Projects and endings

Rulebook index · Timing · Numerical reference

Qualification and ownership

Claims belong to individual clans, not alliances. Joining, merging, leaving or betraying an alliance does not reset otherwise continuous qualification. Allied beacons and research are not pooled. A qualifying clan must retain at least one inhabited owned habitat when claims are evaluated.

Use the saved numerical reference if the season overrides these defaults. A beacon is a fixed site property; no building creates another beacon. Territorial qualification does not independently require each beacon to be inhabited, powered or viable. Industrial and scientific construction require an owned location and research, but no shipyard, local power gate or separate building slot. These projects do not produce recurring resources, ships or passive bonuses.

A clan cannot start a new asset of a kind while it already owns an unfinished or completed asset of that kind. It can hold multiple assets acquired by capture. Each has its own progress, acceleration and ownership epoch. A completed asset can produce a claim only while the owner's research prerequisites and site ownership remain valid.

Progress and acceleration

Ordinary progress advances one tick during the completion phase, beginning the tick after construction starts. If the new owner of a captured asset lacks the required research, unfinished work pauses without losing progress. Once eligible again it resumes. Eligible completed assets can qualify immediately after the relevant research finishes.

accelerate buys 1–12 skipped construction ticks using an economy-domain order, including for a scientific mission. Each skipped tick costs 10% of every base resource cost, rounded up per resource before multiplying by skipped ticks. Megaproject acceleration costs 1200/1000/200/100 per tick; mission acceleration costs 500/300/800/1000. At most 12 ticks can ever be bought per asset across all owners. Work already completed plus old and new acceleration may not exceed the required total.

Acceleration resolves after this tick's completion phase and therefore never completes the asset on its execution tick. Completion is no earlier than the following tick. It cannot shorten the full claim countdown. Funds from a convoy arriving later in the same year cannot pay for an earlier acceleration order.

Capture and interruption

Conquest transfers both unfinished and completed victory assets with their site, retaining work and acceleration. Each ownership change sets a new ownership epoch, giving the new owner a fresh full countdown even after recapture. Continuously held assets elsewhere retain their own countdowns. Ordinary construction has different loss behavior; see Economy.

Completion precedes combat. An asset that finishes and is captured in the same tick belongs to the captor when claims are evaluated. Losing the fifth beacon or another required condition removes the corresponding current claim; restoring qualification starts a new countdown. There is no pause-and-resume of a broken claim. Earned frontier achievements, once recorded, remain historical facts even if the qualifying asset is later lost.

Example: construction starts at year 20, finishes at year 44 without acceleration, and its claim can mature at year 68. Capturing it at year 50 gives an eligible captor a new countdown maturing at 74. Capture does not inherit six years of the former owner's countdown.

Frontier achievements and endings

Matured claims record achievements instead of ending the season. Each clan can record each achievement kind once. The scientific event records an Earth expedition launch, not an arrival, successful reconquest or controllable mission fleet. The Sol view is not a playable expedition destination.

At the end of each competitive frontier tick, outcomes are checked in this priority:

For 420 sites, the global requirement is 294 viable asteroids. It counts everyone, including NPC holdings; no player needs to own them all. Viable means at least 100 population, support at least population and one full population-year of reserves. Losing any global or regional condition resets the stability start. Twelve consecutive checks starting at T finish at T+11; if that is earlier than 120, qualification must remain intact until at least year 120. Simultaneous colonization at the final tick takes precedence over unfinished.

Frontier endings set status concluded and do not declare alliance winners. Future queued orders are cancelled; unresolved journeys do not keep simulating past the end. The Lobby skips competitive achievements and all these ending conditions, so it remains active past year 336. Its project construction still works, but its claims do not trigger a competitive result.

Final standings

Standings are calculated at the season end, not continuously exposed private rankings:

• Economic: sum of current credits, alloys, propellant and data, each weighted one. Cargo still in transit is not treasury.
• Scientific: sum of the three completed research levels.
• Military: sum of each surviving fleet's HP rounded up; defenses and crew count do not add points.
• Territorial: count of owned habitats, including empty ones.

All tied positive category leaders get the corresponding laureate award. Recorded donations can earn patron recognition. Achievements and counts of successful accessions and settlements add awards. Stewardship accumulates supported inhabitants each year as a recognition metric; it is not extra spendable wealth or an independent early-victory condition. Awards do not grant starting benefits in another season.

Sources: packages/engine/src/politics.ts (completeAssets, individualClaims, accelerationCost); frontier.ts (frontierConclusion); engine.ts (victory, standings).