A deploy mission sends ships to another planet you own and leaves them there. Unlike a transport, the fleet does not turn around and fly home. The ships arrive, they park, and they stay under that planet's command until you give them a new order. Any resources you load alongside them are unloaded on arrival.
It is the mission you use when a move is meant to be permanent: shifting your main fleet out to a forward colony, stacking defenders on a planet you expect to get hit, or emptying a planet you are about to give up.
Sending a deploy
Open the Fleets page and pick Deploy, then pick where it is going. The fleet leaves from whichever planet you have selected at the top of the screen. The My Planets row lists every planet and moon you own, so most of the time you just click one of those.
You can also type the coordinates by hand. Put an "m" after the slot number, like 7m, to aim at the moon in that slot instead of the planet. The destination has to be yours either way. Deploy will not send ships to another player, not even an ally, and not into an empty slot.
Then choose the ships, and the cargo if you are sending any.
The Summary panel on the right is worth reading before you press Deploy Fleet:
- Hydrogen is the fuel for the trip out, and that is the whole bill. A deploy and a transport with the same ships over the same distance burn exactly the same amount.
- Capacity has already had the fuel taken out of it. Fuel rides in the cargo holds, so the further you send a fleet the less room it has left for resources.
- Duration is set by your slowest ship. Turning the speed down makes the trip longer and the fuel cheaper.
A fleet in the air uses one of your fleet slots, and you get one slot plus one more per level of A.I. Tech. Because a deploy never comes back, the slot frees up the moment the fleet lands. A transport holds its slot for the whole round trip, which is a real difference when you are running a lot of fleets at once.
Recalling one
While the fleet is still on its way out you can turn it around with the red Cancel button on the mission row.
The fleet heads back to the planet it left, and the flight home takes as long as it has already been flying. The ships and the cargo both come back. The hydrogen you already burned does not.
Once the fleet has landed there is nothing left to cancel. Bringing those ships back means sending a fresh mission from their new home.
The report
When the fleet arrives you get a Deploy Report in your Messages listing the resources that were unloaded and the ships that were stationed.
If the destination is gone by the time the fleet gets there, because you abandoned the planet or it was destroyed, nothing is lost. The report comes back marked Target Not Found and the ships and cargo are returned to the planet they left from.
Worth knowing
- Deployed ships defend their new planet. That is the main reason to run the mission at all. It cuts both ways: a parked fleet fights when that planet is attacked, and it can be lost there.
- Solar satellites cannot be deployed. The Helios and Genesis satellites have no engines, so they never show up in the ship list. Build them where you need them.
- Moons are valid destinations. So is a Hephaestus Class Attack Platform. Once your platform is deployed it appears in the My Planets row like any other world, and you can station ships on it.
- Clicking one of your planets picks Deploy for you. On the Fleets page, clicking a world in the My Planets row pre-selects the Deploy mission so the form opens in one click. If you would rather choose the mission yourself every time, switch off Auto-Select Deploy under Settings, Gameplay.
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