# Merchants, raids and patrols

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The current rules include a recurring cycle: private commerce produces cargo, raiders threaten it, patrols defend it, and surviving ships return to refit.

## Independent commerce

An inhabited port with a powered trade exchange produces 25 private cargo units per tick, up to 200. Economic damage reduces this production; a blockade also applies the saved production multiplier. This warehouse is civilian property. Neither departures nor practice removal refund its goods into a government treasury.

A port launches at most once every four ticks, on its deterministic stagger, and has at most two unresolved outbound merchant convoys. Each launch consumes 100 units: 40 credits, 30 alloys and 30 propellant. Merchants rotate among the three nearest eligible destinations within eight travel ticks, preferring foreign ports. Domestic trade remains possible. They need no treaty, but respect bilateral embargoes, participant protection, active blockades and publicly recorded raids or seizures during the preceding eight ticks, including on intermediate route sites.

Successful arrival consumes the civilian manifest and pays five government credits to each endpoint owner. A domestic delivery pays both endpoint fees to the same clan. A complete cross-clan 100-unit delivery refreshes the receiving exchange's eight-tick commerce benefit. Merchant deliveries never count toward patronage or peaceful accession. Partly boarded cargo cannot meet the threshold. Cargo details and warehouse levels are private to authorized participants.

New human capitals and NPC capitals start with an exchange and two power plants; established NPC satellite ports also have a powered exchange. Captures clear commerce and invalidate preparation ownership. Warehouse goods stay at the site. Merchants finish their current leg before revalidating changed endpoint owners or embargoes and taking a physical route back to the original port. Returning goods refill only that private warehouse, up to its capacity; excess is discarded.

## Preparation and assignments

Each inhabited, powered shipyard port holds up to 100 private preparation units. Starting yards receive 50. New or captured yards begin at zero. Every production tick adds `4 + 24 × r × (1 − r)`, capped at available space, where `r=stores/100`. Empty stores gain four, half-full stores gain ten, and full stores waste recovery. Blockade, inadequate power or an empty habitat suspends replenishment. Preparation cannot be shipped, sold or transferred.

A `sortie` order assigns one ship an owned home yard, `raid` or `patrol`, one raid target or up to three distinct permitted patrol sites, a repetition flag and an explicit resource ceiling per cycle. Queue several ships separately for a coordinated arrival. Light warships spend 20 preparation per departure, cruisers 40, and scout patrols 10. Normal fuel, upkeep and crew provisioning remain payable. A dispatch requires a supported, uncontested home yard and enough current funds and ceiling for the quoted circuit; later repairs must also fit the cycle ceiling. Fuel and refit spending are recorded against that ceiling. Nothing is reserved from other queued orders.

Raids fight one simultaneous orbital round, then withdraw. Habitat defenses return fire; the raid itself neither bombards defenses nor lands troops or captures territory. A surviving raider succeeds only when no legally hostile armed ship remains. It may take warehouse goods and passing convoy cargo into its own hold: at most 100 units for a frigate or torpedo boat, or 200 for a cruiser. All resources count equally toward that capacity. Warehouse goods are boarded before passing cargo, in stable ship order; partial cargo seizures leave the remainder aboard a blockaded convoy. Passengers are never loot. Other hostile fleets can blockade, but cannot collect unbounded treasury spoils. Carried loot reaches the treasury only at an owned port and is lost if the ship is destroyed.

A successful settlement raid adds five percentage points of economic damage per site per tick, capped at 25%. This multiplies government building output and civilian production by `1 − damage/100`; housing, life support, defense strength and passive national income are unaffected. `repair` removes this damage along with missing integrity, charging two credits and one alloy per percentage point of each. It does not replace dead civilians or repair defenses.

Patrols visit their chosen permitted sites and defend against legally hostile attackers before returning. They do not initiate indiscriminate combat against peaceful visitors. Current treaties, protection and passage still apply to every combat pairing and departure.

## Return and refit

`refit` uses the ship-construction slot for one tick at an uncontested, supported, owned home yard. Pay `ceil(missing HP/4)` credits and `ceil(missing HP/8)` alloys. Replacement crew is drawn from local civilians at start. Completion restores the paid HP and crew; a lost ship or yard loses that work. Refit waits if support or uncontested access fails. A ship in refit cannot move.

Repeating assignments return, unload, refit and wait for an affordable prepared dispatch. A cycle includes outgoing travel, patrol legs, return and refit. Successful completion increments its cycle count. Insufficient resources, ceiling, stores, access or valid targets pause it with an owner-visible explanation. A failed retreat leaves the survivor in hold stance, so the assignment does not initiate another raid round while waiting. Manually moving or redirecting cancels automation. Revoking military delegation or expiring/revoking its originating connection prevents further automated dispatch, including returns; a new authorized order is needed to replace the assignment.

NPCs maintain at most one recurring raid and one recurring patrol apiece, through ordinary paid orders and authorized observations. Their larger campaign planner uses other ships. Repairs and diplomacy retain their normal order paths. These opening values create activity; they are not evidence of competitive balance.

The inspector exposes assignment status, cycle spending, preparation, carried loot and refit costs. Economy shows private warehouse, preparation and economic damage. Gold merchant contacts are distinct from government cargo. Boarding and skirmish effects, Archive and Cinematic use actual public records, never private assignments or enemy HP.

## Task forces

Fleets and map inspectors provide **Raid**, **Defend** and **Invade** task forces using selected ships, an owned secured home shipyard, a target and a shared resource ceiling. `operation` creates, amends or cancels a force; `mission` still means the Earth expedition. Only Raid and Defend can repeat. Amend a stationary assembling or paused force; a ceiling-only amendment can resume its existing stage without changing the deployment; cancel any force to end automation while ships keep their current positions and routes. Manual movement, redirection or a new sortie detaches that ship. Each ship has one assignment.

Stages are assembling, travelling, fighting, occupying, returning, refitting, paused and complete. Pauses display a reason. Selected ships assemble through ordinary paid routes, then dispatch together. Invasions require existing marines loaded into selected transports. Preparation stores and their resource cost, travel and refits count against the ceiling. A complete return quote is escrowed before dispatch, so other orders cannot spend that reserve. Route estimates can change with orbital positions; an unaffordable difference pauses with a reason. Full-health, fully crewed ships skip refit. A repeated force retains its cumulative spending and pauses when the ceiling is exhausted.

Raiders remain for at most six combat rounds, withdrawing sooner after looting or when surviving warships have less than 35% of their combined maximum HP. A sortie collects loot once; survivors physically carry it home, and destroyed carriers lose it. Defenders remain at their assigned port for three quiet ticks; contact restarts that clock. Damage, finite supplies and loss of authority can interrupt a deployment. Invasions stay through supplied consolidation before returning. NPCs can instead queue an explicit advance from a secured forward shipyard when observed enemy strength, existing troops and affordable six-tick follow-on supplies permit it; they retain the recorded capture garrison. Return and refit do not teleport or create units.

NPCs use one scheduler with at most four queued orders and three simultaneous task forces per clan. Confirmed threats rank by arrival, capital, shipyard and observed commerce. Scouts provide reconnaissance; warships defend. Replacement construction and campaign preparation precede routine repairs, and spare ships raid observed active trade. Every automated action rechecks delegation and connection authority. Future objectives, budgets, full routes, manifests and enemy HP remain private in live views, exports and replay.

## Mining and contested trade fronts

Mining output and supply freight complement independent merchant trade. Merchant partner preferences persist while ports remain eligible; active commerce gives raiders useful destinations. A raid still takes loot once per sortie and must physically deliver surviving cargo. Repeated Defend assignments hold their station until damage, supplies, cancellation or budget constraints require return; they do not leave merely because three quiet ticks passed. Seize assignments guard captured temporary mines. Raid deployments remain bounded and inactive targets are retried only after a delay.

Player objectives are private location bookmarks, not standing attack orders. Task forces remain the automation mechanism, with explicit ships, target, home, objective and spending ceiling. Canceling a task force stops future automation without moving its ships instantly.