Combat and the Galaxy

Attacking the Tide

The fleets of the Tide (the Alien Hive) are in your sector, and you can attack them. Deploy a fleet, select it, and right-click a Tide fleet (or press MOVE on the command bar and click it). Your fleet closes in and gives chase, and its route is drawn in red. When it catches the fleet, the battle begins.

Arm your ships first, in Outfitting. A fleet with no weapons cannot win, and a fleet with no ship able to fight cannot launch at all.

Another commander's fleet is attacked the same way, and yours can be attacked too: see Battles between commanders below.

Tiers of the Tide

Every Tide fleet has a tier, and its name ends with it: Chitin Pack T6 is a Tier 6 fleet. The higher the tier, the harder the fight. Eighteen tiers patrol the sector: two fleets of each, and four of Tiers 14 and 15. Every Tide fleet carries the long-range guns of its tier, the same ones commanders fit; its plating and shields are the Tide's own.

A tier is tuned against an even fleet: the same number of ships of the same class as the Tide fleet, with a Mark 3 weapon, plate and shield in every slot and a special module in every special slot. An even fleet usually wins and comes home damaged. A fleet with more ships, bigger hulls or higher Marks can take on a higher tier; one with empty slots or Mark 1 modules should start lower.

Tiers 13 to 15 are for the strongest fleets. Their hulls and modules are at Mark 5, and they are meant for fleets with Tier 5 modules at Mark 5 in every slot and a special in every special slot. A fleet fitted at Mark 3 will rarely beat them.

Tiers 16 to 18 are the elite. Each is a Tier 15 fleet made two, three and four times as tough: its health, shields and guns. Only the very best fleets take on Tier 17, and Tier 18 is the hardest fight in the sector.

What the Tide pays. Destroy a Tide fleet and you are paid minerals, helium-3 and antimatter: as much as its destroyed ships would cost to repair. Bigger hulls cost more to repair, so a higher tier pays more: about 110 minerals for a Tier 1 fleet, about 5,800 minerals and 1,700 helium-3 for Tier 9, about 19,100 minerals, 6,100 helium-3 and 1,800 antimatter for Tier 11, about 49,700 minerals, 14,100 helium-3 and 4,500 antimatter for Tier 12, and about 265,700 minerals, 94,600 helium-3 and 29,000 antimatter for Tier 15. The elite tiers pay two, three and four times what Tier 15 pays. It goes into your storage, and what does not fit is lost. A win also pays commander XP for the ships destroyed, and the elite tiers pay two, three and four times as much XP too. Only a victory pays: a battle the clock ends is a draw, and a draw pays nothing. The Tide gives no Infamy and no salvage.

Your faction matters. Each faction's weapons and plating suit some enemies better than others, so two commanders with the same hulls can find the same tier easy or hard.

Battles between commanders

You can attack another commander's fleet, and they can attack yours. It is ordered like an attack on the Tide: select your fleet and right-click the other fleet. If the attack is not allowed, the command bar tells you why.

Where the target is decides who may attack it:

These hold everywhere:

What the winner gets:

What the loser loses. Never a ship: destroyed ships come home as wrecks to repair, as after any battle. The loser has the repairs to pay for, loses Infamy, loses whatever cargo the fleet was carrying, and can lose a fitted module to salvage. A module taken that way is gone from that ship for good.

Beating the same commander again on the same day pays less each time: all of it the first time, half the second, a quarter the third, and nothing from the fourth on. That goes for XP, Infamy, the resources and the chance of salvage alike.

A drawn battle pays nobody and moves nobody's Infamy. Beating the Tide pays resources of its own (see Tiers of the Tide) and XP by the same rule as here, a tenth of the hull XP of the ships you destroyed, never less for beating it again; but no Infamy and no salvage.

Attacking a base

You can attack another commander's base. Fleets fly to it and fight its buildings: its guns fire back, its Shield Generators throw domes over the buildings near them, and its Barricades are walls. A dome works like a ship's shield: it takes at most 90% of each hit on a building under it, wherever the shot comes from, so a tenth always reaches the building. Several domes over one building do not add up: each hit is taken by the strongest of them. A shot that crosses a standing Barricade hits it first, and ships cannot fly over one. Knock out its reactors and its guns and shields grow weaker.

Damage thrown back. A base can hurt you without firing a shot. A Combat Array sends a tenth of the damage you land on any building within 2,000 of it, itself included, back at the ship that fired, and slows every ship near it by a fifth. Several arrays over one building do not add up: the strongest counts. A Shield Generator sends back a twentieth of every hit its dome takes, and a building under a dome and an array sends back both. Damage thrown back comes straight off your ship's hull, past its shields and armor, so the harder you hit a building they cover, the more you take. Destroy the arrays first, or pick targets they do not reach. You see it happen: a short beam runs back from the array (amber) or the dome's generator (blue) to the ship it hurts, with a flash on that ship's hull.

Pick a target. Click another commander's outpost in a planet's view. A target card opens with the owner, their faction, alliance and level, the base's level and defense rating, whether it is open or shielded, and LOOT IN REACH: exactly what a raid could carry off now. It also names the fleet that would go and its RAID CAPACITY, which is how much that fleet can bring home.

Scout it first if you like. SCOUT (key 1 on the outpost's command bar, or the card's button) shows the base as a raid would meet it: its defences by kind, the reach of its guns, its shield domes, the loot and its power. Scouting is free and takes no time. LAUNCH ATTACK sends your fleet from there, and BACK returns you to the planet.

1. Deploy a fleet with weapons fitted, and select it.
2. Press ATTACK BASE on the fleet's command bar (key 2) and click the base, or select the outpost and use its card.
3. Press ATTACK BASE on the card. The fleet flies there and the raid begins when it arrives.

Up to three fleets, with your allies. A base is raided by at most three fleets, whoever they belong to: three commanders with one fleet each, or one commander with three. Select up to three of your fleets before you press ATTACK BASE and they raid together: the card counts them all. The first fleet to reach the base opens a two-minute window: your other fleets still on their way join it, and so do the fleets of your alliance. When an ally of yours is online and may raid that base, the raid waits the whole two minutes and your alliance's chat says where it is. A fleet that arrives after the raid has begun does not join it.

Joining an ally's raid. Click the base: while the raid gathers, the target card says RAID GATHERING with the time left and the commanders in it, and its button says JOIN RAID. Each commander must be allowed to raid that base on their own (the level band, a newcomer, the shield). In the raid each commander orders only their own ships; an ally's ships have a teal frame. RETREAT takes only your own fleets home: the raid goes on while another raider fights, and a fleet that left before the end takes no share of the loot.

Your fleets start on the side of the base they came from, facing it.

Everyone nearby hears of it. When a raid on a commander's base begins, the sector's chat says who is raiding whose base and on which planet, with the planet as a link and Watch the raid: anyone can click it and watch. When it ends, the chat says how, with Watch the replay.

Hold Alt during a raid to see the firing arcs of every gun the base has left, as the Base View shows them. It works for the raider, the defender and anyone watching, and anyone only watching, not commanding, also sees the firing arcs of every ship. When a reactor falls, an amber REACTOR DOWN tag gives the base's power left against what its buildings need. With less power than they need, the base's guns fire and its shield domes recharge at that share.

Who you may attack. A base is in a planet's view, so the planet-view rules of battles between commanders apply: only a commander within 10 levels of you, and never a commander below level 10 who has never attacked another commander. For 24 hours after a commander attacks you, you may hit back whatever the difference in level. You cannot attack your own base or one of your alliance's, a base that is shielded, a base another commander is raiding right now (an ally's raid you can join while it gathers), or a base whose Command Bridge is being rebuilt. The card says why when you cannot.

How a raid ends. Destroy the Command Bridge and the base is BREACHED: you win. If the five-minute battle clock runs out with the Bridge standing, the base has HELD, and it also holds if every ship you sent is destroyed.

RETREAT. Once the countdown is over, a raider has a red RETREAT button under LEAVE. Press it twice (the first press asks you to confirm). The raid ends there with the base HELD, and your fleets fly home with whatever they had already taken. In a raid with allies only your own fleets leave, with no share of the loot, and the raid goes on while another raider fights.

What you take:

The loot is cargo: it is yours once the fleet docks at your base. A fleet beaten on its way home loses it, as with mined cargo (see Mining).

A base battle takes no modules: there is no salvage. You can raid the same base again at once if it held, but raiding the same commander again on the same day pays less each time, as with fleet battles. Attacking another commander, their fleet or their base, ends your own base's shield.

The raid result says BASE BREACHED, BASE HELD or RETREATED, with your fleets and their ships, the loot in your holds and the RAID CARGO limit, the base's damage (its Command Bridge, turrets, reactors, mines and the rest) and your rewards. SET COURSE HOME sends every fleet of the raid home; VIEW REPORT opens the battle report; WATCH REPLAY plays the raid back.

Defending your base

When your base is attacked you are told: BASE UNDER ATTACK, with DEFEND to watch it. Your buildings fight whether you watch or not.

Command your guns. While you watch, your guns are yours to order. The strip at the bottom has boxes of guns: ALL GUNS, then each kind you have (heavy turrets, light turrets, platforms). Click a box to pick those guns; a panel names the gun, its Mark, its arc and its reach. Right-click an attacker to have the picked guns focus their fire on it, or press FOCUS FIRE and then click a ship. The ship they are firing at is marked FOCUS in the list of attackers. GUNS AUTO gives the guns back to themselves.

Your fleets defend too, if you say so. Each fleet card in the Fleets panel has a DEFEND chip at the right end of its crew line. Press it to step through its three settings: OFF, HOME (it defends your base) and ALLIES (your base, and your alliance mates' bases on the planet where the fleet is). Every fleet starts OFF. While you are online, fleets set to defend that are at the raided base fight beside it: docked there, or out on its planet and doing nothing else (not mining, moving or in another battle), with a ship that can fight. A raid has up to three defending fleets in all, the base owner's first. BASE UNDER ATTACK lists your fleets under DEFEND WITH YOUR FLEETS: the ones that can join come switched ON (switch one OFF before the first shot to keep it out of this raid), a fleet set to OFF says STAYS HOME, and the rest say why they cannot (OUT MINING, AWAY, IN REPAIR...). Your guns fire either way. They start in front of the base, between it and the raiders, and you order them as in any battle: each has its own box on the bar beside the guns, and FOCUS FIRE sends them too. The base is still breached when its Command Bridge falls; your ships take damage and are repaired as after any battle, and their kills count for your record. While you are away, your base's guns fight alone.

Defending an alliance mate. When a mate's base on your planet is raided and one of your fleets there is set to ALLIES, you are told in amber: ALLY UNDER ATTACK, with your fleets that can join listed as on your own base's prompt. Switch one off before the first shot to keep it out. You fight on the defender's side and order your own ships; the base's guns stay its owner's. Only fleets set to ALLIES go to a mate's base, and only while you are online.

After a breach your base is shielded for 6 hours. Nobody can attack it, and a shield bubble shows round your outpost. Attacking another commander, their fleet or their base, ends your shield early. A base that held gets no shield.

Repairs start by themselves. Every destroyed building starts repairing at once, all at the same time, at its usual repair price and time with your Repair Bays' discount. The Command Bridge rebuilds free in 10 minutes and keeps its level while it does, so your pads, build cards and Mark stay. Damaged buildings are repaired after that, through your Repair Bays. A repair you cannot pay for waits, tagged NEEDS RESOURCES, and starts by itself as soon as you can pay, even while you are offline.

In the Base View a destroyed building stands sunk and burning and a damaged one smokes, each with a tag counting its repair down, and a repair bar lists them all. REPAIR NOW on a tile finishes that building for coins, and REPAIR ALL finishes them all. The price is by the time left, and the last five minutes are free; a damaged building still waiting its turn also pays its materials.

Coming back. If you were away, WHILE YOU WERE AWAY lists the raid at your next login, and the Base View waits with YOUR BASE WAS BREACHED: who it was, when, what you lost and what your vault kept, the damage and its repairs, your shield and your Infamy. Under the raider's name, THEIR BASE says where the raider's own base stands, planet and sector: press it to go to that planet. For 24 hours its STRIKE BACK takes you to the raider's base, whatever the difference in level. A click on the raider's name opens their profile.

The Tide raids bases

From commander level 15, the Tide may raid your base while you are online: never in your first week, and at most once a day. You get two minutes' warning: TIDE RAID INBOUND counts down at the top of the screen, and GO TO BASE takes you home to bring your fleets in or stand at the guns. The raid itself is fought as any raid.

If the Tide breaches your base, its raiders stay on the planet for ten minutes with your loot aboard: beat them before they warp out and the cargo is yours. Holding against them pays as beating any Tide fleet does, and it counts for the Bases Held medal.

Tide incursions

At times one of the Tide's three flagship fleets breaks into the sector: the Hivemind, the Leviathan or the Overmind. Each is five capital ships, one of them its great flagship, which counts as two ships. Every commander is told, and it stays for 45 minutes.

While it is here a tracker on your screen shows the fleet, its health, the time left and the pot, with a chip under it for its threat, its form, the Tide cores each if it is destroyed and the week's twist (click the chip for the Tide Threat panel), and a board lists the commanders who have done the most damage. Find it in Sector View and attack it like any Tide fleet. While you fight it the battle screen shows your share of the damage live.

The board has a second side, ALLIANCES, which adds the same damage up by alliance. When three or more members of one alliance have each hurt the fleet, every one of them is paid a tenth on top of their share. See Alliances.

The tracker can be minimized: press the small button at its right end and it becomes a chip at the right of the screen, with the fleet, its health and the time left, and the board is put away. The + on the chip brings both back. A click on the tracker itself goes through to whatever is under it.

It is fought one battle at a time, and it keeps the damage each battle leaves on it, so commanders wear it down one after another. While another commander's battle with it is running you cannot attack it, but you can watch that battle. No single fleet is meant to break it: expect a strong fleet to lose ships to it and a weaker one to be destroyed. What counts is the damage you do before that.

Threat. Each flagship has its own threat level, from 1 to 10; all three started at 3. When an incursion ends its flagship's threat moves: destroyed, +1; left at 25% health or less, no change; left above 25%, -1. The Tide Threat panel (the chip under the tracker, or TIDE THREAT on the Weekly Bounties panel) shows the three levels, what each flagship's last visit did, when it comes next and what its level does.

Weekly twists. From threat 4 an incursion also brings the week's twist. There are seven, one a week in turn, and the week turns on Monday at 00:00 UTC. This week's is on a chip under the tracker and in the Tide Threat panel, with next week's.

The pot is shared by damage done. A commander who did a tenth of the damage gets a tenth of what is paid, fragments included. If the fleet is destroyed the whole pot is paid. If the time runs out and it leaves, the pot is paid by how far it was worn down: a fleet that left at half health pays half.

Tide cores are paid only when the flagship is destroyed: every commander who did at least 5% of the damage gets the same number, at least one. Cores and fragments are spent at the Relic Forge.

When the flagship is destroyed, a panel at the top of the screen says so for as long as the result stays up: how far its threat rises and when it comes next, the four biggest shares of the damage (yours lit), what your share paid, your cores, and a medal if the kill earned you one.

Damage counts what your battles took off its hulls and armour. Shields do not count: they are back for the next battle. It is counted ship by ship: each ship is worth the same, the flagship twice, whatever its size, so the same damage moves the fleet's health further on a smaller ship. A commander who is offline when the incursion ends is paid at their next sign-in. You never lose a ship to it.

How a battle is fought

A battle is fought on the game server, each ship starting from its place in your formation. It begins ten seconds after the two fleets meet: both stop where they met and nothing fires until the ten seconds are up. If one of the fleets is yours, a prompt comes up wherever you are, with the seconds left and a WATCH button.

Every ship starts on autopilot. You can leave the battle to fight itself, take command of your own fleet and give its ships orders, or just watch (the next two sections). While it lasts both fleets stay where they met, marked in combat, and your fleet's row reads IN BATTLE. On the map a fleet in battle takes no orders.

Ships on autopilot fly the fight:

A shot stops at the first enemy ship on its line, so a ship in front shields the one behind it. No two ships ever occupy the same space, and weapon range is measured from hull to hull.

Damage is real and it stays. Your ships keep the damage they took until you repair them, and a destroyed ship comes home as a wreck to repair, not as a loss. A Tide fleet that survives keeps its damage too, so a strong one can be worn down over several attacks. One you destroy is gone from the map and returns, whole, about five minutes later.

A victory pays. Beating a Tide fleet pays resources (see Tiers of the Tide), and beating another commander pays XP, Infamy, resources and sometimes a module (see Battles between commanders). A defeat or a draw pays nothing.

Commanding a battle

Open the battle of one of your own fleets, with WATCH on the prompt or on the command bar, and you are its commander. Every ship of yours starts on AUTO. Give a ship an order and that one ship is yours to fly: it shows MANUAL and does what you told it until you hand it back.

Left click picks ships and right click gives them orders:

On the field, your ships and the enemy's wear brackets, and each picked ship draws a line to its target: green when the target is in range, amber when it is out of range, red when it is closer than the ship's guns can fire. A marker shows where a move order is going, and a red chevron sits over an enemy that is locked on to one of your ships. With one ship picked, or the pointer held on a ship, its firing arcs and its reach are drawn. While you command a fleet battle, Alt is only for Alt + click and draws no other arcs; in a raid, holding it also shows every gun the base has left.

Only you can order your ships, and only from the battle's own view. Leave the view and they go back to the autopilot by themselves. Anybody watching your battle sees your orders carried out and cannot give one.

Overdrive and active modules

Your ships have things to switch on in a fight. The panel at the bottom right of a commander's battle screen holds them: the OVERDRIVE dial, and a tile for each active module fitted to the ship you have picked.

Overdrive. Every ship has it. It charges by itself while the battle runs and the dial fills as it does. Press the dial, or Space, when it is full:

Active modules. These are the timed special modules of the Tech Tree: research one, build it in the Forge and fit it in Outfitting like any other module, and the ship that carries it gets a tile. Press the tile and the module runs; then the tile counts the seconds until it is ready again.

Those are the numbers of an unmarked module, by tier. Each runs for 6 to 14 seconds and is ready again 16 to 24 seconds after it stops. A module's Mark makes it do more, run longer and come back sooner. Harder to hit means a shot that would have hit has that chance to miss. A field (Scrambler, Interdictor) reaches that far from the hull that carries it, and is drawn round the ship as a dashed ring while it runs.

On the field a ship in Overdrive burns brighter and wears a glow, a running module names itself under the ship with the seconds it has left, and an enemy caught in a field reads SCRAMBLED or SLOWED. A small bolt beside one of your ships means its Overdrive is full. Anybody watching the battle sees all of that; only the commander has the panel.

Watching a battle

Any battle can be watched, by anyone: your own, or one another commander is fighting, with the Tide or with somebody else. Select a fleet that is fighting, yours or not, and press WATCH on the command bar. Your view goes to the battle and shows it as it happens.

Shield and health are two different things. A shield takes most of every hit while it lasts, nine tenths at the very most: at least a tenth of each hit goes past it to the armor and the hull, however strong the shield. It drains, and recharges when the ship is left alone for a few seconds; it is full again after the battle and costs nothing. Health is the ship's hull and armor together: damage to it lasts until you repair it. Every health percentage in the game, here, on the result and in a battle report, is hull and armor only and never counts the shield.

When the battle ends its verdict shows over the field. If it was your battle, the result screen follows. Anyone still watching is taken back to where they were about twenty seconds later. The map's own fleet orders are not available from inside a battle's view: leave the battle first.

The battle result

When the battle ends, the result opens by itself: VICTORY, DEFEAT or DRAW, how long the battle ran, and every ship of both fleets with the health it came out with (INTACT, DAMAGED or DESTROYED). Under them is the repair estimate for your fleet: the time and the resources it will take.

REPAIR FLEET starts those repairs straight from the result. It lights up when your fleet is back at base: a fleet that lost is brought home for you, and one that won is still out and has to be recalled first. CONTINUE closes the result. WATCH REPLAY plays the battle back (see Replays).

The result also says what a victory paid. The REWARDS strip holds what the winner was given: XP and resources, for beating the Tide or another commander. After a battle with another commander the line under BATTLE TIME also gives your Infamy (what the battle moved it by and where it stands now) and any module that was salvaged: taken from the enemy's wrecks if you won, lost to the enemy if you did not.

Battle reports

Every battle your fleets fight is kept as a report. Open Battle Reports with the crossed-swords button at the bottom right of the HUD. The newest is at the top, and the game keeps your last 50.

A report you were shown as the battle ended counts as read. One you pick from the list or open becomes read. The number on the HUD button is how many you have not read.

Who you fought. On the result of a battle against another commander, and on a raid's result, their name opens their commander profile; CLOSE brings you back to the report. A Tide fleet's name is not a link.

While you were away. If a battle ends while you are offline, the game tells you the next time you log in: the newest battles, the ships you lost and destroyed, and the repairs waiting for you. VIEW REPORTS takes you to the list.

In chat, a shared report shows as a chip under the message, with its result on it. Hold the pointer on the chip for a summary, and click it to read the whole report. Reading someone else's report never lets you repair or change their fleet.

Replays

Battles between commanders and attacks on bases are recorded, and anyone can watch them. Press WATCH REPLAY on the result screen or the raid result when the battle ends, or in Battle Reports with the report picked. A battle with a Tide fleet is not recorded, and its WATCH REPLAY stays dark.

Everyone can watch. When a battle between commanders or an attack on a commander's base ends, its sector's chat says how it ended, with Watch the replay: anyone can click it, and the chat keeps it for those who log in later. A battle report shared in chat has WATCH REPLAY too.

A replay opens in the battle's view, as a battle you watch does, and starts at the first shot. Only you see it, and nothing in it can be changed. A raid's replay shows all of the raid: the base on its deck, its buildings falling, the domes, the tags and LOOT TAKEN filling as it did.

A replay is kept for 7 days. One shared in chat is kept for good, so anyone who opens the report from the link can watch it too.

How damage works

Every hit passes through the target's defences in a fixed order:

1. Resistance for that damage type reduces the hit once. No ship resists more than 75% of any damage type, and each extra resistance module adds a little less than the one before it.
2. Shields absorb it first, but never more than 90% of a hit: at least a tenth always goes past the shield. A weapon's shield bypass counts instead when it is more than that tenth. Taking hits pauses shield recharge.
3. Armor takes what gets through (armor-bypass damage skips it).
4. Hull takes the rest. At zero hull, the ship is destroyed.

The full formula, with bypass and damage multipliers, is in the Stat Scaling guide.

The galaxy

The Frontier is divided into sectors. Each holds solar systems, planets, commanders' outposts, processing complexes and resource fields, joined by warp lanes. Use the Sector and Planet views to move around it.

The Tide

The Alien Hive is in the sector. Its fleets sit among the solar systems and drift between them under their own power, and every fleet marker shows the fleet's name and tier under its owner's. They do not attack you; you attack them. Read what is known about them in the Lore.

Coming to the Frontier