Solar Expats: Mid-Game Guide

1. What the mid-game is about

The New Player Guide ends around turn 60: one colony with a few upgrades, perhaps a station, a second Colony Ship on its way. The mid-game is everything between that and the finish line — and the finish line is a long way off. The Victory Point target is a share of everything on the map:

Where does 85 VP come from at a four-player table? A colony is worth its planet's full VP (8–12 for most worlds you can reach before turn 150), a station a quarter of its planet's, and every first visit to a planet a permanent +2 (inner system and belt) or +3 (beyond the belt). A good explorer banks about ten VP of first visits; two stations add five or so. That leaves about six colonies of average value — or fewer, if some of them are the big outer worlds.

Six colonies is the whole problem. Your first two arrive in the opening; the rest have to be built by you, in yards you have to supply, and flown to worlds your rivals want too. The mid-game is the race to turn one colony into six.

2. Taking stock at turn 60

Before you plan the next hundred turns, look at what you have. Press J for the System Overview and I for the Strategic Advisor, and check:

• Your settler pipeline. Is a Colony Ship being built somewhere right now? If not, that is the first thing to fix (section 3).
• Your silicon. Every rocky world holds both ores, but most are iron-heavy: a Mars colony digs about 8 iron and 2 silicon a turn. Settlers (200 each), stations (400) and upgrades all eat silicon. Know where yours comes from.
• Your water. Every settler you build yourself needs 100 water. A colony on a watered world trickles 4 a turn (more with Ice Harvesters); a dry one has to import it or buy it from the UN at Earth.
• Your energy. A colony's base income is 15 energy a turn plus its sunlight: about 21 at Mars, 17 in the belt, 15.6 at Jupiter. A Colony Ship costs 1000 energy. Solar Arrays help in the inner system and hardly at all past the belt.
• Unclaimed land near you. Which worlds are still free, and which carry a rival's flag? Flags lapse after 24 turns without a ship or structure of their owner at the planet, so a flagged world is not necessarily lost.

3. The settler engine

A Colony Ship costs 1000 energy, 300 iron, 200 silicon and 100 water (Mars Colonial Authority pays 20% less, the Free Traders 25% less). There are three places to build one, and they differ mostly in speed:

The arithmetic is simple and brutal: a station builds three settlers in the time the UN yard builds one and a half. Keep a Colony Ship on the stocks in every yard you own, all the time. An idle yard in the mid-game is the most expensive thing in the game — it's a colony you won't have at turn 250.

What actually stalls a yard is almost never energy at a sunny world. It's:

• Silicon. A yard on an iron-heavy world needs 200 silicon per hull and makes 2–3 a turn. Run a standing freighter loop from a silicon-rich world (Venus, Interamnia, Themis, or any colony with a surplus) to the yard.
• Water. A dry yard needs 100 water per hull. Ceres, Themis, Hygiea, Pallas and Mars have their own; anywhere else, haul it in, or buy it at Earth's UN counter for a flat 2 energy a unit (press U with a freighter at Earth).
• Energy in the dark. A colony past the belt earns about 15 energy a turn — 67 turns of income for one settler's 1000. A Fusion Reactor (section 6) turns that into about 9 turns.

4. Stations: shipyards, hubs and VP

A station costs 2000 energy, 600 iron and 400 silicon and takes 15 turns (Titan Industries: about 19). A colony at the same planet pours its stockpiles into the build automatically, so the cheapest station is the one next to your oldest colony. What you get for it:

• A full-speed shipyard — the 24-turn settler, plus freighters, Heavy Freighters, destroyers and Battlestars.
• VP: a quarter of the planet's value, rounded down (2 at Mars, 3 at Ceres).
• Repairs for ships docked there, and a strong defence: four lasers and a missile battery that reloads with iron.
• Add-ons. A Mining Op (500 / 150 / 100, 5 turns) doubles what your ships mine at that planet — 28 a turn instead of 14. A Military Outpost (800 / 250 / 150, 8 turns) gives your ships there +20% attack and +25% defence.

Most AI factions raise their first station somewhere around turn 145. If yours is up by turn 80–100, you are building settlers at full speed for fifty turns before they are — that is the single biggest mid-game edge a human player has.

5. Choosing your next worlds

Every colonizable world, with its VP, the share of its passive ore that is iron and silicon (a colony's 10 ore a turn splits by the world's reserves), whether it has water, and how much sunlight a ship collects there compared with Earth:

How to read it for the mid-game:

• The belt is the heart of the mid-game. Nine worlds between 2.4 and 3.2 AU, 8–12 VP each, most of them a short hop from each other. A colony at Ceres or Vesta can supply a whole cluster.
• Pair iron-heavy worlds with silicon-heavy ones. Interamnia and Themis are the belt's silicon worlds (seven parts silicon to three iron); a colony there turns a string of iron-rich belt colonies into a working economy. Venus is the inner system's.
• Water sets where your yards go. A yard on Ceres, Themis, Hygiea, Pallas or Mars never waits for water; one on Vesta, Hebe or Psyche always does.
• The outer worlds are worth two belt colonies each (Saturn 15, Uranus 20, Makemake 27) — but they cost a fusion economy and long supply lines to hold (next section).
• Distance on the map isn't travel time. Planets move. Use the Strategic Advisor (I) for the real trip time before committing a Colony Ship, and let the travel dialog pick the launch window.

6. The push into the outer system

Past the belt, sunlight stops paying. A Solar Array that adds 8.6 energy a turn at Mars adds 0.7 at Jupiter. Three things make the outer system work:

Fusion Reactors

A reactor (800 / 400 / 300, 10 turns, up to 2 per colony) adds a flat 100 energy a turn anywhere — 125 for Solar Dynamics, and the Outer Reach builds them 25% cheaper. It burns 7 ore a turn as fuel. On a world with water, local ice covers up to a quarter of that (1.5 water replaces 1.75 ore per reactor), so an icy colony's ore lasts longer. Two reactors eat 14 ore a turn against a colony's base 10, so a reactor colony wants Mining Drills (+6 ore a turn each, up to 3) or a freighter bringing ore.

The Heavy Freighter

A Heavy Freighter (600 / 250 / 120, 5 turns at a station) carries 960 ore — nearly three Light Freighters — and a 9000-energy tank. That tank matters as much as the hold: it can fly a round trip to Jupiter with fuel to spare and hand energy to a stranded ship or a dark colony on the way. Measured with the game's own travel planner:

Note the last row: a loaded Light Freighter can reach Jupiter from the belt, but with little margin — it arrives nearly empty and can't refuel on sunlight there. Past the belt, send Heavy Freighters, or top Light Freighters up from one.

A foothold, then a hub

The usual shape is one outer colony (Jupiter, the nearest, with water and both ores) that grows a reactor and drills, then a station, then becomes the yard for the worlds beyond it. Every outer world visited first also pays +3 VP for the visit alone, and whoever gets there first usually gets to settle it.

7. Trade, the market and wildcat mining

Proposing a trade

When one of your freighters shares a planet with a foreign ship, colony or station, press U to buy ore with energy or sell ore for energy. Prices start at 3 energy per iron, 4 per silicon and 2 per water and move with the situation:

• Scarcity: +50% when the seller has no colony producing that ore.
• The leader pays more: whoever is closer to winning gets the worse end, up to double; far enough ahead, nobody will sell to you at all.
• Grudges (below) raise the price for the faction holding them.
• Up to 150 units a deal; each pair of factions waits 6 turns between deals; sellers keep a reserve and won't sell their last ore or energy.
• The Free Traders get 25% better rates both ways.

The AI factions also trade among themselves: a hauler on a supply errand buys what its colony lacks from another faction's colony at posted prices. They won't come to you: you join that market by proposing deals yourself (U), and a freighter full of silicon at a busy AI world can sell into it every 6 turns.

Wildcat mining

Nothing stops your ships mining a planet another faction has claimed. But at a claim they enforce — a colony, station or outpost there, or one of their Battlestars in orbit — you mine at only 40% of the normal rate, and every unit taken builds a grudge (three times as fast under a Battlestar's guns). A grudge makes that faction's prices to you worse (+100% at 200 grudge) and at 400 they refuse to trade with you at all. Grudges fade by 2% a turn. Scouts, destroyers and flags do not enforce a claim.

Claims don't last forever

• A flag lapses after 24 turns with none of its owner's ships there or on the way, and no structure of theirs at the planet.
• A mining claim (made by mining an unowned world) lasts only while the miner is there.

8. The other road: a Sovereignty Charter

You can also win without the VP target: reach 200 Earth Influence by shipping ore home. Press E with a loaded freighter at Earth. Iron pays 0.04 influence a unit and silicon 0.05 (the Free Traders get 25% more). To win you also need:

• structures on at least 3 planets;
• a lead of at least 25 influence over the next faction;
• a settled system: almost every faction has a colony, and the oldest colony in the game is at least 120 turns old.

The catch is decay: influence loses 1.5% a turn (five times that for 10 turns after you destroy a ship in combat). Influence settles where your deliveries balance the decay, so holding 200 takes about 3 influence a turn of steady shipments — roughly 75 iron or 60 silicon every turn, forever. That's a Heavy Freighter full of silicon every 16 turns, or two or three freighter loops running flat out.

Two extra sources of influence help:

• UN missions (top-right panel) pay a lump of influence for a delivery or a survey of listed planets.
• UN Trade Charters: supply a struggling foreign colony (low on energy or ore) and the UN pays 1.5 times the Earth rate in influence, plus some for energy — and the colony keeps the goods.

A third road opens late: the Lens telescope, a science victory. It needs science data from years of studies and Research Labs, so start gathering it in the mid-game; the New Player Guide explains it. If a rival starts one, every faction is told, and its station is where your warships should go: rival warships in its orbit that outgun the guards slow the work, and at war they stop it.

9. War, UN law and holding what you take

The rules of engagement

• Truces punish; they don't prevent. The first 24 turns are a system-wide UN truce, and random events can declare more. Breaking one sends UN Battlestar waves after your ships until you've been quiet for 6 turns.
• Arrival protocol. When your warship arrives at a planet another faction holds, you choose: a binding 12-month local truce, or open war (no UN response, but their defences fire on you every turn you stay).
• Colonial protection. A colony's first 24 turns are sacred: attacking its faction at that planet is a breach even in open war.

Taking territory

A Battlestar bombards a structure (K) until its defences are down, then a boarding-capable ship captures it (G) once no enemy ships remain there. A fresh conquest is restive: it yields 50% of the planet's VP, rising to 85% over 50 turns of uninterrupted ownership.

• Repossession. Until a conquest reaches 75% — about 36 turns — the UN doesn't recognise it, and the faction you took it from may retake it lawfully, even during a truce, getting it back exactly as it was. Garrison what you take.
• Recidivism. Seizing protected territory (during a truce, or a young colony) goes on your record. Each further offence slows every one of your still-pacifying breach conquests, adds peacekeepers to each wave and keeps them hunting you longer.

Defending what you have

• Defense Batteries (250 / 120 / 60, up to 3) add a laser and 50 hull to a colony each — the cheapest way to make a colony too expensive to take.
• A station is a fortress on its own; a Military Outpost makes the ships beside it stronger.
• Destroyers and Battlestars guard what batteries can't. The AI sizes its garrisons by the threat it sees — how aggressive its neighbours are, how many warships they have and how close — so a colony next to a raider is well defended and a frontier colony is often not.
• A ship killed in flight drops more of its cargo and energy as salvage (+25%), and a loaded freighter is a tempting prize.

Among the AI factions only the United Defense Force raids as a habit; most of the others fight when you come to them. War is rarely how you win a mid-game — but losing a colony to it is a common way to lose one.

10. What your rivals are doing

From thousands of AI-only games (the numbers the setup screen's opponent grades come from):

• Second colonies arrive anywhere from turn 60 (fast expanders like Solar Dynamics) to turn 190; third colonies mostly after turn 200. A human who keeps every yard busy is usually ahead on colonies by turn 150.
• First stations come around turn 145.
• The early prizes go early: Mercury to Solar Dynamics, Jupiter to the Outer Reach, Mars to Titan Industries or the Mars Authority, usually before turn 40. Each AI's temperament gives it a liking of its own for some worlds, so now and then a faction opens somewhere else. The mid-game is fought over the belt and the rest of the outer system.
• Which factions are dangerous depends on the table size — tempo factions in small games, economies in big ones. The Faction Guide has the numbers, and the setup screen grades every opponent for your pick.

11. Things to try

• Count your idle yard-turns: note each turn a yard of yours has no Colony Ship on the stocks. Then play again and keep every yard busy. How many more colonies do you have at turn 200?
• Build a colony on Themis or Interamnia and run its silicon to an iron-heavy yard. How much faster does that yard turn out settlers?
• Put a Fusion Reactor on a Jupiter colony and watch its ore stock. How many turns until it needs a Mining Drill or a delivery?
• Try a Sovereignty run in a two-player game: how many freighter loops does it take to hold 200 influence against the 1.5% decay?
• Wildcat a rival's belt world for twenty turns, then try to trade with them. What did the grudge do to their prices?
• Take an undefended rival colony and hold it for 36 turns. Did its owner come back for it before the UN recognised your conquest?

When the land rush is over and someone is closing on a win, the Late-Game Guide picks up: closing out each kind of win, and stopping a rival's.