Teardown

Teardown takes a building, mine or power plant down by one level. It is how you free up a field, undo a level you built by mistake, or clear out a structure you no longer want on a planet.

It costs resources, it takes time, and you get nothing back for the level you remove.

Where to find it

Open the Buildings page and click More Info on the row you want to change.

Scroll to the bottom of the panel that opens. Under the cost table there is a "Teardown to Level N" block, with the time and the price on the left and the Teardown button on the right.

The cost table right above it marks the level you would drop back to, so you can see what that level cost to build next to what it costs to remove.

The button opens a confirm box before anything happens.

What it costs

A teardown costs a third of what the level you are removing cost to build, rounded down. All three resources are charged the same way, so a structure that needed hydrogen to build needs hydrogen to tear down.

In the shots above, the Ore Mine is going from level 22 to level 21. Level 22 cost 299,273 ore and 74,818 crystal to build, so tearing it back off costs 99,757 ore and 24,939 crystal.

Nothing is refunded. The resources that went into the level are gone, and the teardown price is gone as well. That is the thing people get wrong about teardown: it is not a way to get resources back, it is a way to buy back a field.

How long it takes

Teardown time uses the same formula as build time, run on the smaller teardown cost, so it is always quicker than the upgrade that put the level there.

Build points = (ore + crystal) / 100, rounded, minimum 1.
Time in hours = (build points / 25) / ((Capitol level + 1) × 2 to the power of your Foundry level), then halved for the game speed.

So the Ore Mine above, on a planet with a level 7 Capitol and a level 7 Foundry, comes off in 1 minute 28 seconds.

While it runs, it sits in that planet's build queue like any other job.

A planet only runs one building job at a time, so:

• You cannot start a teardown while something else is building on that planet.
• You cannot start a build while a teardown is running.
• Cancel hands the teardown cost back in full.
• You can finish it early, and anything with under five minutes left is free to finish.

Fields

Every level of every structure uses one field. The field comes back when the teardown finishes, not when you start it.

Freeing a field is the usual reason to do this. A planet that has used every field has only one other option, and that is Terraform, which buys extra fields with credits. The field rules are on the Buildings page.

Requirements: what stays and what stops

Dropping a building below something's requirement does not delete anything you already built with it. It only stops you building more.

A Particle Cannon needs a level 4 Shipyard. Tear the Shipyard down to 3 and the cannons you already own stay exactly where they are. You just will not be able to build another one until the Shipyard is back to 4.

The same goes for ships, missiles and techs. Anything already built stays. Anything you have not built yet drops off the list until you rebuild the level.

What you cannot tear down

• Lunar Base. It is what gives a moon its fields, so the game blocks it and the Teardown block never shows up. Everything else on a moon can be torn down.
• Anything already sitting at level 0.
• The Research Lab, while you have research running on any planet. The block works both ways: research will not start while a lab has a job either.
• The Shipyard or the Foundry, while ships or defenses are being built on that planet.

You also need the resources on the planet you are tearing down on. If you cannot pay, the Teardown button is greyed out.

Side effects worth knowing

• Mines: production drops to the new level straight away, and the energy that level was drawing is freed.
• Warehouses and storage: capacity drops, but resources already on the planet are not destroyed. They sit above the new cap and production just stops adding to that resource until you are back under it.
• Missile Silo: each level is 10 missile slots. Tearing a level off does not destroy any missiles, but you cannot build more until you are back inside the smaller silo.
• Rank: your Resources Spent score is worked out from the levels you currently have, so a teardown lowers your points at the next hourly rerank. See Leaders.

Missiles use Deconstruct instead

Missiles are not structures, so they are not on the Buildings page. To get rid of IBMs or ABMs, open the Defense page, click More Info on the missile and use the Deconstruct Missiles box at the bottom.

Type how many you want gone and confirm. It happens instantly, it costs nothing, and the silo slots are free right away. Nothing is refunded there either.

Nothing else can be scrapped. Cannons, decoys and ships stay where they are until they are destroyed in combat.