Genesis Solar Satellite

The Genesis Solar Satellite is a stationary ship that sits in orbit over the planet that bought it and beams energy back down. It is the premium version of the Helios Class Solar Satellite. It makes exactly twice the energy, it costs credits instead of resources, and when it gets shot down it has a 70 percent chance of coming straight back.

Older pages and some players still call it the Genesis Class Solar Satellite. The game itself calls it the Genesis Solar Satellite, with no "Class" in the name.

It is still a satellite, so it is one of the flimsiest things in the game. Hull 200, shield 1, weapon 1. It cannot move, which means it cannot be fleet saved, and nearly every armed ship in SFC2 has rapid fire against it.

Buying one

Genesis satellites are bought on the Shipyard page of the planet you want them on. They cost 10,000 credits each and nothing else. No ore, no crystal, no hydrogen.

Four things on that row are worth knowing:

• Time: Instant. Credit ships skip the build queue completely. They show up the moment you press Build.
• Because they skip the queue, you can still buy them while the Shipyard or the Foundry is upgrading. Normal ships are blocked during those upgrades.
• The Energy: 62/hr each line is for that planet only. It changes from planet to planet.
• Base is the ship as designed, Current is what your research has done to it. Armor Tech and Shield Tech apply to satellites like any other ship, which is why hull 200 reads 400 there. It does not save them.

You need a Shipyard on the planet, because the Shipyard page is the only place that sells them. A planet with no Shipyard has nothing to buy. Moons cannot build a Shipyard at all, so satellites are a planet-only thing.

Credits come from the Store or from another player sending you some. Every new commander starts with 10,000, so your first satellite is technically free. The Lucky Draw does not hand out satellites in SFC2, whatever the old pages say.

Energy production

Output depends on the planet's maximum temperature:

Energy per satellite per hour
(Maximum Temperature ÷ 2) + 40, rounded down

Hotter planet, more energy. Temperature is set by the slot the planet sits in, so low slot numbers are hot and high slot numbers are cold. Your planet's range is on the Overview page under the planet picture. The second number is the maximum, and that is the one the formula uses.

Ardent above is in slot 8 and reads 4°C to 44°C, so each Genesis there makes 62 energy an hour. Here is what to expect across the fifteen slots, with a Helios on the same planet for comparison:

Slot	Typical max temp	Genesis	Helios
1 to 3	around 90°C	85/hr	42/hr
4 to 6	around 65°C	72/hr	36/hr
7 to 9	around 40°C	60/hr	30/hr
10 to 12	around 0°C	40/hr	20/hr
13 to 15	around -45°C	17/hr	8/hr

Every planet rolls a few degrees either side of its slot's base temperature, so two planets in slot 8 will not be identical. Check the planet, do not trust the table to the last point.

Every satellite gives the same amount. There is no falloff for stacking them, and they use no fields, which is the whole reason people buy satellites instead of another level of Solar Array.

Genesis or Helios

	Genesis	Helios
Cost	10,000 credits	2,000 crystal, 500 hydrogen
Build time	Instant	Normal Shipyard time
Energy	(max temp ÷ 2) + 40	(max temp ÷ 4) + 20
On a 40°C planet	60/hr	30/hr
Comes back after a battle	About 70% of them	Never
Debris when destroyed	None	600 crystal each
Rank points it gives you	0	2.5 each
Points the attacker gets	0	2 each

One Genesis is worth exactly two Helios in energy. The last four rows are the interesting part.

A Helios field is a shopping trip for whoever raids you. Every Helios that dies leaves 600 crystal in the debris field and hands the attacker 2 destroyed ship points. A hundred of them is 60,000 crystal floating there waiting for a recycler. A hundred Genesis is worth nothing to the attacker: no debris to harvest, no points on the board.

The flip side is that Genesis do nothing for your own rank either. Rank points come from ore, crystal and hydrogen spent, and a Genesis costs none of those. You can park 500 of them on a planet and your rank will not move a single point.

Getting shot

Rapid fire is the problem. The More Info button on the Shipyard row shows the full list:

Everything with a gun gets 5 shots per satellite and Zeus gets 1,250. The only ships with no rapid fire against satellites are the two probes, Hermes and Shadow, and the Hephaestus. The probes have no attack at all, so they are no threat either way.

That adds up fast. Eight Artemis fighters, the cheapest armed ship in the game, wiped out forty Genesis in three rounds and took no losses doing it:

Note the zeros in the Defender Losses table. Forty satellites died and produced no ore, no crystal and no hydrogen. There is no debris section in that report because there was no debris.

Regeneration

This is the thing you are paying for. When the battle is over, each destroyed Genesis gets about a 70 percent chance of being rebuilt for free. It is not an exact 70 percent, it rolls around that number with a bit of noise, which is why 40 destroyed came back as 27 in the report above.

It only fires when you are the defender and the battle happened over your own planet. Helios never regenerate. Defenses regenerate on the same 70 percent roll, so a satellite field and a defense wall behave the same way after a raid.

What it does not do is stop the raid. The satellites still die first, the attacker still wins the battle, and the attacker still walks off with whatever resources you left lying around. Regeneration just means you are not rebuying the whole field afterwards.

Things they do not do

• They cannot be sent anywhere. Speed 0, no fuel, no cargo. They never appear on the Fleets page.
• They cannot be fleet saved, so they sit through every attack that lands on the planet.
• There is no way to sell one back or tear one down. Once it is bought, it is on that planet until something shoots it.
• Abandoning a planet destroys them. Only ships that can move come with you.
• They are pointless on a moon. Moons have no mines to power and cannot build a Shipyard anyway.
• They add nothing to your rank and give the attacker nothing when they die.