Getting Started

Welcome to the galaxy, pilot. Here's what you need to know to get moving.

The Tutorial

New to STAR DEWAR? The Tutorial on the lobby page drops you into a private nine-sector map with a Stardock, two ports, Terra, an unclaimed Class L planet and a single alien trader. No account is needed and nothing there can destroy your ship. A panel in the upper half of the screen walks you through the core loop, one step at a time:

1. Moving between sectors
2. Buying cargo at one port and selling it at another
3. Setting up a trade route between the two ports
4. Buying fighters at the Stardock
5. Attacking and destroying the alien
6. Claiming the planet
7. Ferrying colonists from Terra
8. Starting a Level 1 Citadel

Your progress is saved in your browser, so you can leave and come back. The steps do not depend on each other — do them in any order and the panel catches up. Press Restart on the panel for a fresh map at any time.

The Map

STAR DEWAR takes place on a hexagonal sector map. There are two kinds of sectors:

• Path sectors — navigable space you can fly through.
• Edge sectors — the boundary of the map. You can't fly into these.

As you explore, sectors you've visited stay revealed on your map, along with any ports you've discovered along the way. Sectors near your starting point and the Stardock are marked as Fedspace — a safe zone where combat and trade routes are disallowed.

Moving Around

• Click or tap a sector on the map to fly there. If it's more than one hop away, your ship will automatically plot a path through connected sectors.
• Keyboard: use the arrow keys or WASD to move. Combining two directions (e.g. Up + Right) moves you diagonally along the hex grid.

Movement costs turns — the number of turns spent depends on your ship's turns per warp stat and how many sectors you travel through. Turns regenerate slowly over time, so plan your trips.

Some sectors hide wormholes that link distant parts of the galaxy in a single warp — see Wormholes.

You can also tell the autopilot to steer clear of trouble spots — see Avoiding Sectors on the Travel page.

Turns and Credits

• You start with 2,000 turns and 500 credits.
• Turns regenerate automatically over real-world time (250 every 3 hours, capped at 3,000) — see Seasons & Turns for the details.
• Credits are earned by trading (see Trading) and destroying enemy ships or trade routes (see Combat).

Seasons

Each game runs as a 14-day season, shown as Day 3/14 in the status bar. When the season ends the galaxy is locked until the next big bang resets the map and every pilot starts fresh. See Seasons & Turns.

What To Do

A good first session looks like:

1. Fly around and discover a few nearby ports.
2. Dock at a port and check its port class to see what it buys and sells.
3. Buy low at one port, sell high at another — that's the core trading loop.
4. Visit Stardock to spend your credits on fighters, shields, and cargo capacity so you can trade more and survive combat.

Keep an eye on the Ship Info panel (the info button in the map area) — it shows your fighters, shields, cargo, and trade drones at a glance.

Seasons & Turns

STAR DEWAR is played in short, self-contained seasons. Everything you build — credits, ships, planets, Citadels, rank — counts for the current season only, so the pace is deliberately quick.

The 14-Day Season

• A season lasts 14 days. Day 1 begins the moment the galaxy is created (the "big bang").
• Your current day is shown in the status bar as Day 3/14, and on the main page as Day 3 of 14. The status bar counter turns yellow during the final two days.
• When the last day ends the galaxy is locked: you can no longer fly, trade or fight. The season page shows a "season finished" notice.
• While locked you can still browse the Leaderboard, the Universe Log and your Achievements for that season for two more weeks — final standings stay visible from the season list.
• Every season is a brand-new map and every pilot starts from scratch with a fresh ship, credits, turns and achievements. Only your account carries over.

Overlapping Seasons

Seasons are numbered (Season 1, Season 2, ... at /s1/, /s2/, ...) and the main page lists the most recent ones. A new season begins two days before the current one ends, so for a short window two seasons are open at once:

• You can join every open season, so during the overlap you may fly in both the ending season and the new one at the same time.
• Each season has its own ship, credits, rank and leaderboard — nothing carries over between them.
• Once a season finishes it becomes read-only; its leaderboard, universe log and achievements stay available.

Since colonists keep producing and Citadels keep building while you are offline, planning your long-running projects around the calendar matters — a Citadel started on day 12 may never finish.

Turns

Turns are the action currency of the game. Almost everything you do costs turns: moving between sectors, docking, claiming a planet, deploying mines, swapping ships, and so on. The exact cost of your next action is shown as TPA (turns per action) in the status bar.

Starting Allocation

Every new pilot starts the season with 2,000 turns and 500 credits.

Regeneration

• You receive 250 turns every 3 hours of real time, whether or not you are logged in — that's 2,000 turns per day.
• Turns accumulate up to a cap of 3,000. Once you hit the cap, further regeneration is lost until you spend some, so it pays to check in at least once a day.
• Regeneration is aligned to your own clock: it ticks from the time you last received turns, not on a fixed global schedule.

Spending Turns Wisely

• Movement cost is your ship's turns per warp × the number of sectors travelled. A Scout Marauder (2 turns/warp) covers three times the distance of a Colonial Transport (6 turns/warp) for the same turns. See Ships.
• Trade routes advance as you spend turns moving around, so a busy pilot earns more from routes than an idle one. See Trading.
• Colonist hauling is the biggest turn sink in the game — one colonist per cargo hold, and a Level 6 Citadel needs 3,000 of them. Pick a planet close to Terra and use a large ship. See Planets.
• Waiting in Fedspace is a safe way to let turns regenerate without risk of ambush.

Trading

Trading is the main way to earn credits. There are three commodities in the galaxy:

• Fuel Ore (Ore)
• Organics (Org)
• Equipment (Eqp)

Port Classes

Every port has a port class — a 3-character code, one letter per commodity in the order Ore / Organics / Equipment:

• B — the port Buys that commodity (you can sell it there)
• S — the port Sells that commodity (you can buy it there)

For example, a port classed BSB buys ore, sells organics, and buys equipment. There are 8 possible combinations, from BBB (buys everything) to SSS (sells everything).

The classic trading loop is to find a port that sells a commodity cheap, then find a nearby port that buys the same commodity, and shuttle cargo between them.

Manual Trading

To trade manually, fly to a port and open the Trade panel (hotkey T). You'll see the port's stock and price for each commodity it trades.

• Buying fills your cargo with as much of a commodity as you can afford and have room for — limited by the port's stock, your credits, and your ship's free cargo holds.
• Selling offloads as much of a commodity as the port has room to buy — limited by how much you're carrying and the port's remaining storage.

Each buy/sell action trades the maximum possible amount in one action, so there's no need to haggle over quantities — just decide what to buy and sell, and repeat the loop between ports.

Your total cargo capacity is fixed by your ship's cargo holds stat (see Ships). The Ship Info panel shows how much free space you have left.

Stealing

Pilots with negative alignment get a Steal mode toggle (hotkey s) in the Trade panel. While it is on, every Buy button for that port becomes a Steal button; Sell buttons are unchanged. A steal attempt costs twice the turns of a trade and has one of three outcomes, decided by a single roll regardless of how much you would take:

Three strikes at the same port and it blacklists you for the rest of the season: no buying, selling or stealing there, and no new trade routes using that port. Existing routes keep running. Other ports are unaffected.

Trade Routes

Once you've discovered two ports, you can set up an automated trade route between them using one of your ship's trade drones.

• A drone travels back and forth along the route on its own, automatically buying and selling cargo at each end — no manual trading required.
• Drone travel time scales with the distance between the two ports, and progress ticks forward as you move around the galaxy.
• Routes can be upgraded to carry more cargo per trip, or reinforced with fighters from your own ship to help defend them from attackers.
• Other players can discover and attack your trade routes if they stumble onto one of the ports it uses — so a well-defended route is a safer route.

Managing Routes

All of your routes are listed in the Ship Info panel (the info button on the map). Each row shows the route's endpoints, fighters (FGT), cargo capacity (CAP) and net credits earned (CR), with controls alongside:

• FGT - / + — move one fighter from the route back to your ship, or from your ship onto the route.
• CAP - / + — spend a trade drone to add 5 holds of capacity (up to a maximum of 15), or give up 5 holds (down to the base 5) and get the drone back.
• x — delete the route. Fighters on the route are lost.

Managing routes is free — none of these actions cost turns — and you can do it from anywhere; you don't need to be at one of the route's ports.

Trade routes are a great way to keep earning credits passively while you're off exploring or fighting elsewhere.

Note that you can't create a trade route to or from a port located in Fedspace — manual trading there is still fine. Routes also never pass through wormholes: drones fly the hex-by-hex path, so ports on different islands can't be linked.

Combat

Combat in STAR DEWAR revolves around two stats: fighters and shields.

• Shields absorb incoming damage first.
• Once shields are depleted, damage spills over onto fighters.
• A ship (or trade route) is destroyed when it has no shields and no fighters left.

Starting a Fight

You can attack another player's ship or an alien trader if you're in the same sector as them, attack a trade route by standing at one of its ports, attack another player's sector fighters, or attack a defended planet after landing on it. Escape pods can't attack, and can't be attacked. You also can't initiate combat while you're in Fedspace — the safe zone near the starting sector and Stardock.

Aliens can start fights too: an alien of the opposite alignment may ambush you when you share a sector, with a chance that rises with your alignment up to 25%. See Alignment for the rules.

Whenever there is something to fight in your sector, the sector panel shows a red notice such as "1 ship, 1 trade route here - press 💥 (f) to enter combat" and a 💥 button appears next to the ☰ menu at the top of the map. Click it (or press f) to open the combat menu: one row per target with a 💥 (n) button. Press the row's number (1, 2, ...) or tap the button to start the fight. The 💥 button is only shown while there is at least one target you can attack.

Once you initiate combat, both you and your target are locked in combat for a limited time. During this window, neither of you can be dragged into a different fight.

Committing Fighters

When you attack, you choose how many of your fighters to commit using a slider — up to your ship's fighters per attack limit.

• Each ship type has a maximum number of fighters it can commit per attack round, regardless of how many it carries in total. A Scout Marauder can send up to 250 per round; a StarMaster up to 1,000; a Dreadnought up to 3,000. Check the Ships page for each ship's limit.
• Damage you deal is your committed fighters × your combat odds.
• Fighters are destroyed in a 1:1 exchange with the damage they deal or absorb. Commit 10 fighters and destroy 10 of the enemy's — you lose 10 of your own too. Commit 10 and only destroy 5 — you only lose 5.
• If your attack destroys the target outright, the fight ends immediately.
• If the target survives, it retaliates with everything it has left — all of its remaining fighters, scaled by its own combat odds.

Combat can run for several rounds within the time limit, with each round following the same attack-then-retaliate pattern.

Retreating

Instead of attacking, you can retreat. Your opponent gets one free retaliation strike with all of their remaining fighters before you're teleported to a random adjacent sector. If that retaliation destroys you, you become an escape pod just like in a normal loss. The same applies when retreating from a defended planet: its planetary fighters fire a parting shot at 2:1 odds as you leave.

A quick ship can outrun that parting shot entirely. Against another ship (player or alien) the chance to escape unscathed depends on your speed relative to theirs:

Chance = their turns per warp / (their turns per warp + yours)

Equal speeds give 50%; a Scout Marauder (2) fleeing a Colonial Transport (6) dodges 75% of the time, the reverse only 25%. Trade routes, sector fighters and planets have no engines to chase you with, so retreating from them has a flat 25% chance to take no damage.

Losing a Fight

If your fighters and shields both hit zero, your ship is converted into an escape pod — you lose your fighters, shields, trade drones, and cargo, and your cargo capacity drops sharply until you can afford a new ship at Stardock. You'll also lose a percentage of your accumulated experience.

Destroying an enemy ship, an alien trader, or a trade route earns you experience — the bigger the target, the bigger the reward.

Looting

When a ship is destroyed in ship-to-ship combat — by an attack, by return fire on a retreat, or in an alien ambush — the survivor boards the wreck and takes a random 20% to 80% of the credits the victim was carrying. Credits in the Stardock Bank or a planet Treasury are safe; only what is on the ship is at risk. Aliens loot too, and can build wealth by trading and operating routes. They start with 500 credits; destroying a wealthy alien lets you loot its carried earnings the same way. Every loot is recorded in the Universe Log.

Trade Route Defense

Trade routes defend themselves at favorable odds, and you can strengthen a route further by moving fighters from your own ship onto it using the FGT + control in the Ship Info panel (see Trading). A well-defended route is much harder for other players to destroy.

Planetary Defense

Planets with a Level 2+ Citadel can hold fighters and, at Level 5, planetary shields. Planetary fighters defend at 2:1 odds and each planetary shield absorbs 10 damage before fighters take losses. To capture a defended planet you must land and choose Attack Planet (hotkey a); combat follows the same commit-and-retaliate pattern as ship combat. Beware of Level 3+ planets — their Quasar Cannon may fire on you when you enter the sector or attempt to land. See Planets for details.

Sector Fighters

You can leave fighters behind to guard a sector in Offensive, Defensive or Toll mode. They fight at 1:1 odds and show up as a row in the combat menu (f) whenever you share a sector with them. See Sector Fighters for the full rules.

Aliens

Aliens are independent pilots competing in the same economy as players. They start with 500 credits and 2,000 turns, explore their own maps, and pay normal action costs and trade-route overhead. Their turns regenerate normally. They do not share discoveries or receive ongoing subsidies.

Specializations

The Combat Menu identifies an alien's specialization:

All specializations can trade, establish routes, develop or capture planets, and deploy mines. Specializations affect priorities, not prices or bonuses; alignment separately controls ship ambush hostility. Aliens may capture player-owned planets, but must defeat active planetary defenses first.

Aliens only plan around discovered sectors, ports and planets. They must visit wormholes to learn their exits. Their armids and limpets follow the same ownership and hostility rules as your mines.

The alien ship

Aliens use one dedicated hull, unavailable to players. They cannot buy or pilot player ships. The hull has 30 cargo holds, 3 turns per warp, 1:1 combat odds, capacity for 500 fighters and 250 shields, and a 100-fighter attack limit. It can carry 5 drones, 10 limpets, 50 armids, and 2 Genesis Torpedoes.

A replacement costs 10,000 credits at Stardock, including a small base complement of 20 fighters and 10 shields. Further equipment must be purchased. New pilots also receive the same five starting drones as players; replacement ships do not include free drones.

Destroyed aliens survive in escape pods, keeping their identity, discoveries, specialization and existing assets. They aim to buy another alien ship, trading in their pods if necessary to afford it. There are no free replacement ships. Their carried credits can be looted normally.

Alignment

Your alignment measures how good or evil you are:

• Positive — good
• Zero — neutral
• Negative — evil

Alignment is displayed in your status bar and affects how much you gain or lose from combat.

Actions That Change Alignment

Destroying a Ship

When you completely destroy another ship, the change is based on the victim's alignment, not the number of fighters involved.

Opposite sides — good/neutral attacker vs evil victim, or vice versa:

Change = |Victim Alignment| / 2

Same side — both good or both evil:

Change = |Victim Alignment| / 4

The minimum change is ±1 whenever the victim has any non-zero alignment.

Example — neutral player destroys an evil alien with alignment −250:

Change = 250 / 2 = +125

Non-Kill Combat Rounds

When fighters are exchanged but neither ship is destroyed, your alignment changes based on your own fighters lost, not the enemy fighters you destroyed:

Change = −(Your Fighters Lost × Defender Alignment) / Scale

Scale = 5,000  if your alignment ≥ 0
Scale = 10,000 if your alignment < 0

Attacking an evil defender (negative alignment) gains you alignment; attacking a good defender loses you alignment.

Example — neutral attacker (scale 5,000) loses 10 fighters against a defender with alignment −5,000:

Change = −(10 × −5,000) / 5,000 = +10

When you start ship-to-ship combat, the combat overlay shows the enemy pilot's alignment and, next to your own stats, the alignment you would gain or lose by destroying them (Kill: +N align). Defenders see "no change": killing an attacker with return fire does not move your alignment.

Alien Alignment

Half of all alien traders are good (alignment +100 to +3,000) and half are evil (alignment −100 to −3,000). All specializations start with the same alien hull and base equipment; later strength depends on earned upgrades.

Good aliens appear green; evil aliens appear red.

Alien Aggression

Aliens hold grudges along alignment lines. Whenever you end a move in a sector holding an alien of the opposite alignment — or one wanders into yours — it may ambush you. The chance grows with how far your alignment is from zero, up to a 25% cap at ±1,000:

Chance = 25% × min(1, |your alignment| / 1000)

Neutral players are never attacked, and a good alien never attacks a good player (nor an evil alien an evil one). An ambush is a single exchange: the alien fires all its fighters at 1:1 and your fighters return fire at your ship's odds, so either ship can be destroyed. It is shown in the combat result overlay, and afterwards you are free to attack the alien from the Combat Menu. Escape pods and anyone in Fedspace are safe.

Destroyed aliens survive in escape pods and must earn and buy replacement ships. They start with 500 credits, then build wealth through trading, routes and looting. Their carried credits can be plundered normally — see Looting and Aliens.

Fedspace

Fedspace is protected territory where players are safe from attack. It's marked on the map with a distinct sector tint.

Where Fedspace Is

• All sectors within a set number of hops of the map's starting sector (by default, 10% of the map's size, radiating outward).
• The Stardock sector and all of its immediate neighbors.

The Rules

• No attacking. You can't initiate combat against another player's ship, an alien trader, or a trade route while you're in fedspace.
• No trade routes. You can't create a new trade route if either endpoint port is located in fedspace.
• Trading is unrestricted. Buying and selling cargo manually at a port works exactly the same in fedspace as anywhere else.
• Can't be avoided. Fedspace sectors can't be marked as avoided — there's nothing in them to steer clear of.

Think of fedspace as a safe harbor near your starting point and Stardock — a place to stock up, regroup, or wait out your turn regeneration without worrying about being ambushed.

Ships

Your ship is your lifeline — it carries your cargo, defends you in combat, and determines how far you can travel on a single tank of turns.

Ship Stats

Open the Ship Info panel (the info button on the map) to see your current stats at a glance:

• Fighters / Max Fighters — offensive and defensive combat strength.
• Shields / Max Shields — absorb damage before your fighters do.
• Trade Drones / Max Trade Drones — used to run automated trade routes.
• Limpets / Max Limpets — see Limpets for how to deploy, track, and remove these tracking devices.
• Cargo Holds / Free Cargo Holds — total and remaining space for fuel, ore, organics, and equipment.
• Turns per Warp — how many turns it costs to move one sector.
• Combat Odds — a multiplier applied to the damage you deal in combat.
• Fighters per Attack — the maximum number of fighters you can commit in a single attack round. Even if you have more fighters on board, this caps how many you can send at once.

Available Ships

There are six ships you can own. Four are open to anyone with the credits; the two flagships are reserved for pilots who have proven themselves on one side of the alignment scale. Each has different strengths — pick the one that fits how you play.

Scout Marauder — 20,000 cr

The fastest ship in the game at only 2 turns per warp, with 2.0:1 combat odds. Small cargo hold and limited fighters, but it excels at exploration and quick strikes where speed matters more than endurance.

Merchant Cruiser — 40,000 cr

The standard starting ship. A balanced mix of cargo, combat, and speed — good at everything, exceptional at nothing. A solid choice while you build up credits for a more specialised vessel.

Colonial Transport — 60,000 cr

The hauler. With 250 cargo holds it moves more goods per trip than anything else in the game. The trade-off is speed (6 turns per warp) and poor combat odds — keep it away from hostile sectors.

StarMaster — 80,000 cr

The all-rounder for experienced pilots. 5,000 fighters, 2,000 shields, and 1.4:1 combat odds make it the strongest ship anyone can buy while still carrying a respectable cargo load.

Flagships

The two flagships are the most powerful combat ships in the game and the only ones that pair heavyweight fighter bays with 1.5:1 combat odds. They cost 150,000 cr and are gated by rank and alignment: you need at least 3,200 experience (First Lieutenant) and a committed alignment of +500 or higher for the Vanguard, −500 or lower for the Dreadnought.

The check happens whenever you buy a flagship and whenever you board one — pressing Use on a fleet ship at the Stardock or swapping to one from a Citadel hangar. If your alignment has drifted back towards neutral, the ship stays in your fleet or hangar until you qualify again; you are never thrown out of a flagship you are already flying.

Vanguard — 150,000 cr (good)

The Federation's fortress. 4,000 shields and 10,000 fighters make it the hardest ship to kill, and it carries 10 genesis torpedoes for pilots who build rather than burn. Keeps the StarMaster's 3 turns per warp.

Dreadnought — 150,000 cr (evil)

The raider. The biggest fighter bay in the game (12,000) and the largest volley (3,000 per attack), plus room for 25 limpets, 100 armids and 10 atomic detonators. It pays for that with thinner shields, a tiny cargo hold and 4 turns per warp.

Escape Pods

If your ship is destroyed — in combat, by mines, by a planet's defenses, or by a misfiring atomic detonator — you're not out of the game: you're dropped into an escape pod. You also end up in one on purpose when you Park your ship in a Citadel Hangar.

A pod is a lifeboat, not a ship. It is invisible to everything hostile, and in return it can do almost nothing but travel.

What an escape pod can do

• Move between sectors at 1 turn per warp — it is the fastest hull in the game — and use wormholes, the Travel list and avoided sectors as usual.
• Carry up to 10 cargo holds of ore, organics or equipment and buy and sell at ports — a slow way to scrape together credits for a hull.
• Dock at the Stardock and buy a new ship at the Shipyards; the purchase replaces the pod immediately. It can also Use a ship from your fleet there.
• Land on planets you already own and use everything in the Planet Lobby: manage colonists, unload cargo into the stockpile, and operate the Citadel (Treasury, Quasar settings, TransWarp, Interdictor, and Swap into a ship parked in the Hangar).

What an escape pod cannot do

• Be attacked: ships, trade routes, sector fighters, planetary fighters and Quasar Cannons all ignore it, and mines (limpets and armids) never trigger on it. The Interdictor does not hold it.
• Attack anything — ships, routes, planets or sector fighters. Toll stacks don't stop it, so there is never a toll to pay.
• Carry fighters, shields, trade drones, limpets, armid mines, genesis torpedoes or atomic detonators; buying any of these at the Stardock is refused, and so is taking fighters or shields off a planet.
• Deploy or destroy mines or sector fighters, fire genesis torpedoes or atomic detonators, or use a limpet remover or density scanner.
• Create trade routes (no drones to send).
• Land on Terra, on unclaimed planets, or on planets owned by someone else — so a pod can never scout, claim or capture a planet.
• Be parked in a hangar or stored in your fleet: a pod is discarded when you swap or buy into a real ship.

To get back in the game, head to the Stardock and buy a ship, or land on one of your own planets and swap into a ship from its Hangar.

Your Fleet

You can own more than one ship at a time. Ships you've purchased but aren't currently flying are stored in your fleet at the Stardock.

• Buying a ship while already in a non-escape-pod sends the new ship straight to your fleet — your active ship is unchanged.
• At the Stardock, open the Federation Shipyards to see your fleet listed below the ship-for-sale section.
• Press Use next to a fleet ship to swap it with your current ship. Your old ship moves to the fleet; the selected ship becomes your active vessel. Its fighters, shields, cargo, and equipment are exactly as you left them.
• Press Sell to sell a fleet ship for 50% of its purchase price.
• Press Info to inspect a fleet ship's stats before deciding.

Swapping ships costs one base action turn. Selling is free.

Growing Your Ship

Every stat besides your ship type itself is upgraded the same way: fly to Stardock and spend credits. There's no repair mechanic beyond simply buying back fighters and shields you've lost — so keeping your credits flowing through trading is the best way to stay combat-ready.

Limpets

Limpets are tracking devices that let you follow another player's movements across the map — useful for hunting targets or keeping an eye on rivals near your trade routes.

Getting Limpets

Buy limpets at Stardock for 500cr each, up to your ship's Max Limpets capacity (see Ships). Your current supply is shown as Limpets / Max Limpets in the Ship Info panel.

Deploying a Mine

Fly to the sector where you want to lay a trap and press L (Deploy) to drop one of your limpets there. This costs turns and consumes one limpet from your supply. You can't deploy a mine in a sector where you already have one waiting, and mines can't be placed in Fedspace, in a sector with a port, or on a wormhole endpoint.

Your deployed limpets show on the map as a green star in the lower-right of the hex. If another player's limpet is sitting in the sector you are in, it shows as a magenta star instead, and the sector panel lists its owner.

Attaching

When another player (other than you) flies into a sector containing your deployed mine, it automatically attaches to their ship. The mine is consumed in the process — it disappears from the sector once it attaches.

• You can only have one limpet attached to a given target at a time.
• Escape pods don't trigger limpets. Alien ships trigger other owners' limpets just like player ships.

Tracking

Once a limpet attaches, you'll see that player's live location and ship type on your map as they move, until it's removed. Tracking through a limpet only reveals location and ship type — you won't see their cargo, credits, or any port information they discover along the way.

Removing Limpets

If you suspect you're being tracked, check the Limpet scan row in your Ship Info panel — it reads DETECTED if any limpets are currently attached to your ship, or NONE if you're clear.

To remove limpets, buy a Limpet Remover at Stardock (a one-time 3000cr purchase). Once installed, press M (Remove, 1000cr) to strip every limpet currently attached to your ship in one go. This costs turns and credits, and immediately cuts off tracking for every owner who had a limpet on you.

Limpets are also removed automatically if your ship is destroyed in combat — any limpets attached to you are detached, and their owners are notified that they've lost your trail.

Stardock

Every map has exactly one Stardock — your home base for gearing up.

Fly to the Stardock sector and open the docking panel (hotkey G) to access the shop. You must be physically at the Stardock to buy anything.

Stellar Hardware Emporium

Upgrade your active ship's equipment:

Use the slider on each item to choose how much to buy, up to whatever you can afford and whatever your ship has room for. Escape pods cannot carry any of these items.

Federation Shipyards

Buy new ships and manage your fleet.

Buying a Ship

Four ships are available for purchase. Press Info on any ship to see its full stats before committing. Press Buy to purchase it.

• If you're in an escape pod, buying a ship immediately replaces it — you'll be flying the new ship right away.
• If you're already in a non-escape-pod ship, the purchased ship goes straight into your fleet. Your current ship is unchanged.

Your Fleet

Ships you own but aren't actively flying are stored in your fleet, listed below the for-sale ships. Each fleet ship shows its stored fighters, shields, and cargo holds at a glance, with three buttons:

2nd National Galactic Bank

Deposit credits you don't need on hand. Banked credits:

• Cannot be looted. When your ship is destroyed the victor takes a share of the credits you carry; your bank balance is untouched.
• Earn interest. The balance compounds every hour at a rate that works out to about 1% per day, whether or not you are online.

Use the sliders to deposit or withdraw any amount (hotkeys d / w). You must be docked at the Stardock to do either. Your balance is shown in the Ship Info Overlay.

Interstellar Space Police HQ

Open to pilots with positive alignment only. The HQ posts bounties on the five players with the lowest alignment in the universe. Each bounty is worth 20 credits per point of negative alignment, with a 2,000 credit minimum, and follows the target's current alignment.

Destroy a listed player's ship and the bounty (at its value at the moment of the kill) is recorded in your name. Return to the HQ and press Collect (c) to be paid. Collected bounties are announced in the Universe Log.

The Underground

Hidden from honest pilots — the Underground only appears in the Stardock menu when your alignment is negative. It posts contracts on the five players with the highest alignment, valued at 20 credits per point of alignment (2,000 minimum).

Contracts work like bounties: destroy the target, then return to the Underground and press Collect (c). Payments are announced in the Universe Log.

Recovering From a Loss

If you've been reduced to an escape pod, Stardock is where you come back from it. Buy any ship from the Federation Shipyards to replace your escape pod immediately. You'll need to restock fighters and shields separately from the Stellar Hardware Emporium.

Terra

Terra is the homeworld of humanity — a Class M planet always located at your starting sector. Every new player begins adjacent to it, and it's always visible on your map from the moment you log in.

What Terra Does

Terra is the galaxy's only source of colonists. Colonists are workers you load onto your ship and then transport to other planets, where they produce resources over time.

To load colonists, fly to the Terra sector and open the docking panel (hotkey G). From the Terra lobby, tap Load Colonists to open the colonist transfer screen, where you can use the slider to choose how many to take. Colonists fill your ship's cargo holds, so make sure you have free space before loading.

Things to Know

• Terra itself produces no resources and cannot be colonized further.
• You can only load colonists from Terra — you can't drop colonists back onto it.
• Colonists on your ship occupy cargo holds the same way commodities do.
• Terra cannot be used as an endpoint for trade routes.
• Combat and trade routes are both disallowed in the Fedspace zone surrounding Terra and the starting sector.

Planets

Planets are colonizable worlds scattered across the map. Roughly one in fifty sectors outside Fedspace starts the season with a natural planet, and more can be created with genesis torpedoes. Once you settle a planet with colonists, it generates resources automatically over time — a steady passive income on top of your trading profits.

Planet Classes

Every planet has a class that determines what it's good at producing. Each colonist produces a fixed number of resource units per hour:

Class H planets are fuel specialists but produce no organics at all. Class L planets are well-rounded for fuel and organics. Class M is the general-purpose baseline.

Colonizing a Planet

1. Load colonists from Terra onto your ship.
2. Fly to the planet you want to settle.
3. Land (hotkey L) and choose Claim Planet if you don't own it yet.
4. Choose Colonists and use the Unload slider to drop colonists onto the planet.

Once colonists are on a planet, use the Assign sliders to split them among the three resource types — fuel ore, organics, and equipment. The panel shows an estimated daily production based on your current assignment.

Claiming Ownership

Only the owner of a planet can open its Colonists, Resources and Citadel panels, or create trade routes from it. Other players see just the planet's name, class, owner, Citadel level and whether it is defended — colonists, stockpiles, Treasury and exact defense counts are hidden until you own it. Planets created with a genesis torpedo belong to the player who fired it; planets found on the map start unclaimed.

To take a planet, land on it and choose Claim Planet (hotkey c). This costs one turn. Claiming works on unclaimed planets and on planets owned by other players — everything on the planet (colonists, stockpiles, Citadel, Treasury, fighters and shields) transfers to you.

Planets with a Level 2+ Citadel that still have fighters or shields cannot be claimed until their defenses are destroyed. When you land on such a planet — whether it is owned by another player or unclaimed — the docking panel shows Attack Planet (hotkey a) instead of Claim Planet. Attacking a planet works like attacking a route: choose how many fighters to commit and fight it out against the planet's shields and fighters. Once both reach zero, land again and Claim Planet appears.

You can only attack a planet from its docking panel after landing; there is no attack option from the sector map.

Players with an administrator account always see both Attack Planet and Claim Planet on a defended planet and may claim it directly, bypassing its defenses. Test accounts on local development servers are administrators.

Citadels

Citadels are permanent upgrades that turn established planets into economic and military strongholds. Open the docking panel and choose Citadel to build or manage one. Only the planet owner can do this.

Citadels have six levels, which must be built in order:

Costs are per upgrade, not cumulative. Colonists must be present but are not consumed; commodities are consumed when construction begins. Construction continues in real time while you are offline, and the existing level keeps working while the next one is being built. Only one upgrade may be under construction at a time.

Citadel upgrades stay with the planet if another player captures it.

Level 1 — Treasury

Deposit credits into the planet or withdraw them later. Treasury credits belong to the planet: whoever captures the planet captures its Treasury.

Level 2 — Combat Control System

Transfer fighters between your ship and the planet. Planetary fighters defend at 2:1 odds. A planet with fighters can no longer be claimed by simply landing — a hostile player must first land and use Attack Planet (hotkey a) from the docking panel to destroy its fighters and shields.

Level 2 also opens the Hangar, where you can park up to 3 ships, just like the fleet at the Stardock Shipyard. Park (hotkey p) leaves your current ship — with all its fighters, shields, drones and hardware — in the hangar and puts you in an escape pod; Swap exchanges your current ship for a parked one (your ship takes its place, unless you arrived in an escape pod). Escape pods can land on planets you own, so you can always come back for a parked ship. Each action costs one turn. Parked ships cannot be sold here; fly them to the Shipyard for that.

Beware: the hangar belongs to the planet, not to you. Whoever claims or captures the planet takes every ship parked in it, and ships are destroyed along with the planet if it is hit by an atomic detonator. Defend planets you park on.

Level 3 — Quasar Cannon

The Quasar automatically fires at hostile ships using the planet's fuel ore stockpile. Configure two reaction percentages:

• Sector: fires when a hostile ship enters the sector.
• Landing: fires when a hostile ship attempts to land.

Each shot uses floor(fuel_ore × percent / 100) ore, capped at 500, and deals one damage per ore (shields first, then fighters). With no fuel ore the cannon does nothing.

Level 4 — Planetary TransWarp

Move the entire planet — colonists, stockpiles, Citadel, Treasury, fighters and shields — to another sector. Costs 400 fuel ore per sector of path distance. The destination must be a sector you have discovered that is not in Fedspace and does not contain another planet, Terra or the Stardock. You cannot TransWarp while an upgrade is under construction.

Level 5 — Planetary Shielding

Convert ship shields into planetary shields at 10:1. Each planetary shield absorbs 10 damage and is destroyed before planetary fighters take losses. Conversion is one-way.

Level 6 — Interdictor Generator

When enabled, hostile ships attempting to leave the sector are held in place. Each blocked escape consumes 500 fuel ore, still costs the ship its movement turns, and triggers another Quasar sector shot. If the planet has fewer than 500 fuel ore the ship can leave normally.

Capturing a Citadel Planet

Once a planet's fighters and shields are both zero, land and choose Capture Planet. You receive everything on it — but for safety the Quasar Cannon is reset to 0% and the Interdictor is disabled; the new owner must reconfigure them.

What Other Players See

The sector information panel shows a planet's name, class, owner (or "Unclaimed") and Citadel level to everyone. Exact fighter and shield counts are only visible to the owner from the Citadel panels; other players learn whether a planet is defended when they land on it.

Collecting Resources

Resources accumulate in the planet's stockpile automatically. To collect them, fly to the planet and open the Resources panel. From there you can load the stockpile directly into your cargo holds and haul it to a port to sell.

The same panel also lets you go the other way: Unload (hotkey u) moves fuel ore, organics and equipment from your ship's cargo holds into the planet's stockpile. Each commodity you are carrying gets its own slider, defaulting to everything on board. Useful for stocking a planet ahead of a Citadel upgrade. Costs one turn.

Things to Know

• Production ticks once per hour per colonist — stockpiles grow while you're offline.
• Colonists already on a planet don't need to be replaced; they produce indefinitely.
• An undefended planet can be claimed by any player who lands on it, so a valuable planet without Citadel defenses is at risk.
• A Quasar Cannon and Interdictor both run on the planet's fuel ore. Keep the stockpile topped up or they will fall silent.
• Trade routes cannot originate from a planet in Fedspace.

Travel Screen

The Travel screen gives you quick navigation shortcuts so you don't have to manually scroll the map to find key destinations. Open it from the map area action buttons.

Fixed Destinations

The top row always shows two quick-jump buttons:

• Stardock (1) — jumps directly to the Stardock sector.
• Terra (2) — jumps directly to Terra, the colonist homeworld.

Tapping either button immediately closes the Travel screen and begins flying your ship toward that destination.

Custom Slots

Below the fixed buttons are two saved location slots (3) and (4). Each slot can hold any sector coordinate you want to return to often — a productive planet, a favourite port, a staging point deep in the map, etc.

Saving a Location

Tap the edit button next to an empty or existing slot to open the edit screen:

• Coords — enter the q,r cube coordinates of the sector you want to save, or tap use current loc to fill in your ship's current position automatically.
• Name — an optional label shown on the button (e.g. "Gold Mine" or "Pirate Base").

Tap Save to store the slot. The button on the main Travel screen updates immediately.

Direct Coordinate Jump

At the bottom of the Travel screen is a Coords text field. Type any q,r coordinate and tap Travel to fly there directly — useful for navigating to a specific location you've noted down without saving it as a slot.

Wormholes

Automatic path plotting — from the Travel screen or by tapping the map — routes through any wormholes you have discovered when that makes the trip shorter.

Avoiding Sectors

If a sector is dangerous — a minefield, a hostile planet, a pirate hangout — you can mark it as avoided:

1. Fly to the sector, open the action menu (☰ or Space) and choose Avoid Sector (V).
2. The sector is tinted red on your map.
3. From then on, automatic path plotting will never route through it. If the only way to your destination crosses an avoided sector, the trip is refused with a console message instead.

Avoided sectors are per player and are remembered between sessions. Marking a sector costs no turns.

Travelling to an Avoided Sector

If you try to move into an avoided sector — by keyboard, by tapping it on the map, via a wormhole jump, or from the Travel screen — you'll be asked whether to enable travel to it. Answering Yes (y) clears the avoided mark (the red tint disappears) but does not move you; move again to fly there. Answering No (n) leaves everything as it is.

You can also clear the mark while standing in the sector with Unavoid Sector (V) in the action menu.

Sectors in Fedspace cannot be avoided — they're already safe.

Density Scanning

Buy a Density Scanner at the Stardock (any ship except an escape pod) and every sector next to you is scanned when you arrive. The reading is shown as a small white label in the centre of each adjacent hex.

Density is the sum of everything in the sector:

So 140 next door is probably a port with a ship docked at it, 30 is a small minefield, and 0 is empty space you can see is empty.

• The scan covers the hex neighbours of your current sector (plus the far end of a wormhole you're standing on). Your own sector isn't labelled.
• Readings are a snapshot taken on arrival — they don't update if a ship wanders in afterwards.
• After a multi-hop trip you see the readings for every sector adjacent to any step of the path, all at once, when you reach the destination.
• The moment you leave a sector all labels are cleared; new ones appear when you arrive at the next.
• Scanning is free and automatic. The scanner stays with the ship it's installed on when you swap ships at the Shipyards.

Wormholes

Wormholes are tears in space that link two distant sectors. Flying into one end drops you out of the other in a single warp, no matter how far apart the two sectors are on the map.

Parts of the galaxy are only reachable through wormholes: the map is made of several islands of connected sectors, joined by two-way wormholes. Other wormholes are simply shortcuts across a single island.

Two-Way and One-Way

Follow the arrows: they always point the way a ship can travel.

You will never be trapped: every sector in the galaxy can always get back to the starting sector, even if you have to take the long way round after falling through a one-way wormhole.

Discovering Wormholes

Wormhole sectors look like ordinary space until you fly into one. Landing on an endpoint reveals the wormhole — its far end appears on your map along with the link line — and the information panel switches to the Wormhole view showing the type and destination.

Jumping

• Standing on a two-way wormhole or a one-way entrance, press Jump on the bottom button row (hotkey h) to warp to the far end.
• Or just tap a sector on the far side: automatic path plotting uses every wormhole you have discovered, so long trips route through them when that is shorter.
• A jump costs exactly one warp — your ship's turns per warp — the same as moving to an adjacent sector. Mines and Quasar Cannons at the far end still apply when you arrive.

Rules

• Wormholes are never inside Fedspace.
• Nothing else can occupy a wormhole sector: no ports, planets, Stardock or Terra, and you cannot deploy limpets, armid mines, sector fighters or genesis torpedoes there. Planetary TransWarp cannot target a wormhole sector either.
• Trade routes never pass through wormholes. Drones fly the hex-by-hex path between their ports, so two ports on different islands cannot be linked by a route.
• Alien traders wander through wormholes just like you do, so expect visitors on every island.

Armid Mines

Armid mines are deployable explosives that detonate automatically when an enemy ship enters your sector. They're a passive defensive tool — once placed, they wait silently until triggered.

Buying Armid Mines

Purchase armid mines at Stardock under the hardware shop. They're stored in your ship's inventory and shown in the Ship Info panel as Armids / Max Armids.

Deploying Mines

Fly to any non-Fedspace sector and open the action menu. If you have mines in inventory, a Deploy action will be available. Choose how many to deploy (up to 10 per sector).

Rules for deployment:

• Escape pods cannot deploy mines.
• Alien traders wandering into your mines set them off just like players do, and can be destroyed by them (a kill counts toward your combat record and alignment, and appears in the Universe Log).
• Mines cannot be placed in Fedspace, in a sector with a port, or on a wormhole endpoint.
• Only one player's mines can occupy a sector at a time — you can't stack your mines on top of another player's.
• A single sector holds a maximum of 10 armid mines.

How Detonation Works

When an enemy ship moves into a sector containing your mines, they detonate immediately on entry. Each mine deals 30 points of damage, applied to shields first, then fighters. All deployed mines in the sector fire at once and are consumed whether or not they destroy the ship.

You receive a notification when your mines hit, telling you how much damage was dealt — or confirming a kill.

Your own ship passes over your own mines without triggering them.

Destroying Your Own Mines

If you want to recover a sector (for example, to reuse it or to prevent friendly fire on an ally), you can permanently destroy your own deployed mines from the action menu. Destroyed mines are not returned to inventory — they're gone for good.

Things to Know

• Your mines show on your map as an orange star in the upper-left of the hex. Enemies don't see them until they trigger them; a stack that survives in a sector you are standing in (for example because you are in an escape pod) shows as a magenta star with its owner in the sector panel.
• Stacking multiple mines in one sector multiplies the damage: 5 mines deal 150 points, 10 mines deal 300.
• Mines don't expire — they stay deployed until detonated or manually destroyed.
• A well-placed minefield on a trade corridor can disrupt enemy routes and deny safe passage without any active combat on your part.

Sector Fighters

You can leave some of your ship's fighters behind to guard a sector. They stay where you drop them and react to other players' ships according to the mode you chose when deploying them. Sector fighters always fight at 1:1 odds, no matter which ship dropped them.

Deploying Fighters

Open the action menu (Space) in any sector that is not Fedspace, has no port and is not a wormhole endpoint. If your ship carries fighters you will see a sector fighters group with Offensive (F), Defensive (D) and Toll (O) sliders. Pick how many fighters to leave behind and press Go.

• Only one player's fighters can occupy a sector, and a sector holds a single fighter mode. Deploying onto your own stack with the same mode adds to it; to switch modes you must Recall the stack first (the other modes are greyed out in the menu until you do).
• Recall (R) takes fighters from your stack back onto your ship, up to your ship's fighter capacity.
• Deploying and recalling cost the usual action turns.
• Your stacks are drawn as a filled triangle in the lower-left of the hex — red for offensive, blue for defensive, gold for toll — and listed in the Ship Info panel under Fighters.

Running Into Someone Else's Fighters

Moving through a sector that holds another player's Offensive or Toll fighters stops your ship there, even in the middle of a longer route. Defensive stacks never stop you.

• Offensive fighters open fire as soon as you arrive: every fighter in the stack deals one point of damage, absorbed by your shields first and then your fighters. Because they fight at 1:1, the stack loses exactly as many fighters as you absorb — a stack that fails to destroy you is wiped out by the exchange.
• Toll fighters demand fighters x 5 credits. The combat overlay opens with three choices: Pay (p), Attack (a) or Retreat (r). You cannot leave the sector by a normal move until you have paid, fought or retreated. Paying costs no turns; the credits go to the stack's owner. Leaving and coming back means paying again.
• Escape pods are ignored by all fighter stacks, and your own fighters never react to you. Alien ships follow the same rules as player ships: offensive stacks fire on arrival, defensive stacks retaliate when attacked, and toll stacks demand payment. Aliens may pay or retreat.

Your own stacks appear on the map as a triangle coloured by mode (red offensive, blue defensive, gold toll). Another player's stack appears as a magenta triangle once you have seen it, and the sector panel shows how many fighters are there and in which mode.

Attacking Fighters

Whenever you share a sector with someone else's fighters (any mode) and your ship carries fighters, the stack is listed in the combat menu — press f or tap the 💥 button next to ☰ at the top of the map, then pick the fighters row. This opens the normal combat overlay against the stack:

• Damage you deal is your committed fighters x your combat odds; the stack loses that many fighters and you lose a matching number, as in any other fight.
• Surviving fighters retaliate at 1:1 against your shields, then your fighters.
• Retreating jumps you to a random adjacent sector; the stack fires a parting shot as you leave.
• Wiping out a stack earns experience, and the owner is told in their console and the universe log.

Things to Know

• Sector fighters count 5 each on a Density Scanner, so a large stack is easy to spot from next door.
• Owners are notified whenever their fighters stop a ship, collect a toll, take losses or are destroyed, and their map marker updates or disappears.
• Ambushes, attacks, tolls paid and retreats are all recorded in the universe log.