Close the distance, strip their shields and break their line before they break yours.
Music and Effects in the top bar mute them during a battle; these set how loud they are. Brightness lightens or darkens the whole scene, for screens that run dark or for playing outdoors. Fast plays the enemy's turns at double speed; your own stay as they are. Positional sound places each sound where it happens on screen; turn it off for a single speaker. Anonymous stats shares which modes and fleets you play and how battles end, with no cookies and nothing that identifies you; Off sends nothing.
Damage is what a ship puts out per turn with every weapon firing, before accuracy, range, shields and armor. The AI build enemy spends the same budget.
Records live in this browser only. Export them to keep a copy, or to move them to another browser or computer; Import adds a file's games to what's here.
Ships take real damage: a hit that gets through to the hull can knock out a weapon, the engines, the shield generator, point defense, the sensors (worse aim, and no long-range railgun shots while they're offline) or, on missile ships, the magazine (lost salvos, and it can cook off). Damaged systems work worse; offline ones are out for a couple of turns. Crews patch things up over time, faster near a Repair tender, and its Resupply fixes everything.
Each turn every one of your ships can move up to its movement allowance, fire each of its ready weapons once, and use its special ability if charged. Move and fire in any order. When you end your turn, the enemy does the same. Destroy every enemy ship to win. If neither fleet is destroyed when the turn limit runs out (30 turns, 15 in a Quick battle), the side with more fleet value left holds the field.
| Weapon | Strength | Weakness |
|---|---|---|
| Pulse cannons | Rapid bolts that tear through shields | Short range, weak against armor |
| Beam lasers | Very accurate, hits shields and hull evenly | Accuracy fades quickly with range |
| Railguns | No range limit, punches through armor; at long range big ships can't dodge the slug | Poor against shields, needs clear line of sight; small, nimble ships dodge them far out |
| Missiles and torpedoes | Guided, fly over asteroids, heavy damage | Limited ammo, point defense can shoot them down |
| PDC guns | Every ship can turn its point defense on an enemy two hexes away or closer: a storm of small rounds that chews up hulls | Weak against shields, and a ship that fires them has no missile defense until its next turn. Never part of All weapons: pick them on purpose |
| Strike wing | Carrier fighters, huge reach, hard to intercept | Needs a turn to rearm |
What each class is for. Tap a ship to look it over in 3D, with its full specifications.
Large asteroids block movement and line of sight for direct-fire weapons, but they can be shot apart. Click one with a ship selected to fire on it; a shattered asteroid leaves a debris field behind. Debris fields cost double movement but give ships inside them cover. Destroyed ships break apart and leave a wreck field of the same kind. Frigates screen allies within 3 hexes with their full point defense: watch for the tracer fire from the escort when it knocks down a missile.
Drag to rotate · scroll or pinch to zoom · Shift-drag or two fingers to pan · double-click to reset
A short guided battle shows you how to move, fire and read the enemy, about ten minutes on Easy. You can skip it at any time.
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The engagement is on hold.