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Stellar Expansion

This page gives an overview of the current idea space for how players expand across the galaxy by establishing holdings on stellar objects.

It does not describe final game behavior. It summarizes the broad direction and links to the focused idea pages.

Goal

The goal is to define an expansion model that:

  • gives players room to grow beyond their homeworld
  • makes many stellar objects strategically relevant, not only fully colonizable planets
  • preserves meaningful limits so expansion does not become effortless
  • creates a real difference between light expansion and permanent settlement

Core Problem

If the only meaningful interaction with a stellar object is full colonization, expansion becomes flat.

Every object is either worth colonizing or completely ignored.

A layered model solves this by creating intermediate states between paper ownership and permanently settled civilization.

Current Direction

The strongest current direction is a layered holding model:

Surveyed → Claimed → Frontier → Colony

Each layer implies more investment, more rights, more infrastructure options, and more permanence.

Colonies would be rare, expensive to establish, and hard to lose.

Claims and frontiers would be more numerous, easier to contest, and easier to lose under sustained pressure.

Main Topics

Holding types and upgrades

What each layer means, what it allows, and how players move between them.

See Holding Types And Upgrades.

Holding limits

How many claims, frontiers, and colonies an empire can sustain at once, and how those limits grow over time.

See Holding Limits.

Holding loss and contestation

How claims and frontiers can be pressured, degraded, and lost — and how colonies differ from the other layers in warfare.

See Holding Loss And Contestation.

Player-built connectivity

What if no Jumpgates and no Wormholes exist naturally, and every inter-region and inter-galaxy crossing must be built by players or alliances?

This is a foundational topology idea: instead of pre-generating the universe's road network, let players construct it. Server-side, regions and galaxies only need to exist once somebody has built a gate into them.

See Player-Built Connectivity.

Which Objects Support Which Roles

Not every stellar object should support every holding layer.

One likely direction:

  • habitable planets can become claims, frontiers, or colonies
  • marginal planets can become claims and frontiers, and possibly colonies with significant adaptation effort
  • moons can become claims and frontiers, with limited colony potential
  • asteroid belts and gas giants can become claims and frontier installations, but not conventional colonies
  • stars support claims and strategic installations only

This keeps colonization special while making many objects worth contesting for their strategic and economic value.