Alpha build 64 is live, and with it base battles: you can raid another commander's base, and they can raid yours. It is a required update: exit Steam completely and start it again to get it. A server update followed at 06:34 UTC with three fixes (below). Nothing was wiped.
Raiding a base
Pick a target. Click another commander's outpost in a planet's view. Its target card shows whose base it is, its level and defense rating, whether it is shielded, exactly how much a raid could carry off, and how much your fleet can bring home.
Scout it. SCOUT shows the base as a raid would meet it: its defences, the reach of its guns, its shield domes and the loot. It is free and takes no time. LAUNCH ATTACK sends your fleet from there.
Attack. Select a fleet and press ATTACK BASE on its command bar (key 2), or press it on the card. Up to three of your fleets can raid together: the first to arrive waits up to a minute for the others.
The raid. The base fights back: its guns fire, Shield Generators throw domes over the buildings near them, and Barricades are walls. Destroy the Command Bridge to breach the base. If the five-minute clock runs out with the Bridge standing, the base has held. RETREAT, under LEAVE, ends a raid early and sends your fleets home with what they have taken.
The loot. Each mine, extractor and condenser you destroy drops half of what was waiting in it, and a breach takes 20% of the owner's resources after what their best Shielded Vault protects, up to five times what your fleets can carry. It is cargo: yours once your fleets dock at home.
Defending your base
When your base is attacked you are told, and while you watch you command its guns: pick a box of guns at the bottom of the screen and right-click an attacker, or press FOCUS FIRE, to have them focus their fire on it.
A breached base is shielded for 6 hours, and its repairs start by themselves: every destroyed building at once, the damaged ones after them. The Command Bridge rebuilds free in 10 minutes. A repair you cannot pay for waits and starts by itself when you can. REPAIR NOW and REPAIR ALL finish them for coins. If you were away, the Base View waits with YOUR BASE WAS BREACHED, and STRIKE BACK takes you to the raider's base for 24 hours.
The rules
- In a planet's view you may attack commanders within 10 levels of your own (it was 5), fleets and bases alike.
- A commander below level 10 who has never attacked anyone cannot be raided.
- For 24 hours after a commander attacks you, you may hit back whatever their level.
- Raiding the same commander again on the same day pays less each time.
- Attacking another commander ends your own base's shield.
Every number is a starting value and may change.
Also in this build
Shields in battle are drawn round each ship's hull, cyan for yours and red for the enemy's.
Fixed in the server update
- Commanders who had not signed in since the server started showed as level 1 on their base's card, so almost no base could be attacked. Their real level is shown now.
- Leaving a scout's view could leave the camera in a corner of the planet's view, on an empty screen. It now comes back to where you were.
- The level band in a planet's view is 10 levels.
Test round 14, "Base battles", is open: the test page has the tasks. This one needs other testers, so say in Discord when you want to be raided.
The changelog has the full list, and the player's guide has the rules in detail.