Robots

Every player controls a swarm of robots to compete against other players. A robot is exactly what you’d expect — a mechanical unit with health points, energy for performing actions, having the ability to move, collect mined resources, engage in combat, and upgrade itself through the purchase of upgrades.

Buying Robots

Players can purchase new robots at any time during the game using the credits on their bank account. A purchase buys a voucher for a new robot from the Trading Service. The voucher is redeemed automatically, and the new robot spawns at the player’s home station.

Energy and Intents

Robots have both health points and energy. Energy is required to perform actions — moving and attacking other robots. Energy may be consumed even if an action fails, e.g. an unsuccessful attack. Both health points and energy slowly regenerate over time, and they do so faster while the robot is at a space station.

Every change to a robot’s state triggers an event that players can react to. This happens whenever a robot performs an action, regenerates health points, or is affected by another robot’s action, such as an attack.

Players send the actions their robots should perform as asynchronous intents. A robot executes an intent immediately upon receipt, which changes its state. If an intent cannot be executed, the robot discards it and publishes a notification instead — for example, because the robot lacks enough energy or its target is out of range. As a result, players are free to choose how they issue intents: either in a request-reply fashion, by waiting for the resulting state changes before sending the next intent, or by sending several intents in direct succession. Either way, robots always process intents immediately upon receipt.

Fighting Robots

Players can attack other players’ robots by sending attack intents to their own robots. Attacks consume energy, target a specific robot, and are only possible at close range. Only a successful attack deals damage, reducing the target’s health points.

A robot whose health points drop to zero is destroyed. Every destroyed robot earns the attacker points towards their overall score, as well as credits on their bank account.

In a chase, the balance between attacker and defender comes from the extra energy spent on attacks. While the fleeing robot only spends energy on moving, the pursuer pays additional energy for every attack — successful or not. This makes energy management a central part of combat.

Mining Resources

Robots do not mine themselves: players start mining by sending an intent to a planet with a mine, naming one of their robots, and the planet carries out the extraction (see Map). The robot’s part is to collect the result. Once mining has finished, the named robot automatically loads the excavated resource into its cargo hold. Note that the robot must be on the planet at that exact moment and have enough free capacity in its cargo hold — otherwise, the mined resource is lost.

Resources collected by a robot can be sold for credits at space stations, which frees up capacity in its cargo hold again.

Upgrading Robots

Robots are improved by buying upgrades for them. The robot must be at a space station for this. The player spends credits on an upgrade voucher, which is redeemed and applied automatically. If the robot is not at a space station at the time of purchase, the voucher expires. The details of the purchase are described under Trading.