Missiles

Missiles are single-use strategic weapons built over time and fired at targets across the galaxy. They can batter a kingdom's shields, knock levels off a colony, or cripple a deployed fleet in the field. They contribute to your combat score and are a key part of a coordinated offensive alongside fleets and probes.

Building a Missile

Missiles are built through the build queue using a dedicated missile rate slider. This works the same way as the expansion rate - you set a percentage of your production that is continuously drawn into the missile build queue. The rate runs from 10% to 100% in steps of 5%.

Only one missile can be building at a time. Once complete, it is added to your arsenal and another can be queued.

Missiles take 18 hours to complete by default. Researching Advanced Missile Engineering reduces build time to 12 hours and increases the yield of every missile by 50%.

Warhead Types

Every missile is built as one of three warhead types, chosen when you issue the order. All three share the same yield formula, build time, and the 5-launch limit - the difference is what happens on impact:

Two things worth knowing about the exotic warheads. The EMP is the shield-cracker: a salvo opener that tears the shield wall down for the explosive warheads behind it, with the probe fry as a bonus against intel-heavy rivals. And the neutron's faith-burn is indiscriminate - every religion at the colony loses the same share, including yours - and it scales: the harder the warhead overwhelms the colony's defences, the deeper the burn. It does not convert anyone on its own, but a burned-down colony is far cheaper to overturn with your own envoys afterwards - nuke, then convert.

Missile Yield

The strength of a missile is determined by how much energy and mass went into building it, with one important rule: the split between energy and mass must be as equal as possible to maximise yield.

The formula applies a balance penalty proportional to how unequal the two inputs are. If energy and mass are identical, you receive the full yield. The more they diverge, the lower the output. A missile built with a heavily skewed ratio will be significantly weaker than one built with balanced resources.

Yield is displayed in kilotonnes (KT), megatonnes (MT), or gigatonnes (GT) depending on the missile's strength.

Yield Curve

Missile yield is subject to diminishing returns at high resource levels. The full conversion rate applies up to a threshold of 18 ticks worth of your combined energy and mass production. Resources committed above that threshold convert at 33% of the normal rate.

This means smaller kingdoms building at full rate get maximum efficiency. Large kingdoms pumping heavy resources into a single missile see reduced returns on the excess. The sweet spot is sizing your missile rate so that the resources consumed each build cycle stay near or below the threshold - you can see the estimated yield live on your missile queue as you adjust.

The balance penalty between energy and mass still applies on top of this. Both effects compound, so a heavily skewed missile built above the threshold is doubly penalised.

Launching

Missiles are launched from the War page. Pick a target type, a target, and a missile. You are limited to 5 launches per rolling 12 hours, so timing your strikes matters.

A launched missile travels across the galaxy in real time - travel takes longer the further the target, and the missile is visible in flight on the galaxy map. Missiles fly at 1.5x fleet speed: fire the moment an enemy fleet sets off toward you and your missile lands before they arrive, since it covers the same distance half again as fast. But it is pure geometry - a fleet that is nearly home can touch down before a missile fired from across the galaxy reaches it, so check both clocks before you commit a warhead. The target receives an incoming missile warning the moment you fire. Missiles track their target: if a kingdom, colony, or fleet relocates while the missile is in flight, the missile follows. Arrival time does not change - the impact time is an intercept solution locked in at launch, whatever the target does afterwards. A target flying toward your missile does not get hit sooner, and one fleeing to the far side of the galaxy buys no extra time: both sides race the same clock, so recall decisions and coordinated strikes can be planned with certainty.

You cannot launch missiles while your own kingdom is in hyperspace transit.

Targets

Kingdoms

A kingdom strike is measured against the target's adjusted shield strength. Shields absorb the yield; anything beyond them is excess energy that destroys structures. Even a missile that fails to breach still applies a shield penalty, weakening the shields against every subsequent attack. The penalty accumulates up to 100% - a fully penalised kingdom has no working shields at all.

When a missile hits, it deals shield damage equal to one quarter (25%) of its yield:

Strikes stack. Once a shield reaches zero, the next missile bypasses it entirely and causes mass structural damage.

Colonies

Colony strikes are free for all - no war required, matching colony fleet combat. The missile's yield is measured against the colony's current defensive strength:

• Yield beats the defences: the colony downgrades by one level (level 1 colonies cannot be downgraded), its defences reset to full, and it enters a 6 hour lockdown
• Yield falls short: the strike is resisted, but it chips the defences - the colony takes damage proportional to the missile's yield against its full strength, weakening it against every subsequent missile
• Colony in lockdown: the missile is absorbed with no effect and no damage

Chip damage stacks, so a volley of smaller missiles can wear a colony down until one breaks through - and the colony page shows its defence integrity while damaged. Damage regenerates quickly - a damaged colony fully recovers within a few ticks, the same rate as kingdom shields - so scattered pot-shots heal off; a concentrated salvo is what cracks a healthy colony.

Missile damage also weakens the colony against invasion. A colony's combat strength is half offence and half defence, and chip damage burns the defensive half - so a fleet that engages a freshly bombarded colony faces a much softer garrison. Soften with missiles, then invade: the same combo that works on kingdom shields works on colonies.

The lockdown is the same 6 hour window that follows colony combat, and it blocks fleets and missiles alike. It caps how fast a colony can be hammered down - roughly one level per 6 hours, no matter how many missiles are thrown at it.

Deployed Fleets

Any fleet deployed away from base - stationed, in combat, or in transit - can be targeted while you are at war with their owner and you can actually see them: the fleet must be inside your sensor coverage or revealed by active spy intel. No contact, no lock. What happens depends on where the fleet is at the moment of impact:

• Stationed or in transit: direct hit - missiles track their target and intercept a moving fleet mid-flight. Ships are destroyed in proportion to the missile's yield against the fleet's defence (shields, armour and durability) - defensively built fleets shrug off far more of a blast than glass cannons. A fleet is never wiped out in one hit: its commander takes automatic evasive action against an incoming missile, and even the largest warhead destroys at most a fraction of the fleet per strike. Repeated salvos still grind a fleet down - each hit leaves less defence against the next
• Engaged in combat: the missile splashes into the battle, damaging the engagement it is part of
• Made it home before impact: the missile detects the miss and diverts to the owner's kingdom, striking their shields as a standard kingdom missile

The divert rule is why fleet strikes require war - a missile aimed at a fleet can always end up hitting the kingdom behind it. Recalling a targeted fleet is a race: the ships are only safe if they complete the journey home before the missile lands.

Recycling

Any missile that has not yet been fired can be recycled. Recycling returns 50% of the energy and mass that went into building it. This lets you recover resources if your strategic situation changes, at the cost of losing the other half.

Tips

• Keep your missile rate active throughout the round. Missiles sitting in your arsenal are score and damage potential waiting to be used.
• Balance your energy and mass inputs. If your production is heavily skewed toward one resource, use the exchange on the Resources page to rebalance before the missile completes.
• Watch the estimated yield on your build queue. If it looks lower than expected, you may be above the 18-tick production threshold - consider lowering your missile rate slightly to stay in the efficient range.
• Probe a kingdom target first to check their shield level. Firing into a full shield wastes yield; a damaged shield multiplies the impact.
• Size the missile to the colony. Yield beyond the colony's defence strength is wasted - save the big warheads for high level colonies and kingdom shields.
• Coordinate launches with fleet attacks. Missiles and fleets launched together arrive together - shields soften the same tick your fleet reaches orbit.
• An enemy fleet parked in orbit is a missile opportunity. Either you bleed it where it sits, or you force it home and hit the kingdom instead.
• The 5-launch limit resets on a rolling 12-hour window, not at a fixed time. Track when your earliest launch expires to plan your next salvo.