Planets & Colonization

Planets are the ultimate long-term investment. Claim one, populate it, and watch it produce resources while you sleep.

Finding Planets

Planets exist in dangerous sectors (91.4% of the galaxy). They appear in the sector info panel when present. Some are unclaimed — ripe for the taking. Others are owned by rival players.

Tip: 10 starter planets were seeded across The Void. Check sectors in the 150–800 range for unclaimed worlds.

Planet Classes

Class	Name	Best For	Max Colonists
M	Earth Type	Balanced production	30,000
K	Desert	Fuel ore	40,000
O	Oceanic	Organics	200,000
L	Mountainous	Fighters	40,000
C	Glacial	Low production, melange	100,000
H	Volcanic	Fuel farming	100,000
U	Gas	Melange at very low rates	3,000

Best starter pick: M-class (balanced) or K-class (fuel ore sells everywhere). Advanced pick: C-class and U-class are the only known sources of melange, the rarest commodity in the galaxy.

New captain? Read Best Beginner Planet Setup for a simple first-planet plan.

Creating a Planet

1. Travel to a dangerous non-StarDock sector with fewer than 3 existing planets
2. Press G to launch a Genesis Torpedo
3. Pay 80,000 credits
4. The planet class is randomly rolled based on sector density (more planets = higher chance of U-class)

Warning: Genesis torpedoes are single-use and expensive. Make sure you can defend your new world.

Destroying Your Own Planet

If you roll a weak planet class and want to try again, you can now destroy one of your own planets with a Photon Missile.

How it works

1. Dock at StarDock and buy a Photon Missile for 120,000 credits.
2. Travel to the sector containing the planet you want to destroy.
3. Open that planet and use the Danger tab.
4. Fire the missile to destroy the planet for 1 Action Point.

Important warnings

• Photon Missiles are single-use.
• You can only destroy your own planets in this first release.
• Destroying a planet permanently deletes:
  • colonists
  • stored resources
  • fighters
  • citadel progress
• If that planet was the only Citadel Level 5 world you owned in the sector, the Sector Bank for that sector is removed.

Why you would do this

This is mainly a reroll strategy:

• destroy a poor planet
• launch a new Genesis Torpedo
• hope for a better class next time

It is intentionally expensive. A full reroll usually means paying 120,000 credits for the missile and then 80,000 credits for the next Genesis Torpedo.

Colonization

Planets need colonists to produce anything.

Transporting Colonists

1. Dock at a StarDock (D)
2. Select Transport Colonists
3. Choose how many to move
4. Pay fuel (10 per sector distance) + 5 credits per colonist

Tip: Transport colonists from the nearest StarDock to minimize fuel cost.

Removing & Relocating Colonists

Accidentally over-populate a planet? You can now correct it from the Colonists tab of any planet you own (open the planet from the sector view):

• 🚀 Relocate to ship — load colonists onto your ship’s colonist hold (capacity = maxCargo × 100), fly to another planet you own in the same sector, and Deposit from Ship for free. Lets you rebalance population between planets (e.g., move 15k excess from an M-class to a hungry O-class in the same sector).
• 💀 Abandon — strand colonists in open space. No ship capacity used, but costs 1 alignment per 100 colonists abandoned. Use sparingly.

Both flows require your ship to be in the same sector as the planet and cost 1 Action Point per confirmed action. Abandonment is tracked in the asset event log and shifts alignment immediately.

Optimal Population

Production follows a bell curve — peak efficiency at 50% of max colonists:

Class	Sweet Spot	Peak Daily Output
M	15,000	~2,142 org, ~1,153 eq, ~5,000 fuel
K	20,000	~10,000 fuel
O	100,000	~50,000 organics
L	20,000	~4,000 org, ~10,000 fuel, best fighters
H	50,000	~50,000 fuel

Overcrowding past the sweet spot yields diminishing returns.

Production

Daily at 8 AM UTC, your planet produces resources based on:

• Planet class ratios
• Current colonist count
• Production caps (each resource has a max stockpile)

Produced resources accumulate on the planet. You can collect them by visiting the planet and transferring cargo to your ship.

Tip: If you forget where your planet is, check the Planet(s) line in your ship status panel. Click the count to open a planet info list with sector numbers, then click a planet to open its full controls.

Resource	Produced By	Best Classes
Fuel Ore	Mining	K, H, L

Note: “Fuel Ore” on planets is the same commodity as “Ore” at ports — they share the same cargo space. | Organics | Agriculture | O, M | | Equipment | Manufacturing | M, L | | Fighters | Military training | L, M | | Melange | Rare planet chemistry | C, U |

Fighter Storage

Planet fighter storage is fixed by planet class; citadel level does not increase it. Fighter production pauses when the class cap is reached.

Class	Fighter storage cap
M	5,000
K	3,000
O	12,000
L	8,000
C	2,000
H	2,000
U	0

Oceanic worlds have the largest capacity at 12,000 fighters, while U-class gas worlds cannot store fighters.

Melange Production

Melange is a rare commodity produced only by certain “useless” planet classes. It is sold for premium prices at ports.

Class	Min Colonists	Rate	Max per Tick	Storage Cap
C-class	5,000	1 melange per 10,000 colonists/day	10	100
U-class	1,000	1 melange per 3,000 colonists/day	1	10

Tip: U-class planets cap out quickly, but a dense C-class world with tens of thousands of colonists can become a serious melange farm.

Citadels

As your planet grows, you can advance its citadel level from the planet controls (Citadel tab).

Construction time

Citadel upgrades are no longer instant:

• Resources are spent immediately when you start construction and are non-refundable
• The citadel level does not increase until construction finishes
• Duration is measured in production days (one daily maintenance tick = one day)
• Time required varies by planet class and target level
• A planet may have only one construction in progress at a time
• Features gated by citadel level (Q-cannon, patrols, Sector Bank, etc.) use the completed level only — not the level under construction
• When construction finishes, you get a Captain’s Log event and may see a session notice the next time you enter the galaxy

The upgrade confirmation dialog shows the production-day cost before you commit.

Benefits

Feature	Effect
Higher levels	Stronger defenses, more Q-Cannon power
Q-Cannon	Automatically fires on hostile ships entering the sector

Defense tip: A well-developed planet with a Q-Cannon and a fighter garrison is a fortress. Rivals will think twice before jumping in.

Auto-Fighter Patrols

A Citadel Level 3 or higher planet can send part of its fighter garrison on automatic defensive patrols. Open an eligible planet’s Patrol tab to configure three values:

Setting	What it protects
Reserve	Fighters that always remain on the home planet.
Patrol budget	The maximum total fighters that may be assigned from that planet.
Neighbor cap	The maximum assigned to each eligible neighboring sector.

Saving the settings immediately reconciles the patrol. The planet sends fighters only to directly connected, dangerous or caution sectors; CHOAM protected (safe) sectors and StarDock sectors are never patrol targets. The available garrison is split as evenly as possible across eligible neighbors, up to the total budget and per-neighbor cap. When an equal split leaves a remainder, lower-numbered sectors receive the extra fighters first.

Patrols are maintained hourly in each galaxy. If combat reduces a patrol, the next reconciliation replaces eligible losses from the home planet while preserving its reserve, budget, and neighbor cap. Reducing a setting, clearing it to zero, or losing an eligible connection returns the matching surviving patrol fighters to their home planet.

Recall and loss rules

• Each patrol allocation can be recalled remotely from its home planet’s Patrol tab for 1 Action Point. The surviving fighters return directly to that planet; your ship does not need spare Fighter Bay capacity or need to be in the patrol sector.
• Patrols do not decay over time. They persist until combat, a configuration change, a remote recall, or the destruction of their home planet.
• Patrol fighters are still deployed sector fighters. Enemy attacks can destroy them, and only the surviving allocation can be recalled or returned.
• Destroying a home planet removes its surviving patrol allocations and their matching deployed-fighter contribution. It does not remove fighters you deployed manually in those sectors.

Territory markers

The tactical sector map and Local Scanner show a personal territory marker for the active galaxy. Owned means your fighter defense is the sole strongest force in that sector; Contested means your defense is tied for strongest. Influenced means that sector has one of your patrol allocations but another force is stronger. All other sectors are Neutral. These markers are personal intelligence, not a public declaration of a sector owner.

Planet + Port Synergy

Player-built ports make planet sectors much more valuable over the long term.

If you already control planets in a non-safe sector, a custom port can give you:

• a local trade node near your production
• a better reason to invest in sector defenses
• a future route anchor that grows stronger as people trade through it and earns a 3% fee from player trades

Important: player-built ports do not currently pull inventory directly from your planets. They still use the normal port economy and grow through trade volume, not direct planetary feeding.

The fee is held in the port treasury for its builder, not paid directly from planet production. Like other strategic assets in dangerous space, the treasury can be robbed by an outlaw; see Trading for the fee and withdrawal rules.

Sector Bank

Once you own a Citadel Level 5 planet in a sector, that sector unlocks a Sector Bank (also called Sector Warehouse). The bank is shared across all your planets in that sector and lets you move resources between them without loading cargo onto your ship.

What the bank stores

Resource	Capacity
Credits	5,000,000
Fuel Ore	5,000
Organics	5,000
Equipment	5,000

How to use it

1. Open any of your planets in the sector and select the Bank tab.
2. Choose Deposit or Withdraw.
3. Enter an amount and confirm.
   • Credits move between your ship and the bank.
   • Commodities move between the selected planet and the bank.
4. Each deposit or withdrawal costs 1 Action Point.

Ownership and looting

• The first player to deposit into an unlocked sector bank becomes its owner.
• If another player conquers your Level 5+ citadel planet in the future, the bank ownership will transfer to them and its contents become lootable.
• If you destroy your own controlling Level 5+ citadel planet with a Photon Missile and no other Level 5 planet of yours remains in that sector, the bank is removed.
• Melange and cross-sector transfers are not supported yet.

Planet Defense

Your planet is vulnerable until you defend it:

• Deploy fighters in the sector (press F) — see Fighters & Mines
• Advance the citadel for Q-Cannon coverage
• Limpet mines can slow down attackers

Warning: Unclaimed planets are first-come, first-served. Owned planets can be attacked — your colonists and citadel are only safe if you make the sector hostile to invaders.

Planetary Siege and Destruction

A fortified planet can hold a dangerous chokepoint, but its Q-Cannon is not invulnerable. Every time it fires on a hostile ship, it spends its stored fuel, organics, and equipment. If attackers survive enough entries to reduce that cannon’s sector damage to zero, it can no longer fire until production restores enough resources.

Destroying a hostile Q-Cannon planet

An attacker can use a Photon Missile to permanently destroy an eligible hostile planet. The attacker must:

1. Be in the same sector as the target.
2. Target a Citadel Level 3+ planet with an active sector Q-Cannon.
3. Exhaust that planet’s Q-Cannon until its sector damage is zero. A tiny residual resource amount may remain because of damage rounding.
4. Clear all sector fighters deployed by that planet’s owner in the sector.
5. Carry an armed Photon Missile and spend 1 Action Point.

The target planet, its colonists, stored resources, fighters, citadel, and cannon are destroyed permanently. You do not gain ownership, loot, or a claim on the empty planet slot. The defender receives a Captain’s Log alert. Mines, other planets, other owners’ defenses, and other sector hazards remain in place.

Hostile destruction is a serious outlaw act: it costs the Photon Missile, applies -500 alignment plus a penalty for lost colonists, and awards +500 XP. Photon Missiles cost 120,000 credits at StarDock and ships carry one at a time.

If the destroyed planet’s owner also controls the Sector Bank and has no other Citadel Level 5+ planet in that sector, the bank and its contents are destroyed. Banks are never transferred to the attacker.

Taxes & CHOAM

Planet owners in FedSpace pay CHOAM tariffs. This also counts toward Pay Taxes daily bounties. In dangerous space, you set your own terms — but no one patrols your sector for free.