At the beginning of each turn Select Combat popup appears automatically. You just have to click an an enemy fleet or colony to start a battle. When a player considers such popup other players wait.

Order of Battles

The following happens automatically before players get to act:

  • If a player have arrived at Antares the player attacks automatically.

  • A player is immediately attacked upon arriving at a star guarded by:

    • a Space Amoeba

    • a Space Hydra

    • a Space Crystal

    • a Space Dragon

    • the Guardian

  • When a roaming monster arrives at a player’s colony:

    • If it’s a Space Dragon it will attempt to extort money, if not paid it attacks a colony.

    • A roaming Space Eel never attacks, it just chills blockading all colonies.

    • Other types of monsters and Antarans attack a random colony.

At this point players finally get a chance to attack. For each system the list of awake fleets with valid targets is gathered. In random order each fleet’s owner gets a combat selection pop-up. The valid targets are:

  • space monsters

  • planets with other player’s colonies or outposts,

  • other player’s fleets, when no colonies or outposts of that player present.

Note: combat can’t be initiated on a planet with a Space Anomaly in effect.

Each fleet may only attack once per turn. For example it is impossible for one player to bomb multiple colonies in a system in a single turn. A single fleet can participate in multiple combats though, e.g if you attacked an invading fleet, did some damage and decided to retreat (to your colony) and then the invading fleet attacks your colony and the same two fleets fight, only in the presence of planetary defenses.

Waking up Fleets

For a fleet that arrives at a system that has enemy presence, a pop-up will appear, asking if you want to attack. For fleets that already hover in an enemy system such a pop-up does not happen every turn: they are asleep. Such fleets are awoken when circumstances change causing the Select Combat pop-up to appear, for example when another fleet arrives or a star base is built.

This mechanic did not work properly before 1.50, for a newly built Fighter Garrison and Artemis System Net. Now the completion of those will also wake up fleets. On the other hand, completion of planetary shields will no longer wake up fleets. In addition, fleets will wake up when a satellite, ground defense building or Artemis is destroyed. This especially reduces micromanagement when a player is using spies to attempt sabotage, eliminating the need to click Engage Enemy Forces each turn to ensure engaging the enemy exactly the turn when a defense is destroyed.