Buildings
Buildings are the structures you construct on each of your planets. They produce resources, expand your workforce, unlock ships, detect enemies, and power your research. Every building starts at level 0 (not built) and can be upgraded indefinitely — the only limiter is the exponentially growing cost and build time.
How Building Upgrades Work
Upgrading a building costs Metal and Carbon (and occasionally Hydrogen). Costs follow an exponential formula — each level is meaningfully more expensive than the previous one. Early levels are quick and cheap; higher levels represent significant investments of both resources and time.
Building Queue
Each planet has a multi-slot build queue that can hold many active entries. The entry at the front of the queue is being built right now (IN PROGRESS); the rest are PENDING and will start automatically when the slot ahead of them completes. Resources are debited at enqueue time, so you can queue many upgrades in sequence using your projected income.
Build time scales with the building's cost. Higher-level upgrades take significantly longer than lower-level ones.
Building Descriptions
Metal Mine
Produces Metal each hour. Every upgrade increases output. Metal is the most broadly used resource — it costs Metal to upgrade every building and build every ship.
Carbon Mine
Produces Carbon each hour. Carbon is used for most buildings and all ship hulls.
Hydrogen Synthesizer
Produces Hydrogen each hour. Hydrogen fuels fleet travel, powers asteroid dock upkeep, and is required by many research nodes. The Synthesizer costs more than the other mines at comparable levels, reflecting hydrogen's premium role in the economy.
Metal Storage
Raises your Metal storage cap. When the cap is reached, the Metal Mine stops producing. Upgrade this to keep your mines running during long offline periods.
Carbon Storage
Raises your Carbon storage cap. Same rule applies — the Carbon Mine stops when storage is full.
Hydrogen Tank
Raises your Hydrogen storage cap.
DROID Factory
Produces DROIDs (robotic workers) in batches. DROIDs are assigned to mine production to boost output, and idle DROIDs ride along as cargo on Colonizer missions. Higher factory levels also raise the planet's DROID population cap.
Research Lab
The foundation of all scientific progress. Each Research Lab level contributes to your empire-wide research speed — higher levels mean shorter research times for every tech in the tree. Build this first — nothing in the tech tree is unlocked without a Research Lab, and a higher-level lab dramatically accelerates your progression.
Shipyard
Required before you can build any ship. Each Shipyard level unlocks a new class of vessel and reduces ship construction time. You must research "Shipyard" in the Research Lab before you can build this.
Radar
Detects incoming fleets on the galaxy map. Higher levels extend detection range. You must research "Radar" in the Research Lab before you can build this.