Colonization

Colonization is your own personal empire: a city-builder spread across the galaxy. No squadron, no PvP, no timers to miss. You found colonies on habitable systems, grow them, and reinvest what they produce into permanent, account-wide skills. The empire itself is the reward.

Finding a system

Open the Galaxy Map and inspect habitable systems. Each shows a Colony line with two values:

• Economy: the single material that system produces (six economies, one material each; see the table below).
• Efficiency [0-100]: how good the system is. Higher efficiency means a higher population cap, a bigger storage and stronger defense, so bigger, sturdier colonies.

A system can be claimed by a squadron or colonized by a player, never both. Player colonies glow green on the map.

Founding a colony

Founding takes a colony from nothing (T0) to active (T1):

• Park your ship in a free habitable system and press Found colony in the system panel.
• Founding costs material of that system's economy, paid from your pool. Your first colony of each economy is free; every additional colony of the same economy costs more (the cost scales with how much that economy already produces for you), so spreading across economies is cheaper than stacking one.
• Every new colony arrives with a starting stock of its economy's material, so you can start right away instead of waiting on production.
• The colony starts at 0% founding. Run Develop missions, either Short (~4h) or Long (~12h). Each completed mission pushes the founding bar; at 100% the colony activates, seeds a starting population, and begins producing.
• Each additional colony of the same economy takes a little longer to fully develop, and the Development skill speeds founding back up.

You only need to travel to the system once, to found it and start its first mission. After that, missions run on their own timer and you can queue the rest from anywhere, leaving your ship free to explore.

The production loop

Every active colony runs the same loop:

• Population grows over time toward a population cap. It will not grow past the cap.
• Production converts population into the system's material every hour, filling the colony's storage.
• Storage has a cap, which grows with the system's efficiency, your Storage skill and the Colony storage boost Technology skill. Once full, production stops until you collect.
• Claim all (from the Materials panel) moves every colony's stored material into your account-wide pool.
• Reinvest the pool into your skills, and expand by founding more colonies.

A colony's size and output come from two things: the system's efficiency (fixed when you found it) and your account-wide skills. You do not build anything inside a colony: you raise your skills, and every colony grows with them.

TIP

Production keeps accruing while you are offline, up to the storage cap. Raise the Storage skill and Claim before your colonies fill up, or you waste production.

Skills

Your whole empire shares six skills, one per economy. They are your upgrades (there are no per-colony buildings). You level a skill by spending its material, and every boost applies to all your colonies, present and future.

Because every skill boosts all your colonies at once, leveling up grows your whole empire, and each new colony grows toward the higher caps your empire has already unlocked. Maxing your skills means spending all six materials, which means colonizing all six economies.

Cosmic dust upkeep

Running an empire costs cosmic dust. The upkeep per hour is shown at the top of the Colonization page, and it is charged in small installments throughout the day.

• The upkeep is a share of your daily cosmic dust income: what you earn and receive, minus what you burn on dust costs. The share grows with every active colony you own, up to a cap. Colonies still being founded do not count.
• Your daily income is an average of your recent days, so a single good or bad day barely moves it, and if you stop earning it goes down gradually, not overnight. Until you have a few days of history, it is estimated from your account's lifetime dust earnings.
• If your balance cannot cover an installment, your colonies stop producing and you get a notification. Production resumes as soon as you can pay again. Population keeps growing and invasions keep coming while production is stopped.
• The Colony upkeep efficiency Technology skill lowers the upkeep.

Empire Power

Everything you build adds up to one number, Empire Power: your whole empire's development at a glance, shown at the top of the page. It sums:

• every active colony you own,
• every level of your skills.

No hidden curve, no level: bigger empire, bigger number.

Empire XP bonus

Empire Power grants an account-wide XP bonus. The bonus is shown next to your Power at the top of the page.

• It applies to exploring (manual travel), gathering, battling, crafting (ship parts and the Craftron 3000) and your pets' XP. Voyager expeditions and catalysts do not get it.
• It adds to the other XP bonuses of each activity (global boost, pets, squadron buildings, base, dungeons), before premium and catalysts multiply the total. For pets, it adds to the Technology boost.
• The curve never caps: the more you expand, the higher it climbs.

Alien invasions

Your empire is raided on a fixed schedule: a galaxy-wide invasion wave hits all your colonies at the same server-time. The Colonization page shows a single countdown to the next wave (the same for your whole empire), so you always see it coming.

Each colony is judged on its own:

• Threat scales with the colony's population: the bigger it is, the more an invasion can take.
• Defense comes from a base defense every colony has (scaled by the system's efficiency), multiplied by your account-wide Defense skill.
• Defense ≥ Threat → the colony repels the wave, no loss.
• Defense < Threat → the colony loses population in proportion to the shortfall.

Losses are recoverable, never a wipe: population regrows over time. A small, young colony has little population, so its low threat sits under the base defense. A brand-new colony is never punished for being young.

TIP

The wave resolves server-side even while you are offline, using the Defense you had when it fired, so you cannot react mid-raid. Keep your Defense skill ahead of your biggest colonies' population, so Defense ≥ Threat before the wave hits.

Empire leaderboard

Every empire is ranked by its Empire Power on the Rankings page, under the Empire Power category.

TL;DR

• Find a habitable system with the economy you want and high efficiency, park your ship, and Found colony (first colony of each economy is free; the rest cost that economy's material, scaling with what it already produces; every new colony arrives with a starting stock).
• Travel once to found and start it; Develop missions then run on their own and you re-queue from anywhere until founding reaches 100%, when the colony activates.
• Active colonies grow population toward a cap and produce their material into a capped storage.
• Claim all material into your account pool; reinvest into your six account-wide skills (there are no per-colony buildings).
• Active colonies cost a daily cosmic dust upkeep, a share of your daily dust income that grows with each colony. If you cannot pay it, your colonies stop producing.
• A galaxy-wide invasion wave hits every colony on a timer. Threat grows with a colony's population, so keep your Defense skill ahead of your biggest colonies or lose population.
• Your skills are account-wide and permanent, so every new colony grows toward the caps your empire has already unlocked.
• Empire Power sums your whole empire into one number, grants an uncapped account-wide XP bonus, and ranks you on the leaderboard.