State and scope

Section titled “State and scope”

This page follows a damaged or depleted fleet from its live ship state through recovery decisions, travel, replenishment, repairs and renewed mission selection. The lifecycle joins separate systems. No single recovery job tracks it from start to end. The examples are synthetic and assume that the required support exists.

NPR fleet readiness and recovery owns the assessment thresholds and the government assignment policy. Ship readiness and recovery owns damage, crew, morale, clocks and repair formulas. Movement and logistics owns order execution and stock transfers. Production owns manufacture, shipyard work and resource accounting. This page links those detailed formulas instead of repeating all of them, and states the figures the lifecycle depends on.

A fleet can have restored component counts but too little fuel, full fuel but degraded engines, a recent overhaul but damaged armour, or a positive AI mission rating while its weapons still lack fire-control assignments or recharge. These are independent dimensions of state. Live capacities subtract the damaged instances from the design capacity. A component repair only changes the damage record. It lowers the matching damaged count in FCT_DamagedComponent by one, or removes the record when the count was 1. Physical stores, current shield points, assignments and the AI readiness ratings are changed by other rules.

State layer What to inspect What it does not establish
Design baseline Class fuel capacity (FCT_ShipClass.FuelCapacity), maximum speed (MaxSpeed), size, loadout and automated role Present stock or surviving equipment
Live hull Damaged components (FCT_DamagedComponent), armour damage (FCT_ArmourDamage), undamaged capacities Current AI assessment or freshly updated tactical values
Consumables and people Fuel, MSP (CurrentMaintSupplies), loaded missiles, CurrentCrew, survivors A repair task or access to future production
Condition and timing MaintenanceState, OverhaulFactor, LastOverhaul, LastShoreLeave, morale, delays Removal of damage or readiness to fire
NPR assessment Ship role, fuel, system and missile ratings, fleet averages and mission availability A physical resource reservation or a route the fleet can actually fly
Operational commitment Move orders (FCT_MoveOrders), the redeploy flag (RedeployOrderGiven), repair tasks, carrier membership Successful completion of every recovery need

The government recovery priorities below describe Standard NPR behaviour. Player fleets use manual orders, standing and conditional orders and the shared physical transfer and repair rules. They do not follow this NPR queue policy. Special NPRs have further rules that are not general fleet services.

Inter-system phase table

Section titled “Inter-system phase table”

This table crosses assessment, movement, logistics and production. Each row is a dependency. One pass of the game does not necessarily run the whole chain.

Phase State read State written Clock or gate Boundary to next phase
Damage aftermath Surviving component counts and capacity losses Lost stock and assignments, remaining capacities Combat aftermath Repaired capacity cannot recreate destroyed stores or people
NPR assessment Class baselines plus current ships and stocks Ship ratings, fleet averages, mission availability Main strategic gate or another explicit refresh Ratings can be stale between refreshes
Recovery selection Ratings, redeploy flags, current support figures Search inputs, move orders, colony reservation figures Fixed recovery order Selected support is not guaranteed physical service
Route execution Known jump links, drives and gates, delays, fuel, maintenance state Position, transit shock, order progress Movement subpulses Permission at planning time differs from the transit check made during movement
Replenishment Current donor stock, support and live receiver space Actual stock-to-stock transfers Rates per operation and the unused-time result A completed order need not mean every store is full
Field repair Queue, surviving engineering and damage control, MSP, actual mothership One component instance, separate parasite armour work Actual increment completion Restored equipment may wait for another refresh before it is used
Yard admission Idle damaged hulls, local yard and build class, slipways Shipyard task (FCT_ShipyardTask) and mineral requirements NPR population AI or player action Choosing a yard destination did not create this task
Yard work Unpaused task, build rate, mineral supply CompletedBP, completion clears damage Population production cycle Crew, factor and current shields remain separate
Maintenance and shore leave Location support, stores, timestamps, crew Clock progress, state, morale, possible failures Construction cycle, some parasite and factor work elsewhere Clock recovery and equipment repair can overlap
Mission reconsideration New live state and surviving AI flags Updated ratings and possible new orders Later AI refresh and assignment pass Flags, the key element and mission-specific filters still apply

Movement subpulses skip any fleet that has a ship under maintenance. Queued repairs run at actual increment completion. In the construction cycle, maintenance runs first, then population production with the NPR population AI and yard work, then the forced NPR strategic run and later the shore-leave pass. The game time and state refresh page gives the full order.

Assessment and recovery priority

Section titled “Assessment and recovery priority”

Ship assessment compares different quantities against different baselines. Ordinary fuel ratings use the nominal class fuel capacity (FCT_ShipClass.FuelCapacity). Fuel of 0 is Empty, fuel below 20% of that capacity is Critical, below 30% is Low and anything else is Sufficient, with each mark truncated to a whole number. Engine damage compares the effective speed, truncated to a whole number, with the nominal class speed (FCT_ShipClass.MaxSpeed). A speed ratio above 75% gives the role Lightly Degraded and Severely Degraded systems. A ratio from 50% up to and including 75% gives the role Degraded and Severely Degraded systems. A ratio above 25% and below 50% gives the role Severely Degraded and Inoperable systems. A ratio of 25% or less makes the role Incapable and the systems Inoperable. The fleet fuel shortfall uses live undamaged capacity instead. Missile status compares the loaded ordnance size L with the remaining free normal magazine space A. When A is below the smallest configured non-decoy missile size, or 0 when the class has none, the status stays Reload Not Needed. Otherwise L of 0 is Empty, L above A x 0.5 is Partially Loaded, L above A x 0.3 is Partially Loaded with a role penalty, and less is Low. Reload demand instead uses the shortfall against the class loadout template, the template amount (FCT_ClassOrdnanceTemplate.Amount) minus the loaded amount (FCT_ShipWeapon.Amount). No single percentage stands in for these separate calculations.

Fleet fuel and system ratings average the ship ratings without any weighting by mass or stock. A zero total gives Empty fuel or Inoperable systems and sets mission availability to Unavailable. Otherwise an average above 2.5 gives Sufficient or Fully Operational, above 1.5 gives Low or Lightly Degraded, and anything lower gives Critical or Severely Degraded. The ships counted include ships embarked in the fleet’s carriers, so landing and transferring hulls can change both the fleet’s composition and its next average. The key element of the race’s operational group template (FCT_RaceOperationalGroupElements.KeyElement) decides the final role-based mission rating. It is distinct from membership of a naval administrative command and from the fleet commander.

For Standard NPRs the relevant sequence is:

  1. Earlier strategic combat, system, scouting and survey assignments.
  2. Loaded tankers deliver fuel.
  3. Low-fuel tankers collect fuel.
  4. Orbital defence fleets try a local ammunition order.
  5. Fuel-deficient fleets seek colonies.
  6. Damaged fleets seek shipyard colonies.
  7. Ordnance-deficient fleets seek reload colonies.

A successful earlier assignment sets the fleet’s redeploy flag (FCT_Fleet.RedeployOrderGiven) and removes that fleet from the later recovery steps. Fuel can therefore defer yard routing and reloading even when a fleet needs all three.

This sequence does not run every movement pulse. A forced run from the construction cycle enters the main block directly. An ordinary run, made before each time increment, enters it only when systems with hostile ship contacts updated less than five days (432,000 seconds) ago exist and strictly more than 10,000 seconds have passed since the last threat response. A long increment alone, more than 10,000 seconds, can trigger the later per-system redeployment pass without entering the main recovery block. The strategic cadence and assignment order section gives the full gate.

Read ship fuel and system ratings and fleet aggregation and mission availability before taking a fleet’s rating as a percentage or as a readiness guarantee.

Selecting support and committing routes

Section titled “Selecting support and committing routes”
Need Destination test of the AI Actual service still needed
Fuel A colony with refuelling capacity, a positive fuel stockpile (FCT_Population.FuelStockpile) and a reserved fuel figure strictly greater than the full live shortfall. Local and remote filters differ, and only the remote search needs automatic refuelling (FCT_Population.AutoRefuel) Fuel left on arrival and enough transfer time. MSP support is a separate test
Systems Fleet system rating below Lightly Degraded. The yard is chosen by the nominal size and the commercial or naval type of the largest individually damaged hull An idle local hull, task admission, a free slipway, population processing and repair resources
Ordnance For mobile fleets, a transfer colony holding at least half the shortage of one missile type considered, the shortage divided by 2.0 The correct types still present, live storage and transfer work. Not every shortage has to qualify
Fighter recovery The assigned carrier or carrier fleet, or a fallback carrier search Actual free undamaged hangar capacity and a successful landing
Tanker network Tankers above 50% of live capacity pick from the first nonempty stockpile band, below 5,000,000, 10,000,000 or 20,000,000, or else any refuelling colony. Tankers below 50% prefer idle harvesters, then colonies holding more than 20,000,000 Donor equipment, reserves, a stationary donor, the final delivery order and its rate

The fuel and yard steps consider at most the first remaining fleet that reaches its destination search. A fighter squadron whose carrier return fails stays in that queue, and a failed destination search uses up the step’s chance in that run. The reload step can go on to later fleets. The queues therefore move at different rates, and a later fleet that could be served can wait behind a first fleet that cannot be routed. The repair destinations and first-fleet limits section covers the stop.

Fuel reservations subtract the shortfall from the colony’s reserved fuel figure. Ordnance reservations subtract every shortage type present at the colony from copied availability entries, clamping each at 0. Neither moves actual colony stock or protects it until arrival. Actual stock leaves the colony only when the transfer runs, and another order or production step can use it while the fleet travels. These choices keep no lasting hold on the stock and undo nothing when a later step fails.

The remote route search explores known jump point links one layer at a time and returns the first system that resolves a destination. It does not look for the shortest total recovery time. It leaves out the starting system, applies the danger and NPR system value gates, and at planning time counts only the fleet’s own jump drives for an unstabilised transit. During the actual transit, a usable jump drive on another ship within one unit of the jump point can also cover the fleet, so support in transit can differ from route eligibility. When the search checks a system for a fuel or yard destination, it passes the X coordinate of the arrival jump point as both the X and the Y of the arrival point. That can change which colony counts as nearest. The routes, snapshots and reassignment section describes the search.

A successful recovery route appends a final service order, Refuel and Resupply from Colony or Load Ordnance from Colony, to the transit orders. Remote tanker delivery and collection instead queue only the system travel and expect a later local assignment. A failed route search normally leaves existing orders in place. Once recovery orders exist, the redeploy flag survives until the order queue empties or another rule clears it. Later in the same strategic run, the rejoin pass can clear a fleet’s orders and queue Join Fleet when its rejoin target is in the same system, replacing orders chosen earlier in that run.

Arrival and physical replenishment

Section titled “Arrival and physical replenishment”

Arrival starts the operation’s own support checks. Colony fuel and MSP have independent rates, stocks and gates. With H the subpulse seconds divided by 3,600, refuelling gives each ship up to race refuelling rate x H from the colony fuel stockpile, with the rate from FCT_Race.MaxRefuellingRate. Resupply gives each ship up to 10 x H x the shuttle multiplier from the colony maintenance stockpile. The combined Refuel and Resupply from Colony order gives each operation the full pulse and returns the smaller unused-time result. A colony chosen for its fuel is therefore not certain to supply MSP. Transfers fill surviving capacity, so fuel storage repaired later can create a new shortfall after a refuel that looked complete. The rates are in colony fuel and maintenance transfers.

Order processing completes a service order when the unused-time result, as a whole number of seconds, is positive. A missing stock or support condition can hand back the entire pulse and finish the order with no transfer. A zero remainder can keep an order open after its latest transfer. Both the order history and the actual stocks therefore need checking. A completed order is not a statement that the whole fleet is full.

Tanker and supply-ship designation alone is not enough. Automatic donors need a surviving refuelling system or cargo shuttle bay, a refuel or resupply status other than none, and a positive surplus above their reserve (MinimumFuel or MinimumSupplies). Recipients share one donor budget, and a recipient served only in part is skipped by later donors in that pass. Ordered transfers with stationary tankers and supply ships have their own destination, order and movement gates. See tankers, supply ships and stationary support.

While ship-launched salvos with engines that came from the squadron are still in flight, the carrier return chooses Move to Location instead of landing. Even a Land on Assigned Mothership order does not reserve hangar space. Landing checks free capacity ship by ship, and earlier parasites can fill it. Landing changes the mothership (FCT_Ship.MothershipID), the fleet membership and the location of the ship’s survivors, which move onto the carrier. An assignment alone has none of these effects. The landing checks are in carriers, parasites and hangar transfers.

Once docked, parasites can receive carrier fuel, MSP and ordnance through separate transfers. Their donor tests and rates differ from ordinary tanker and supply transfers. Each parasite receives fuel up to race refuelling rate x carrier operations multiplier x H, MSP up to 20 x carrier operations multiplier x H, and ordnance up to race ordnance transfer rate x carrier operations multiplier x H, with the ordnance rate from MaxOrdnanceTransferRate. The carrier MSP test literally compares the carrier’s Fuel with its MinimumSupplies. None of these transfers makes the carrier’s supplies infinite. Fuel and MSP come only from the carrier’s stock above its minimum. See carrier fuel and MSP.

Ordnance loading follows the ship’s own loadout template (FCT_ShipOrdnanceTemplate) when it has one, otherwise the class template, and needs matching stock types, transfer capacity and storage. A desired type that is missing is skipped rather than holding the order open indefinitely. Colony and carrier transfers can carry unused work for a large missile from one pulse to the next. A stationary ordnance hub that cannot fit its first missile in the starting budget discards that credit and can stall. Physical ammunition loading and launcher recharge remain separate. Launchers that reload only in a hangar need a mothership, or an ordnance transfer colony or hub at exactly the same position. See ordnance transfers, hubs and carryover.

From a yard destination to a repair task

Section titled “From a yard destination to a repair task”

The NPR yard recovery order is Refuel and Resupply from Colony. It does not create a repair task. A separate population AI pass bridges that gap. The trans-Newtonian NPR population planner runs that pass, needs a capital, and queues automated yard work only inside its wealth and efficiency gate, race wealth (FCT_Race.WealthPoints) of at least 2,500 and population efficiency (FCT_Population.Efficiency) of at least 1. Low wealth or efficiency can therefore leave a damaged fleet at its destination without a new automated repair task, even though the travel step found a yard. The repair selection and build tasks section describes that pass.

The automated repair and build pass looks only at yards that belong to this population and have a build class (FCT_Shipyard.BuildClassID). It gathers damaged hulls of the same race, with armour damage or damaged components, that hold no shipyard task and whose fleet has no move orders. Each yard needs at least one free slipway, Slipways - assigned tasks. It queues at most one repair in that yard’s turn and then moves on to the next yard. The fleet’s earlier destination choice checked none of these conditions.

The automated hull choice requires the same system and the population’s exact X and Y coordinates. It requires a matching yard type, commercial classes at a commercial yard and other classes at a naval yard, and a class Size no greater than the yard Capacity. The largest Size wins. Being somewhere in the selected system or merely near the colony is not enough. The size test compares Size with Capacity directly, as the game applies it. It is not the player’s local selection, which requires class Size <= Capacity / 50, at 50 tons per hull space. See player admission and tooling compatibility.

Queue admission does not prepay completion. During population processing each unpaused task accrues its build rate x elapsed years, rounded to four decimal places (an exact half goes to the even neighbour), limits that work by the minerals available, records the wealth spent (under Ship Repairs, DIM_WealthUse 49, for a repair task) and debits the minerals. NPR work draws on the capital population’s minerals, not simply on the destination colony’s stock. Without a capital, NPR task processing does nothing. A yard tied to a parent ship (FCT_Shipyard.ParentShipID) also needs the parent fleet’s assigned population (FCT_Fleet.AssignedPopulationID) to still match the yard’s population. Otherwise the game shows a Task Not Possible message and the task gets no work that cycle. Rates are in rate per task and slipway admission.

Population production runs its NPR population AI before its later shipyard processing, so a task created there can receive work in the same production pass. The forced fleet strategic run comes after the production loop of the construction cycle. A new recovery route chosen there cannot take part in the earlier queue admission. A fleet that arrived and became idle before production can be admitted. A fleet that has just been given a route generally waits for a later production pass after it arrives.

Repair completion clears the component damage, the armour damage and the damage-control queue, clears the Destroyed flag and recalculates the crew grade for replacement crew. It also cuts maintenance age in proportion to the repair, advancing LastOverhaul by (now - LastOverhaul) x task TotalBP / class Cost. It does not fill CurrentCrew, current shields, Fuel or ammunition, and it does not reset the maintenance state or OverhaulFactor. A refit has broader effects on class, stocks and assignments and is no model for ordinary repair completion. The armour, yards and other recovery paths section compares them.

Player admission, tooling, BP formulas, component and mineral quantities and mobile-yard accounting are in shipyard construction refit repair and scrapping. A Mobile Repair Bay works as a population-backed shipyard. It is not simply a carrier damage-control multiplier. When the ship is created, the game registers a repair yard tied to it, with one slipway and the class repair yard capacity in tons, and that yard’s tasks need the parent link described above.

Field repairs overhaul and crew recovery

Section titled “Field repairs overhaul and crew recovery”

Component damage control runs at actual increment completion, independently of NPR recovery destinations. With automated damage control on, the game rebuilds the queue at each pass. The pass skips items it cannot afford and attempts the first affordable item. That attempt ends the ship’s pass, whether it succeeds or fails. An item needs 2 x component Cost in MSP, and its chance per thousand is elapsed seconds / (2 x Cost) x combined damage-control rating. Above 1000 it succeeds without a roll, otherwise success needs a d1000 at or below that figure. Success restores one instance and normally spends the 2 x Cost MSP. No build points accumulate per item. The queue rules are in damage control queues and repair chances.

An actual eligible mothership adds its own rating and its MSP above its class MinimumSupplies. Eligibility needs a mothership and either a commercial parasite or positive undamaged military hangar capacity on the carrier. An assigned carrier that the ship is not docked in adds nothing. A separate carrier armour pass can repair alongside the one component attempt. It needs at least 2 x armour Cost in pooled MSP, and its chance per thousand is elapsed seconds / armour Cost x combined rating. Being near a yard or inside a maintenance cluster does not add this carrier repair support.

Overhaul is a different process. Support capacity and accessible MSP advance LastOverhaul. Damage counts are not its completion meter. With f the fraction of the interval’s MSP requirement actually paid, operational progress is elapsed seconds x f and overhaul progress is elapsed seconds x f x 5, capped at now. Fully supported operational ships hold maintenance age steady. Fully supported overhaul reduces age by four times the elapsed time, after the advancing current time is counted. Partial support can leave age unchanged or growing. NPR ships outside active shipyard tasks have their clock and state reset in the ordinary maintenance pass, so the player overhaul experience does not apply to NPR fleets. The formulas are in maintenance state, clocks and support.

Leaving overhaul manually from the Naval Organization window sets a noncommercial ship’s OverhaulFactor to .01 without resetting its maintenance age. The factor then rises each subpulse by subpulse seconds / 2,592,000, capped at 1, independently of equipment repair and support. Fleet movement scheduling skips any fleet that contains a ship under maintenance. The speed of 1 that the game gives a ship under maintenance is therefore not permission to depart.

Crew replacement, crew grade, morale, survivors and deployment age are separate again. Crew replacement fills missing berths and recomputes grade. Shore leave at a matching location advances LastShoreLeave by 10 x elapsed seconds x min(1, crew / required crew), capped at now, and recalculates morale. It does not fill missing berths. Landing can move survivors onto the carrier and change its crowding burden. The construction-cycle shore-leave pass resets every NPR ship’s LastShoreLeave to now and runs the full location update only for player Standard-race ships whose class has a planned deployment above 0.

Restored capacity and renewed mission eligibility

Section titled “Restored capacity and renewed mission eligibility”

The last boundary lies between changed data and the rules that use it. A component repair does not itself set fleet speed to maximum, rebuild sensor sources, restore removed weapon and fire-control assignments, or refill newly restored storage. Maximum speed is worked out when needed, as whole-number(undamaged engine power x OverhaulFactor / effective mass x 1000), clamped to 1 to 270,000 km/s, so it can improve at once. The fleet’s commanded speed is stored separately and does not follow. See capability losses, restoration and eligibility.

At increment completion shields recharge before component repair, and weapon recharge follows repair. A shield generator restored by that repair pass waits for a later recharge phase. A repaired reactor can contribute to the weapon recharge in the same increment. Neither result means that ammunition exists or that jump and fire delays have expired. Shield strength and recharge and weapon recharge give the details.

NPR ratings refresh on their scheduled path, ships first and fleets second. When a fleet’s operational group has a key element and the fleet’s mission availability is already Unavailable, the readiness refresh of that fleet stops before it rates key element capability again. Nothing resets the rating when the refresh starts. Physically successful recovery can therefore improve the current ratings while availability stays Unavailable. With no key element, the refresh sets Available instead. With a key element and no earlier Unavailable, a zero total of key ship role capability gives Available and a positive total gives Mission Capable.

Even Mission Capable does not itself send a fleet on a mission. Offensive fleet selection also needs an offensive operational group that is not a fighter squadron, Mission Capable, no redeploy flag and no reservation for a system assignment. Troop transport assignment also needs a fleet with no move orders. Jump point transit assignment needs no Standard Transit order already queued and either a jump gate or the fleet’s own ability to make an unstabilised transit. When the last order completes, the game clears the redeploy flag, but later command, rejoin or strategic choices can still redirect the fleet. Renewed eligibility is the combination of each selector’s current gates. It is not a single recovery-complete event.

Administrative bonuses can influence engineering, training and carrier operations only through their own effective command and range rules. Command membership is not the NPR key element test and is not a source of stock. The damage-control rating used by the repair pass, for example, is max(1, D x ((B - 1) x 5 + 1)) , where D is the undamaged military damage control, commercial damage control and engineering capacity added together and B is the ship’s effective Engineering bonus from its own officers. See naval administration and ship power, class and detection when following a changed live capability into a particular use.

Full synthetic fleet timeline

Section titled “Full synthetic fleet timeline”

Take a Standard NPR fleet of two ordinary missile escorts. Its operational group has a valid key element, the fleet has no earlier Unavailable rating, no earlier strategic assignment and no rejoin target. Each escort has a nominal fuel capacity of 1,000. One has damaged fuel storage that leaves a live capacity of 800, and the other keeps 1,000. Both hold 250 fuel, which is below 300 (30% of the nominal 1,000) but not below 200 (20%), so both rate Low. Both have enough armour or system damage to rate Severely Degraded, but both keep positive key role capability. The example assumes that every route and support mentioned qualifies. The times are event labels, not guaranteed durations.

Event Result and next dependency
T0, assess Two Low fuel ratings average 2, so fleet fuel is Low. Two Severely Degraded system ratings average 1, so fleet systems are Severely Degraded. Positive key capability can leave the fleet Mission Capable despite its recovery needs. The live fuel shortfall is 800 + 1,000 - 500 = 1,300, not the nominal 1,500.
T1, select fuel Colony A has qualifying support and a reserved fuel figure of 2,000, strictly greater than 1,300. The fuel step queues travel and Refuel and Resupply from Colony, sets the redeploy flag and lowers the reserved figure to 700. Actual stock stays 2,000. The yard and reload steps skip this committed fleet.
T2, execute route Subpulses burn fuel on the approach and check each transit. Transit shock is applied on arrival. The actual shortfall on arrival can therefore exceed the T1 forecast. No reserved quantity refills the ships by itself.
T3, replenish at A Assume A still has enough actual stock and transfer time. The escorts fill to their live 800 and 1,000 and receive only the MSP that the separate support, stock and rate checks allow. Emptying the order queue clears the redeploy flag.
T4, later assessment Fuel is now Sufficient against each nominal class mark, as 800 and 1,000 are both at least 300 (30% of the nominal 1,000). Systems still call for yard recovery. The first eligible yard attempt chooses colony B, queues transit plus Refuel and Resupply from Colony, and does not yet create a repair task.
T5, arrive at B Assume the fleet reaches the colony’s exact coordinates and completes its final service order before the next population AI pass. It must now be idle, with no move orders, to join the automated repair candidate list.
T6, population cycle Assume the capital, wealth, efficiency, build class, type, size and slipway gates pass. Each qualifying yard’s turn queues one repair, and a new task can receive BP in the same tick. Further hulls may wait for later yard turns or free slipways.
T7, complete work After enough mineral-limited BP, the damage and the repair queues clear. Fuel stays at 800 and 1,000 unless refuelled separately. Restoring the first hull’s storage creates another shortfall of 200. Crew, shields and factor are not reset wholesale.
T8, rearm and restore live use A later reload assignment may choose a colony holding only half of one shortage. Assume correct stock and enough transfer work eventually load the desired template. Repaired equipment must still pass the recharge, assignment, speed and sensor refresh and delay gates.
T9, reconsider mission A later refresh of ships then fleets recalculates the ratings. With no earlier Unavailable rating to hold availability, positive key capability gives Mission Capable. A new assignment still waits for role, flag, route and mission-specific conditions.

Field repair can happen at any point after T0. A successful component repair during travel changes the later live capacities and assessments without cancelling or refunding the original reservation forecast. Population production, other consumers or tanker deliveries can likewise change the destination stock before arrival. Fleets, colonies and yards act on each other through one shared simulation. Recovery is not an isolated fleet transaction.

Failed and stalled paths

Section titled “Failed and stalled paths”
Trigger Literal consequence Check before treating recovery as complete
A colony’s reserved fuel equals the shortfall The strictly-greater test rejects it Local versus remote automatic refuelling and support filters
The first fuel or yard fleet cannot be routed A later eligible fleet can wait despite a valid destination of its own The first-fleet limit and the route, value and danger gates
No qualifying ordnance colonies exist The reload step ends early and skips the later Ramming Force fallback for empty ships The difference between an empty source list and a failed search for one fleet
An Orbital Missile Base or Orbital Defences fleet finds no local colony stocking a missing missile type The redeploy flag can be set without a move order, which suppresses the fallback in that run Flag and order state, exact position and missile types
Destination stock is used up in transit The actual transfer can be partial or absent, and the order can still finish Actual stocks and support, not reservation figures
A jump fails during movement The fleet stays at the jump point it tried to use, in the departure system. A player’s ordinary orders can remain. An NPR fleet has all its queued orders marked complete Shock, drive and gate checks during movement and the cleanup of the queue
A ship under maintenance stays in the fleet Movement scheduling skips the fleet Maintenance state, not merely a positive effective speed
The assigned carrier lacks free hangar space The return order does not guarantee landing The actual mothership and surviving hangar capacity
The fallback carrier search changes the fighter list it is working through The game shows the error Function #3858 and the carrier return for that squadron ends there, without undoing earlier changes Actual fleet membership, cleared assignments and queued orders
A yard is found but the population AI gate fails No new automated task Capital, wealth, efficiency, build class, idle hull and slipway
Yard minerals are short or the task is paused Work stalls or shrinks Capital minerals for NPRs, CompletedBP and Paused
A large missile never fits the hub’s pulse budget The starting credit can be discarded again and again Hub behaviour versus colony and carrier carry-over
A component is repaired with no stores or assignments Capacity returns while practical use stays blocked Actual fuel, MSP and ammunition, recharge, controls and kept tactical values
An earlier Unavailable rating remains on a fleet with a key element Ratings recover but availability can stay Unavailable The guard that keeps an existing Unavailable rating

Persistence snapshots and limitations

Section titled “Persistence snapshots and limitations”

The game stores actual fuel, MSP, crew, morale, maintenance clocks, state and factor and the carrier links on the ship (FCT_Ship). It stores loaded ordnance in FCT_ShipWeapon, damaged components in FCT_DamagedComponent, armour damage in FCT_ArmourDamage and the damage-control queue in FCT_DamageControlQueue. Orders save their destination, progress and delay fields in FCT_MoveOrders. Shipyard tasks keep their own work records in FCT_ShipyardTask. Loading a saved game does not produce a fresh hull, a full tank or a completed repair. See saved state and reconstruction and object identity and reload.

The NPR redeploy flag is saved (FCT_Fleet.RedeployOrderGiven). The AI ratings, temporary search inputs, the colonies’ reservation figures and the remembered destination of the last order are rebuilt as runtime state when a game loads. A loaded commitment is therefore separate from restoring its original assessment and resource forecast. Ordnance transfer carry-over is also runtime only. Rounds already transferred survive a load, and unused work credit does not. See persistence and transient caches and runtime transfer credit and pass markers.

The AI’s lists of fleets, ships and populations and several transfer and repair lists are copies taken at the start of a run, and the fleets and ships they name can still change. A fighter split or a detachment does not rebuild every earlier list. A later rejoin check, made from the current fleets, can then see different membership and replace orders. A rating, a reservation and a route should therefore be read together with the run that produced them.

In the paths described here, no single saved recovery record joins all shortages, service reservations, travel, yard admission, replenishment and final eligibility into one operation. Each subsystem changes its own state and can succeed while another fails or waits. Special faction rules and interface actions fall outside that statement. The subsystem pages hold the detailed formulas and their literal anomalies, and logistics interruption and reservations covers what survives cancelled or replaced orders.

Concept map

Section titled “Concept map”

Resources

Section titled “Resources”

Related community documentation and developer posts. These may describe a different game version.