Combat & strategy
How a battle resolves
Understand combat rounds, shields, permanent losses and victory grades. Learn why attack power alone does not predict a battle.
How it works
Combat has a limited number of rounds. Both sides fire in the same round. Only surviving combat-ready ships and ground defences fire. Attack, remaining hull strength, research and opposing classes affect damage. Shot variation can change a close result.
An active Aegis absorbs damage before defending units. Nullifier’s extra shield damage affects only Aegis; it does not pass into ships. Without combat-ready defenders, Aegis alone cannot hold the planet. Prospectors do not take part in home defence.
A decisive victory clears the defending force and its active battle shield, or takes an undefended target. Partial success destroys the required share of defending resource value without clearing everything. Otherwise, the attack is repelled. The outcome sets loot share and the production pause.
Your next decision
Compare classes, current damage, Aegis and support, as well as attack. Hull strength, also called HP, is how much damage a unit can take before destruction. Cargo ships do not fire and are protected while armed ships survive.
Surviving cargo capacity is needed to take loot home. After combat, read permanent losses, damaged survivors and the resources actually returned. A victory grade does not by itself show whether the raid was profitable.
Reference values
| Rule | Value |
|---|---|
| Maximum rounds | 3 |
| Partial: defending value destroyed | 42% |
| Decisive victory: exposed loot taken | 60% |
| Partial success: exposed loot taken | 30% |
| Uncollected production exposed to raids | 50% |
| Production pause after decisive victory | 20 min |
| Production pause after partial success | 7 min |
| Ground losses rebuilt free | 60% |
| Wreck resources per surviving Garbage Collector | 7,500 |