Galaxy opportunities: pirates, signals, mining, the merchant and the convoy

Opportunities that do not log in

Player raids are the sharpest risk in Astera, but they are not the only way to grow. The galaxy itself moves: signals appear, pirates cross the map, asteroids drift past, the merchant arrives and the Intergalactic Convoy makes its crossings on a schedule. None of these targets will retaliate tomorrow, and together they can supply a steady income between the bigger decisions.

They still cost something. Every mission burns fuel, uses a flight bay and takes ships away from home, and radiation or battle can still destroy them. This guide shows what each opportunity pays, what it risks and when it is worth a fleet.

Unknown signals: a small gamble with good odds

Commanders in tiers 1–3 receive personal unknown signals. A new signal appears two to four hours after the previous one and lasts 60 minutes, even while you are offline; in your first game the first one appears within ten minutes. To answer it, send exactly one first-tier warship (Dart, Pike, Rampart or Warden) together with one Courier.

The energy outcome deserves a plan: production doubles for one to four hours, but the Works do not grow, so collect during the boost or it is wasted. Found warships land even in a full Hangar and need no research. The risk is real but small: a sixth of signals hide pirates, and a lost Courier loses all its cargo. Because the stake is only two cheap ships, answering signals is one of the best habits a new commander can form.

Timing matters too. Energy and cosmetics are delivered when your ships arrive; resources and found warships arrive only when the ships return home, so radiation on either leg can still cost you the prize. A found warship carries 20–60% damage and uses normal repair prices. For a tier 1 commander it is a tier 1 hull 80% of the time, tier 2 15% and tier 3 5%, which makes an early signal one of the few ways to field a second-tier ship before your Shipyard allows it.

Pirates: the training ground with prizes

Pirates are moving fleets that stay in the galaxy for a limited time. The flight preview calculates where your fleet can meet them rather than sending you to their old position; your slowest ship must reach them before they leave. They come in four levels, and each level fights at a fraction of its listed damage:

A level 1 pirate fleet hits at half strength, which makes it the gentlest real battle in the game and the best place to test a new fleet composition. A decisive win can even hand you one of their ships. Bring cargo for the resource reward, but remember that a slow transport may make the whole fleet too late to intercept. A pirate raid can be recalled once before combat. Pirate battles do not transfer Dominion.

Asteroids and debris: mining without a fight

Prospectors are mining craft. Each planet can own two before research, and Prospector Holds level 3 opens a third. A Prospector flies to the predicted meeting point of a moving asteroid at 742.5 map units per minute, takes what remains on arrival and returns loaded at half that speed. Its base hold is 200 resources, improved by the Prospector Holds research and the planet’s Derrick satellite; ordinary Cargo Holds research does not help it.

Asteroids are not reserved for whoever saw them first. Another commander can arrive earlier and take the resources, and if an asteroid is emptied before you arrive your craft turn home. Ordinary asteroids hold alloy and crystal; Isotope Spectrometry opens deuterium-bearing asteroids, which are worth chasing given how scarce fuel is. Battles also leave debris fields, and Prospectors can collect from those too.

Two practical points. Returned loads enter the Works and need room there, so collect before several loads come home. And very short trips trigger a one-minute cooldown, so nearby rocks are not quite free.

Wreckage is a second harvest. A Garbage Collector that joins an attack and survives brings home up to 7,500 wreck resources, in the same alloy, crystal and deuterium proportions as the wreck, separately from ordinary cargo. Whatever it cannot carry stays as a public debris field that any Prospector can reach. After a large battle near your territory, it is worth checking the map for fresh debris before someone else does.

The merchant: turning surplus into what you need

The merchant offers equal-value exchanges at visible rates: 32 alloy, 16 crystal and 1 deuterium have the same trade value. Send one resource and receive others of equal value. Only Couriers, Wayfarers, Atlases and Argosies provide trade cargo, and both the offer and the return load must fit in their holds; trading deuterium for alloy or crystal returns a much larger count, so check the return capacity in particular.

Honor can add a commission, deducted from what you receive, if your Honor tier carries one; a neutral or good standing trades at no fee. The real value of the merchant is flexibility: a capital rich in alloy and short of crystal can rebalance in one trip instead of waiting for production. You can recall a trade convoy before it reaches the merchant; it brings the offer home without a swap and the fuel stays spent.

The Intergalactic Convoy

The Intergalactic Convoy crosses the galaxy at scheduled times. It does not fire back, but radiation along the route can still damage your fleet. Each of your planets can complete one strike per crossing, and while a strike from that planet is away it cannot send another. The strike cannot be recalled and you pay both legs’ fuel at launch.

Firepower raises the quality of the reward and the chance of a ship prize; surviving cargo limits what you bring home; and the resource reward is capped at four hours of the origin planet’s production. That cap is the key planning number. A colony with strong producers is worth more as a convoy launch point than one with a large fleet and weak production. Adding warships without cargo raises the potential reward without increasing what you carry.

The weekly event calendar

Events follow a weekly schedule in Türkiye time (UTC+3). If you play in another time zone, convert once and check the in-game countdown before each event.

The weekend evening shower is the single best mining window of the week. Keep Prospectors home and flight bays free for it, and collect the Works beforehand so the loads have somewhere to land.

Fitting opportunities into a session

• Answer every unknown signal you can; the stake is two cheap ships.
• Use level 1 and 2 pirates to test new compositions before risking them against players.
• Keep Prospectors busy on deuterium asteroids once Isotope Spectrometry is researched.
• Plan convoy strikes from your most productive worlds, with enough cargo to carry the capped reward.
• Use the merchant to fix shortages instead of letting one resource block your queues.
• Never empty a planet of defenders for a PvE mission: ships away cannot defend home.

Rules for each activity are in unknown signals, pirates, mining, trade, the convoy and the event calendar.