How combat works

Every ship has its own hunting ground

No ship fires at "the enemy". Each type has a primary, a secondary and a tertiary target class, and it sticks to them: while primary targets remain it shoots those, and only moves to the secondary once they are gone.

From that follows one of the game's hardest lessons: fleet COMPOSITION matters at least as much as size. If the enemy is made up entirely of a class your ships only target third, most of your numerical advantage watches the battle instead of deciding it.

Ship stealers are a special case: they have ONLY a primary target. Once it runs out they do not switch class, they simply drift. That makes them predictable and vulnerable — someone who knows what they hunt can starve them.

The fastest ships fire first

Firing order comes from INITIATIVE, and here the LOWER number is the better one: the lowest-initiative — that is, the nimblest — types fire first, the heavier ones after them. Light units therefore shoot at a field where everything is still standing, while the big, sluggish ships divide up what is left.

When a type has several possible targets, its shots are spread in proportion to those target types; damage splits the same way when several defenders or attackers face each other. A battle is not a duel, it is bookkeeping.

If the attackers include a BVR bomber, it opens the engagement against the planetary defences, and the targeted BVR answers — the ships only start dealing with each other after that.

The damage formula is not a secret

Damage starts from the number and strength of the weapons, then is multiplied by however much of the attacker's hit chance survives the defender's evasion. There is a percent or two of randomness in it — enough that two identical battles are not identical to the letter, not enough for the plan to stop mattering.

Damage from different ship types ADDS UP: the target enters every loss calculation with its own current armour. That is what armour is worth — it does not absorb the damage, it buys time, and during that time your ships are firing too.

Losses CARRY OVER from round to round, without exception: whatever died in the first exchange is not firing in the second, and it does not come back. Planetary defence gets no mercy either — shot down is shot down.

Formation and rank — for the whole side

You give your fleet a formation, which tunes hit and evade chance. There is no universally best formation: one that improves your hit rate usually costs you evasion. The choice is about what you believe of the enemy, not about what you like.

Your military rank also feeds into hit chance. Rank comes from combat performance, so the same fleet is worth more in experienced hands — the veteran's edge is measurable, not atmosphere.

⚠️ The modifiers apply to the SIDE as a whole, weighted by unit count — not per ship. A large, badly formed mass therefore drags down the elite units fighting beside it. Padding a fleet on the theory that "the good ships will carry it" achieves the exact opposite.

Not everyone came to kill

The Cindrax do not destroy, they block: the hit silences the ship, which then neither fires nor steals that round, but stays intact. Damage-dealing ships look for intact targets first and only then the blocked ones — so blocking does not wipe out the enemy fleet, it removes it from the battle.

Korrath raiders do not blow the target apart, they take it: part of the ships they bring down is not destroyed but goes home to its new owner at the end of the battle. A stolen ship no longer fights for either side in that battle, but the balance swings twice: the enemy leaves with one ship fewer, the Korrath with one more. Theft has no separate price — raiders are only lost to enemy fire.

Umbrix weapons drain: part of the damage they deal is fed back into their own hulls. It resurrects nothing — what died stayed dead — but their damaged units stay standing longer than the paper form allows.

The Zyvarn turn their own destruction into a weapon: part of the damage done to their ships is thrown straight back at whoever fired. "We would rather be destroyed than have our technology turned against us" — in practice, breaking a Zyvarn fleet is bloody work.

The Ordris order field degrades not a single ship but the ENTIRE opposing side: hit chance, ship-theft chance, the number of asteroids taken and the resources looted. Its strength has two parts: a value rolled once per battle (5–25%), and the share of their side's value (count × resource cost, at the start of the battle) that the order-field ships make up. Only the Ordris order-field ships count; everything else on that side — BVRs, species-neutral and noble-gas ships, even the Ordris asteroid carrier (Pilgrim) — dilutes the share. A pure order-field fleet gives the full effect, a few Ordris ships escorting a large mixed fleet only a little. The battle report shows both numbers and the result.

The resource runners come at the end: asteroid raiding, then material raiding. With the right technology, a defender recovers 5% of the resource cost of their destroyed ships as salvage from the debris field.

How long it lasts

An engagement does not run forever: the attacker gets at most three rounds, the defender six. That difference is deliberate, and it is what planetary defence is really for — the attacker has to finish what they started, the defender only has to hold.

If the attacker cannot close it out within their rounds, they go home with whatever is left. Not a defeat, but not a victory either: the fleet is spent, and the enemy is still standing.

Loot: why the number of thieves is not what decides

Asteroids can only be taken with asteroid carriers (thieves), and their number is only the UPPER LIMIT: one carrier holds as many asteroids per type as its capacity (1 for most). What you actually take home is set by these four things:

• CAPACITY per carrier, per asteroid type: Ferrokin Trojan 5, Aurin Net 4, Umbrix Vampire 3; the Cindrax Vortex, Ilvexi Pupa Robber, Korrath Robber, Zyvarn Carrier and Ordris Pilgrim carry 1. So a single Net can bring home up to 4 metal, 4 crystal and 4 narion. Only carriers that survive the battle unblocked count: a destroyed or blocked carrier brings back nothing.
• 55% OF THE TARGET'S ASTEROIDS is the maximum, per asteroid type. From a planet with 40 metal asteroids you can take at most 22 metal — no matter how many thieves you bring.
• OVERKILL BRAKE: the loot shrinks with the ratio of the two sides' COMBAT STRENGTH. Attack with tenfold superiority and only a fraction remains. A fleet that is just strong enough brings home more than an overwhelming one.
• SPLIT: what is left is divided among the asteroid types present on the planet, rounded down. Against a target with few asteroids this is easily 0–3.

Against an Ordris target the order field reduces it further. The score difference is NOT part of the formula — it only decides whether you may attack at all.

THE EXACT CALCULATION — per asteroid type (metal, crystal and narion separately):

1. STRENGTH RATIO = the defender's strength ÷ the attacker's strength, at most 1. Strength is the value of the units taking part in the battle, in points (counted the same way as in the score). If the defender's units are worth at most 40% of the attacker's, HALF of the target's score counts as the defender's strength instead — so against a weakly defended planet it is the planet's size that matters, not its fleet.

2. BASE = 55% × the number of asteroids of that type × strength ratio, rounded.

3. Divide that by the number of asteroid types the planet has (1, 2 or 3), rounded down.

4. At most as many as your surviving, unblocked carriers can hold (count × capacity).

5. Against an Ordris target the order field's percentage is taken off this, rounded down.

In a joint battle with several attackers, the loot is split between them in proportion to their surviving carriers.

EXAMPLE: the target has 40 metal, 20 crystal and 10 narion asteroids; your fleet is worth 3,000 points, the defender's 1,500, so the strength ratio is 0.5. Metal: 55% × 40 × 0.5 → 11, ÷ 3 for the 3 asteroid types → 3. Likewise crystal 2, narion 1 — 6 asteroids in total, if you have enough carriers. If the defender were at least as strong as you (ratio 1), the same would be 12 asteroids.

The practical lesson: the Planet probe shows the asteroids — pick targets with many; do not overdo the fleet; and since every battle of a multi-round attack loots separately, three rounds bring roughly three times as much.

After the battle

The report shows, per ship type, how many units went in, how many were lost, and — most usefully — what that type actually fired at. That is how you find the kind of mistake you would otherwise never notice: that half your fleet spent the battle shooting at something it cannot hurt.

The report can be shared. The link opens without logging in and shows the outcome and the losses — the details (ship types, targeting) are NOT visible on it. Good for bragging; useless for scouting.

Try it

The fastest way to understand the combat system is to watch it run. Signing up is free and works in the browser.

Start playing — free