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Asteroid Belt

A distributed field of rocky bodies in orbit around the system center. Few sector slots, but potentially very high resource occurrence on a narrow set of materials. The natural site for deep, specialized extraction outposts.

Layer

Primary orbiter. Asteroid belts orbit the system center, at the same layer as planets.

Goal

Give players a high-specialization extraction option that complements planets rather than competing with them on the same terms. A belt is not a smaller planet — it is a fundamentally different development decision.

Core Problem

If asteroid belts are just thin planets, players will always prefer planets. Belts need a distinct identity: extreme occurrence concentration on one or two resources, very few total slots, and a development profile that forces deep commitment over broad development.

Working Directions

Few Slots, High Occurrence

Asteroid belts have significantly fewer sector slots than planets. A belt might support two or three sectors total. What makes them worth developing is that their occurrence rating for a specific resource can be very high — higher than any planet for that same resource.

The trade-off: you can develop very deep on one thing, or not at all. A belt that can only fit two extraction sectors at level 5 each produces more of its target resource than a planet with a moderate occurrence rating spread across many extraction sectors. But the belt cannot support processing, logistics, or defense at the same time.

Structural Materials Profile

In the minimal test set, asteroid belts are primarily Structural Materials sources. The generator will give belts high occurrence ratings for Structural Materials in most cases. This creates the scenario where a belt and a rocky planet in the same system serve different strategic roles — the planet is the development hub, the belt is the raw output specialist.

Distributed Structure

A belt is not a single point on the map — it is a zone. Visually and lore-wise it is a field of smaller bodies. This does not change the gameplay model — a belt is still a single claimable object with one occurrence profile and one slot count — but it informs how it should be rendered.

Defense Trade-Off

Because slots are very limited, a fully developed belt has almost no room for defense sectors. This makes extraction belts natural raid targets — significant output, minimal defense. Protecting a belt requires either fleet presence or proximity to a fortified holding.

Minimal Test Set

Included. Primary vehicle for testing the occurrence × slot trade-off. Provides secondary Structural Materials supply alongside rocky planets.

Open Questions

  • Should a belt's slot count vary within the belt type based on the specific object, or be fixed for all belts?
  • Can a belt ever host a full processing chain, or is its slot count always too low for anything beyond extraction?
  • Should belts be claimable as standalone holdings, or do they always require a nearby planet holding to function as a logistics anchor?
  • Should the distributed nature of a belt ever create a mechanic where multiple players can claim different parts of the same belt?