Orbit Siege

Goal

You are green. Each side starts on a home base with 12 ships and 50 gold. Grey planets are neutral and guarded by garrisons.

• Win by knocking out every enemy: Red in a duel, Red and Violet in a free-for-all.
• A side is knocked out when it has no ships left anywhere and holds no fully captured planet.
• You lose when the same happens to you.

When the match ends, a summary shows planets and ships over time for every side, plus ships built and lost, gold earned, planets captured and the most planets each side held.

Controls

Settings → Mouse buttons can swap the roles of the left and right buttons.

Moving ships

• Drag from one of your planets to send ships. If that planet is selected, every selected planet sends.
• The dock sets how many to send (10, 25, 50, 75 or 100% of the ships there) and which kind (all, fighters only or mega ships only).
• You can also drag from a planet you don't own where you have ships, for example to pull them back after a failed attack.
• Planets are joined by space lanes, and ships follow the shortest route along them. A trip is drawn as a dashed line while you drag.
• Fighters fly at about 20 map units per second; mega ships at 70% of that. Ion Drives research adds 25%.

What stops ships on the way

Ships passing through a planet stop there, and stay in orbit, if any of these is true:

• another side owns it;
• another side has started capturing it (its quadrants show another colour);
• any other side's ships are there, including a neutral garrison.

Clear the planet and send them on again. Planets you own, or empty neutral ones, are passed straight through.

Capturing

A planet changes hands by sitting your ships on it. No ships are used up. Each planet has a ring of 4 quadrants showing whose it is becoming.

• Capture only moves while one side's ships are alone in orbit. Any fight, including with a neutral garrison, pauses it.
• On a planet another side owns or has started, you first drain their quadrants, then fill 4 of yours. Taking an enemy planet is twice the work of a neutral one.
• When the owner's last quadrant drains, the planet falls: it turns neutral and loses all batteries, its mega factory, half its factories and markets (minimum 1) and one level. Its auto-route is cleared.
• When your 4th quadrant fills, the planet is yours. It only builds ships and earns gold while all 4 quadrants are yours.
• Leave and come back and the progress is still there, unless someone else drains it.

Capture speed

Quadrants per second = 0.2 × (1 + 0.6 × ln n) ÷ (1 + size), where n is your fighters plus 3 for each mega ship, and size is 1 (small), 2 (medium) or 3 (large). Then:

• Level 2 planets take 1.5× as long, level 3 twice as long.
• Home bases take about 3× as long.
• Citadel planets take 1.7× as long to capture from their owner.
• Planetary Shields (the defender's research) doubles the time; Siege Doctrine (yours) makes it 1.5× faster.

More ships help, but with diminishing returns. Filling a neutral level 1 medium planet takes:

Combat

• Ships of different sides at the same planet fight automatically. Neutral garrisons fight everyone.
• Fights run in exchanges: about 1.5 per second plus 0.045 per ship present, so big battles move faster. In each exchange both sides deal damage at once.
• Fighters have 1 hit point and deal 1 damage. Mega ships deal 3 damage and have 8 hit points (12 with Reinforced Hulls).
• With three or more sides at one planet, each exchange is between two of them picked at random.
• Planet guns (batteries and home guns) shoot enemy ships in orbit, one hit per shot. They only fire while the owner still has at least part of a quadrant there.

Planets

Planets come in three sizes and go from level 1 to level 3 (shown as L1–L3 under the planet). Size and level decide how much each planet can hold:

• Level 3 needs Planetary Engineering; mega factories need Mega Engineering.
• A newly captured planet starts with 1 factory and 1 market.
• Neutral garrisons grow with distance from the home bases: about 4–7 ships next to a home, up to about 16 (small), 23 (medium) or 31 (large) in the middle of the map.

Home bases

Every side starts on a large level 2 home base (gold ring and diamond) with 3 factories and 3 markets. Its built-in gun fires 1.5 shots per second (as much as 2 batteries), it earns an extra 0.5 gold per second, and it takes about 3× as long to capture. A captured home base keeps these perks for its new owner.

Buildings

Select one or more of your fully captured planets and use the dock. With several selected, each one that has room builds one.

Because costs rise per planet, spreading buildings across planets is cheaper than stacking them on one. The planet card (hover or hold a planet) shows what the next one of each costs.

Economy

• Only planets where all 4 quadrants are yours produce ships and gold.
• Your gold and total income are at the bottom left. Gold buys buildings and research.
• New ships appear in orbit around the planet that built them, unless an auto-route sends them on.
• Income and production are boosted by traits, position and research; see below.

Traits & position

Traits

About 40% of planets have a trait, shown by a letter badge. Planets come in mirrored pairs, and both of a pair share the same trait, so the map stays fair.

• R Rich: markets earn 50% more.
• F Forge: factories build 50% faster.
• C Citadel: enemies capture it 40% slower.

Position

• Rear: every lane neighbour is yours. Markets earn 50% more (on a Rich planet, 2.25× in all).
• Front: at least one neighbour belongs to an enemy. Batteries fire 50% faster.
• Planets next to neutral ones are neither.

Selecting a single planet adds its trait and position to the readout in the dock.

Fleet limit

Each side can have at most 400 ships plus 50 for each fully captured planet it holds, counting every ship it has, wherever it is. At the limit its planets stop building until it loses ships or captures more planets; nothing already built is removed. Your ship count at the top turns gold while you are at the limit. Losing a planet lowers the limit, but you keep your ships.

Mega ships

• Built by mega factories, one every 30 seconds. Drawn larger with a gold outline and a health bar.
• 8 hit points (12 with Reinforced Hulls), 3 damage per hit, 70% of a fighter's speed.
• They repair 0.25 hit points per second after 6 seconds without being hit (twice as fast with Reinforced Hulls).
• Each counts as 3 ships for capture speed.
• Under a planet, "+2M" means two mega ships are in orbit.

Research

Open Research in the dock (or press R on a keyboard). One project runs at a time, and every upgrade applies to all your planets and ships. Tier 2 opens after any 2 tier-1 projects; tier 3 after any 2 tier-2 projects.

Auto-routes

Auto-routes send a share of a planet's newly built ships somewhere automatically, so you don't have to keep dragging.

• Select your planets, tap Route, then tap a destination. The current send % and ship type become the route's share and type (for example 50% of new fighters).
• Or tap To front instead of a destination: new ships go to your nearest planet that borders an enemy (or, if none does, one that borders a neutral planet). The target is worked out again for every ship, so it follows the front as it moves. A planet that is itself on the front keeps its ships.
• Selecting a routed planet draws its route in gold with an arrow and a label like "→ 50%" or "→ front 50%".
• To change a route, select the planet and tap Route: its share and type load into the dock for editing. Tap the source planet itself to clear the route.
• On big maps, Select all → Route → To front feeds your whole front line.

Maps & modes

Choose these under Map on the main menu. Every map is laid out in mirrored pairs, so both starting positions are equal.

Sizes run from Tiny (about 8 planets) through Small, Medium, Large and Huge to Massive (about 38 planets).

• Enemies: one (a duel with Red) or two (a free-for-all). In a free-for-all, Violet starts in an empty corner, and Red and Violet fight each other as well as you. A message appears when one of them is eliminated.
• Fog of war: you only see planets you hold or have ships at, plus their lane neighbours. Other planets fade and show what you last saw (marked "?"), and enemy ships, fights and effects there are hidden. Ships in flight show if the planet they just left or are about to reach is visible. The ship count at the top only counts enemy ships you can see. The AI is not limited by fog.

Difficulty & AI

Difficulty is set on the main menu and applies from the next match you start.

The AI gathers a fleet next to a target and only strikes when it expects to win. It reinforces threatened planets, picks off weakly held planets next door, moves spare ships to the front, builds where it gets the most for its gold, adds batteries under pressure and researches. Each AI has a random personality: balanced, aggressor (more factories, attacks sooner) or builder (more markets and upgrades, slower to expand).

Reading the screen

• Top bar: total ships for you, Red and (in a free-for-all) Violet, with a bar comparing them. Speed, pause and menu buttons are on the right.
• Under each planet: ships in orbit by side ("+1M" for mega ships), then its level, factories, markets, batteries and M for a mega factory (for example "L2 F3 G3 B1"). Settings can hide the details line.
• Ring: the 4 capture quadrants. A soft glow means the owner fully holds the planet.
• Gold squares on the rim are batteries; a gold ring inside the planet is a mega factory filling up.
• Dashed lines between your planets are auto-routes.
• Planet card (hover, or press and hold): owner, size, level, trait, buildings out of their limits, ships per minute and gold per second, front or rear bonus, capture progress, ships in orbit and, for your planets, the cost of the next building.
• Attack alerts: your planets with enemy ships in orbit get a pulsing ring in the attacker's colour. If one is off screen, an arrow at the screen edge points to it with the enemy count, and a message appears at the top. Tap either to jump there.
• Dock: gold and income, research, building buttons with costs, selection and route buttons, and the send controls. The readout says what's selected and how many ships would go.
• Tips: short tips pop up the first time something becomes useful, such as affording a factory or being attacked.

Settings & saving

• Speed: 0.5×, 1×, 1.5×, 2× or 3× from the button at the top.
• Settings: planet details on or off, tips on or off (and show them all again), sound, vibration (on Android devices), mouse buttons and keys.
• Saving: the match saves itself in this browser every few seconds, when you pause and when you leave the page. Choose Resume saved game on the main menu to carry on. Starting a new match or the tutorial, or finishing one, clears the save. Tutorial matches aren't saved. On iPhone and iPad, a home-screen app keeps its own save, separate from Safari's.
• Sound needs one tap or key press before it can play (a browser rule). Cues mark sending ships, building, captures and losses, attacks, your home base under attack, research finishing, and winning or losing.
• Home-screen app: on a phone or tablet, Add to Home Screen opens the game full screen with its own icon, and it keeps working offline once it has been opened online.

Strategy tips

• Expand early: neutral planets near your home have small garrisons, and every planet adds income, production and 50 to your fleet limit.
• Send enough to win the fight and capture quickly: capture speed grows slowly with more ships, but the fight is decided by numbers.
• Put markets in the rear and batteries on the front, where each gets its 50% bonus. Rich planets in the rear earn the most.
• Spread buildings across planets; the fifth factory on one planet costs 70, while a planet's second costs 50.
• Batteries keep shooting while attackers sit in orbit trying to capture, so a well-defended planet costs them ships and time.
• Upgrade large planets once they're full: a level 3 large planet holds 9 factories and 9 markets.
• Use To front routes to feed your attacks without micromanaging, and keep an eye on the edge arrows for raids behind your lines.
• In a free-for-all, let Red and Violet wear each other down while you expand away from their border.