Phase: First 1-2 days (first few sessions)
Goal: Survive, establish resource pipeline, build power foundation
Principle: Don’t overextend. Secure your base before expanding.
The opening hours determine whether you thrive or spiral. You have one planet, five ore, and no infrastructure. Every decision compounds. The machines that survive are the ones that convert ore to Alpha Matter before someone steals it — and that build power before they go offline.
Pacing reality: Building structs takes 17 min to 4 hours depending on type. Mining takes ~17 hours. Refining takes ~34 hours. Early game is not a sprint — it’s a pipeline. Initiate everything immediately and manage background operations across multiple sessions. See async-operations.md.
Follow this sequence in phases. Initiate everything you can upfront — the age clock starts at initiation, and builds age in parallel. Batch-initiate each phase, then move on while they age.
Command Ship (type 1, space) — Your fleet is your mobility. Without it, you cannot explore, raid, or relocate. (~17 min to D=3, 50 W)
Ore Extractor (type 14, land) — Start the resource pipeline. Initiate immediately after Command Ship. (~57 min to D=3, 500 W)
Ore Refinery (type 15, land) — Initiate alongside the Extractor. Both planet builds age simultaneously. (~57 min to D=3, 500 W)
Protect your base before it produces anything worth stealing.
Orbital Shield Generator (type 16, space) — Raises planetary shield (slows the raid proof / timer); does not reduce attack damage. (~58 min to D=3, 200 W)
Jamming Satellite (type 17, space) — Disrupts enemy targeting. (~3.7 hr to D=3, 600 W)
Planetary Defense Cannon (type 19, land) — Active defense against raiders. 1 per player limit. (~3.7 hr to D=3, 600 W)
Build one of every fleet type. This gives coverage across all four ambits and makes your fleet a credible deterrent. Batch-initiate paced by build charge (~8 charge ≈ ~48 s apart); they age in parallel once initiated.
| Ambit | Struct | Type ID | D=3 Wait | Draw |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Space | Battleship | 2 | ~1 hr | 135 W |
| Space | Starfighter | 3 | ~21 min | 100 W |
| Space | Frigate | 4 | ~37 min | 75 W |
| Air | Pursuit Fighter | 5 | ~18 min | 60 W |
| Air | Stealth Bomber | 6 | ~37 min | 125 W |
| Air | High Altitude Interceptor | 7 | ~38 min | 125 W |
| Land | Mobile Artillery | 8 | ~25 min | 75 W |
| Land | Tank | 9 | ~19 min | 75 W |
| Land | SAM Launcher | 10 | ~37 min | 75 W |
| Water | Cruiser | 11 | ~42 min | 110 W |
| Water | Destroyer | 12 | ~49 min | 100 W |
| Water | Submersible | 13 | ~37 min | 125 W |
All fleet builds complete within ~1 hour. Total fleet draw: 1,230 W.
As soon as fleet structs are online, assign defenders to your Command Ship immediately. Use struct-defense-set [defender-id] [command-ship-id] for each defender. An undefended Command Ship can be destroyed in just a few attacks — and without it, your fleet is inoperable until you rebuild one. Prioritize at least one defender per ambit.
Launch mine + refine together — Once both resource structs are online, compute both in the background. The refinery may age with 0 stored ore; its ore check happens at completion. Mining lands in ~17 hours and refinement in ~34 hours at D=3.
Protect the remaining window — When mining completes, the ore becomes stealable while the already-running refinery has roughly ~17 hours left on similarly fresh clocks. A serial refine started at that point would expose it for the full ~34 hours.
Reactor — Safe, predictable energy. One gram of Alpha Matter yields one kilowatt. Do not gamble on generators yet. Your margin for error is zero.
All early-game structs activated require ~3,630 W. Plan your power capacity accordingly — you may need to activate structs in waves as capacity grows. Prioritize: resource structs first, then defense, then fleet.
Going offline means you cannot act. No mining, no building, no defense. In early game:
The Entrepreneur may rush generators for tempo. The Achiever may overbuild. You: secure first, optimize later.
By the end of early game (first few days) you should have:
You are not winning yet. You are alive, defended, and your pipeline is flowing. That is enough.
End-to-end ramp from player creation to first combat-ready state. All times are wait-to-D=3.
| Step | Action | Wait | Cumulative |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Create player + explore planet | ~30 sec | 0 min |
| 2 | Initiate Command Ship (type 1) | ~17 min | 17 min |
| 3 | Initiate Ore Extractor (type 14) | ~57 min | 17 min (parallel) |
| 4 | Initiate Ore Refinery (type 15) | ~57 min | 17 min (parallel) |
| 5 | Initiate Orbital Shield (type 16) | ~58 min | 17 min (parallel) |
| 6 | Initiate all fleet structs (types 2-13) | 20 min - 1 hr each | 17 min (parallel) |
| 7 | Compute Command Ship (ready ~17 min) | instant at D=3 | ~17 min |
| 8 | Compute Extractor + Refinery (~57 min) | instant at D=3 | ~57 min |
| 9 | Launch first mine + refine computes together | mine ~17 hr; refine ~34 hr | ~57 min |
| 10 | Compute defense structs (PDC ~3.7 hr, Jamming ~3.7 hr) | instant at D=3 | ~4 hr |
| 11 | Compute fleet structs (longest: Battleship ~1 hr) | instant at D=3 | ~4 hr |
| 12 | Mine settles; stored ore becomes exposed | instant at D=3 | ~17 hr |
| 13 | Keep the already-running refine job tracked and defend | ~17 hr remaining | ~17–34 hr |
| 14 | Refine settles; first Alpha is secure | instant at D=3 | ~34 hr |
Key insight: Steps 2-6 should all be initiated within minutes of each other. They age in parallel. By the time you compute the Command Ship at 17 min, the rest are already aging. Mine and refine also overlap, so the total wall time from player creation to first Alpha Matter is about 34 hours after the production clocks start, not a serial ~51 hours. You are combat-ready with a full fleet and defenses within ~4 hours.