What to do When Under Attack

An attack does not come out of nowhere. You get a countdown, and everything on this page fits in the gap between spotting it and the fleet landing. The order matters: move the fleet first, then the resources, then everything else.

Knowing it is coming

An inbound attack shows up as a red bar on Overview and on Fleets, counting down to the moment it lands. The planet also turns red in the planet bar at the top of the screen with a "!" on it, so you can see it from any page in the game.

The bar tells you where the fleet came from, who owns it and how long you have. How much of the fleet you can see depends on your Espionage Tech:

• Level 0 or 1: the countdown and the attacker, nothing more.
• Level 2: the total number of ships.
• Level 4: which ship types are coming.
• Level 8: the exact number of each type.

Nothing warns you outside the game. There is no email and no phone alert for an incoming attack, and the battle report afterwards does not send one either. If you are not logged in, you find out when you next log in.

1. Move the fleet

Nothing in flight can be attacked. A battle only involves what is parked on the planet at the moment the attack lands, so getting your ships off the ground is the single most useful thing you can do.

Open Fleets and pick the Fleet Save mission. It lists every ship on the planet and it takes cargo, so one dispatch can clear the place out. It has to include at least one recycler, a Dionysus or a Zagreus, because underneath it is a harvest mission.

If the attack lands in an hour you do not need a long trip. Send the fleet to the slot you are already in. That is distance 5, about three minutes each way for most fleets, and a Fleet Save flies out and comes home on its own. Just make sure it is still in the air when the attack is due.

An outgoing Fleet Save also has a red Cancel button on the Fleets page, and a recalled fleet takes as long to get home as it has already been flying. Fleet saving covers the whole subject in more detail.

2. Load the resources

Attack fleets carry no cargo of their own, and they cannot touch anything sitting in your holds. So fill the fleet with ore, crystal and hydrogen before you send it out.

What you leave on the ground is fair game. The attacker can plunder 50% of what is on the planet, or 55% if your alliances are in a declared war. He can only haul away as much as his surviving cargo space holds, so a big raid on a small pile still only takes half of it.

Cargo space per ship, for planning: Carmanor 125,000, Hercules 25,000, Dionysus 20,000, Atlas 5,000, Zagreus 5,000. The Zeus Class holds 1,000,000 on its own, but it is slow enough to drag a whole fleet down to a crawl.

Anything that will not fit can go behind a Resource Den, which hides a fixed amount from plunder: 30,000 at level 1, and 7,500 more for every level after that. It is one shared pool across all three resources, not that much of each.

3. Spend the rest

Resources that have already been spent cannot be plundered. If you cannot carry it and the Den will not cover it, put it into something.

• Buildings and research are the safest place to park it. Start the most expensive job you can afford. You get every unit back if you cancel it afterwards, so it works like a locker.
• Ships and defenses cannot be cancelled, so only build what you actually want. The upside is that anything finishing before the attack lands fights in the battle.

There is no way to switch your mines off in SFC2. Production keeps running while the fleet is on its way, so whatever the mines make between now and impact is on the table with everything else.

4. Ask for help

An alliance mate or a buddy can park ships over your planet with the Group Defend mission. Their ships fight on your side, and the highest Weapons, Shield and Armor tech among everyone defending is applied to the whole defending force, yours included. That is often worth more than the extra hulls.

Up to six defending fleets can sit on one planet at a time, for one to twenty-four hours each. Defenders burn hydrogen for every hour they hover, so ask early and tell them exactly when the attack lands.

5. Talk to the attacker

Send a message. Keep it short and keep it polite. Most attacks are about profit and not about you, and an attacker who is told the planet is empty will often turn around rather than burn the fuel for nothing. Whining, swearing and threats do the opposite and usually earn you a second visit.

It also helps to know he cannot grind you down forever. One player can land at most six attacks on the same planet in any 24 hours. That cap does not apply while your alliances are at war, and it does not apply to NPC targets.

What will not save you

None of the protection modes stop a fleet that is already in the air. They only stop new attacks from being launched.

• Vacation Mode is the worst thing you can reach for here. You cannot enter it while any task is running, so you cannot fleet save first, and the attack still lands on a planet with your whole fleet sitting on it.
• Diplomacy Mode takes 24 hours to switch on. Fine as a plan, useless as a reaction.
• PVE Mode starts the second you buy it, but the fleet already on its way still arrives.

After it lands

The battle report turns up in your Messages. A few things then happen on their own:

• Every defense unit that was destroyed has a 70% chance of being rebuilt for free. Solar satellites get the same roll.
• Ships that died leave 30% of their build cost as a debris field in your slot. Defenses leave nothing. If the attacker lost ships too, that wreckage is sitting over your own planet and your recyclers can collect it.
• If your alliance has the Repair Dock perk, part of your own ship losses is banked on the planet and you can claim it back for the next seven days.

Then work out why you were worth attacking in the first place. Nine times out of ten it is a fleet left parked overnight or a stockpile that got too big. The defensive strategy guide is the long fix, and battle tactics is for when you would rather set a trap than run.

Finally, remember it is a game and it is supposed to be fun.