“Something is out there calling. Find out what it is before somebody else does.”
— Fleet Admiral Selene Voss
Where signals come from
From commander level 10, three new signals reach you every three hours (at 00:00, 03:00, 06:00 UTC and so on), and each one lasts six hours, so up to six can wait at once. They are yours alone: nobody else sees them.
Open them with the dish button on the HUD, beside the battle reports button. A number on it means a fleet of yours is waiting at a signal for your choice. Every signal also has a marker on the sector map: its icon, its name and how long until it fades. Click a marker to look at that signal's own deep-space view.
| A signal is | How often | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Derelict | 4 in 10 | A dead warship, its reactor maybe still warm |
| Distress call | 3 in 10 | A freighter under attack by the Tide |
| Tide cache | 1 in 4 | A store the Tide grew on dead rock, with its guards. One tier above the others |
| Ancient relay | 1 in 20 | The rare one: an old relay ring that still sends |
A signal's tier follows your commander level: about one tier for every 3.3 levels, from 1 to 15 (level 10 finds tier 3, level 50 tier 15). The tier sets the Tide fleets you may meet there and how much it pays.
The Signals panel and scanning
The panel lists every signal you have, with its kind, its risk chip and when it fades. Pick one to open it below: what it is, what it can pay, and the fleet that would go.
| Button | What it does |
|---|---|
| SEND FLEET | Sends the fleet shown (one of your deployed fleets; the arrows choose another) to the signal |
| SCAN | Spends a scanner charge to reveal an unknown signal |
| VIEW | Takes you into the signal's deep-space view. BACK TO SECTOR brings you back |
| CHOOSE | Takes SEND FLEET's place once your fleet has arrived: opens the choice |
About one signal in four arrives as an UNKNOWN SIGNAL (every relay does). Your scanner holds 3 charges and gets one back every 3 hours. A scan tells you what it is before you commit a fleet.
Sending a fleet and choosing
- Deploy a fleet, open the panel, pick the signal and press SEND FLEET.
- The fleet flies to the signal's marker and warps into its view.
- The choice opens by itself, with Fleet Admiral Voss on it: three ways to work the signal, each with its time, its risk and its pay.
- Pick one. The fleet works the signal for that long, then you are paid and the fleet comes home.
| Risk | What happens |
|---|---|
| No risk | The fleet works for the time shown, then you are paid |
| A chance of an ambush | A roll: on the chance shown a Tide fleet of the signal's tier warps in first. Win and you are paid at once; lose and the signal goes dark with nothing paid |
| A fight | Always a battle against the Tide fleet there. Won, you are paid at once |
Pay marked per tier is multiplied by the signal's tier. A module crate is a ship module of your faction, picked from the ones you have researched, put straight into your stores. A commander without a faction has no faction modules to find, so a crate pays 500 coins per tier instead. Relic fragments go to the Relic Forge.
| Derelict | Time | Risk | Pays |
|---|---|---|---|
| Salvage carefully | 4 min | None | 1 module crate, 150 coins per tier |
| Strip it fast | 30 s | 40% ambush | 2 module crates, 1 blueprint fragment, 150 coins per tier |
| Pull the reactor | 15 min | None | 1 relic fragment and 250 coins per tier |
| Distress call | Time | Risk | Pays |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drive off the attackers | A fight | Battle | 400 coins per tier |
| Pull the crew out | 5 min | None | 200 coins per tier |
| Take the cargo | 1 min | 25% ambush | 2,000 minerals, 500 helium-3 and 100 antimatter per tier |
| Tide cache | Time | Risk | Pays |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fight the guard | A fight | Battle | 1 module crate, 2 relic fragments per tier |
| Slip in | 1 min | 50% ambush | 1 relic fragment per tier |
| Drain it from range | 20 min | None | Relic fragments: half the tier, rounded up |
| Ancient relay | Time | Risk | Pays |
|---|---|---|---|
| Decode it | 10 min | None | 2 blueprint fragments |
| Rip out the core | 30 s | 60% ambush, 2 tiers above the signal | 1 module crate, 4 blueprint fragments |
| Copy its star charts | 5 min | None | 1 blueprint fragment, 100 coins per tier |
Blueprint fragments are counted and kept. What they will be spent on is still being built.
Give a fleet another order while it waits or works and the signal is open again: you can send a fleet later, before it fades.
Fights among the asteroids
A fight at a signal, an ambush or a battle you chose, happens among that signal's own ring of asteroids and wrecks: the same ones its view shows, round the derelict, freighter, cache or relay in the middle. The ring turns slowly, once every ten minutes.
| The rocks | |
|---|---|
| Block ships | A ship steers round a rock or wreck, never into it. There is always room between them for the largest hull |
| Block shots | A shot that crosses a rock stops on it, with a flash of dust |
So a rock between you and the enemy is cover, for both sides. Nobody starts inside the ring's bodies: both fleets open in clear space on either side of the middle.
Anybody may watch: while the fight lasts it has a red WATCH marker on the sector map for every commander, as any battle does. The signal itself stays yours.
Weekend events
Every weekend, from Friday 18:00 UTC to Monday 00:00 UTC, one event runs for everybody. A banner at the top of the screen names it, says what it changes and when it ends, and Fleet Admiral Voss announces it once a weekend. Click the banner for the calendar of the coming weekends.
| Event | What changes |
|---|---|
| Tide Surge | A beaten Tide patrol comes back in 1 minute instead of 5, its wrecks pay twice the resources, and Tide battles count 1.5 times toward the weekly bounties |
| Rich Fields | Mining holds fill 1.5 times as fast |
| Salvage Weekend | Signals pay twice the module crates, and the chance of salvaging a module from a beaten commander's ship is doubled |
They take turns, one a weekend. Incursions are not changed by any event.
Starting values. The number of signals, their timings and pay, the chances and the events' numbers may all change.