Fleets

Fleets consist of one or more ships that are directed by one of the human factions or the aliens. Fleets conduct operations and fight in space battles.

Fleet Operations

Fleets may undertake various operations, typically only when they are in orbit and not in a transfer. They are:

Operation	Effects	Required components
Transfer	Launch this fleet toward the selected orbit, station, or fleet.
Split Fleet	Break off one or more ships into a separate fleet.
Merge Fleets	Merge a nearby fleet into this one.
Merge All Fleets	Merge all nearby fleets into this one.
Land on Surface	Set down at a friendly or undefended enemy base, or an unimproved hab site. Fleet must have sufficient acceleration to take off again, and access to enough Delta-V to reach an interface orbit.
Launch	Launch the fleet into an interface orbit of this space body. Requires the fleet has Delta-V greater than the body's escape velocity.
Undock	Undock from this station and assume a matching orbit.
Scuttle Ships	Scuttle ships from this fleet. If docked at one of your shipyards, gain 25% of the ship's construction resources in your stockpile. If not docked at any hab, pay Boost to send any crew home that can't be absorbed by the rest of the fleet.
Resupply	Refuel and rearm ships in this fleet. Requires being docked at a hab with a supply depot or shipyard and a sufficient resource stockpile to cover at least a partial resupply. Ships with the capability to resupply from the local environment may do so for free.
Repair	Repair damage and restore exhausted modules to ships in fleet.
Repair and Resupply	Refuel, rearm, and repair all ships in this fleet.
Set Homeport	Sets a home habitat for this fleet. A station, or an interface orbit above a base, will become the default destination for the fleet when initiating a trajectory when the fleet is not already docked there and no other space object is currently selected.
Clear Homeport	Clear this fleet's homeport.
Cancel	Cancel the fleet's active operation.
Share Propellant	Transfer propellant between ships in this fleet to increase some ships' Delta-V.	Drive with the same propellant
Low-Level Bombardment	Begin orbital bombardment against a surface target from 200km altitude. Requires being in an interface orbit. Defended locations will return fire. Earth-based space facilities and armies typically must be in a nation at war to be targeted. Targeting large civilian facilities is an atrocity.	Weapons that can bombard
Mid-Level Bombardment	Begin orbital bombardment against a surface target from 400km altitude. Requires being in an interface orbit. Defended locations will return fire. Earth-based space facilities and armies typically must be in a nation at war to be targeted. Targeting large civilian facilities is an atrocity.	Weapons that can bombard
High-Level Bombardment	Begin orbital bombardment against a surface target from 600km altitude. Requires being in an interface orbit. Defended locations will return fire. Earth-based space facilities and armies typically must be in a nation at war to be targeted. Targeting large civilian facilities is an atrocity.	Weapons that can bombard
Destroy Hab	Destroy the hab this fleet is docked at. Counts as an atrocity against human habitats with certain civilian modules. We will recover salvage.	Marine Assault Unit or Rangers Weapons (stations only)
Assault Hab	Assault and capture an enemy hab with our Marines. We can seize a station we have docked with, or an enemy base from an interface orbit above it. Habs with Marine defenses will be harder to capture.	Marine Assault Unit or Rangers
Survey	Prospect mining sites on a planet, moon or asteroid. The fleet must be in an interface orbit of the space body to perform this operation.	Mobile Space Science Lab
Found Platform (Solar)	Found a solar-powered platform with a construction module in the fleet's current orbit. Requires sufficient local solar flux and 1 free Mission Control to deploy.	Solar Platform Kit
Found Platform (Fission)	Found a platform with a fission pile and a construction module in the fleet's current orbit. Requires 2 free Mission Control.	Fission Platform Kit
Found Platform (Fusion)	Found a platform with a fusion pile and a construction module in the fleet's current orbit. Requires 2 free Mission Control.	Fusion Platform Kit
Found Outpost (Solar)	Found a solar-powered outpost with a construction module at a prospected base site. The fleet must be in an interface orbit or landed at the site to perform this operation. Requires sufficient local solar flux and 1 free Mission Control to deploy.	Solar Outpost Kit
Found Outpost (Fission)	Found an outpost with a fission pile and a construction module at a prospected base site. The fleet must be in an interface orbit or landed at the site to perform this operation. Requires 2 free Mission Control.	Fission Outpost Kit
Found Outpost (Fusion)	Found an outpost with a fusion pile and a construction module at a prospected base site. The fleet must be in an interface orbit or landed at the site to perform this operation. Requires 2 free Mission Control.	Fusion Outpost Kit
Found Automated Supply Depot (Solar)	Found a solar-powered platform with a supply depot in the fleet's current orbit. Requires sufficient local solar flux and 1 free Mission Control to deploy.	Automated Solar Platform Kit
Found Automated Supply Depot (Fission)	Found a fission-powered platform with a supply depot in the fleet's current orbit. Requires 1 free Mission Control.	Automated Fission Platform Kit
Found Automated Mining Outpost (Solar)	Found a solar-powered automated outpost with a mine. The fleet must be in an interface orbit or landed at the site to perform this operation. Requires sufficient local solar flux and 1 free Mission Control to deploy.	Automated Solar Outpost Kit
Found Automated Mining Outpost (Fission)	Found a fission-powered automated outpost with a mine. The fleet must be in an interface orbit or landed at the site to perform this operation. Requires 1 free Mission Control.	Automated Fission Outpost Kit

Transfers

A transfer is the term for a fleet moving from one place to another while staying in space. Fleets may transfer to orbits, stations, or other fleets. A fleet needs enough delta-V to make a transfer, and longer transfer will require more delta-V. If the cruise acceleration of a fleet is too low, they might be unable to make transfer to fast-moving objects.

When initiating a transfer operation, a fleet will receive one or more trajectory options if it can reach its destination at all. If multiple trajectories are possible, the player may choose between trading off arrival time and Delta-V expenditure between them.

Trajectories might be microthrust spirals, which are typical for fleets with low acceleration; impulse conics, for fleets with high acceleration but low Delta-V; or torch chords, for advanced fleets with both high acceleration and Delta-V.

Orbital Bombardment

Bombardment Capability

A fleet equipped with bombardment-capable weapons may conduct orbital bombardment against targets on the surface of a Space Body. They must be in an interface orbit to launch attacks.

Above Earth, valid targets include Armies, space facilities, Regions, and any alien assets we have detected. On other space bodies, Bases and landed space fleets may be targeted.

The weapons capable of bombardment are:

• All Laser Weapons except for the dedicated point defense lasers that have no attack mode.
• All Magnetic Weapons.
• All Missiles that have nuclear, antimatter, or shaped nuclear warheads.

Furthermore, Space Bodies that have a sufficiently thick atmosphere cannot be bombarded by:

• All Missiles
• All Laser Weapons that have wavelengths less than 380nm or more than 740nm. (This means infrared, ultraviolet, x-ray, and gamma lasers are blocked, whereas orange, green, and violet lasers are still allowed to bombard.)

As of Version 0.4.90, only two bombardable Space Bodies have such thick atmospheres: Earth and Titan (a moon of Saturn).

Bombardment Mechanics

The Bombardment operation proceeds in rounds, once per orbit. Specifically, a round occurs every time the fleet reaches a specific position in orbit that is roughly over the target it is bombarding.

When a round occurs, every bombardment capable weapon on every ship in the fleet that can still fire will fire at the target. If the target is a hab, then a random hab module on the hab is selected as the target, but the hab core can only be targeted after everything else is destroyed.

After the fleet finishes firing, if the target has any defenses that can still fire, such as region defense lasers or Battlestation hab modules, they will fire back at the most threatening ship in the attacking fleet.

Missile Mechanics

Note that by the above rules, Earth cannot be bombarded by Missiles, and the only bombardment capable Missiles all have nuclear, antimatter, or shaped nuclear warheads, meaning their damage values are all absurdly high. As such, the game handles them very differently:

If any missile with a shaped nuclear warhead hits, then the randomly selected target hab module is destroyed in one hit.

If any missile with a nuclear or antimatter warhead hits, then the entire hab is destroyed in one hit.

Furthermore, shaped nuclear missiles have a 20% chance to hit even if they are shot by the hab's point defenses.

Laser Mechanics

Laser Weapons function almost the same in bombardment as in real combat. The only notable difference is that Space Bodies with thicker atmospheres apply a penalty to the laser's damage. Specifically, the laser damage is multiplied by:

• 1 for Space Bodies with No Atmosphere.
• 0.99 for Space Bodies with Trace Atmosphere.
• 0.95 for Space Bodies with Thin Atmosphere.
• 0.8 for Space Bodies with Standard Atmosphere.

Note: Nothing on Earth has any armor. So the laser weapon's armor penetration has no effect whatsoever when bombarding targets on Earth.

Armor Mechanics

Nothing on Earth has any armor.

Spaceships naturally have whatever armor they normally have.

For Ground Hab Modules, their armor values are calculated as:

Hab Module Armor Value = Heat of Vaporization (MJ/kg) of Best Available Armor / 2.5 × Module Tier

Combat Modules (Powered Marine Modules and Powered Defense Modules) have 4 times as much armor value.

Critical Modules (Unpowered Marine Modules, Unpowered Defense Modules, Power Plants, and the Hab Core) have 2 times as much armor value.

The best available armor for Habs owned by Human Factions is simply the best armor that the faction has researched, but excluding any armor that costs exotics.

SPOILERS INSIDE!
The best available armor for Alien Habs in the same Space Body as their Wormhole is the Alien Exotic Armor, which has a Heat of Vaporization of 70 MJ/kg. The best available armor for all other Alien Habs is the Alien Diamondoid Armor, which has a Heat of Vaporization of 59.534 MJ/kg.

Magnetic Gun Mechanics

Magnetic Weapons mechanics are the most complex: the game actually does several calculations, taking into account the target Space Body's mass, radius, sphere of influence, and atmosphere. Both gravity and air resistance are modelled, to compute the impact velocity of the Magnetic Weapons' projectiles.

Related Links

See Laser Weapon List for information on the power of Laser Weapons, including the anti-bombardment lasers used by the defenses.

See Ship Armor List for information on the armor of ground hab modules in bombardment.

See Space Body List for a list of Space Bodies and their stats.

Space Combat

Combat UI showing ship commands and fleet commands

When two fleets from enemy factions meet in an orbit, deep space, or at a station, a space battle begins. Players may elect to autoresolve combats.

Stations with defensive modules will take part in battles; they will be considered disabled if those modules are destroyed.

Very large space battles will have active and reinforcing ships. Reinforcing ships will join during combat at a later time to replace active ships when they are destroyed. You can adjust the maximum number of ships that can be active at any time during combat in the gameplay settings in the options menu. This is for performance reasons in very large battles.

When a fleet or station is attacked, allied fleets of the defender in the same orbit and less than 1,000 kilometers away will be drawn into the battle and join the defending fleet.

Before a battle begins, each fleet will select from one of three stances: Engage, Accept, or Evade. Fleets that are docked at habs or are unavailable for operations because of previous battles may only select the Accept option. Based on what each side picks the follwing will happen:

Choice	Engage	Accept	Escape
Engage	Combat	Combat	Pursuit
Accept	Combat	No combat	No combat
Escape	Pursuit	No combat	No combat

If pursuit takes place both fleets will attempt to outpace the other with a combination of fleet acceleration and bid Delta-V. If the fleet that selected Engage moves faster the combat will take place.

Once in combat, players plan maneuvers their ships by setting waypoints in 3D space. Ships will turn and thrust to reach their waypoints. Players may also rotate a ship's facing independent of its direction of travel to present certain weapons or armor facings to an enemy. Special maneuvers include persistent spins, rolls, and a padlocking-target command that keeps the ship's nose pointed at its primary target.

Any damage that penetrates a ship's armor is applied to its internal systems. Weapons and other modules may be temporarily disabled or permanently destroyed, requiring repair at a hab with a shipyard. Damage control teams will also attempt to restore function to critical systems in combat.

Fire Control

Weapons have one or more fire modes available to them. They can be set at the fleet, ship, or individual weapon level during combat.

Ships may also designate an enemy ship or hab module as its primary target. The ship's weapons will favor that enemy over others. Missile weapons require a primary target to fire.

Depending on their capabilities, weapons may also be set to only attack enemy ships, only fire defensively at incoming projectiles and missiles, or in "guardian" mode, firing first at threatening projectiles and then targeting enemy craft.

Ships or the entire fleet can be set to the following fire postures:

Posture	Offensive weaponry	Guardian-capable weapons
Focus Fire	Attack only primary target	Attack only primary target
Attack	Attack primary target if in range, otherwise nearest target	Attack primary target if in range, otherwise nearest target
Balanced	Attack primary target if in range, otherwise nearest target	Attack threatening projectiles if any, otherwise nearest target
Defensive	Attack primary target if in range, otherwise nearest target	Attack only threatening projectiles
Fortified	Preserve power and ammo	Attack only threatening projectiles

Heat Management

Running the ship's power plant to recharge the batteries or operate the drive creates heat that is normally expelled by the ship's radiators, which cannot be armored. In combat, radiators may be retracted to protect them, but the ship must put all its heat into heat sinks, which have a limited capacity. The heat level will lower automatically when the radiators are extended. If the heat level stored in heat sinks reaches maximum, the ship will start to take internal damage. In combat, the radiators will automatically be extended to start radiating heat if possible. Keep in mind, without proper heat management a ship will experience catastrophic failure.