W.E.B. — Rules Reference

The Galaxy Awakens

Aeons ago, a great galactic war shattered civilization across the stars. The conflict was so devastating that entire sectors were reduced to silence. Warp lanes went dark. Worlds that had once traded freely across light-years found themselves isolated, cut off from neighbors they could no longer reach. Over the millennia that followed, knowledge faded. Technologies were forgotten. The galaxy slid into a long barbarism, and the war that caused it passed out of memory entirely.

No one remembered the ancient highways between the stars — until explorers from a handful of resurgent civilizations ventured beyond their own systems and discovered something extraordinary: warp gates. Massive ring-like structures orbiting near every star, built by a forgotten race in an age no one can date. The gates were dormant but intact, connected to one another in a vast web-like network spanning the galaxy. With enough study, engineers learned that a ship equipped with a specialized warp field generator could activate a gate, opening a near-instantaneous corridor to the next gate along the network.

This discovery changed everything. Civilizations that had spent centuries rebuilding on single worlds suddenly had access to the stars again. But expansion brings need: the advanced industries and infrastructure required to sustain interstellar society demand far more resources than any one planet can provide. Minerals, population, production capacity — the hunger for growth is insatiable, and every neighboring system is a prize worth claiming.

You are one of these resurgent empires. Your scientists have cracked the secret of the warp gates, and your fleets are ready to push outward along the ancient lanes. But you are not alone. Other empires have made the same breakthrough, and they have the same ambitions you do.

Scattered among the stars you will also find independent civilizations — worlds that have rebuilt enough to field local defense fleets but have not yet unlocked the secret of the gates. They cannot project power beyond their own system, but they are far from helpless. Some may welcome you as liberators; others will fight to the last ship. How you treat them will shape your reputation across the galaxy.

And in the dark spaces between the civilized belts — the Dead Systems and drifting asteroid fields at the galaxy's edge — pirates lurk. These lawless fleets prey on any system rich enough to plunder, raiding along the warp lanes from hidden bases in regions too remote or too dangerous for legitimate settlement. They answer to no empire and respect no treaty (see Pirates). Left unchecked, a pirate armada can grow powerful enough to threaten even a well-defended frontier.

Victory

The war ends when one empire establishes dominance. There are three paths to victory:

• Galactic Conquest: Control 50% or more of the galaxy's colonizable systems. Your empire's reach becomes undeniable.
• Homeworld Capture: Seize 3 enemy home worlds. Crushing your rivals at their seat of power breaks their capacity to resist.
• Population Supremacy: If neither of the above is achieved by the turn limit, the empire with the largest total population across all its worlds wins a marginal victory — the most prosperous civilization outlasts the others.

Galactic Ranking

Win or lose, every finished game earns you a score based on how many players you beat. In a 9-player game, the winner beat 8 rivals and scores 8 points. Second place beat 7 and scores 7. Last place scores 0.

Bigger games mean bigger scores. Coming in 2nd out of 9 players (7 points) is worth more than winning a 4-player game (3 points). This rewards commanders who test themselves in the largest wars the galaxy has to offer.

Your Galactic Ranking in the Hall of Fame is your average score across all finished games. You need at least 3 completed games to appear on the ranked leaderboard.

Empires that are eliminated during a game are ranked by how long they survived — holding out to turn 20 places you above someone knocked out on turn 5. Empires that abandon a game (AI takeover) receive last place for that game, scoring 0 points. There is always something to play for, even when the war turns against you.

Victory Rewards

Winners earn credits that can be used to join future games:

• Large games (9+ players): The winner earns 2 credits and the runner-up earns 1 credit.
• Smaller games (under 9 players): The winner earns 1 credit.

Skilled commanders can sustain their campaigns through victory alone. The bigger the war, the greater the spoils.

Strategy Overview — Explore, Expand, Secure

The early game is a race to explore the galaxy and expand your borders. Every habitable system you claim serves two purposes: it increases your production capacity (more factories building more ships) and it secures mineral income to feed those factories and keep your fleet supplied with Ion-9 crystals.

But production alone won't sustain a growing empire. You need a steady flow of minerals — the raw material behind everything you build and everything that keeps your ships in the fight. There are three sources of minerals in the galaxy:

• Habitable Systems (Planets A–E): Your primary mineral source. Each colonized world starts with some minerals on hand and generates more each turn through its minerals-per-turn rate. Higher-quality planets tend to produce more. Population not used for production automatically mines minerals, adding to the stockpile.
• Dead Systems: These blasted worlds carry no population and produce nothing on their own, but some contain mineral stockpiles — salvageable remnants from the ancient war. Claim a Dead System by placing a Starbase, and your ships can load the minerals. Once collected, the stockpile is not replenished — Dead Systems are a one-time windfall, not a long-term supply line.
• Asteroid Fields: Dangerous but rewarding. Freighters stationed in an asteroid field mine +1 mineral per turn each (up to their 3-mineral cargo capacity). The risk is real — ships take debris damage every turn — but a well-protected mining fleet can generate a reliable stream of minerals from a source that never runs dry.

Smart commanders don't just build fleets — they build supply chains. Use Freighters to shuttle minerals from mining systems and asteroid operations to your production centers and home world. A powerful fleet without minerals behind it is a fleet that will slowly starve.

1. System Types

The galaxy is made up of many different kinds of locations. Some are thriving worlds with populations and industry; others are barren wastelands or hazardous phenomena left behind by the ancient cataclysm. Understanding what you'll find at each type of system is essential before committing your fleets.

1a. Star Systems (Quality A–E)

Star systems are habitable worlds with populations, industry, and natural resources. Each is rated by quality from A (best) to E (poorest), which determines its population capacity, industrial base, and growth potential.

Interestingly, the most developed worlds are not always the richest in raw materials. Higher-quality systems spent centuries building up their infrastructure before rediscovering the gates — their mines are well-established but increasingly depleted. Lower-quality systems, while less developed, often sit on untapped mineral wealth that fuels rapid expansion for any empire willing to invest in their growth.

Most star systems you encounter will be controlled by independent civilizations — worlds that have rebuilt enough to field local defense fleets but have not yet unlocked the secret of the warp gates. Their reaction to your arrival depends on your empire's reputation (see Independent Systems).

1b. Home Systems

Every player begins the game with a home system — a Class B world that serves as the heart of your empire. Home systems are better-established than typical colonies, with higher starting population, industry, and planetary defense.

1c. Dead Systems

Scattered across the galaxy are worlds that bear the scars of the ancient war — planets blasted so thoroughly by the devastating weapons of those forgotten empires that they can no longer sustain life. Their atmospheres burned away, their surfaces reduced to irradiated glass, these Dead Systems are silent monuments to the destruction that ended the previous age.

• No population, no industry, no natural mineral production.
• Some Dead Systems still contain mineral stockpiles — leftover war materiel or salvageable debris from the old civilization. However, you must first claim the system by placing a Starbase before your ships can access these minerals. Once collected, they are not replenished.
• A Starbase is the only way to claim ownership of a Dead System, since there is no population to conquer or negotiate with.
• Dead Systems may harbor pirate fleets — scavengers lurking among the ruins (see Pirates).
• If two or more empires attempt to place a Starbase at the same Dead System on the same turn, all placements are cancelled and each Starbase is returned to its Freighter. No one claims the system.

1d. Asteroid Fields

Asteroid fields are resource-rich but dangerous locations. Fleets stationed there face ongoing hazards, and only Freighters can mine minerals from the debris.

Debris Damage:

Ships in an asteroid field take damage from collisions with debris each turn:

• Each affected ship is destroyed (one hull point or not, it's a debris strike).
• If a Freighter is destroyed, all cargo it was carrying is spilled and lost.
• Pirate fleets are immune to asteroid damage.
• Fleets that are moving through (not stationary) skip the per-turn 5% check, but still take the 5% arrival hit at their destination.

Freighter Mining:

Freighters stationed in an asteroid field automatically mine minerals:

• Each surviving Freighter with free cargo space mines +1 mineral per turn.
• Freighters whose cargo hold is full (3 minerals max per Freighter) do not mine.
• Mining happens after debris damage is applied, so only surviving Freighters mine.

Movement & Trapping:

Only Cruisers (CR) and Destroyers (DD) carry warp field generators powerful enough to activate the ancient warp gates. All other ship types (Freighters, Missile Ships) require a Cruiser to activate the gate for them. Novas carry a small generator that can only move themselves.

Combat in Asteroid Fields:

• Missile Ships are nearly useless in asteroid fields, raising their to-hit number from 5 to 10 (on a d10, essentially impossible). The iron-nickel cores inside tumbling asteroids generate chaotic, shifting magnetic fields as they spin. In a dense field, thousands of these rotating metallic bodies create an electromagnetic storm of overlapping anomalies that overwhelms missile guidance systems — targeting locks break within seconds, inertial navigation drifts wildly, and the missiles veer off course into the rocks long before reaching anything living.
• All other ship combat stats remain unchanged.
• Starbases cannot be placed in asteroid fields.

Pirate fleets may also lurk at asteroid fields. They are immune to debris damage and use asteroid fields as staging areas for raids into nearby systems (see Pirates).

1e. Nebulas

Nebulas are dense clouds of interstellar gas and charged particles that drift between the stars. Ships can pass through freely, but the electromagnetic interference disrupts targeting systems and makes sustained operations impossible.

• +1 to-hit penalty for all ships — targeting through the interference is difficult.
• No ambush allowed — sensor readings are too unreliable to set a trap.
• No Starbases can be placed in a nebula.
• All fire is resolved simultaneously — ships destroyed in a round still get to fire that round. Hits are pooled and applied at the end of each phase.
• Nebulas have no population, no industry, and no resources.

1f. Ion Nebulas

Ion nebulas are far more dangerous than ordinary nebulas. The intense ion storms surging through these regions disable ship shields entirely, stripping away the energy barriers that normally protect hulls from weapons fire.

• All rules from regular nebulas apply (no ambush, no Starbases, +1 to-hit, simultaneous fire).
• All ships are reduced to 1 HP regardless of their normal hit points. A single hit destroys any ship — Destroyer or Starbase, it makes no difference.

1g. Black Holes

Black holes are gravity wells of absolute destruction. Any fleet that enters a black hole is instantly and completely destroyed — ships, cargo, and all. There is no combat, no intel gathered, no survivors. Just total annihilation.

• Black holes are visible on the star map. Flying into one is entirely avoidable — and entirely your fault if it happens.
• Discovering a black hole (by having it on a connected warp lane) reveals its position permanently.
• There is exactly one black hole per galaxy.

2. Independent Systems & Diplomacy

Scattered across the galaxy are independent systems — star systems controlled by minor factions that are not aligned with any player empire. They have their own fleets, defenses, and attitudes. How they react to you depends on your reputation and a bit of luck.

2a. First Contact

When one of your fleets arrives at an independent system for the first time, a reaction roll determines how that faction feels about you. The result is permanent for that system and is specific to your empire — other players get their own separate rolls.

The reaction roll is a d10, modified by your current reputation:

• Neutral — The faction tolerates your presence. Ongoing diplomacy begins.
• Join — The faction welcomes you and will transfer control of the system next turn.
• Rogue Join — The system’s civilian government agrees to join your empire, but the local fleet brass go rogue — they refuse to submit to your authority and break from their own government. You gain control of the system and its population next turn, but the NPC defense fleet remains hostile, operating as independent warlords who will attack your ships on sight. You’ll own the world but still need to deal with the mutinous fleet orbiting it.
• Hostile — The faction declares war on you immediately. Their fleet will attack your ships on sight.

2b. Ongoing Diplomacy

When an independent system is Neutral toward you, diplomacy is ongoing. Each turn that you have at least one ship stationed there, a diplomacy roll occurs automatically.

The system tracks a hidden diplomacy level (1–9) that shifts each turn based on a d10 roll:

• Effective roll = d10 + your reputation modifier (see the Reputation table below)
• A natural 10 shifts +2 (toward friendship) if you have no penalties; +1 if any penalty applies.
• A natural 1 always shifts −1 (toward hostility), regardless of modifiers.
• Effective roll of 7+ shifts +1 (improving relations).
• Effective roll of 1 or less shifts −1 (worsening relations).
• Everything else: no change that turn.

The diplomacy level has named stages so you can track how things are going:

• If the level drops to 0, the faction goes Hostile and declares war.
• If the level reaches 10, the faction joins your empire and you gain control of the system on the following turn. However, there is a 33% chance that the system's fleet defects to the pirates instead of staying under your command (a "rogue join"). You still gain the system, but the fleet is lost.

2c. Reputation

Your reputation is a permanent, empire-wide score that tracks how you have treated independent systems. It is shown in the top bar of your player portal. Everyone starts at Neutral.

What damages your reputation:

• Attacking an independent system that is Neutral toward you. Each attack damages your reputation by one step (e.g. Neutral → Questionable).

What improves your reputation:

• Successfully completing ongoing diplomacy (reaching diplomacy level 10 while keeping a ship present) with a Neutral independent system. Each successful integration improves your reputation by one step (e.g. Questionable → Neutral).
• Only ongoing diplomacy counts — an initial reaction roll of Join does not improve your reputation.
• Destroying a pirate fleet: If your forces completely annihilate a pirate fleet in combat — not merely damage it, but wipe it out to the last ship — your reputation improves by one step. The galaxy takes notice when an empire has the courage to eradicate pirate scourges. This can only improve your reputation once per turn, no matter how many pirate fleets you destroy (see Pirates).

2d. Consequences of Attacking Neutral Systems

If you attack an independent system that is currently Neutral toward you and score at least one hit, several things happen:

1. Your reputation is damaged by one step.
2. That system's reaction flips to Hostile — they will fight you from now on.
3. Any ongoing diplomacy with that system is destroyed (diplomacy level reset to 0).
4. Solidarity rolls occur at nearby independent systems (see below).
5. Diplomacy levels at all other independent systems you've visited may drop.

2e. Hostile Independent Systems

Once an independent system is Hostile toward you, there is no going back:

• Their fleet will attack your ships on sight every turn.
• Diplomacy is no longer possible with that system.
• Hostility is per-player — another player may still be Neutral or friendly with the same system.
• The only way to control a Hostile independent system is to conquer it by force (destroy all defenders, then invade).

2f. Joining & Integration

When an independent system joins your empire (via a Join reaction roll or completing diplomacy), the transfer happens on the following turn:

• You gain full ownership of the system, its population, and its mineral stockpile.
• The system's former defense fleet is disbanded.
• If the join was earned through diplomacy, your reputation improves by one step.

3. Fleet Movement

An ancient, long-forgotten race once built a vast network of warp gates near the stars of every inhabited system. These gates are connected in a web-like pattern — the warp lanes shown on your star map. The gates still function, but they require a warp field generator to activate. Once a gate is powered up, nearby ships are accelerated along the warp lane to the gate at the destination star almost instantaneously. Most of the travel time is actually spent generating the warp field and activating the gate.

Movement is always one hop per turn: you pick a connected system and your ships jump there when the turn processes.

3a. Warp-Capable Ships

Not every ship carries a warp field generator. A valid move order requires at least one ship equipped with a generator to activate the gate:

3b. Destroyer Probes

Destroyers carry only a micro-scale warp field generator — not powerful enough for sustained gate travel. When a lone Destroyer activates a gate by itself (without a Cruiser in the same move order), it overloads its power plant to force the gate open. The surge generates just enough field strength to hurl the ship through, but the strain is catastrophic: the Destroyer's systems burn out shortly after arrival. In its final moments, the ship transmits a full sensor sweep back through the gate before breaking apart. This is a probe — a one-way reconnaissance mission:

• The Destroyer reaches the target system and burns up — it is destroyed before combat round 2.
• It transmits full intel on the destination system (fleets, owner, minerals, population) except the names of systems connected beyond it.
• The defending player is not notified of the probe.
• The probe does not engage in combat and is not affected by ambush.

3c. How to Issue Move Orders

There are three ways to initiate a fleet move from the player portal:

1. Move link: Click the "Move" action link on any system card where you have warp-capable ships. This opens the move modal with that system as the origin.
2. Dropdown menu: Click the menu icon on a system card header and select "Move" from the dropdown. Same result as above.
3. Drag and drop: Drag a CR or N ship chip from the ships section of a system card and drop it onto one of the warp lane pills (the destination system names shown on the card). The move modal opens with the destination and ship type pre-filled.

All three methods open the same move modal, where you choose exactly which ships and cargo to send.

3d. Cargo & Transport

Ships can carry cargo during movement. Each ship type has different capacity:

• Cargo must be explicitly included in the move order — ships don't automatically carry what's at a system.
• Use Load/Unload orders to transfer cargo between ships and systems before issuing move orders on the same turn.
• The move modal shows how much cargo your moving ships can carry and prevents overloading.
• A Freighter that is placing a Starbase this turn cannot move or load any cargo — it is fully committed to the placement operation.

3e. What Happens When You Move

Movement is processed as Phase 3 of the turn, between the two rounds of combat. Here's the sequence:

1. Combat Round 1 — Your ships that are staying behind fight normally. Ships marked for movement do not fire in round 1 (they're preparing to jump). If enemies destroy all your staying ships, overflow damage hits the departing ships as withdrawal fire.
2. Movement — Surviving ships warp to the destination.
3. Arrival checks — If the destination is an asteroid field, each ship has a 5% chance of being destroyed by debris on arrival. If it's an independent system you haven't visited, a reaction roll is triggered.
4. Combat Round 2 — Ships that just arrived have arrival immunity: they cannot be targeted by normal fire (only ambush fire can hit them).

3f. Black Holes

If you move a fleet into a black hole, all ships and cargo are instantly destroyed. There is no combat, no intel gained — just total loss. Black holes are visible on the map, so this is entirely avoidable.

3g. Stranded Fleets

If all ships with warp field generators (Cruisers, Destroyers, and Novas) at a system are destroyed — whether by combat, debris, or withdrawal fire — any remaining ships without generators (Freighters, Missile Ships) are stranded. They have no way to activate the warp gate and cannot leave until a Cruiser arrives to gate them out.

4. Combat

Combat occurs when hostile fleets share a system. Each turn has two rounds of combat (Phases 2 and 4), with fleet movement happening in between. Understanding stances, firing order, and screening is key to winning battles.

4a. Combat Stances

Every fleet has a combat stance that determines when and how it fights:

• Conditional is the default for all fleets. Your ships won't start a fight on their own, but they'll fight back if attacked. Two Conditional fleets sharing a system will coexist peacefully.
• Attack requires you to select one or more enemy empires to target. You can set this via the Attack action on a system card. Your fleet will fire on all selected targets in both combat rounds.
• Ambush requires you to select one or more adjacent warp lanes to watch. Your fleet does not fire in round 1 — it waits. In round 2, if enemy ships arrive from a watched lane, your fleet opens fire on them. Warning: your fleet's firepower is split evenly across all watched lanes — the more gates you cover, the less damage you deal at each one. Watching a single lane concentrates your full ambush firepower on that gate.

4b. Turn Structure & Two Rounds

Combat fits into the broader turn sequence like this:

1. Phase 1 — Load/Unload cargo, place Starbases
2. Phase 2 — Combat Round 1 — Fleets fire; moving ships take withdrawal fire (see below)
3. Phase 3 — Movement — Surviving ships warp to their destinations
4. Phase 4 — Combat Round 2 — Fleets fire again; ambush fires; newly arrived ships have arrival immunity; invasion resolved
5. Phases 5–13 — Production, mining, growth, ownership changes, etc.

4c. How Firing Works

Each ship rolls a d10 to hit. If the roll meets or exceeds the ship's to-hit number, it scores a hit. Modifiers can make hitting harder.

To-hit modifiers (each adds +1 to the number needed, making it harder):

• Nebula / Ion Nebula: +1 (interference makes targeting difficult)
• Outnumbered 2:1: +1 (see section 4g)
• Ambush fire: +1 (firing from concealment is less precise)
• Asteroid field (Missile Ships only): +5 (Missile Ships need 10 to hit, nearly useless)

Modifiers stack, but the final to-hit is capped at 10. A natural 10 always has a chance to hit.

4d. Fire Order

Ships don't all fire simultaneously. They fire in a strict sequence, and hits are applied immediately — meaning early-firing ships can destroy enemies before those enemies get a chance to shoot.

The firing sequence each round is:

1. Missile Ships — fire first, can eliminate threats before they shoot
2. Starbases — fire twice (2 shots)
3. Cruisers
4. Destroyers
5. Defense Satellites
6. Novas
7. Freighters — fire last

4e. Screening Order & Damage

When your fleet takes hits, damage is absorbed by ships in screening order. The front-line ship absorbs all incoming hits until it's destroyed, then the next ship type in line takes over.

Hits are applied one at a time. Each hit reduces the front-line ship by 1 HP. When a ship reaches 0 HP, it's destroyed, and the next hit moves to the next ship in the screening order.

4f. Nova Instant-Kill

The Nova-class warship represents the cutting edge of military technology. Its anti-matter beam weapon is a breakthrough that will eventually make conventional armaments obsolete — a single focused beam can annihilate any vessel, regardless of size or armor. Military strategists agree that Novas will one day become the standard warship in every fleet. But that day hasn't arrived yet. The technology is still new, the beam targeting systems are unstable, and the anti-matter containment required makes them significantly more expensive to produce than conventional ships. For now, Novas are built for specialty roles — high-value strikes where one perfect shot can change the course of a battle.

In game terms: when a Nova scores a hit, it instantly destroys one random enemy ship, regardless of how many hit points that ship has. The target is chosen randomly from all enemy ships in the system (weighted by count).

• A Nova hit can destroy even a Starbase (10 HP) in a single strike.
• Target selection ignores screening order — any ship can be hit.
• Novas are hard to hit with (need 8+ on d10), but devastating when they connect.

4g. Outnumber Penalty

If your combat ships are outnumbered more than 2-to-1 by enemy combat ships, all your ships receive a +1 to-hit penalty (harder to land hits).

• Counted: Cruisers, Destroyers, Missile Ships, Novas
• Not counted: Freighters, Defense Satellites, Starbases
• The ratio must be strictly greater than 2:1 to trigger. Exactly 2:1 does not trigger the penalty.
• The penalty applies to all your ships for that round.

4h. Withdrawal Fire

When ships are ordered to move out of a system where combat is happening, they face withdrawal fire in round 1:

• Moving ships do not fire in round 1 — they're preparing to warp.
• Your staying ships fight and absorb hits normally (using standard screening order).
• If all staying ships are destroyed, overflow hits carry over to the departing ships.
• If staying ships survive, the moving ships escape unharmed.

4i. Arrival Immunity

Ships that arrive at a system during the movement phase (Phase 3) receive arrival immunity in combat round 2:

• Arriving ships cannot be targeted by normal fire in round 2.
• The only exception is ambush fire, which specifically targets arriving ships.
• Arriving ships also do not fire in round 2 — they're still settling in.

4j. Defense Satellites & Starbases

Defense Satellites (DS) are fixed defenses attached to a system (not a fleet):

• 3 HP, to-hit 5+, 1 shot per round.
• Only fire if the system owner has a fleet present.
• Cannot move, cannot ambush.
• Not counted for the outnumber penalty.

Starbases (SB) are the most powerful defensive unit in the game — massive orbital cities housing weapons platforms, command centers, repair bays, and the millions of crew and their families needed to keep them running. Constructing a Starbase is a monumental undertaking that permanently draws workers and their dependents away from the planet below.

• 10 HP, to-hit 3+ (best accuracy), 2 shots per round.
• One Starbase per system maximum.
• Costs 1 population from the system when built (crew, engineers, and their families relocate permanently to the station).
• Cannot be placed in nebula, ion nebula, or asteroid field systems.
• Cannot ambush, not counted for outnumber.
• Can be destroyed by a Nova instant-kill despite having 10 HP.

4k. Invasion & Conquest

After all defenders at a system are destroyed (ships, Starbases, and Defense Satellites), an invasion begins. Your ships fire at the system's Planetary Defense (PD) to take control:

Not all ships are created equal when it comes to ground operations:

• Cruisers (A) carry dedicated orbital bombardment batteries designed to strike hardened planetary defense emplacements with surgical precision, leaving civilian infrastructure untouched.
• Freighters (A) harbor multiple marine divisions in their vast cargo bays — trained ground forces who deploy via drop pods to neutralize PD installations from the surface. The cleanest way to take a planet.
• Novas (A) can direct their antimatter beam at pinpoint defensive targets from orbit. Devastating accuracy, zero collateral — though one wonders what happens to the planet if the targeting drifts.
• Destroyers (B) were built for ship-to-ship combat, not planetary operations. Their light weapons can be turned against surface targets, but they lack the targeting systems for precision strikes. Expect some stray fire hitting factories and population centers.
• Missile Ships (C) are the worst invaders in the fleet. Their long-range warheads were designed to track engine signatures in open space, not strike fixed ground positions. Against planetary targets they are wildly inaccurate, and when a warhead designed to kill a starship hits a city block instead of a defense battery, the results are catastrophic.

• Each hit against PD reduces it by 1.
• When PD reaches 0, the system is conquered. PD resets to 1 and the system enters unrest under your control.
• Collateral damage from Destroyers and Missile Ships can destroy industry and kill population during the invasion. Cruisers, Freighters, and Novas cause no collateral damage.

4l. Special Terrain Effects

Nebula:

• +1 to-hit penalty for all ships (interference).
• No ambush allowed.
• No Starbases allowed.
• All fire is resolved simultaneously — ships destroyed in a round still get to fire that round (hits are pooled and applied at the end).

Ion Nebula:

• Same rules as nebula (no ambush, no Starbases, +1 to-hit).
• The intense ion storms in these nebulae disable ship shields entirely, reducing all ships to 1 HP regardless of their normal hit points. A single hit destroys any ship.

Asteroid Field:

• Missile Ships receive +5 to-hit (need 10 to hit — nearly useless). The spinning iron-nickel cores of asteroids generate chaotic magnetic fields that overwhelm missile guidance systems, causing targeting locks to break and munitions to veer off course into the rocks.
• No Starbases allowed.
• Debris damage applies to all ships each turn (see Asteroid Fields).

5. Pirates

Pirates are a hostile NPC faction that threaten all players equally. They cannot be negotiated with, allied with, or controlled. Pirate fleets appear in red on the map and in ship reports. There are two types of pirate activity: local pirate fleets that lurk in dangerous locations, and raider fleets that actively hunt player systems for plunder.

5a. Local Pirate Fleets

Pirate fleets may be present at Dead Systems and Asteroid Fields. There is no way to know whether pirates are waiting at one of these locations until you arrive. A typical pirate fleet consists of a Cruiser and a group of Destroyers. They will remain in the system and fight any player ships that enter.

Rogue NPC fleets (from failed diplomacy) may also end up joining pirate forces, merging into any existing pirate fleet at their destination.

5b. Pirate Raiders

Beginning in the early turns of the game, organized Pirate Raider fleets will begin launching raids from Asteroid Fields, targeting player-owned systems that have accumulated mineral stockpiles. Raids become more frequent as the game progresses.

Pirate Raiders appear as a separate fleet from any local Pirates in a system. You may see both “Pirates” and “Pirate Raiders” listed under Ships Present — they are tracked independently.

When a raider fleet enters civilized space, all players will receive a warning: “Traders are reporting a large Pirate Raiding fleet approaching civilized space.” If you have ships present at the asteroid field where the raiders originate, you will receive a more specific sighting report.

5c. Raider Targeting

Pirate Raiders will head toward the closest player-owned system that has a meaningful mineral stockpile. They move one system per turn along a direct path, avoiding Black Holes.

If the raider fleet arrives at its target and finds the minerals have been depleted (fewer than 5 remaining), it will redirect to the next closest eligible target. Systems that have already been plundered will eventually become valid targets again if no fresh targets remain.

5d. Plundering

If a Pirate Raider fleet is in a system at the start of combat round 2 and there are no enemy ships, Defense Satellites, or Starbases to oppose them, they will attempt to plunder the system instead of fighting.

The outcome of a plunder depends on your Planetary Defense (PD) relative to the size of the raider fleet:

If your PD equals or exceeds the raider fleet’s Destroyer count:

• Your defenders fight off the raiders — no minerals are stolen and the system does not enter unrest.
• Your PD still takes losses from the fighting (reduced by half).
• Production is disrupted for the turn due to the chaos of the raid.
• The raiders withdraw regardless.

If the raider fleet overpowers your PD:

• Minerals are stolen — the amount depends on how much the raider fleet’s strength exceeds your PD.
• For each mineral stolen, the raider fleet gains an additional Destroyer — hired mercenaries paid from the plunder. Smugglers, deserters, and desperate freelancers flock to any pirate captain who can pay, and stolen minerals are as good as currency on the black market. The fleet leaves larger than when it arrived.
• Your PD is reduced by half from the fighting.
• The system enters a state of unrest and loses all production for the turn.
• The raider fleet then withdraws, retracing its path back to its origin.

You will receive a detailed report when raiders attempt to plunder one of your systems, whether they succeed or are repelled.

5e. Pirate Combat

Pirates fight using standard combat rules with some important differences:

• Ship capture: Half of all ships destroyed by pirates are captured instead — they are added to the pirate fleet and can be used against you in the very next combat round. Defense Satellites and Starbases cannot be captured.
• Cargo plunder: When pirates capture Freighters, they seize the mineral cargo. For each mineral captured, the pirate fleet recruits one additional Destroyer — mercenary crews bought with the stolen goods.
• No invasion: Pirates do not invade or take ownership of systems. They raid for resources, not territory. Planetary Defense may be damaged but the system remains under your control.
• Asteroid immunity: Pirate ships are immune to asteroid field debris damage.

5f. Raider Growth

The pirate faction maintains a reserve of raiding strength that grows each turn. Raider fleets grow in three ways:

• Mercenary recruiting: Each mineral stolen during a successful plunder is used to hire a mercenary Destroyer crew. The lawless fringes of the galaxy are full of paid-for-hire captains — smugglers running from debts, disgraced naval officers, and opportunists who will fly for whoever pays. Stolen minerals fund their contracts, and the pirate ranks swell with every successful raid.
• Ship capture: Ships captured during combat with any pirate fleet are added to that fleet immediately.
• Returning raiders: When a raider fleet returns home to its origin asteroid field, its remaining strength is recycled back into the pirate reserve, fueling larger future raids.

Destroying raider fleets before they can return home permanently removes those resources from the pirate faction. As the game progresses, pirate raids will become more frequent and larger. Early-game raids are manageable threats; late-game raids can field substantial fleets that require coordinated defense.

5g. Defending Against Pirates

Effective pirate defense strategies include:

• Spend your minerals. Systems with low mineral stockpiles are less likely to be targeted by raiders.
• Build up Planetary Defense. A PD force that equals or exceeds the raider fleet’s Destroyer count will completely block plundering and prevent unrest. Even partial PD reduces the amount stolen.
• Maintain garrison fleets. Even a small defensive force of ships or D-Sats will prevent plundering entirely, since raiders only plunder when no enemy ships, D-Sats, or Starbases are present.
• Intercept raiders in transit. If you spot a raider fleet moving through systems you control, you can position ships to engage them before they reach their target.
• Destroy returning raiders. Raiders retrace their route home. Engaging them on the return trip prevents their strength from being recycled into future raids.

5h. Rewards for Fighting Pirates

Empires that fight valiantly against pirate forces earn tangible rewards. The galaxy remembers those who stand against lawlessness, and independent systems take notice when nearby empires show the courage to engage pirates in battle.

Reputation Boost: If your forces completely destroy a pirate fleet — every last ship annihilated — your galactic reputation improves by one step. This applies whether the pirates were stationed at a Dead System, lurking at an asteroid field, or caught in transit. If they don’t survive the turn, it counts. This reward is granted once per turn regardless of how many pirate fleets you destroy.

Diplomatic Relations Boost: If your fleet deals significant damage to pirate forces during a turn, nearby independent systems that are currently Neutral toward you will warm to your empire. Their diplomacy level improves by one step as word of your campaign against the pirates reaches their councils. Only independent systems within a couple of warp lane hops of your battle sites are affected.

6. Economy & Production

Your empire runs on three interconnected resources: population, industry, and minerals. Mastering the economy is just as important as winning battles — fleets must be built, systems must grow, and resources must flow where they're needed most.

6a. Build Points (BP)

Everything you build costs Build Points. Each BP requires:

• 1 population (workers)
• 1 industry (factories)
• 1 mineral (raw materials)

Your BP output at a system equals min(population, industry, minerals on hand), rounded down for fractional industry. All three resources are consumed equally — if you have 5 population, 3 industry, and 10 minerals, you produce 3 BP that turn.

6b. What You Can Build

6c. Mining

Population not used for production automatically mines minerals:

• Available miners = population − BP spent
• Minerals mined = min(available miners, system's minerals/turn rate)
• Mined minerals are added to the system's stockpile and available next turn.

Systems with high minerals/turn but low industry will stockpile resources quickly. Use Freighters to transport those minerals to your production centers.

6d. Population Growth

Population grows each turn based on system quality:

• Minimum growth is always 0.1 per turn, even at low populations.
• Population cannot exceed the system's population limit.
• Systems in unrest grow at only 0.1 per turn regardless of quality.

6e. Unrest

Systems enter unrest when conquered or when population significantly exceeds planetary defense. During unrest:

• Industry output is halved (rounded down).
• Minerals per turn is halved (rounded down, minimum 1).
• Population growth drops to 0.1 per turn.

Unrest clears gradually as you build up Planetary Defense relative to population. Keeping PD close to your population level prevents unrest from triggering.

6f. Production Disruption

Production is cancelled if an enemy fleet with ATTACK orders is present at your system and you have no defending ships, D-Sats, or Starbases. Your workers cannot operate factories under threat of orbital bombardment.

6g. Fleet Maintenance — Ion-9 Crystals

Every ship in your fleet is powered by Ion-9 crystals — rare, high-energy lattices refined from raw minerals at your home world's processing facilities. Ion-9 crystals degrade with each warp jump and every weapons discharge. Without regular replacement, a ship's power core loses output: targeting systems drift, shield generators falter, and weapons fire weakens. A fleet running on stale crystals is a fleet fighting at a disadvantage.

Each turn, your home system's refineries consume minerals to produce fresh Ion-9 crystals for the entire fleet. The cost scales with fleet size:

The cost increases by 1 mineral for every additional 50 ships. All ship types count toward this total — Cruisers, Destroyers, Missile Ships, Novas, Freighters, D-Sats, and Starbases.

Payment is all-or-nothing. If the combined mineral reserves of your home system and any Gaia Systems you control cannot cover the full cost, no crystals are produced and your fleet goes unsupplied. There is no partial payment.

Combat Penalty

If your fleet is unsupplied (maintenance unpaid), all your ships suffer a 10% combat penalty (to-hit number increased by 1) until supply is restored. Ships with degraded Ion-9 crystals simply cannot aim or fire as effectively.

Payment Order

Fleet maintenance is paid after production but before mining. This means industry consumes minerals first (for Build Points), and then Ion-9 crystal costs are deducted from whatever minerals remain at your home system. If your factories use up all available minerals, there may be nothing left to supply the fleet. Plan accordingly — keep your home system stocked with enough minerals to cover both production and maintenance.

Gaia System Backup Supply

If your home system’s mineral reserves fall short of the full Ion-9 crystal cost, any Gaia Systems you control will automatically contribute their minerals to make up the difference. Your home system pays what it can first, and then each Gaia System chips in until the full cost is covered. Payment is still all-or-nothing across all sources combined — if the total from your home system plus all your Gaia Systems isn’t enough, nobody pays and the fleet goes unsupplied.

If you lose your home world entirely, an owned Gaia System can take over as your primary crystal supplier. The Gaia System’s refineries aren’t as established as your home world’s, but they get the job done. If one Gaia System can’t cover the full cost alone, others you control will help cover the shortfall.

Checking Your Supply Status

Your current Ion-9 crystal cost is displayed in the top bar of the player interface, next to your total ship count. Look for the small mineral icon and number next to your Ships stat — for example:

Ships 73  (×2)

In this example, the empire has 73 ships and pays 2 minerals per turn in Ion-9 crystal maintenance. Hovering over the mineral count on your home system card will also show the breakdown of mineral usage between build points and fleet supply.

7. Ships Reference

Your fleet is composed of seven ship types, each with distinct roles. Understanding their strengths and limitations is the foundation of effective strategy.

7a. Invasion Ratings

When invading a system, different ship types have different effectiveness against Planetary Defense. Cruisers use precision orbital bombardment, Freighters deploy marine divisions via drop pods, and Novas target defenses with pinpoint antimatter beams — all without collateral damage. Destroyers can manage rough surface strikes but lack proper targeting systems. Missile Ships are the worst — their warheads were designed to track ships in open space, not hit fixed ground targets, and a missed warhead can level a city block.

8. Turn Order

Each turn is processed in a fixed sequence. Understanding this order helps you time your actions — minerals unloaded in Phase 1 are available for production in Phase 7, ships that move in Phase 3 arrive before Combat Round 2 in Phase 4.

1. Phase 1 — Load / Unload / Place Starbases
2. Phase 2 — Combat Round 1 (withdrawal fire, then phased ship fire)
3. Phase 3 — Movement (fleets warp to destination systems)
4. Phase 4 — Combat Round 2 (ambush fire, then phased ship fire; invasion resolved)
5. Phase 5 — Production (build ships, PD, industry)
6. Phase 5b — Fleet Maintenance (Ion-9 crystal cost deducted from home system)
7. Phase 6 — Mining (unused population mines minerals)
8. Phase 7 — Population Growth
9. Phase 8 — Unrest Check
10. Phase 9 — Asteroid Damage
11. Phase 10 — Ownership Changes (NPC systems joining your empire)
12. Phase 11 — NPC Join Check (diplomacy results applied)

9. The Star Map

The star map is your primary strategic view of the galaxy. It displays all known systems, the warp lanes connecting them, fleet positions, and empire territories. Learning to read the map quickly is essential.

System Symbols

Each system is drawn as a circle on the map. Inside the circle, a letter or short code tells you the system type at a glance:

If you haven’t fully explored a star system yet, the quality letter may not appear. Star system circles also scale in size based on population limit — larger circles mean bigger worlds.

Circle Colors (System Ownership)

The fill color of each system circle tells you who controls it:

• Your empire’s color — a system you own
• Another empire’s color — an enemy-controlled system
• Muted blue-gray — an independent (NPC-controlled) system
• Very dark / dim — a system in the fog of war (unexplored)

System Name Labels

The name label below each system is also color-coded:

• Bright white — your system
• Red — an enemy-owned system
• Muted / dim — neutral, NPC, or unexplored

Home System Star

Home systems are marked with a five-pointed star outline drawn around the circle, in the empire’s color. This makes capitals easy to spot at any zoom level.

Warp Lanes

Thin lines connecting systems represent warp lanes — the only routes your fleets can travel. The galaxy is displayed on a sphere, so lanes wrap naturally around the globe with no artificial edges.

Fleet Orbit Dots

Small colored dots orbiting a system show fleets present there. Each dot represents one empire’s fleet at that system.

• Your empire’s color — your fleet
• Another empire’s color — a foreign fleet
• Red — pirate or hostile fleet
• Gray — neutral fleet

If a fleet has more than one ship, the count appears inside the dot.

Pulsing Threat Alerts

Systems under threat display a pulsing ring around the circle:

• Red pulse — hostile fleets (pirates or enemies) are present at this system right now
• Amber pulse — the system is threatened but no hostile fleet is on-site yet

Empire Borders

Soft, glowing colored blobs in the background show approximate empire territory. These borders connect your owned systems along warp lanes, giving you a quick sense of where each empire’s space begins and ends.

Fog of War

You can only see systems you have explored. Unexplored systems appear very dark and dim, with muted warp lanes. A system becomes visible when:

• You own it or have owned it previously
• It is adjacent to a system you own (you can see one lane away)
• You have probed it

Using the Map

Hover over any system to see a tooltip with details: system name, type, owner, population, industry, minerals, and your fleet composition (if present). The tooltip appears after a brief delay.

Click a system to select it. The selected system gets a bright ring highlight, and its detail card opens in the side panel.

Search using the search box at the top of the map. Type a system name and matching systems will highlight. Press Enter to jump to the best match and center the map on it.

Zoom with the +/− buttons, or use your mouse scroll wheel. Rotate the globe by clicking and dragging on empty space. The Reset button rotates back to your home system and restores the default zoom.

Appendix A — Empire Advantage Cards

At the dawn of each game, fate deals you two Empire Advantage cards. You must choose one — and that choice will define your empire’s identity for the entire war. These are not minor bonuses; they are fundamental asymmetries that shape your strategy, diplomacy, and destiny. Choose wisely. There are no second chances.

Cards fall into four categories: Combat (red), Economic (amber), Intelligence (blue), and Command (purple). Each category reflects a different philosophy of empire-building. There are 18 cards in total.

Elite Troops

Card Text

PD takes twice as many hits to destroy. Upon capturing systems, the conquered population does not start the next turn in a state of unrest. Unrest less likely to happen and recovers faster when it does. Pirates plunder only half of the minerals.

Deeper Understanding

• Planetary Defenses normally take 1 hit to destroy. With Elite Troops, they require 2 hits — effectively doubling your ground defense durability.
• When you capture a system through conquest, it normally enters unrest the following turn (population refuses to work, no production). Elite Troops completely negates this penalty — your troops are so disciplined that conquered populations fall in line immediately.
• Beyond conquest, random unrest events from other causes (pirate raids, etc.) are also less likely to trigger, and when they do occur, they resolve one turn faster.
• When pirates raid your systems, they steal only half the minerals they normally would. This stacks well with large mineral stockpiles.

Lore — “The Iron Legions”

Long before the warp lanes connected the galaxy’s great empires, your people fought a hundred colony wars across their home cluster. Generation after generation was forged in the crucible of planetary assault — orbital drops into hostile atmospheres, urban warfare through alien megacities, the grim calculus of occupation.

Other empires rely on automated defenses and orbital bombardment. Your soldiers do the work face-to-face. They’ve learned how to pacify a world in days rather than months, how to turn a conquered population into productive citizens before the smoke clears. Your planetary defense garrisons dig in so deep and fight so ferociously that attackers often break before the fortifications do.

Even the pirates have learned: raiding your worlds yields slim pickings. The garrisons are ready, the stockpiles are hidden, and the local population fights alongside their occupiers rather than against them. Your people have made an art of holding ground.

Nova Research

Card Text

Nova ships get a +1 to-hit modifier (d10), lowering the required roll by 1.

Deeper Understanding

• Nova ships normally hit on specific d10 rolls depending on the target (see the Combat section). This card lowers the required roll by 1, meaning your Novas hit more often in every engagement.
• This applies to all combat phases — whether your Novas are firing first in an ambush or exchanging fire normally.
• Novas are already the most powerful combat ship; this card makes them devastating. Even a small Nova fleet becomes a serious threat.

Lore — “Project Helios”

The anti-matter beam was the most destructive weapon ever conceived — a lance of annihilation that could crack a starship’s hull in a single discharge. But the technology was crude, wasteful. Most of the beam’s energy scattered into space, lighting up entire sectors with each firing.

Your empire poured three generations of research funding into Project Helios, a classified weapons program buried deep in an asteroid laboratory. The breakthrough came from an unlikely source: a junior physicist studying Precursor artifacts recovered from a Dead System. She discovered that certain crystalline lattice structures could focus an anti-matter beam with almost zero energy loss.

The result was terrifying. Where other empires’ Nova ships fire a blinding flash that might hit its target, yours fire a needle-thin beam of absolute destruction. Your Nova captains don’t hope to hit — they choose where to hit.

Bastion Protocol

Card Text

Starbase and D-Sat get a +1 to-hit modifier (d10), lowering the required roll by 1. Starbases have +2 hit points, making them significantly harder to destroy.

Deeper Understanding

• Both your Starbases and your Defensive Satellites benefit from the +1 to-hit accuracy bonus.
• Starbases normally have a base HP. This card adds +2 HP on top, making your Starbases require significantly more firepower to bring down.
• This is a defensive card — it doesn’t help your attacking fleets at all. Its value comes from making your systems extremely costly to assault.
• A system with a Bastion-buffed Starbase plus a few D-Sats becomes a fortress. Attackers need overwhelming force to crack it, buying you time to reinforce or counterattack.
• Consider building Starbases at key chokepoint systems where warp lanes converge — the card makes them nearly impregnable.

Lore — “The Doctrine of the Anvil”

Your empire’s military philosophy was born from necessity. Surrounded by hostile neighbors in the early expansion era, your admirals couldn’t afford to project power — every ship sent raiding was a ship not defending the homeland. So they built walls instead.

The Bastion Protocol began as a set of defensive engineering standards: reinforced hull plating, redundant shield generators, predictive targeting arrays that could track and destroy incoming ordnance before it reached the station. Over centuries, these standards evolved into a doctrine. Your Starbases aren’t just orbital platforms — they’re self-sustaining battle stations with armored cores designed to absorb punishment that would vaporize lesser structures.

“Let them come,” the old admiral’s saying goes. “The anvil does not fear the hammer.” Your enemies have learned the hard way that assaulting a Bastion station is like throwing ships into a furnace. The targeting arrays lock on faster, the guns hit harder, and the station is still firing long after it should have been destroyed.

Shield Harmonics

Card Text

Cruisers and Nova ships absorb 1 extra hit before being destroyed.

Deeper Understanding

• Cruisers and Novas each gain +1 HP, meaning they take one additional hit to destroy in combat.
• Destroyers and other ship types are not affected — only your capital ships (Cruisers and Novas).
• This is a straightforward but powerful durability buff. In a fleet-on-fleet engagement, your ships survive longer, which means they get more rounds of firing. The extra HP compounds — a ship that survives one more hit might fire two or three more times before going down.
• This card is excellent for aggressive, fleet-heavy strategies. It makes your attack fleets significantly more resilient when pushing into defended systems.

Lore — “The Resonance Discovery”

Standard shield technology works on a simple principle: a projected energy field absorbs incoming weapons fire until it collapses. Every empire uses the same basic design, and every empire’s shields fail at roughly the same threshold.

Your scientists discovered something different. By synchronizing multiple shield generators to oscillate at precisely matched frequencies, they created a resonance effect — a harmonic standing wave that reinforced itself. When one generator weakened under fire, the others compensated, pouring energy into the gap faster than weapons could drain it.

The synchronized shields shimmer with an iridescent quality that enemy captains have learned to dread. A ship wreathed in harmonic shields can wade through fire that would shred an unprotected vessel, absorbing hit after hit while its own weapons continue to fire.

Focused Beam Research

Card Text

All your Destroyers have a +1 modifier to hit, striking with surgical precision.

Deeper Understanding

• Every Destroyer in your fleet gets +1 to hit on all combat rolls.
• Destroyers are your most numerous combat ship — they’re cheap to build and you’ll have many of them. A +1 bonus across your entire DD fleet adds up to significantly more damage per engagement.
• This card is especially strong in the early game when fleets are mostly Destroyers, and remains relevant all game because DDs continue to form the backbone of your navy.
• Pairs well with aggressive expansion strategies — your cheap, accurate DDs can overwhelm NPC defenders and rival fleets cost-effectively.

Lore — “The Kessler Doctrine”

Admiral Kessler was a heretic. While every other military mind in your empire obsessed over bigger ships — heavier armor, more powerful Nova beams — Kessler argued that the future of naval warfare was the Destroyer.

“Give me a hundred precise knives over ten blunt hammers,” she famously told the War Council. She redirected your empire’s entire military-industrial complex toward a single goal: perfecting the Destroyer’s beam weapon.

Kessler’s program produced a focused-aperture beam with a targeting system so precise it could hit a specific hull plate from across a system. Your Destroyers don’t fire salvos and hope — they fire single, surgical shots that find their mark. A swarm of Kessler-doctrine Destroyers fills space with a web of perfectly aimed beams, each one threading through shield gaps and striking critical systems. Quantity has a quality all its own — especially when every shot counts.

Merchant Economy

Card Text

Freighter deliveries add 50% more minerals (minimum +1). A full freighter is worth more in your empire.

Deeper Understanding

• When your Freighters unload minerals at a system, the delivered amount is increased by 50%, with a minimum bonus of +1 mineral.
• Example: if your Freighters drop off 4 minerals in a single delivery, the system receives 6 instead (4 + 50% = 6).
• The bonus is calculated per unload order, not per individual Freighter. If a fleet of three Freighters carrying 6 minerals total unloads at once, the bonus is applied to the full 6 (bonus = 3, total = 9).
• The minimum +1 bonus means even a single mineral delivery yields 2. Small deliveries are proportionally more efficient than large ones.
• This only applies to Freighter unload orders — it does not affect natural mineral production from systems.
• The card rewards active logistics play. Players who efficiently shuttle minerals from rich systems (like Asteroid Fields) to industrial centers will get dramatically more value.

Lore — “The Guild Compact”

While other empires built warships, yours built trade routes. The Merchant Guilds were the true power in your civilization long before the first warp lane was mapped — vast trading houses that controlled the flow of every mineral, every resource, every finished product across your home cluster.

When the warp lanes opened and the galaxy beckoned, the Guilds saw not an empty frontier but the greatest marketplace in history. They invested heavily in Freighter technology: optimized cargo holds, mineral compression techniques, automated loading systems that could strip-mine an asteroid and have the cargo moving within hours.

A Freighter bearing your empire’s Guild insignia carries more than raw materials. It carries an entire logistical ecosystem — traders who know how to extract maximum value from every ton, compression technology that packs more into every hold, and trade networks that ensure nothing is wasted. Where other empires move rocks, your Guilds move wealth.

Industrious

Card Text

Systems with 4 or more factories produce +1 Build Point per turn (no extra minerals needed).

Deeper Understanding

• Any system you own with 4 or more Industry generates 1 extra Build Point each turn for free — no mineral cost.
• This effectively means those systems can build slightly more each turn than their mineral input would normally allow.
• The threshold is 4 Industry — lower-industry systems don’t benefit. This makes the card stronger on high-quality systems (A and B) that naturally have higher industry.
• Over the course of a game, that +1 BP per qualifying system per turn adds up enormously. If you have 5 qualifying systems, that’s 5 free BP every turn — equivalent to 5 free minerals of production.
• Encourages investing in factory construction to push systems to the 4-industry threshold.

Lore — “The Builder Caste”

Your people are born builders. It’s in the blood — literally. Three thousand years of selective social structure created a civilization where the most respected members of society aren’t warriors or politicians, but engineers and fabricators.

Your orbital shipyards run triple shifts around the clock. Where other empires lose efficiency to shift changes, maintenance downtime, and bureaucratic delays, your factories hum with a continuous rhythm of production. Quality never drops because the workers take personal pride in every hull plate welded, every circuit board placed.

Visitors to your industrial worlds describe it as almost eerie — the perfect choreography of thousands of workers moving in synchronized efficiency, the complete absence of idle machinery, the relentless pace that never seems to exhaust anyone. Your people don’t work hard because they’re forced to. They work hard because building things is who they are.

Asteroid Immunity

Card Text

Immune to asteroid damage. Mine 2 minerals per turn (instead of 1) for each freighter present.

Deeper Understanding

• Asteroid Fields normally damage ships that enter them. With this card, your ships take zero damage from asteroids — you can move through and station fleets in Asteroid Fields freely.
• Each Freighter in an Asteroid Field normally mines 1 mineral per turn. With this card, each Freighter mines 2 minerals per turn — double output.
• This makes Asteroid Fields go from dangerous hazards to your personal gold mines. You can park multiple Freighters safely and extract resources at twice the normal rate.
• Other players still take asteroid damage, so your Asteroid Fields are naturally defended — enemies need to accept losses to contest them.
• Strategically, this card incentivizes you to locate and control Asteroid Fields early. They become some of the most valuable systems on the map for you.

Lore — “Children of the Debris Field”

Your ancestors didn’t evolve on a planet. They evolved in the Shattered Ring — a vast debris field left behind when an ancient moon was torn apart by its gas giant’s tidal forces. For millennia, your people lived among tumbling rocks the size of continents, navigating by instinct through fields of spinning death that would pulverize any outsider’s ship.

What other species see as an asteroid field — a navigation hazard to be avoided — your pilots see as home. They read the spin patterns of thousand-ton boulders the way a sailor reads ocean swells, threading through gaps that close in seconds with a casual confidence that terrifies their passengers.

Your mining technology is equally advanced. Where other empires carefully extract minerals from a single asteroid at a time, your extraction rigs clamp onto multiple rocks simultaneously, processing ore at speeds that would be suicidal for anyone else. The galaxy’s asteroid fields aren’t obstacles for your empire. They’re the foundation of your economy.

Salvage Experts

Card Text

After surviving a battle where enemy ships are destroyed, gain 20% of total ship value destroyed as minerals. At your own systems, minerals are added directly. At other systems, requires freighters with available cargo space.

Deeper Understanding

• When you win (or survive) a battle and enemy ships are destroyed, you recover 20% of the total build cost of all destroyed enemy ships as minerals.
• At your own systems, salvaged minerals are added directly to the system’s stockpile — no Freighter needed.
• At enemy or neutral systems, you need Freighters with available cargo space present at the battle to collect the salvage. No Freighters means no salvage at foreign systems.
• The salvage is based on the total value of destroyed ships — destroying expensive ships (Novas, Cruisers) yields more than destroying Destroyers.
• This card rewards aggressive, combat-heavy play. The more you fight and win, the more your economy benefits. Wars partially pay for themselves.
• Tip: bring Freighters along with your attack fleets to capitalize on salvage at enemy systems.

Lore — “The Wreck Walkers”

Every battle leaves a field of twisted metal, vented atmosphere, and drifting hulls. Most empires see a graveyard. Your recovery teams see a warehouse.

The Salvage Corps evolved from your empire’s early days, when resources were so scarce that every scrap of metal was precious. Specialized recovery vessels would follow your war fleets into battle, hanging back at safe distance until the shooting stopped, then swarming the debris field with cutting torches and tractor beams.

Over centuries, salvage recovery became a science. Your teams can strip a destroyed cruiser to its frame in hours, sorting useful components from irradiated waste with practiced efficiency. Hull plating gets reforged. Intact circuits get repurposed. Even the exotic alloys in Nova beam focusing arrays can be reclaimed and recycled.

“War is expensive,” your Fleet Marshal once observed, “unless you’re shopping in the debris.” Your enemies have learned that defeating your empire in battle doesn’t just cost them ships — it funds your next fleet.

Galactic Spy Network

Card Text

Auto-plant spies at Independent systems whenever you have at least 1 ship over the system and is not given move orders that turn. Permanent intel even after withdrawal. 50% spy loss on ownership change.

Deeper Understanding

• Whenever you have any ship stationed at an Independent system and that fleet has no move orders for the turn, a spy is automatically planted there at the end of the turn.
• Once planted, the spy provides permanent intel on that system — you continue to see its status even after you move your ships away.
• If the system changes ownership (another player conquers it), there’s a 50% chance your spy is discovered and eliminated.
• This effectively gives you a free, passive intelligence-gathering network. Just by parking ships at Independent systems for a single turn, you build up a web of informants across the galaxy.
• The intel persists through fog of war — you’ll see fleet movements and system changes at spied systems even if they’re far from your borders.
• Works well with a scout-heavy early game strategy: send ships to many systems, pause for a turn, then move on. The spies remain behind.

Lore — “The Whispering Web”

Your empire’s intelligence services don’t operate like other nations’ spy agencies. There are no dramatic infiltrations, no single master spies risking everything behind enemy lines. Instead, your operatives work like a fungal network — quiet, patient, everywhere.

Wherever your fleets linger, even for a single rotation, agents slip into the local population. They set up shop as traders, mechanics, bartenders — unremarkable people in unremarkable positions who happen to notice everything. They recruit locals with modest payments and smaller promises. They tap into communication networks with devices no larger than a grain of sand.

The brilliance of the Whispering Web is its persistence. Long after your warships jump to the next system, the agents remain. They report through encrypted subspace bursts disguised as background radiation — invisible to anyone not listening for them. A system you visited three turns ago still whispers its secrets to you.

Even when empires change hands, the Web endures. Agents go dark, wait for the occupation forces to settle in, and resume their work. Only the most thorough purges root them out — and even then, only about half the time.

Enhanced Sensors

Card Text

Your ships detect stargate activations on the far side of each warp lane. When ambushing, you may safely select all lanes — fire only splits across lanes where fleets actually arrive (not all watched lanes). Additionally, your ambush fire suffers no accuracy penalty since your crews know precisely when and where to expect arrivals. Ships normally immune to ambush fire (e.g. cloaked ships) retain their immunity.

Deeper Understanding

• Normally, ambush fire is divided equally across all watched lanes, even empty ones. With Enhanced Sensors, your fire is only split across lanes where enemies actually arrive. If you watch 4 lanes but enemies only come through 1, you concentrate 100% of your firepower on that gate.
• Normally, ambush fire suffers a +1 to-hit penalty (firing from concealment is less precise). Enhanced Sensors removes this penalty entirely — your crews know exactly when and where ships will emerge from the stargate.
• This means you can safely select “All lanes” without any downside — you get full firepower on whatever actually shows up, at full accuracy.
• If fleets arrive from multiple lanes simultaneously, your fire splits across only those active lanes (not all watched lanes). You still benefit from no accuracy penalty.
• Ships that are immune to ambush fire (e.g. fleets with Nebula Cloaking exiting a nebula) retain their immunity. Enhanced Sensors does not override other cards’ protections.
• All other ambush rules still apply: ambush fires in Round 2 only, cannot be set in nebula systems, and Freighters/D-Sats/Starbases do not participate.

Lore — “The Resonance Arrays”

Standard ambush tactics are a gamble. You pick the lanes you think the enemy will use, spread your guns across them, and hope you guessed right. Get it wrong, and half your firepower is pointed at empty space while the real attack comes from the other side.

Your scientists solved this problem by studying the subspace resonance patterns that propagate along warp lanes when a stargate activates. Every gate activation sends a distinctive energy pulse back along the lane — a signature your tuned arrays can detect in the seconds before ships emerge. Your ambush crews don’t have to guess anymore. They know exactly which gate is about to open, exactly when the first ship will materialize, and exactly where to aim.

The result is devastatingly efficient ambush fire. While other empires scatter their guns and fire blind into the flash of an opening gate, your crews are already locked on target, timing their volleys to the millisecond. Nothing gets through your lanes unannounced.

Ancient Archives

Card Text

Start with full intel on all systems within 2 hops. Get waypoint trails toward nearest Asteroid Field and Gaia System.

Deeper Understanding

• At game start (Turn 1), all systems within 2 warp lane hops of your home system are fully revealed — you see their type, name, and all details as if you’d visited them.
• You also receive waypoint trails — directional hints pointing toward the nearest Asteroid Field and the nearest Gaia System (the most valuable system type in the game).
• The 2-hop reveal gives you a massive head start on exploration. You can see your immediate neighborhood and plan your first several turns of expansion with full information.
• The waypoint trails don’t reveal the destination systems directly — they show you which direction to travel. Think of them as breadcrumb trails on the map pointing toward strategic objectives.
• This card is strongest in the opening turns and on larger maps where blind exploration is costliest. Its value diminishes as the game progresses and exploration fills in naturally.

Lore — “The Precursor Vault”

Deep beneath your home world’s oldest mountain range, your archaeologists discovered something that changed the course of your civilization: a Precursor data vault, sealed for longer than your species has existed.

The vault contained star charts — not of the galaxy as it is now, but as it was when the Precursors walked among the stars. Most of the data was corrupted beyond recovery, eaten by entropy over the eons. But the charts of your local region were still readable, preserved in crystalline storage matrices that defied time itself.

More intriguing were the navigation logs. The Precursors had marked certain systems with priority designations — resource caches and what the translation algorithms rendered as “garden worlds.” By cross-referencing the ancient coordinates with modern stellar cartography, your scientists identified probable locations of Asteroid Fields rich in minerals and Gaia Systems teeming with life.

The archives don’t provide complete maps — too much has shifted in the intervening millennia. But they provide something almost as valuable: direction. While other empires stumble blindly into the void, your ships launch with ancient wisdom guiding their course.

Nebula Cloaking

Card Text

Invisible in Nebula systems. Cannot fire or be fired upon. Full intel on all ships present while cloaked. Ambush immune when exiting a nebula.

Deeper Understanding

• When your ships are in a Nebula or Ion Nebula system, they become completely invisible to all other players. No one can see your fleet there.
• While cloaked, you cannot fire and cannot be fired upon — you are completely removed from combat. This means you can’t be attacked, but you also can’t defend or attack.
• While cloaked, you gain full intel on every other fleet in the same system — you can see exactly what ships everyone has there, even though they can’t see you.
• When you leave a Nebula system, you are immune to ambush at your destination. Enemies cannot ambush-fire on your arriving fleet.
• This card turns Nebulas into safe havens and forward observation posts. You can park ships in a contested Nebula, watch enemy fleet movements with impunity, and leave when the time is right — ambush-proof.
• Be aware: while cloaked you cannot claim or defend the Nebula system. You’re a ghost — present but powerless.
• Ion Nebulas (which normally scramble sensors) work the same way for you — your cloaking technology uses the ionization to your advantage.

Lore — “The Ghost Fleet Doctrine”

Nebulas are anathema to most navies. The ionized gas clouds wreak havoc on sensors, scramble communications, and play tricks on navigation systems. Standard military doctrine is simple: avoid nebulas when possible, transit them quickly when not.

Your engineers saw something else entirely. They discovered that your hull alloy — a composite developed centuries ago for a completely different purpose — resonated with nebula ionization fields in a peculiar way. Instead of reflecting sensor pulses, your hulls absorbed them, scattering the energy harmlessly into the surrounding gas.

The effect was absolute invisibility. Not reduced sensor signatures, not electronic countermeasures — true disappearance. A fleet sitting in a nebula becomes indistinguishable from the gas cloud itself. No scanner in the known galaxy can find them.

The downside was equally absolute: the same resonance effect that hid your ships also scattered your own weapons fire. You couldn’t shoot while cloaked. But your sensors worked perfectly — better than perfectly, in fact, since the nebula’s energy amplified your passive detection arrays.

“The ghost fleet sees everything,” the saying goes. “And nothing sees the ghost fleet.”

Appealing Race

Card Text

+1 to all Independent System reaction rolls. Pirate raids have a 50% chance to skip you.

Deeper Understanding

• When you interact with Independent (NPC) systems through diplomacy, all your reaction rolls get a +1 bonus. This makes positive outcomes more likely and negative outcomes less likely.
• Each turn, when pirates select targets for raids, there is a 50% chance they simply skip your empire entirely. The raid doesn’t happen — no damage, no stolen minerals.
• The +1 NPC bonus is significant over the course of a game. Independent systems are more likely to cooperate, trade favorably, and eventually join your empire peacefully.
• The pirate raid protection is probabilistic — you’ll still get raided roughly half the time, but over many turns, you lose far fewer resources to pirate activity than other empires.
• This card rewards a diplomatic playstyle — building your empire through negotiation rather than conquest.

Lore — “The Golden Ambassadors”

Something about your species puts other races at ease. Xenobiologists have debated the reason for centuries — is it your body language, your vocal harmonics, the subtle pheromone signatures that even alien biochemistry seems to respond to? Whatever the cause, the effect is undeniable: doors open for your ambassadors that remain firmly shut for everyone else.

Independent systems that would greet other empires with suspicion or hostility receive your envoys with curiosity and cautious optimism. Trade negotiations that would take other species months conclude in days. Even the most isolationist worlds find themselves warming to your overtures, as if some deep evolutionary instinct recognizes your people as… safe.

Even the pirates seem affected. Your merchant convoys are raided less frequently — not because the pirates fear you, but because your species has a reputation for honest dealing and fair ransoms. Pirate captains know that attacking your worlds brings heat without proportional reward. “Leave the pretty ones alone,” is a common refrain in pirate havens. “They’re more useful as trading partners than as victims.”

Retired Pirate

Card Text

Immune from Pirate raids and all Pirate ships do not attack you. Claim Dead Systems with Pirate fleets present. −1 on all Independent system diplomatic rolls due to your history of piracy.

Deeper Understanding

• You have complete immunity from the Pirate empire. Pirates never raid your systems and pirate fleets will never attack your ships — you can move freely through pirate-occupied space.
• You can claim Dead Systems even when pirate fleets are present. Normally, pirate garrisons at Dead Systems prevent other empires from claiming them — but pirates recognize you as one of their own and don’t interfere.
• The trade-off: you suffer a −1 penalty on all Independent system diplomatic rolls. Your reputation as a former pirate precedes you — NPC systems are more suspicious and hostile.
• This card fundamentally changes your relationship with the pirate faction. Pirates become a non-threat, and Dead Systems guarded by pirate fleets become free real estate for you.
• The −1 NPC penalty is real — conquering Independent systems by force may be more practical than diplomacy. Plan accordingly.
• Strategically, this lets you expand into Dead Systems that other players can’t safely reach, giving you territory and mineral stockpiles that would otherwise require clearing pirate fleets.

Lore — “Drake Remembers”

You were once feared across a dozen systems. Before your empire discovered the warp lanes, before diplomacy and governance replaced plunder and intimidation, your people were raiders. Your ancestors boarded merchant ships, sacked orbital stations, and held entire colonies for ransom.

Those days are over — officially. Your empire has reformed, built legitimate institutions, joined the galactic community as a respectable power. But the pirate clans remember. Captain Drake, the ancient AI that coordinates the pirate empire’s endless raids, has your species flagged in its deepest protocols: “Do not engage. Former kin. Standing truce.”

This cuts both ways. The pirates won’t touch you — they see your ships and stand down, recognizing the old hull signatures and transponder codes that your navy has never quite gotten around to changing. But every Independent system in the galaxy also remembers what you were. Your ambassadors arrive at NPC worlds and find cold shoulders, locked doors, and trade terms weighed against you.

“Once a pirate, always a pirate,” they mutter. And maybe they’re right. But when your fleets glide past pirate armadas without a shot fired, and claim Dead Systems that other empires wouldn’t dare approach, it’s hard to argue that the old ways don’t still have their advantages.

Advanced Starbases

Card Text

Dead Systems with Starbase gain +1 mineral/turn. Gain free probe reports every turn from any systems adjacent to your systems with Starbases.

Deeper Understanding

• Any Dead System you own that has a Starbase generates +1 mineral per turn. Dead Systems normally produce nothing — this card turns them into modest resource generators.
• Every turn, you automatically receive free probe-level intelligence on all systems adjacent to any system where you have a Starbase. This happens passively — no probe ships needed.
• The mineral bonus on Dead Systems incentivizes building Starbases at Dead Systems you control — turning empty territory into productive assets.
• The free probe intel makes your Starbases function as sensor platforms. Place Starbases at strategic locations and you get persistent, free surveillance of the surrounding area.
• This card rewards building Starbases widely, not just at your most important systems. Each Starbase extends your sensor network.
• Combines well with defensive strategies — your Starbases both defend key systems and provide early warning of approaching threats.

Lore — “The Sentinel Stations”

Other empires build Starbases as weapons platforms — floating gun emplacements to defend key systems. Your engineers had grander ambitions.

Your Starbases are engineering marvels — self-sustaining platforms packed with mineral recyclers, subspace telescope arrays, and autonomous maintenance systems. When deployed at a Dead System — a blasted, lifeless ruin that other empires write off as worthless — your Starbases can extract trace minerals from the debris field, recycling the remnants of whatever catastrophe killed the world into usable resources.

More impressively, each Starbase bristles with long-range sensor arrays that continuously sweep adjacent warp lanes. The data these arrays collect is equivalent to a full probe report — fleet compositions, system status, ownership changes — all gathered passively and beamed back to your command network in real time.

Your empire doesn’t just control the systems where your Starbases orbit. You see everything around them, turning each station into a node in a vast surveillance web. An approaching enemy fleet might pass through three or four sensor zones before reaching your borders — giving you ample warning to prepare your defense.

Call in a Debt

Card Text

Once per game: call in a Pirate reinforcement fleet of 2 Cruisers + (5 + 2 per turn after turn 2) Destroyers to a system where you are present. Fleet arrives next turn. This Pirate fleet will attack all ships except your own and cannot be moved.

Deeper Understanding

• One-time use — once activated, the card is spent for the rest of the game.
• You choose a system where you have at least one ship. The pirate fleet arrives there on the next turn.
• Fleet size scales with the game turn: 2 Cruisers plus 5 + 2×(current turn − 2) Destroyers. Examples: Turn 3 = 2 CR + 7 DD. Turn 5 = 2 CR + 11 DD. Turn 10 = 2 CR + 21 DD. The later you wait, the bigger the fleet.
• The pirate fleet attacks all ships except yours at that system. It treats every other empire’s ships as hostile.
• The fleet cannot be moved — it stays at the summoned system permanently, acting as a garrison that attacks anyone who enters.
• This is a devastating defensive or offensive tool. Use it to break a siege on your system, crush an enemy fleet at a contested location, or create an impregnable fortress.
• Timing is key: using it early gives a smaller fleet; waiting gives a bigger one, but you might need it before then. The strategic tension is real.
• The pirate fleet is a separate entity — it fires independently in combat and can be destroyed by concentrated enemy fire.

Lore — “Drake’s Marker”

Before you built an empire, before the warp lanes and the diplomacy and the grand strategy — you did someone a favor. A very dangerous someone.

The details are classified at the highest levels of your government. The official record simply notes a “strategic intervention” during the Pirate Consolidation Wars, when the scattered pirate clans were being unified under a single AI coordination network. What actually happened involved your special forces, a stolen encryption key, and a desperate rescue operation deep in hostile space.

Captain Drake — the ancient tactical AI that now commands the pirate empire — doesn’t forget debts. It can’t; debts are tracked in its core priority matrix alongside targeting solutions and raid schedules. Your empire holds the only outstanding marker in Drake’s ledger.

One transmission on a specific encrypted frequency is all it takes. Drake will marshal a personal fleet — Cruisers from the elite guard, Destroyers pulled from a dozen raid groups — and dispatch them to any system you specify. They’ll arrive fast, they’ll attack everything that isn’t you, and they’ll hold position until they’re destroyed.

It’s a one-time deal. Once the marker is called, the debt is paid. Use the marker wisely. You only get one.

Wormhole Technology

Card Text

Once per game: activate a permanent wormhole between any two systems where you have at least one Cruiser. The two systems become neighbors for all purposes (fleet movement, probe detection, map rendering). This connection is usable by all factions.

Deeper Understanding

• One-time use — once activated, the card is spent for the rest of the game.
• You must have at least one Cruiser in each of the two systems you want to connect.
• Both Cruisers cannot move on the turn you activate the wormhole. They must remain stationary while the wormhole forms. You can move them freely on subsequent turns.
• The wormhole creates a permanent warp lane between the two systems. It functions exactly like a natural warp lane — ships can travel through it, probes detect through it, it appears on the map.
• All factions can use it — this is not a private connection. Once the wormhole exists, any empire (including pirates) can move ships through it. Think carefully about what routes you’re opening up.
• This can be used to create strategic shortcuts across the map, connecting distant parts of your empire, bypassing chokepoints, or opening surprise attack routes.
• Defensive consideration: you might accidentally create a highway for your enemies. The wormhole benefits everyone, so plan accordingly.
• The wormhole is permanent — it cannot be closed or destroyed once activated.

Lore — “The Precursor Key”

In the cold vault of a Dead System orbiting a fading red dwarf, your archaeologists found it: a device of terrifying elegance, wrapped in stasis fields that had held for longer than your star had been burning.

The Precursors — that ancient, vanished race whose ruins litter Dead Systems across the galaxy — had mastered technologies that modern science can barely comprehend. Warp lanes, the galaxy’s great highways, are believed to be their creation. But this device was something more: a key to creating new lanes.

Your scientists spent decades studying the artifact, and their conclusions were both thrilling and sobering. The device could punch a permanent hole in the fabric of space-time, linking two distant points as if they were neighbors. A wormhole — stable, traversable, eternal. But the device would burn out after a single activation. The Precursors built it to last forever, but they built it to fire once.

Activating the device requires an immense energy anchor at both endpoints — only the reactor core of a Cruiser-class warship can provide sufficient power. The two Cruisers must remain stationary during activation, channeling their entire energy output into the forming wormhole. The process takes a full turn cycle, during which both ships are completely vulnerable.

The result is a shimmering tear in space — a permanent gateway that any ship from any faction can traverse. The wormhole doesn’t care about politics or allegiance. It is a door, and doors open both ways. Choose the moment wisely. The galaxy’s geography is about to change — permanently — and not just for you.