Planets

Every planet is a base of its own with its own buildings, resources, warehouses and energy balance. Research, on the other hand, applies to your whole account. Your starting planet has 230 building fields.

Building fields

Every building level takes up one building field. Once all fields are used, you cannot upgrade anything else on that planet. So think about what a planet really needs – not every planet needs a Research lab or a Thermosolar plant. You get more fields through shop upgrades (+10 fields on all planets) and as a prize from the Interdimensional Transmitter.

Temperature zones

There are four types of planets, depending on how far a planet's orbit is from the sun – from hot on the inside to icy on the outside. The current temperature depends on how close the planet is to its sun right now. You can find it in the planet info. Cold planets produce more Spice, warm ones get more energy out of their Solar cells. How many building fields a new colony gets is random. At moderate temperatures it turns out a little more generous.

Planets on orbits

Planets do not stand still: every planet circles the sun of its system on its own orbit and moves on a little once a day, in the early morning hours. Inner orbits are short – one lap takes just under four weeks there. On the outer orbits a planet needs several months for one lap.

Many orbits are not circles but stretched ellipses. On them a planet gets much closer to its sun during a lap and then moves away again. Because the temperature depends on the current distance, the planet warms up and cools down again – and your Spice output and the energy of your Solar cells rise and fall with it. Planets on almost circular orbits keep their temperature more or less the same.

Two planets never end up on the same field: if a position would be taken twice, the planets involved move on one more position.

As the positions shift, so do the distances between planets – and with them flight times and fuel use. A transport, an escape flight or an attack on the same target can take less or more time today than a few days ago. Galaxy map explains how the map is built, Flight model how the flight time comes about.

Colonies

With a Colony ship you settle free planets (colonization). You can own up to 14 planets. The shop upgrade "Expand your empire" adds up to three more. If your planets are close together, transport and escape flights are short. Widely spread planets bring more targets within reach.

Managing planets

In the settings under planet management you rename planets (3 to 15 characters), change their order and delete planets you no longer need. Deleting is only possible if nothing is being built or researched there, none of your fleets is on its way from there, and no attack, espionage or stationing fleet is heading there. You cannot delete your last planet. To learn how to move a planet to a new position, see Moving Planets.