Colony

The Founding Requirements

Every item is checked by the server when you claim the site.

All three off-world bases must sit on the same moon as the Colony site. Water on one moon and Magic on another does not count.

Which Moons Can Host a Colony

• ›The moon must itself offer Water, Magic and Culture zones (an exploration moon).
• ›Forged alliance moons are refused.
• ›Titan (the home moon) is refused.

To claim anything on an exploration moon you first explore it with your Scout, then fly a Transport ship there to obtain its visa. Each claim, including the Colony site, uses a permit.

The Game Loop Guide

The dashboard shows an 8-step path: claim a base, refill it, harvest, own every home zone, fit out an expedition, explore a moon and get its visa, claim Water, Magic and Culture on that moon, and claim its Colony site. When you have a stake in several moons, the guide points you at the best candidate: the moon where you cover the most of Water, Magic and Culture, then one where you hold a visa, then one you have explored.

Colony Site Claim Fee

The fee triples for every colony you already own.

What You Start With

• ›A Colony Center in the middle of the grid, at level 1
• ›4 colonists at Tier 1
• ›180 Plasteel to lay your first roads

Several Colonies and Your Primary Colony

You may found one colony per moon. The first colony you found is your primary colony, and account-level payouts only land there:

• ›Moon Bricks and Infrastructure from colony quests
• ›Selenite Shards from raids
• ›The weekly supply contract

Every other colony still gets its quest goods, Settler Pods, prestige and everything else that stays inside the colony.

The Grid

The colony grid is 50 x 50 plots. Each plot is split into 3 x 3 fine cells, and a road is one fine cell wide, so roads run as thin lanes between buildings. Most buildings take one plot; the Colony Center, Dwelling II, the Arcology and the Barracks take 2 x 2 plots.

Road Connectivity

Placement and function are separate:

• ›Placement: a building can go on any free plot. It cannot overlap another building, a road or a wall, and it cannot seal the Colony Center off from the map edge.
• ›Function: a building works only if one of its edge cells touches a road cell that connects back to the Center. Unconnected buildings show a warning marker and produce, house and store nothing.

These never need a road:

• ›Defense buildings (turrets and Barracks)
• ›Mines (Quarry and Helium-3 Rig) and Transfer Stations, which are served by airlift
• ›Decorations

Building Slots

The Colony Center caps how many buildings you can place (decor does not use a slot). See Upgrades and Timers for the slot table.

Tools

The Colony Center cannot be demolished.

Construction Costs

Moon Bricks and Infrastructure come from your galaxy inventory. Plasteel comes from the colony's own stock, which means your Smelter.

Advanced production buildings are the Garment Works, Workshop, Gourmet Kitchen, Luxury Atelier, Gadget Factory, Circuit Fab, Fusion Plant, Banquet Hall, Holo Foundry and Regalia Atelier.

Production Chains

Rates are per building per hour at full staffing, before the global x2 productivity multiplier.

Production is demand-driven: buildings make what your population and downstream buildings need, plus a small buffer (a larger one for Plasteel).

Staffing

Every production building and Accelerator is one job. When you have fewer colonists than jobs, every line slows down in proportion. Building more than your population can staff does not add output.

Colony Tiers and Needs

Satisfaction is the lowest fulfilment across your tier's mandatory needs, so one missing good holds the whole colony back.

Each tier also has an optional bonus need (Tier 1 Household Goods, Tier 2 Luxuries, Tier 3 Holoware, Tier 4 Banquets). Supplying it speeds up growth; missing it never hurts.

Water enters the chain at Tier 2 (Rations), Culture at Tier 2 (Apparel), and Magic at Tier 3 (Fine Cuisine, Luxuries, Gadgets).

Tier Promotion

Your colony moves up a tier when all three are true:

The supply check makes sure you can feed 1.2x your current population at the next tier's needs before you promote.

Demotion: if population falls below 60% of your current tier's entry gate AND the colony can no longer supply that tier, it drops one tier instead of starving. Tier 1 needs nothing off-world.

Dwellings

Population is capped by the lower of your housing and the Colony Center's population ceiling.

Storage and Warehouses

Each good is capped at 400 units. Each connected Warehouse adds storage per good:

Maximum 4 Warehouses per colony. Water, Culture and Magic are not limited by storage: they live in your galaxy inventory.

Mineral Deposits and Haulage

Quarries and Helium-3 Rigs can only be built exactly on a marked deposit, and nothing else may be built on one. Every colony gets three seeded sites:

Mines are airlifted, so they need no road, but distance still costs: a mine's delivered output is capped by the straight-line flight to the nearest drop-off (the Colony Center, a Warehouse or a Transfer Station). A mine on the Seam delivers its full output; the distant rich sites lose most of theirs without help.

Transfer Stations (colony tier 2, maximum 3) are drop-off points you place near distant mines. Each has its own shared capacity back to storage, so hanging several mines on one Station splits it between them.

Colony Center Levels

Center upgrades never cost Plasteel, so a full board can always be expanded.

Center level also unlocks systems: doctrines, raid threat and meteor showers begin at level 2, tidal quakes at level 3.

Building Levels

Production buildings, Warehouses and Accelerators level up to 3. Dwellings, services, defenses and Depots do not level.

Costs are Moon Bricks / Infrastructure / Plasteel, charged when the upgrade starts. One upgrade can run per building, and one on the Center, at a time.

Higher levels also protect against tidal quakes (see Defense and Catastrophes).

Gem Speed-Ups

Example: a fresh 2-hour building upgrade costs 40 gems to finish, or 14 gems to halve.

Fast Forward

Fast Forward would simulate extra production hours instantly. It is switched off at launch, so it is not available right now.

Licenses

Owning a base produces nothing inside the colony by itself; it only lets you build and run the matching Accelerator. Claim more bases of the same zone on that moon to license more Accelerators.

If you lose a base, the Accelerators beyond your remaining licenses go dormant immediately. They stay built and wake up again when you claim a replacement.

Output

A connected, fully staffed level-1 Accelerator produces 220 units per day of its resource. Level multipliers apply (x1.6 at level 2, x2.2 at level 3). The resource goes into the same Water, Culture and Magic totals as your galaxy inventory, and the colony draws its needs from there.

Off-World Depots

Your colony always draws the Water, Culture and Magic it needs. To push a surplus back into your galaxy inventory, it needs a connected Depot for that resource with room left.

Depots only cap what the colony adds. Your harvested Water, Culture and Magic are never touched.

Coverage Services

Both need a road connection and serve every dwelling within 12 fine cells.

Maximum 12 of each type per colony. Each uses a building slot.

Doctrines

Requires Colony Center level 2. Your first pick is free.

Switching costs 500 Moon Bricks and has a 7-day cooldown. You can skip the cooldown for 300 gems (the 500 Moon Bricks still apply).

Decorations

Decorations need no road, use no building slot and have no tier gate. A colony holds up to 24 decorations, free and premium combined. With 8 or more placed, the whole colony gets a growth bonus.

Premium decor works exactly like free decor. It is purely cosmetic and never gives an advantage beyond the shared set bonus.

Threat and Raid Forecast

Threat builds every hour at population x tier x 0.1 per hour. When it reaches 100, a raid is scheduled 12 to 24 hours in the future and threat resets. Threat does not build while a raid is pending.

Your first raid is a fixed, small wave (3 Drones) that a single Turret Mk I can handle.

Defense Buildings

Defense buildings need no road but do use building slots.

Walls cost 2 Plasteel per cell (full refund), block alien paths and have 120 hit points per cell. Aliens chew through a wall only when the detour is long. Walls, like buildings, can never fully enclose the Colony Center. Maximum 2,000 wall cells.

Raid Waves

• ›Escalation: waves grow 8% for every raid you have defended, up to 3x.
• ›Storm Waves: about 1 raid in 4 is a Storm Wave, 1.5x larger and paying double. The first raid never is.

Live Defense

When the raid arrives you have a 10-minute window to fight it live:

• ›Overcharge a turret or Barracks: double damage for 12 seconds, once per building per raid.
• ›Deploy squads from a Barracks to a spot within 18 cells, with a 20-second cooldown per squad.
• ›Repair walls: up to 3 repairs per raid.

If you do not fight, the raid resolves automatically against your current layout.

Outcomes and Rewards

Aliens that reach the Colony Center plunder it. The breach score (0 to 100) measures how much got through.

• ›Defended: breach score of 10 or less. The colony gains +10 prestige.
• ›Loot lost: a share of every good in stock, and of goods listed on the market, equal to breach score x the tier's cap (Tier 1 10%, Tier 2 15%, Tier 3 20%, Tier 4 25%). Buildings are never destroyed.

A flawless defense (breach 0) pays +20%. Anything less pays on a falling curve: a 95%-repelled raid still pays about 90%, a half-lost raid about 25%. Storm Waves double the payout.

Prestige unlocks cosmetic titles: Warden (50), Guardian (150), Bulwark (400), Stormbreaker (1,000).

Meteor Showers

Starting at Colony Center level 2, each colony gets one shower roughly every 6 days, with the next impact shown on your HUD.

• ›Impacts: 1, plus 1 per 15 damageable buildings, up to 6. A rare meteor storm (1 in 5) doubles the count.
• ›A direct hit deals up to 80 damage, falling off over 3 cells, so only overlapping hits take a building fully offline.
• ›Each turret or Barracks shoots down one meteor that falls within its range, but no more than half the shower.
• ›Every meteor that lands drops 40 Regolith.

Tidal Quakes

Starting at Colony Center level 3, a quake strikes roughly every 10 days, with no warning.

• ›Every damageable building takes damage (base 18, randomized per building).
• ›Upgraded buildings resist: level 2 takes 70%, level 3 takes 45%.
• ›6% of your road cells crack and stop conducting until repaired.
• ›A major quake (1 in 6) deals 1.6x damage and cracks twice as many roads.

Damage and Repairs

Only production buildings, dwellings and Accelerators take damage. Output falls in proportion to damage; at 100 a building is offline but still yours.

Partial damage costs proportionally less. Repair All fixes cracked roads first, then buildings cheapest first, and repairs as much as your Plasteel allows.

Storm Season

One week in every four (weeks start Sunday 00:00 UTC) is a server-wide storm season:

• ›Meteor storms come up 1 in 2 instead of 1 in 5.
• ›Major quakes come up 1 in 3 instead of 1 in 6.
• ›Repair at least 25 Plasteel of damage during the season (your own repairs or neighbor aid) to earn 5 gems after it ends, plus 5 more if the whole server repaired 5,000 Plasteel. Unclaimed rewards never expire.

Visits

A visit shows the city as seen from the street: buildings, levels, themes, roads, walls, population, prestige and the moon projects standing there. Stock, threat, quests and market activity stay private. Visiting never changes the colony you look at.

Kudos

• ›One applause per visitor per colony per week (weeks reset Monday 00:00 UTC). You cannot applaud your own colony.
• ›Each applause gives the colony +1% growth for that week, up to +5%. It never creates goods.
• ›You earn 1 Action Point for each of your first 10 applauses per week.

Neighbor Aid

Aid needs a colony of your own on the same moon as the target, and it is paid from your colony's stock.

• ›Up to 5 aid actions per day (UTC), across all targets.
• ›A colony holds one overcharge gift at a time, and it cannot be gifted while its raid is being fought live.
• ›Each aid action gives your colony +2 prestige (up to 10 per day) and you 1 Action Point.
• ›The receiver gets a notification.

Trade Routes

• ›Each side sends up to 200 units per day of one good (either side may send nothing, but not both).
• ›A colony holds at most 3 routes at once. Pending proposals and open board offers count toward that limit.
• ›Either side can cancel at any time with no penalty.

Daily Settlement

• ›A route settles once per UTC day. Settlement runs when either player places or upgrades a building, or opens their trade routes panel.
• ›Only the current day settles. Missed days are not delivered later.
• ›Each leg ships the smallest of: the contract rate, what the sender has in stock, and what fits in the receiver's storage. Nothing is destroyed: every unit sent arrives.
• ›Both players earn 1 Action Point per route per day, starting from the route's first full UTC day.

Proposing Without the Board

When the Trade Board is not available, you propose a route from a neighbor's visit page. Both colonies must be on the same moon. Proposals expire after 7 days, and you can send up to 10 per day.

The Trade Board

When the Trade Board is available, route offers are posted there instead:

• ›An offer is either same moon (only colonies on your moon can take it) or interplanetary (any colony).
• ›You can make an offer private to one player; the visit page links there with that player preselected.
• ›Offers expire after 7 days. Taking an offer starts the route immediately.

Interplanetary Routes

The player who posts an interplanetary offer provides the ship and pays the fuel.

When the ship cannot carry the full rates, both legs are scaled down together so the exchange rate is kept. A ship on a route cannot explore or fly visa missions. If the ship is withdrawn or the poster has no Electricity, that day delivers nothing (and costs no fuel if the ship is missing). Where the ship is docked does not matter; the distance between the two colonies' moons does.

Supply Lines

A supply line is a route between two of your own colonies on different moons. It needs a Transport, uses a route slot on both colonies and costs the daily fuel, but it earns no Action Points.

Trade Market

The market handles one-off barter offers ("give X, want Y"). It opens at colony tier 2, from the Trade Market button on the colony HUD (and the Spot tab of the Trade Board when it is available).

Your offered goods leave your stock when you post and are refunded if you cancel. Goods listed on the market are exposed to raid plunder like goods in stock. Water, Culture and Magic cannot be traded.

The Three Projects

Each moon has one of each, and a finished project stands forever.

Cost Scaling

The cost is locked by the first contribution, based on how many colonies are on the moon at that moment: base cost x (0.6 + 0.4 x colonies). A solo colony pays exactly the base cost; five colonies pay 2.6x in total but much less each.

Contributing

• ›Contributed goods are spent for good; a project cannot be cancelled.
• ›A contribution is automatically capped at what the project still needs and what your colony holds.
• ›Each contribution gives your colony +2 prestige, up to 10 per day, and each prestige-earning contribution gives you 3 Action Points.
• ›Once fully funded, construction starts. You can speed it up with gems using the same Finish and Halve prices as upgrades, but gems can never fund the goods.

Themes

• ›An unlock is account-wide: it works in every colony you own.
• ›Apply a theme to one building, or to every building in a colony at once. Clearing is free.
• ›Themes apply to every building except decorations.
• ›New buildings take on the Colony Center's theme automatically.
• ›Flagship themes add a breathing pulse and light the ground ring one glow stage earlier.
• ›Themes are cosmetic only and never change stats.

Free Level Glow

Every player's buildings glow as they grow, no purchase needed. Stage 1 adds a soft rim light; stage 2 adds a glowing ground ring. With a theme applied, the rim and ring take the theme's colours.

A flagship theme shows the ground ring from stage 1.

Season Pass Cosmetics

• ›Free track, tier 9: the Aurora Beacon premium decoration. Once claimed, you place it for free, as often as your decor limit allows.
• ›Premium track, tier 9: a colour theme that rotates each season. If you already own it, you receive 200 Selenite Shards instead.

The Objective Chain

Chain quests unlock in order. Moon Bricks and Infrastructure rewards pay out in your primary colony only; goods and colonists pay in every colony.

Colonists from quests are capped by the Colony Center's population ceiling.

Side Goals

Weekly Supply Contract

• ›Available from colony tier 2, in your primary colony only.
• ›Each week (Monday 00:00 UTC) asks for two goods from your tier's economy. You hand the goods over when you claim.
• ›One contract claim per week.

Colony Action Points

Colony play feeds the same Action Point total and weekly league AP as the galaxy game.

During themed league weeks, some of these actions count double toward weekly league AP.