and static exports. Actual sequencer and vault construction remains on the surface. The inspector supplies counts, protected capacity and upkeep; a decorative ward, tank or light does not represent an additional unit of capacity.

When the viewer has followed an expedition in flight, its confirmed arrival plays a six-second carrier approach into Earth orbit followed by six seconds of lunar and orbital deployment. The lander and defense platform move with the displayed Earth–Moon system. The lander curves around the Moon into its final descent, and the lunar base appears after touchdown. Repeated updates do not restart this sequence. These are local presentation seconds and never postpone orders, combat or victory checks. An already-arrived snapshot opened for the first time shows the current installations directly. The compact lunar staging lander has its landing pads seated on the displayed Moon and a flush communications array. Lunar combat contacts use the same cabin with gear stowed while they are in free space. The expedition's orbital defense platform remains separate. Broken habitat fragments replace an intact rock after a fracture strike while retaining its single selectable waypoint. Confirmed strategic craft losses use their own broken hulls. All models use authorized snapshot fields; private industry, reserves, supplies and unannounced equipment never select visible fittings. Display sizes and berths remain enlarged for inspection; they do not change travel distance, weapon collision tests or map coordinates. Public replay freezes the selected resolution's phase and motion. Tactical, ASCII, Markdown and SVG exports identify the same public assets and preserve exact point ownership and coordinates.

Public combat records

Each resolution publishes combat evidence containing its round, actual encounter location, position, phase, firing pairs, participant IDs/owners/classes, the defending habitat owner during a ground breach, and confirmed losses. Site, opposing-link, corridor and Earth–Moon battles use the same evidence. It contains no fleet supplies, hidden strength, reserves or plans. The next resolution replaces the current records; historical public replay retains them. Maps expose corresponding engagements with coordinates and battleRecords in JSON, Markdown, ASCII, braille and SVG. Saved snapshots from before combat evidence was introduced have an empty record rather than reconstructed or invented battles.

Orbital visuals keep surviving opponents exchanging fire even after a ship's recorded target is destroyed. Defensive replies use only visible participants linked by the public firing pairs. Crowded fights share a bounded effects budget so one ship's explosions cannot hide another ship's return fire. These replies and repeating impacts are illustrative; they do not change the recorded pairs, reveal hidden contacts, add attack strength or calculate extra damage.

Ground weapons use their own visual scale and effects. Riflemen and heavy gunners fire short warm tracers, while snipers fire a longer cool tracer. Grenadiers throw small canisters without glowing trails; shoulder launchers fire compact finned rounds with short exhaust. Bullet hits spark against armor or cover, while explosive hits throw surface dust and small settling fragments. These effects are cosmetic, remain attached to the current asteroid frame and reconstruct when replay is paused or sought. They reveal no hidden troop counts or damage.

In the 3D view, Alpha-10 ground combat follows a larger, site-seeded patch of the solid asteroid surface. Smaller tactical marines are humans in sealed pressure suits: shaped fabric garments with gathered joints, fitted armor, rounded helmets with broad smoked face windows, gloves, articulated boots, harnesses and compact connected life-support packs. Small shoulder patches identify their faction. They carry five visible kits: rifle, grenade, heavy gun, sniper and rocket. Rifles can advance while firing; heavy gunners plant themselves for bursts that cover other troops' bounds. Snipers seek a supported prone position at exposed cover shoulders; grenadiers and rocket troops stop to release their weapons. Troops clear the ramp, use separated approach lanes and reserve distinct positions at which to pause. Distant reinforcements advance through reachable intermediate positions. They rise before moving and settle into cover, with gradual turns through bends. Posture follows weapon clearance: snipers only lie down where a low firing lane is open, and direct-fire troops hold fire when their own nearby shield blocks the muzzle. Direct shots wait until the soldier is facing the target. Rifles and rockets favor visible opponents; grenades can target covered groups. Routes pass around actual blast shields and supply cover. Incoming rounds and explosive near misses suppress troops; direct fire can hit cover, while grenades arc over it. Boots roll from heel to toe during movement; hips shift with each step while the head and weapon remain steadier. Resting troops use a staggered stance and subtle breathing. Elbows support prone firing positions beside the chest. Unequal pauses, movement speeds, firing rhythms and replacement loadouts keep squads from marching in lockstep. Bullet hits produce forward, backward or sideways collapses; grenade and rocket impacts throw bodies differently. Hits briefly jolt the struck stance, knees lose support, then the torso collapses and settles. Prone casualties slacken against the ground. Both hands release the weapon; arms relax beside the body while the weapon drops onto its side and settles against the surface. Blast throws stay low, and fallen troops stop moving before fading and leaving gaps until replacements arrive.

The cosmetic battlefield has four sectors and four staggered reinforcement channels on each side, with up to 32 illustrative soldiers per side at either graphics quality. Before each wave, a fixed reference line of actual visual troops supplies a casualty, survivor and incoming-replacement ledger. Each flight or defender deployment selects the sector with the greatest deficit. Five of its eight replacement soldiers reinforce that sector; the other three maintain the remaining lanes. This bounded allocation avoids an ever-growing battle history and keeps both sides present. The low graphics setting uses reduced geometry and one active close battlefield; high graphics can show four. These counts are display budgets, not troop intelligence.

Visible assault carriers hold a low station directly over the attackers' landing strip, with their launch bays facing the surface. Shuttles release from those same hulls, make a short powered transfer, brake and settle on articulated pads at the selected sector. Eight replacements walk out through the lowered ramp. Pressure-fed lift jets and the aft drive emit expanding white steam. Braking and liftoff throw out low dust wakes and small fragments, which dissipate to keep the ramp readable. Shuttles close their ramps, climb clear and return around the rock, align beneath the same launch bay, fold their gear and rise into its cradle. The recovered hull stays visible in the bay until the next launch takes over at exactly the same pose; it does not fade out in space. A later flight can launch during recovery. Defenders emerge from the armored habitat access point behind their selected sector. The entire sequence is deterministic and seekable, follows the presentation clock, and freezes when that clock pauses. These casualties, replacement decisions, weapon roles, explosions and vapor illustrate the engagement: they do not report real loss totals, disclose hidden strength, create units or change resolution. Actual losses remain those in the public combat record. Battle focus frames the wider battlefield. Older saved worlds keep their carved-dock staging.

Orbits and supply

Competitive maps contain 2,000 selectable asteroids and 100 seats; the smaller practice map contains 320 sites and 16 seats. There are six beacons. Each new map is seeded and spans the full 360-degree belt. Its denser main reach occupies roughly 32–52 AU, with irregular orbital families, concentrations and sparser outer arcs extending toward 70 AU in competitive matches. Practice stays within the shorter main reach. Site centers begin at least 1 AU apart. The decorative dust and haze follow the playable reach in each mode; saved Alpha-9 maps retain their 32–52 AU scenery. Local links follow neighboring orbits and remain within 6 AU through the match. A spatial index samples close approaches throughout all 32 rounds to select timed crossings, and the combined route graph remains connected at each round. A crossing opens only when its current orbital separation permits travel. Route estimates include future crossing waits. A closed crossing can delay a queued route; it never moves a fleet remotely.

Housekeeping operates existing powered habitats and pays disclosed essential upkeep and bounded fleet service. It never buys a ship, clinic, industry upgrade or objective installation for a human. Construction, research and expedition launches require explicit commitments. Population grows across the five-year interval within habitat capacity. Colonists and recruited crew transfer from existing inhabitants; they are not created at the destination. Ships retain individual ownership, health, fuel, marines and provisions.

Clinics provide visible protected capacity only while local power, genome stores, medical production, reserve upkeep and material upkeep remain available. The warning appears at round 24. Starting at round 25, unprotected inhabitants lose five percentage points more population per round. Protected capacity is recalculated before attrition, so losing power or supply can expose inhabitants immediately.

Selected ships and destination cards show onboard fuel and tank capacity. A checked route shows total fuel cost, funded refuelling this round, and fuel left after the complete queued route. Negative remaining fuel is a shortfall; quotes do not assume future refuelling at later stops. Reserve fuel in the header funds refuelling and construction separately. Blocked previews retain their route cost and geometry. Order reviews, item-specific errors and round reports include Focus for each named authorized ship, asteroid, expedition or projectile. Hidden contacts never acquire focus targets from an error message. Commander maps hold orbital positions at the authoritative round boundary throughout planning. A new resolved round interpolates smoothly to its new positions; selection never freezes an unfinished transition. Battle effects and local model animations keep playing. Spectator maps retain continuous orbital presentation. Route geometry comes from the same lattice solver used at resolution, with each leg sampled at its quoted departure and arrival rounds. It does not depend on the displayed animation year or resample when an autosave is acknowledged. Appending a waypoint preserves existing legs; a new authoritative round can change the remaining itinerary. Arrival rings mark future intercept positions, so an asteroid can be away from its future arrival ring while the current planning state is held; ship brackets follow the actual rendered ship pose on every rendered frame.

Combat and alliances

Damage is calculated from one physical roster and applied simultaneously once per round. Opposing movement on a shared link can meet before arrival. Fleets arriving together and fleets already at the site participate in the same local pulse. Allied strength comes from ships present there, including marines contributing to the same ground breach. A standing attack continues through breach and occupation instead of choosing another target each round. Their owners retain independent command, fuel and travel times. A siege carrier doubles its own supported marine breach strength locally and travels more slowly. Siege cruisers are explicit habitat purchases in command mode.

Orbital victory alone does not capture a populated habitat. A supplied attacking force must defeat its garrison, begin occupation, then maintain a subsequent uncontested supplied resolution. Capture preserves the original capital identity for hegemony. Neutral settlement creates a habitat by transferring colonists; a fragment waypoint cannot be settled.

Alliances allow at most four clans. A member invites, the candidate accepts, and current members may veto before resolution. Silence from a current member consents. Objective bots can propose alliances and explicitly contribute owned relays through the same diplomacy actions as humans. Earth bots can launch funded expeditions; ordinary local ships stay within the belt. Bot candidates make seeded consent decisions, with less willingness among hegemony rivals; revealed betrayal reduces bot trust. A changed roster expires another simultaneous proposal rather than allowing a fifth member. Members share current tactical sight, useful civilian returns and composition samples through linked active ports, and can supply ships locally. Supply credit belongs to the clan providing the stores. fast_trade makes a funded one-round delivery of owned materials, propellant or a known composition sample through powered linked ports within physical reach. An ally never acquires command of the other clan’s ships. Relay contributions name a sponsor, can be withdrawn and are credited without duplicating a repeated promise. Peaceful departure is announced for a full window. Attacking an ally reveals betrayal during resolution, removes the attacker from the alliance, and reduces independent civilian trade returns by 25% for four rounds. There is no surprise strength bonus or first-conquest loot.

fast_diplomacy, fast_trade and fast_ping store small control records. Diplomacy and trade must be chosen before the sender locks; pings remain available after lock. The controls are projected before all plans use their common resolution snapshot.

Short emoji pings can request attack, defense, rally, help, warning, assent, refusal or reactions. Pings persuade; they issue no orders. An attack, defense, rally or help ping can name a needed arrival round. fast_support prepares an individual order using only the responding clan’s ships if an open paid route can meet that deadline with available fuel; otherwise it reports staging, supply or diversion alternatives. It preserves other unit orders and does not lock the plan. Public replay contains public pings only. Private and alliance pings require the corresponding audience, and each sender has a per-round limit. Leaving an alliance revokes its tactical sight.

Public objectives and endings

Each route exposes prerequisites, obstacles and its consecutive final-stage checks. Changing focus preserves surviving research and installations, while starting a different final stage resets the hold. Losing a prerequisite resets its checks. Research and installation construction have separate published costs and timing. The first qualifying resolution announces the final stage with zero completed hold windows. Two subsequent consecutive resolutions must qualify, giving opponents two complete planning windows. Final stages open from round 22.

Sole survival wins immediately. Same-round project wins use earlier final-stage start, then supported population, then seeded seat order. There is one official winning clan; allied combat, supply and relay contributions can be credited. Round 32 ends with no winner if no ending condition qualifies.

Earth transfers and counterplay

Choose the launch habitat and explicitly commit the Earth expedition after completing its research and assembly requirements. Protected colonists and separately recruited crew transfer from existing inhabitants; robots and prefabricated defenses consume the existing 600-material assembly budget. The vessel uses bimodal fission propulsion: nuclear-thermal departure and capture burns with reactor-powered electric cruise. It does not use the belt ships' ice-propellant drive.

For new paced matches, missions last four to six rounds. The shortest direct duration is clamp(ceil((launchRadiusAU − 1) / 12), 4, 6). The standard vessel reserves 300 fuel for departure, 100 per travel round for cruise, 150 for capture and 50 for maneuvers. Thus an unassisted launch needs 900–1,100 fuel against the existing 1,500-unit tank. Fuel is escrowed at launch, then consumed at the recorded stages. The preview separately shows cruise, detour cost, assist credit, capture and reserve. This is a strategic game budget; physical acceleration, drive power and burn delta-v estimates are explicitly null for this pricing model. Older saved matches retain their original physical propulsion estimates and powered-spiral option.

The bounded route search considers direct flight and a single gravity assist at Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus or Neptune, using each planet's future paced position and velocity at encounter time. It screens five times per planet, retains two and evaluates three safe periapses, at most 24 full encounters per candidate duration. It chooses the earliest feasible arrival, then the lowest quoted fuel among searched routes. An assist is an unpowered planet-centered hyperbola: incoming and outgoing asymptotic speed are equal relative to the planet, while the turn can change heliocentric speed. The approach and departure curves join the encounter in position, velocity and acceleration. They meet Earth's future capture position. The model patches at the planet's sphere of influence with periapsis at least three planetary radii; it is not an n-body mission optimizer.

A useful assist can replace a funded steering burn: credit is the smaller of 200 fuel, floor(100 × avoidedDeltaV_km/s) and half the base cruise budget. Additional route length costs 10 fuel per AU, rounded up. A detour that costs more than its assist saves loses to the direct route. The report names the planet, encounter round/year, closest approach from its center, turn and speed change. Explicit elapsed-time samples include entry, closest approach and exit; display, interception and combat use the same paid path and timing. This preserves the actual flyby rather than drawing a decorative bend. The strategic travel duration and cost are balance rules, not claims about an engineered spacecraft's performance.

Arrival completes capture without awarding a hold check. Troops and engineers secure lunar staging, and robots deploy prefabricated orbital defense on the following resolution. Both positions must survive two checks. Only expedition forces can travel beyond the Kuiper belt and contest these positions. Ordinary ice-propellant ships cannot buy an interplanetary refit or travel independently to either position. Rival and allied expedition forces fight where they physically meet; fleets remaining in the belt contribute no remote strength.

Ice-propellant vehicles are confined to the playable Kuiper belt (30–70 AU, including its sparse outer reaches). This is a hard game rule. Only the expedition force's bimodal fission propulsion permits interplanetary travel. Local military and colony ships cannot cross that boundary, regardless of fuel, research, alliance or target visibility. The retired earth-assault command is unavailable. Older Alpha-10 independent Earth flights are cancelled at their recorded belt port on the next resolution; already-arrived local hulls return to a recorded belt port. Hulls are preserved and spent refit costs are not recreated. Alpha-9 saved-world simulation is unchanged.

Local ships can intercept or escort only a visible corridor they can physically reach with paid maneuver and return fuel. The entire outbound path and paid return path must stay within the belt, including the straight segments between displayed samples. Once an expedition has left that corridor, ordinary ships cannot chase it inward. They retain the heliocentric motion of the launch port. After a corridor battle they return on their own paid leg. An owned cruising expedition may spend its remaining maneuver reserve to change the future trajectory and delay capture by exactly one round. Its new public path includes a heliocentric loiter; a charged railgun retains the original ballistic aim. Evasion displacements fade to zero around an upcoming gravity-assist encounter, preserving its planet rendezvous and entry/exit states. The transfer budget and duration describe the launch plan; the expedition’s arrival round and remaining fuel include subsequent evasions.

Late weapons and fragments

A powered railgun installation charges for a full planning window. The preview publishes its intended intercept, trajectory and predicted first contact. Firing fixes an unguided solar-gravity trajectory at the published muzzle speed relative to the launcher. The first rock on the trajectory absorbs the strike, including friendly rocks and fragments. Intervening rocks receive ordinary garrison, reserve and infrastructure damage; a direct strike on the intended installation can interrupt a sequencer, vault or relay. Railguns do not fracture rocks or directly erase their population. Each clan has an installation limit, a cooldown and a limit on shots in flight.

A fracture missile follows an open paid route of at most three links. Public launch at resolution R cannot impact before resolution R+2, preserving all of the R+1 and R+2 planning windows. Independently moving interceptors and escorts can fight at its actual corridor; supplied hostile combat ships at the impact site can also shoot it down. The missile has a limit on simultaneous flight and lifetime launches. Impact destroys the habitat and its installations while retaining the site ID, orbit and travel links as a selectable fragment waypoint.

A destroyed beacon can be secured by a physically present ship and rebuilt as an orbital relay. This restores no inhabitants, habitat or asteroid production. A local owned or allied ship must carry the relay's reserve upkeep, and its owner pays material upkeep. Losing that supply switches off the relay and interrupts a sponsored network. The strategic workspace and all map formats expose these public conditions, trajectories and fragment waypoints.

Rulebook index

Map exports

Map schema 2.8.0 supports this ruleset on the shared HTTP and MCP map interfaces. Select matchId for an authorized current match, or matchId and an exact resolved round for public replay. JSON, Markdown, ASCII, Braille and SVG share round status, public care/objectives, expeditions and weapons. Private plans and reserves require current owner authorization and never appear in replay. See map field meanings.

Destination-first fleet planning

Click an asteroid with no ships selected to choose Move, Rally, Attack, Defend, Colonize, Scout or Hold, then check the ships to command. On your own asteroid, Build here opens first; switch to Command ships to assemble a force. Armed ships appear for Attack and Defend, colony transports for Colonize, Pathfinders for Scout, and all owned hulls for Move and Rally. Hold lists your ships at this asteroid or already routed here; it cancels their remaining itinerary without sending them here. Travelling ships finish their committed leg, then hold at that arrival. Unavailable matching ships remain listed with fuel, cargo, supply or flight reasons; rivals' ships are never selectable.

Search the force list by ship name, origin or current order. Sort by ETA, Distance, Type or Fuel, or filter by hull type. Select idle avoids ships already travelling or carrying a standing order; Select available checks the available ships in the displayed list. Filtering and sorting retain your checks and show how many selected ships are outside the current list. A ship's name focuses it on the map without discarding the planner. Each row shows its location or current travel leg, existing order, estimated travel rounds, arrival round and onboard fuel requirement, including this round's funded refuelling. The selection summary shows arrival spread, route fuel and combat strength; attacks also show landing marines. Replacing another mission and attack routes through known allied territory produce warnings.

Choosing an action, checking ships, sorting and route previews do not save orders or send requests. Issue orders replaces only the checked ships' routes in one autosaved plan edit; other units, purchases and research stay intact. The current fleet limits and twenty-order bound still apply. New hulls bought this round become available in the following round. The planner closes at a round boundary and cannot issue orders during results, replay or after Ready.

Rally is a convenient group Move to one staging asteroid. Ships retain individual control and arrive independently; it does not synchronize departure, hold faster ships for slower ones, merge hulls or command an ally's fleet. Scout uses a Pathfinder's ordinary movement and sensors. Travel estimates come from the same earliest-arrival route solver as server validation, including the committed transit leg, crossing waits and funded port refuelling. They estimate arrival, not guaranteed battle victory, occupation or settlement completion. Ships already at the destination have zero travel rounds and perform their action at resolution. Straight-line AU distance is a sorting aid; connected travel routes can be longer. Future enemy action and later refuelling are not assumed.

Colonize requires a loaded colony transport and fifty supplies for an unclaimed, intact asteroid. An unclaimed fractured beacon instead offers Secure beacon, requiring positive supplies; this claims the waypoint without restoring a habitat or population. An owned asteroid or fractured non-beacon cannot be colonized.

Ship-first movement previews

Select your ships and hover over an asteroid to see the route, arrival round, fuel cost and remaining fuel before issuing an order. Hover computes locally from the authorized snapshot; it sends no server request and saves no plan. The preview uses the resolution engine's earliest-arrival lattice solver, including intermediate stops, closed-crossing waits and funded refuelling at the current friendly port. Routes follow connected lanes, not a straight shortcut through the belt. Different hull speeds can yield different itineraries. Subsequent enemy actions and future changes are not predicted.

Click issues Move immediately; Shift-click appends a waypoint, and the hover preview includes that appended route. On touch, or when comparing destinations deliberately, enable Preview route in the selection strip and tap an asteroid. Its destination card explicitly says not ordered. Choose Move here, Attack here, Defend here or Settle here to issue it, or cancel to preserve your current orders. An unreachable or underfuelled route opens the explanatory preview without replacing your saved route. Route cards show each unit's arrival, cost and shortfall, with expandable intermediate stops and a Focus button. Already travelling ships finish their current leg before the new itinerary begins. Mint is a preview, amber is queued, and coral needs attention; textual status accompanies the colors. The ordinary direct-click workflow still saves automatically.

Construction, resources and upkeep

Select an owned, powered, uncontested habitat to queue one build there for the current resolution. A clan can commit up to six builds per round and operate at most twelve military and eight colony hulls. The build catalog shows cost, crew, durability, strength, fuel capacity and speed. Scouts trade strength for speed and wider sensors. Frigates provide ordinary combat strength, siege cruisers support invasions, and colony transports carry the people needed to establish a habitat. Colony transports are consumed when they settle successfully.

The complete purchase batch must fit opening materials, fuel and local crew after maintenance reservations. Projected production is not spendable until the next planning round. New units complete after movement, combat, capture and objective checks: a ship bought in round N can first be commanded in round N+1. A captured, fractured or otherwise lost yard cannot complete its former owner's purchase; the commitment is lost and reported. One-round purchases clear after resolution rather than silently repeating.

Powered, unoccupied habitats produce 15 materials plus 10 per industry level. Metallic geology adds 20 materials and produces 10 fuel; icy geology subtracts 5 materials and produces 40 fuel; mixed geology produces 20 fuel. Deposits do not deplete. Clinic reserve upkeep scales with actual covered population: ceiling(covered population × 100 / 1,500); each clinic costs two materials per round. Installed protection still needs power, medical capacity, genome stores and supplies.

The asteroid build menu shows local production, protected residents and local stores beside your empire's spendable budget. Each purchase card explains its benefit, continuing burden, prerequisites, crew and completion time. Costs use full resource names. Local production excludes trade; trade is included in the empire ledger. Opening stock, upkeep, queued spending, free funds and next-round balance are separate columns. Free now = stock − upkeep − queued orders; Next = free now + income. Ship route fuel is drawn from the onboard tank, while empire fuel funds port refuelling and hull construction. The forecast is conditional on current holdings and cannot promise the outcome of combat.

All hulls consume three materials per round; eligible repairs, crew replacement and port refuelling add their own costs. Builds recruit inhabitants from the chosen habitat. A new facility's ongoing effects enter later rounds, not this round's opening-stock budget. A paid purchase can still be lost if its yard is lost during resolution. Canceling a pending purchase before resolution releases its reservation.

Allocate up to eight research points explicitly each round. Each point consumes one science and three materials from opening stocks. Selecting a focus does not spend anything by itself. Research remains banked when focus changes. Sequencers, vaults, relays and Earth launches are explicit actions with their own eligibility and timing; completing research alone does not buy them.

Military upkeep and eligible local repair/refueling appear in the forecast. The ledger distinguishes upkeep from explicit purchases and next-round income. A route's future fuel estimate is not a guarantee of future supply, ownership or safe passage. Independent allies may share local service and sensor coverage but never issue each other's orders. All costs and unit bounds are in the generated numerical reference.

Tactical sight

The asteroid chart, ownership and public strategic installations remain visible. Military sensors are sampled at each executed round boundary in actual 3D space. Powered inhabited uncontested habitats cover 6 AU, scouts 12 AU and other live ships 4 AU; allied sources share coverage. Flying sources use their current physical position, not their origin or destination. A destination never reveals contacts before arrival. Higher or lower orbital contacts must also fall within the sensor sphere.

A contact outside current coverage disappears from the current military view. Historical combat remains a dated public record at its recorded battle position and does not grant live tracking. Public spectators have public battles, missions and asteroid charts but no private sensor feed. Visible foreign ships do not expose their destination, future route, fuel, marines, supplies or queued orders. Owner sensor coverage and private forecasts are absent from public replay and exports. No realtime visibility polling or per-unit timer is added to the server.

Agent connections belong to the account and remain manageable without a legacy season. Create a key without legacy domain grants, then explicitly grant its authority inside the selected fast match. Revoking the connection removes its fast-match grants and blocks subsequent commands; rotating a key invalidates the previous secret. Neither action rewrites an already committed round.

Earth–Moon combat is illustrative choreography: compact expedition forces maneuver around their current displayed planet position, exchanging staggered autocannon bursts and guided missile salvos. Impacts, smoke and tumbling fragments remain in the moving battle frame instead of trailing behind the planet. Animation speed, repeated shots and model scale do not represent extra combat resolutions, troop counts or physical vessel sizes. The committed round remains authoritative in the map exports and replay.

Command upkeep and rebuilding

Each clan begins with 8 science and receives 8 science per powered, uncontested habitat per resolution. Research allocations spend one science and three materials per point, up to eight points a round. Crews are recruited locally while preserving at least 100 inhabitants; ship upkeep and existing marine replacements are reserved before new purchases. A parked ship at a supplied friendly port can refill up to 30 fuel per round. A powerless, owned fractured beacon can receive its first relay; an owned ship parked there can deliver missing local maintenance provisions so the relay can come online. Clan-wide railgun limits count both installed weapons and the whole current purchase plan.