Rules

These are the rules for SFC2. Break them and you can lose ships, resources, research and building levels, or the account itself. Blue Frog Gaming decides what happens in each case.

The official copy lives behind the Rules link at the bottom of every page in the game. This wiki page is the same rules written out plainly so they are easy to read and link to. If the two ever disagree, the in-game page is the one that counts.

How the penalties work

Most rules use the same ladder. Where the rule allows a warning you get one first, then a 3 day suspension, then a 7 day suspension, then an indefinite suspension. On top of that we can take back whatever the broken rule earned you: resources, ships, levels, points or credits. Something bad enough gets the account reset or deleted.

One player per account

One person plays one account. The only exception is account sitting, further down.

The person allowed on an account is whoever owns the email address bound to it. In SFC2 that address is the only thing that identifies an owner, so keep it current. There is no Facebook login and no second way to prove the account is yours.

Penalties: 3 days, 7 days, then indefinite.

Multiple accounts

You may control one account per universe. SFC2 runs several universes and one email address can hold a player in each of them, which is normal and fine. Two accounts in the same universe is not.

Signup already blocks the easy version of this. Address tricks that all deliver to one inbox, such as a plus tag or extra dots in a Gmail address, are treated as the same address and the second signup is refused.

If two or more people who share a network play, whether that is a house, a school or a cafe, open a support ticket and tell us. Those accounts are then not allowed to attack each other for any reason.

Penalties: 3 days, 7 days, then indefinite. A bad case gets the accounts reset or deleted, and we may hand back only the account with the lowest Resources Spent score.

Account transfers

Handing an account to somebody else is done at your own risk. Blue Frog Gaming does not approve account transfers and will not help arrange one. If a transfer happens anyway, the new player must open a support ticket to get the email address on the account changed. Skip that and support may not be able to help with anything on the account later.

Account sitting

You may let another player watch your account for up to 12 hours. Tell support before it starts, not after.

While sitting, the sitter may only:

• Fleet save and resource save
• Switch on Diplomacy Mode
• Switch on Vacation Mode

The sitter may not group defend the planet, spend resources, or send messages from the account.

The sit is over the moment the real owner logs in. An account can only be sat once every 14 days.

One thing to watch before you hand over a password: Vacation Mode has a 48 hour minimum in SFC2 and locks the account out of the universe until it ends. A sitter who switches it on has shut you out for at least two days, so only ask for that if you mean it.

Penalties: 3 days, 7 days, then indefinite, and we may take ships or resources off the account.

Bashing

You may not land more than 6 attacks on the same planet or moon in 24 hours. SFC2 enforces this itself. The seventh attack is refused before anything launches, and the refusal costs you nothing.

Espionage and Interplanetary Ballistic Missile strikes do not count towards it. There are two exemptions: NPC targets have no limit at all, and the limit is lifted between two alliances that are in a declared war.

The written rule is wider than the counter. A withdrawn fleet and a totally wiped fleet both hand the slot back, so you could in theory keep throwing fleets at one player all day without tripping it. Doing that on purpose, with nothing to show for it, is still bashing and gets handled as bashing. The Bashing page has the full mechanics.

Penalties: a warning, 3 days, 7 days, then indefinite.

Resource trading

There is no player to player trade screen in SFC2. Two players who want to swap resources do it by sending Transport fleets to each other.

The Trade Merchant is a different thing. It swaps one resource for another on one of your own planets for a credit fee, with no other player involved, so nothing in this section applies to it.

Because there is no trade feature, there are no official trade ratios to follow. What governs a swap between two players is the pushing rule below. If you want to run a trade and you are not sure it is clean, open a support ticket and ask first.

Pushing

Pushing is any scheme that moves gains from a lower ranked player to a higher ranked one. Rank here means the Resources Spent board on the Leaders page.

Some examples:

• Leaving resources on an undefended planet for a bigger player to plunder
• Crashing a fleet into a bigger player so they can harvest the debris field
• Sending a transport up the rankings for nothing back, or for far less than it was worth

For anything that looks like an exception, such as splitting the take from an attack, open a support ticket first. Not after.

Moonshots are covered too. Crashing a fleet into somebody to roll for a moon is fine, but where the fleet belongs to the lower ranked player, that player must be paid back in full for everything lost in the attack within 48 hours.

Pulling is allowed. Sending resources down the rankings is fine. In a swap the higher ranked player may hand over more than the deal is worth. The lower ranked player may not.

Penalties: 3 days, 7 days, then indefinite. We normally also take the pushed resources back out of the game.

Destroyed Ship Points

You may not run a scheme to pump up your Destroyed Ships score. That covers:

• Crashing ships into a planet with no real expectation of surviving or gaining anything
• Arranging with another player for them to destroy ships you parked for them
• Telling another player about ships arriving somewhere so they can be killed

Moonshots are the exception, and the game already treats them as one. When the attacking fleet is wiped out and the defender barely takes a scratch, the battle still awards normal Destroyed Ships points but is kept off the PvP Destroyed Ships board and out of the weekly Raider of the Week standings.

Penalties: 3 days, 7 days, then indefinite. We may also strip the points earned this way.

Extortion

You may not demand resources, credits, money or anything worth money in exchange for:

• Letting somebody join an alliance
• Agreeing a non-aggression pact
• Calling off or holding back an attack

Credits can be bought with real money and sent from player to player, so demanding them is treated exactly like demanding resources.

Penalties: a warning, 3 days, 7 days, then indefinite. We may also take back whatever the extortion earned.

Harassment

You may not harass other players, either in messages or through the game itself. That includes:

• Putting another player's name or coordinates in one of your planet names
• Using planet names to aim something nasty at somebody
• Repeated attacks, or deliberately slow ones, sent only to set off their notifications
• Pointless spy spam

Penalties: a warning, 3 days, 7 days, then indefinite.

Verbal abuse

Keep it civil everywhere: private messages, alliance forum posts, global forum posts and planet names. Private does not mean unmoderated. Something sent to one person still counts.

Penalties: a warning, 3 days, 7 days, then indefinite.

You can also take the edge off yourself while a ticket is open. Settings has a Forum section with a Direct Messages switch and a blocked forum users list. Turning off Direct Messages stops other players messaging you, and blocking somebody hides their topics and posts from your forum view. Blocking is one way and silent, so the other player is not told.

Spamming

You may not advertise a product or service in the game, and you may not mass message players with the same or a similar message. Messages to your own alliance and to players on your buddy list are the exception.

Two things already narrow this down. Messages only reach players in your own universe, and alliance circulars need the right permission on your alliance rank.

Penalties: a warning, 3 days, 7 days, then indefinite.

Scripting and botting

You may not use a script or program to automate any part of your play. That includes running missions, fleet saving and refreshing the page.

You also may not use a script that raises an alarm outside the game, whether that is a sound, an email, an SMS or an MMS.

Penalties: 3 days, 7 days, then indefinite. We may also take ships or resources off the account, and a bad enough case gets the account reset or deleted.

Bug exploitation

If you find a bug, report it. You may not use one for profit, and you may not sit on one quietly.

Anyone found exploiting a bug, or holding one back, faces penalties scaled to how bad the bug was, up to an account reset or an indefinite suspension.

Proxies

You may not use a proxy, or anything else, to hide who you are in the game interface.

Penalties: 3 days, 7 days, then indefinite.

Reporting a problem

Every rule above that says "open a support ticket" means the same place. Click Support in the game menu and start a new ticket. If you cannot sign in, the public form at playsfc2.com/support reaches the same people.

What helps most, roughly in this order: the player names involved, the coordinates, and the report or message the problem sits in. You can attach screenshots to a ticket, up to 5 files. Tickets are private between you and the support team.