Capturing

There are two ways to add a new star to your empire: colonise a dormant, unowned star or capture one already held by a rival. Both need a Vanguard.

The Vanguard

Vanguards don't fight. They ride along with your combat fleet, sit out the engagement, and only get a chance to do their job if the escort survives.

Colonising a dormant star

A dormant star has no owner. To claim it:

• Dispatch a fleet to it that contains at least one vanguard.

• The star itself resists with hostility, the outlaws already holding it trying to see off your takeover. The arrival rolls 20-35 damage against the star's hostility value. Hostility starts at 50 and regenerates by 1 per hour while no one is attacking it.

• If the roll drives hostility to 0 or below, the star is yours. And your vanguard is consumed in the process.

• If hostility survives the roll, your vanguards ride home unconsumed and you get a report showing the new hostility value. Send another vanguard to decrease the hostility further.

A dormant arrival with no vanguard isn't automatically wasted travel: if you brought marauders or sentinels, the fleet raids the star's outlaws for salvage and hauls it home instead. A fleet with no cargo capacity (probes only) still arrives, finds nothing to claim, and turns around with an "empty-handed" report.

Spacing rule. A new claim must sit at least 3 hexes away from every other star you already own. The check runs both when you send your fleet and again on arrival.

Capturing a rival star

To take a star from another empire, dispatch a fleet containing a vanguard AND a combat escort. On arrival:

• Battle resolves first. Your combat ships fight whatever the defender has parked. See Combat for the resolution model.

• Escort cascade check. If your combat losses exceed 60% of the combat ships you brought, the vanguard in the arrival dies with the escort.

• Loyalty roll. If the escort survived, one vanguard rolls 20-35 damage against the target's loyalty. (imagine loyalty as the current citizens in that system objecting against your rule) Loyalty caps at 100 and regenerates by 1 per hour. Sending multiple vanguards in one fleet does not stack damage.

• Outcome.

  • Loyalty stays above 0 → bump it down, all vanguards ride home, you'll need another run.

  • Loyalty hits 0 → the star flips. Any defender stacks still parked at the star scramble back to their nearest own system within range; if none is close enough they're lost. Your attacking fleet deposits at the captured star. One vanguard is consumed and the loyalty is reset to 50.

Both viewers receive a battle report with the loyalty change embedded, so the defender knows exactly how close they came to losing the star.

Inactive empires get eroded

Capturing isn't only player-initiated. If a human empire goes inactive for long term, nearby NPCs may start capturing its stars the same way you would, draining loyalty with vanguard waves until a star flips.

The erosion is deliberately slow: a given NPC can take at most one star per day, and an inactive empire can lose at most one star per day. So a neglected empire bleeds territory gradually rather than vanishing overnight, but if you stay away long enough the NPCs will pick it apart star by star.

Eliminating an empire

Take the last star a player owns and they are eliminated:

• Humans see a modal offering Respawn (fresh empire, fresh shield, new spawn) or stay eliminated.

• NPCs are destroyed outright, and do not respawn.

Strategy

Captures are expensive. A vanguard alone costs 55,000 of each resource. And the upkeep rises with the amount of systems you own.

Pick targets where you can afford a second run if the first fails. Don't send your only vanguard on a 60/40 fight.