Colonies: when to expand, how to settle and how to keep what you take

Why colonies matter

Your capital can never be captured, which makes it safe but also limited. Colonies are where a commander’s ambition and risk live. Each one adds its own production, its own Store, its own queues and its own flight bays, so a commander with three developed colonies can build, fly and recover several times faster than one with a capital alone. Each one is also something you can lose.

You can hold at most three colonies. Their slots open when your capital’s Command Core reaches levels 9, 13 and 16. That makes expansion a mid-game decision rather than an opening move, and it means the first slot usually arrives when you already have a working fleet and a sense of your neighbours.

Choosing a neutral world

Colonies are founded on neutral planets, which belong to no commander. They come in development tiers with garrisons of different strength. Their appearance gives a broad estimate of the threat and a probe gives detail. Higher-tier garrisons can replenish over time, so an old report may no longer describe what defends the planet today.

Three things make a good target. First, distance: a planet close to your capital is easier to reach inside the settlement window, easier to supply and easier to defend. Second, a garrison you can defeat decisively, because only a decisive victory opens settlement. Third, the starting stock: a new colony begins with the stock assigned to its neutral tier, so a higher tier is a bigger head start if you can beat its defence.

Neutral raids are worth doing even when you do not plan to settle. They bring resources and they teach you combat against a defence that does not log in and retaliate. They do not transfer Dominion, and neutral tiers are separate from the tier range used between players.

The 90-minute window, step by step

Settlement is a race against a clock, and the clock starts with your victory. Here is the sequence that works:

• Before raiding, check the travel time from the planet that will send your settlers. If two Couriers cannot arrive within about an hour, choose a closer target or launch from a closer world.
• Keep a free colony slot. The raid winner gets the first 60 minutes as priority only if a slot is free when settlement opens.
• Win decisively. Partial success does not open settlement.
• Send the settlement fleet at once: two Couriers carrying 1,000 alloy and 500 crystal of founding resources, plus fuel for the one-way flight.
• Arrive strictly before the deadline. Priority is checked on arrival, not at launch.

The window lasts 90 minutes. During your 60-minute priority, only you can settle; after it, any commander with a free slot can compete, and the first valid arrival wins. A settlement flight cannot be recalled. If someone else settles first, or the window closes before you arrive, your Couriers return with the founding resources; spent fuel is not refunded.

On success the two Couriers stay on the new colony, the founding resources are spent, and the colony is protected for six hours. Use those hours to start its first building upgrade and to decide what it is for.

Give every colony a job

A colony runs independently: separate buildings, stock, ships and instruments, with your research shared across all your worlds. That freedom is easier to use if each colony has a clear purpose. A production colony raises its producers and Store and later adds a Foundry. A forward base near good targets carries a raiding fleet and a strong Radar. A mining colony near asteroid lanes adds a Derrick for its Prospectors.

Orbit slots force the choice. The Command Core opens one slot at first and two from level 9, and every satellite uses one. An Uplink for intelligence, a Foundry for production and a Derrick for mining cannot all fit on a young colony, so pick the one that serves its job. Remember too that a colony’s Core controls only that colony: raising it never satisfies a requirement that names your capital’s Core, such as research timing or the next colony slot.

Faults and loyalty: the cost of holding

Developed colonies can suffer faults once their local Core reaches level 6. A fault can interrupt a producer, leak Store resources or disable equipment such as the Telescope or Shipyard. Each fault has its own consequence and its own repair; open the affected item to see both. Repairs take between about 7 and 22 minutes each, with up to three in the repair queue.

Faults matter because of loyalty. A colony starts at 100 loyalty. Active faults wear it down, faster when there are several, and it recovers once they are cleared. Battles cost loyalty directly too: a decisive defeat takes 30 points and a partial breach 15. Death Star hits and radiation bombs take loyalty as well. At zero, the colony becomes neutral and you lose it; nobody captures it outright, but it becomes a neutral world that anyone can raid and settle.

There is one strong protection. Starting any building upgrade on a colony protects it from all new faults for at least 12 hours, and every accepted building order renews that protection immediately; completion is not required. A colony whose Construction queue always has a fresh order rarely faults at all. Existing faults still need repairs, and battles can still damage it.

Moving ships and resources between worlds

Transfers carry ships and resources between your own planets. The load must fit the selected ships’ cargo, and your Store must hold both the load and the fuel. You can leave the ships at the destination or let eligible transports unload and return; the preview prices the whole route. An outbound transfer can be recalled once before arrival and returns over the time already flown.

Two cautions. Moving every warship to one colony leaves your other worlds undefended, and ships away still occupy their origin’s Hangar room until the transfer completes. A planet that has just received a transfer also waits briefly before another transfer can leave it, so an immediate onward flight may have to wait. Transfers lists the details.

Defending colonies

Colonies are the first thing rivals look for once they discover your territory. A colony with no defence, a large Store and old faults is an easy decision for an attacker: the raid takes loot and 30 loyalty at once. Defend them the way you defend your capital, with a mixed home force, an active Aegis, a Radar to buy reaction time and a Store that is spent before you log off.

If a colony is in real danger, compare its loyalty with what the next defeat would cost. A colony at 35 loyalty cannot survive one more decisive loss; reinforcing it, repairing its faults or moving its stock to safety may be worth more than any upgrade. If you are in a clan, defensive support can bring allied ships to hold the line without giving them away.

Colony checklist

• Free colony slot, ready before the raid.
• Travel time for two Couriers inside the 60-minute priority.
• 1,000 alloy, 500 crystal and one-way fuel set aside on the sending world.
• A job for the new colony and a first building order queued as soon as it lands.
• A Construction order always waiting, to keep new faults away.
• A home defence and a Radar before the first rival discovers it.

Colonies turn a single planet into territory. Taken carefully and held deliberately, they are the clearest sign of a commander who is growing.