Creation triggers

Section titled “Creation triggers”

Every race has a starting level and a race type. The level is standard, minor, conventional or pre-industrial. A normal NPR has the standard race type. They reuse most of the rules on this page, and their triggers and lifecycles are on special race lifecycles. The shared race creation steps, the installation package and the build-point budget belong to player race creation, so this page covers only the NPR side.

Four paths create NPRs. Each one runs race creation with automatic technology assignment and automatic class design switched on. System generation passes the game option FCT_Game.GenerateNPRs as the NPR flag. Race creation makes an NPR only when that flag is 1, so a value of 0 creates a player race. System generation can also create a pre-industrial, conventional or minor race instead of a standard-level one.

Trigger What starts it Placement Starting exploration
New game NPR count The new game generates one NPR for each requested NPR Fresh neutral system NPRBaseTransits plus a die of NPRRandomTransits sides, capped by NPRMaxSystems
Fresh system numbered -1 None
System generation Each new system tries to place a race on every planet and moon The body itself Deferred to the first exploration into the system
Empire preset The Empire NPR preset Fresh known system no farther out than the farthest player-surveyed system in known-star games, else a random unused numbered system Depth 2 + d4, at most 500 systems

A new game stops before any NPR is made when no player race was created. It then generates the standard NPRs and saves. For each standard NPR it rolls NPRBaseTransits plus a die of NPRRandomTransits sides, capped by NPRMaxSystems, all stored in FCT_Game. When the NPR template has a positive base or random transit value, the template values replace the roll. A positive template maximum replaces the cap. A total of zero skips exploration for that NPR. The options are listed in game rule options.

After each standard NPR’s exploration, the new game unlinks every Sol jump point that has a partner. The unlinking clears the partner’s link and then tries to use that cleared link to reset the waypoint link, so any such link produces an error (the game shows Function #1419). The whole new-game creation stops there. The remaining NPRs, the save are all skipped. The starting exploration excludes every system that existed before it, Sol included, and no rule described here creates such a link. The exploration also runs with Sol connections prevented. Connection selection on first exploration explains how the excluded systems and that setting shape the pick.

System generation skips bodies with ruins. A body can host a native race only with a surface temperature of 233 to 333 K, gravity of 0.3 to 2.5, a hydrosphere extent of at least 20, and oxygen of 0.05 to 0.5 atm and at most 30% of the atmospheric pressure. It must also pass the apoapsis distance test at 80, which also requires its star to have nearby Lagrange points within that distance. Each dangerous gas fails the body when its amount reaches the gas’s DangerousLevel / 10,000. That division drops the fraction, so it gives 0 for any level below 10,000, and any amount of such a gas then fails the body.

The race appears when a d100 rolls at or below the system’s race chance. A second d100 at or below PreIndustrialChance makes it pre-industrial. Otherwise a die of (100 - PreIndustrialChance) sides at or below ConventionalChance makes it conventional. Otherwise a die of (100 - PreIndustrialChance - ConventionalChance) sides at or below MinorRaceChance makes it minor. Any other result gives a standard-level race. A minor race in a system whose gas giants all lack Sorium forces a Sorium deposit onto the first gas giant.

A standard-level race that is not waiting for its starting exploration has a 1 in 10 chance (a d10 of 5) of a second standard-level race on the same body, and then a further 1 in 10 of a third. Race creation marks every NPR created at standard level, special races included, as waiting whenever NPRBaseTransits or NPRRandomTransits is positive. Extra races therefore need both options at zero.

System generation records a waiting race against its system. The next jump-point exploration into that system runs the race’s starting exploration and redirects the link to the edge of the race’s network, as connection selection on first exploration describes.

The Empire preset builds a template with a starting population of the average player wealth figure times (1.5 plus a random fraction below 1), a minimum of 2 to 3 times the highest player researched technology total as starting tech points, ship size multiplier 3, a geo-surveyed and grav-surveyed home system, survey sensors 3, xenophobia 100, determination, militancy and expansionism 90, diplomacy and trade 20, translation 0 and research rate modifier 0.5. It multiplies homeworld minerals by 5, sets shields to Yes, picks Laser as primary beam on a d3 above 1 and Railgun otherwise, and chooses the Dreadnought Focus progression. The tactical map has an Empire command, but no button or menu item is wired to it, so the preset is not reached in play.

Homeworld selection and preparation

Section titled “Homeworld selection and preparation”

The NPR generator and the preset share a search with no retry limit. Each pass generates a neutral system with native race placement switched off, marks the stars that pass the nearby Lagrange point test at the threshold distance, and scans their planets and moons that are not gas giants or superjovians. The first body that passes the distance clause and the homeworld candidate test wins. A failed pass removes the system and starts again.

Setting NPR generator Preset
Lagrange distance threshold 75 40
Known-star distance The new game’s minimum and maximum NPR distance 0 to 100, or the farthest player-surveyed system for Empire
Minimum jump points 0 0, or 4 for Empire
Capacity argument 3,000 5,000, or 10,000 for Empire

The distance clause passes a body that is not a planet, or a planet with an orbital distance at or below the threshold whose parent, when it is a moon, also lies within the threshold. A moon satisfies the first part, so moons always pass and the parent test never applies.

The homeworld candidate test ignores the capacity figure given to it, so the capacity figures in the table have no effect. It requires 225 to 340 K, gravity 0.5 to 2.5, a hydrosphere extent of at least 20, a planet that is not tidally locked and an eccentricity of at most 0.1.

A passing body is rewritten. Ruins and abandoned factories are cleared. The atmosphere becomes 0.75 + d50/100 atm with 70 + d15 percent nitrogen and oxygen as the rest. A liquid hydrosphere then adds water vapour in proportion to pressure and hydrosphere extent, and the evaporation step takes the matching amount off the hydrosphere extent. The temperature test of 225 to 340 K then runs again. When the template lists preferred terrains, the body passes only if at least one preferred terrain fits its oxygen, temperatures, hydrosphere and tectonic activity, and one fitting terrain is picked at random as the dominant terrain. A body with a coldest point below -150 C or a hottest point above 200 C fails. Otherwise terrain follows climate.

A separate homeworld suitability test exists. Its strict form requires gravity 0.4 to 2.5, 220 to 340 K, hydrosphere 20 to 90, no dangerous gas, and oxygen of at least 0.07 atm and at most 30% of pressure. Its lenient form shows a message for each failure and uses 0.1 G, 203 to 343 K, hydrosphere 20 and oxygen 0.05. The only user of the test, the Spacemaster Create Race button, uses the lenient form.

Three adjustments change colony bodies during starting colonisation.

  • Toxic gas removal orders the dangerous gases other than the breathing gas by pressure, largest first, and removes each one at or below the threshold. It stops at the first gas above the threshold, so a larger gas above the threshold blocks removal of every smaller one. Its cost is the removed atm divided by the body’s surface-area scale.
  • Oxygen adjustment moves oxygen to 0.01 atm inside the species range. When oxygen then exceeds 30% of pressure, it sets the nitrogen partial pressure to oxygen / 0.3 + 0.01, provided that target stays below the species maximum pressure. The total pressure then ends above that target. The cost adds only the target minus the old total pressure.
  • Climate gas adjustment costs 0 when both orbital extremes are inside the species temperature range. Otherwise it adds Frigusium when heat dominates or Aestusium when cold dominates, in 0.001 atm steps, until the worst-case colony cost reaches 0. It steps back once if the cost rises.

Race record and scaling against players

Section titled “Race record and scaling against players”

The player wealth figure W sums the wealth modifier x total population over player populations that do not provide colonists, and divides the sum by the number of player races. Without players it is 1,000. Race creation computes it first. When HumanNPRs is 1 and a d3 rolls 2, the NPR takes the first player species if that species can live on the homeworld, and W is halved. Otherwise the native species is generated, copying the template personality and modifiers when a template exists.

The starting population is W x 4d50 / 100 x difficulty modifier / 100. A result below 500 becomes 500 + d50. A template starting-population-by-wealth multiplier other than 1 replaces the result with W times that multiplier. Otherwise the template population size multiplier scales it. Minor and conventional races divide the population by 4, pre-industrial races by 8, and the body’s population capacity caps the result.

Installation setup sets the starting research points of standard-level and minor races. Research labs are floor(population / 25), capped at 100, and at 50 for players. Points are labs x (years elapsed + 20) x 200 x research speed / 100 x species research rate modifier, truncated. A template then multiplies them by its tech points multiplier and raises them to its minimum start tech points. Every NPR on this path is then raised to at least 150,000.

Race Starting tech points
Standard or minor level Lab formula, template factors, floor 150,000
Lab formula, floor 150,000, then the Raider minimum RP option
RP option, at least floor(highest player starting total times 1.2)
RP option, at least floor(highest player starting total times 1.5)
1,200,000
W x 4d50 / 100 x difficulty / 100 x 1.5 / 25 x (years + 20) x 50 x research speed / 100 x species research rate, truncated, floor 100,000

The game keeps the largest starting tech total of any player race as the highest player starting total. The average player lab count is 30 without players. The highest player researched technology total sums the development cost of every technology each player knows and keeps the largest sum. The Empire preset multiplies it by 2 to 3 for its minimum start tech points.

Build points start at 4 x annual wealth. Other NPRs reserve half of it for ground forces and multiply the ship budget by 1.5. NPR shipyards have 1.6 times player capacity. The race generates a number of commanders equal to the homeworld’s military academies times 10 graduates per academy per year times 20, at least 300. NPRs get none of the empty starter fleets that players receive. Detail is in stocks, wealth and build budgets.

Starting technology grants add tech systems 65739, 65737, 65738 and 65740 for trans-Newtonian NPRs, and 65899 and 65900 for conventional races, which also get the conventional design philosophy. Standard-level and minor races set up their design philosophy, reconcile their factories with it, generate standard components, create automated classes and create their starting fleets.

Factory reconciliation converts fighter factories to ordnance factories, or the reverse, when the philosophy keeps only one kind. When it keeps neither, only fighter factories convert, to construction factories. Normal standard-level and minor NPRs open a shipping line with one Small Freighter and one Small Colony ship per 200 million population, rounded. A conventional race does so only when its home system has a body below colony cost 5.

Starting exploration colonies and support assets

Section titled “Starting exploration colonies and support assets”

Starting exploration sets the terraforming gas budget to 60 times the terraforming-module capacity of the race’s Terraformer fleets. It explores outward depth by depth through unlinked jump points, completing grav surveys at every depth except the last, and records each system’s exploration depth. Each unlinked frontier jump point picks its destination as in connection selection on first exploration. When the system total reaches a positive maximum, exploration stops before that depth joins the frontier, so those systems contribute no colony candidates.

Colony setup first creates one Terraformer and one Harvester group fleet. The expansion budget is homeworld population times target depth times 0.2. Half the homeworld labs, rounded down, are reserved for construct sites. The special-site pass caps each site at the remaining lab pool without reducing the pool. Each rocky candidate, meaning a body that is neither a gas giant nor a superjovian, gets a mineral value, a colony cost, a surface-area scale of Earth area over body area, and an opportunity value. The opportunity value is mineral value + truncate(abandoned factories / 10) .

A priority candidate needs gravity within the species range and a worst-case cost below 6. It also needs a cost below mineral value minus 3 with a mineral value of at least 6, abandoned factories.

Terraforming pass Bodies by opportunity value Action
1 Atmosphere, cost at most 3, oxygen, hazardous gas Toxic removal at 0.05 atm
2 Atmosphere, cost at most 2, oxygen Oxygen into range
3 Cost bands from 0 to 1 up to 5 to 6 Toxic removal at 0.1, climate gas above cost 2, oxygen, hydrosphere to 20 at 0.025 per point, climate gas

Each pass subtracts costs from the gas budget and stops when the budget is spent. Pass 3 also stops after processing as many bodies as there are candidates.

Mineral colonies follow in mineral value order for bodies with a cost below value minus 4 and below 5. Colony population is homeworld population times mineral value times the exploration depth modifier times 0.0025, times the construct bonus, capped at body capacity. The depth modifier is the full target depth for a system at depth 0 or 1, and target / depth deeper.

Colony size Installations
Any Mines floor(2 x homeworld mines per million x population), max(1, target - depth) Deep Space Tracking Stations, a Mass Driver, infrastructure, seed minerals
Above 25 Construct labs, construction factories equal to mines / 2
Above 50 Refuelling station, maintenance facility, Deep Space Tracking Station, fuel at least 10,000,000, financial centres mines / 4. An ordnance philosophy adds an ordnance transfer station and, with Corbomite, Uridium, Gallicite, Tritanium and Boronide deposits and spare workers, ordnance factories mines / 3. Sorium accessibility above 0.2 and spare workers allow refineries mines / 4
Above 100 Spaceport, naval headquarters, Deep Space Tracking Station. Vendarite above 50,000 with accessibility above 0.3, spare workers and mines allows ground force construction complexes mines / 40

Factory counts divide the mine count and drop the fraction. Each request is cut to the number the remaining manufacturing workforce can staff. Colony placement stops once the expansion budget is spent.

Unsettled factory and construct sites get 5 times the construct research bonus times the depth modifier, plus 0.05 times abandoned factories times the modifier, as population. Remaining candidates above mineral value 6 become automated mining outposts with max(50, floor(remaining / 4)) mines each, capped at what remains. A batch of 20 or more adds a cargo shuttle station and 5,000 MSP. A batch of 100 or more adds a refuelling station and 10,000,000 fuel. Leftovers spread in up to three passes. The source is the homeworld automated mine count, which outpost creation does not reduce.

Hub colonies go to unsettled systems with a primary mass below 10, a depth below target and more than 3 jump points, those with the most jump points first. The cheapest body below cost 5 with gravity in the species range gets 5 + d50/10 population, target - depth + 2 Deep Space Tracking Stations, a refuelling station, floor(8 x population) financial centres and fuel of 5 x homeworld fuel per million x population, at least 25,000,000. Harvester fleets then go round robin to Sorium gas giants at an orbital distance below 40, best accessibility first.

Step for each non-homeworld population, by AI value Rule
Garrison Philosophy ground deployments matching the population value
Abandoned factories 1 Xenoarchaeology Expedition, +1 above 50 and +1 above 200, and twice as many Construction Regiments
Core Attack, Jump Point Defence, FAC Hunt and FAC groups
Industrial Lowest-priority Attack, highest-priority FAC Hunt and FAC groups
Developing FAC Hunt and FAC groups
Assigned fleets Maintenance facilities, ordnance transfer station with 3 loads of each missile type, 5 years of MSP
Terraformers Next spare Terraformer fleet for a colony cost above 0 and below 5

Colony setup ends with up to 2 times the target depth attempts to found a civilian mining colony, stopping at the first failure.

Design philosophy initialisation

Section titled “Design philosophy initialisation”

Standard-level and minor races and every special race get a fresh design philosophy. Conventional races never use this setup, so its conventional-race conditions never apply. Launchers start at size 0, anti-missile size at 1, factories and jump drives off, shields at 0 and engine boost at 1. Every level except conventional rolls an armour multiplier of 1.3 + d5/10. normal NPRs do so on a d8 below 7, and a template Yes or No overrides both. A race without launchers rolls an engine boost of 1 + d40/100.

Race or condition Shields
None, armour multiplier 1.0
None, armour multiplier 1.8
Always
Yes, otherwise fall to the rows below
Above 600,000 / 400,000 / 200,000 tech points d10 below 9 / 7 / 5
Otherwise, not conventional d10 below 3

A template overrides the result. Shields set the shield proportion to (10 + d15) / 100 and the armour multiplier to 1.0.

Other races take a non-random template beam or roll. With launchers the roll is a d5, with Laser below 3, Railgun below 5 and Particle Beam on 5. Without launchers it is a d20, with Laser below 10, Railgun below 16, Particle Beam below 20 and Plasma Carronade on 20, and a carronade adds 0.2 boost.

standard-level normal NPRs do so on a d5 below 4. point defence takes a non-random template value or rolls. A boost above 1.25 or a conventional race gives Railgun. A Laser primary gives Laser on a d6 below 4, Gauss below 6, else Railgun. A Railgun primary gives Railgun on a d6 below 5, else Gauss. Other primaries give Gauss on a d6 below 5, else Railgun.

Launcher size is a d20 with 20 giving 12, 19 giving 11, 17 to 18 giving 10, 12 to 16 giving 9, 7 to 11 giving 8, 5 to 6 giving 7, 3 to 4 giving 6, 2 giving 5 and 1 giving 4. Below 6 the missile strategy is anti-missile, 6 is anti-ship, 7 is anti-ship or large at random, and larger is large anti-ship. A d3 of 2 above size 7 makes large anti-ship laser-pumped, and the plain laser-pumped option is never chosen. A second d20 gives an anti-missile size of 3 on 20, 2.5 on 18 to 19, 2 on 15 to 17, 1.5 on 11 to 14, else 1.

The conventional design philosophy sets the defaults with armour multiplier 1.0, rolls the d20 beam table, fixes Railgun point defence and active resolution 20, and builds laser, railgun, particle beam and carronade components. It sets no progressions.

The progression type comes from the template when one is specified. A normal NPR with a launcher size above 1 gets FAC Focus with jump drives or Missile Focus without, and fighter factories on carriers set to Yes, or to Random with a d4 of 1. A beam race with shields gets Dreadnought Focus on a d6 of 1. Otherwise it gets Unknown Beam with jump drives or Beam Focus without, with carriers on Yes or a d3 of 1 and hybrid carriers on a further Yes or d3 of 1. Conventional races force the carrier options to No.

Type OpGroupProgressionType Rows
Missile Focus 1 51
2 14
FAC Focus 3 51
4 13
Beam Focus 5 49
6 24
Unknown Beam 7 45
8 17
Dreadnought Focus 9 44
10 8

The race takes the rows of DIM_OperationalGroupProgression whose OpGroupProgressionType matches its type. A minor race drops the grav survey and stabilisation groups for 5,000 tech points. It drops the harvester groups for 5,000 more unless the home system has gas giants and none carries Sorium. It drops the orbital miner groups for 5,000 more unless more than 10 deposits above 2,000 sit on bodies of radius below 200.

A d3 of 2 replaces every Scout progression with Beam Armed Scout. Fighter factories turn missile and beam battle squadrons into carrier groups and battle fleets into carrier battle groups, and balanced fleets let a random coin flip decide each further fleet conversion. A Random balanced-fleet option resolves to Yes unless a d3 shows 1. These substitutions change the shared progression list, so later races of the same type inherit them.

Each catalogue element of the race’s groups is kept on a d100 at or below its ChanceOfElement, with NumShips plus a die of RandomNumShips sides as its ship count. Hybrid carriers turn Energy Carrier elements into Battle Carriers.

Ordered technology progression

Section titled “Ordered technology progression”

Every race gets the Naval Combat Systems category. get Engines and Reactors and Fuel Consumption, and get Missile ECM. Normal NPRs add Orbital Modules, Ground Combat, Ground Combat Utility, Survey Sensors and Troop Drop Capacity. With launchers they also add Fleet Logistics and Missile Production and enable ordnance factories. Without launchers they add the no-ordnance Fleet Logistics and General Industry.

Race Extra categories
Genetic Enhancement, Salvage and Raid, Stealth, Troop Drop Capacity
Genetic Enhancement, Ground Combat

Gauss point defence adds Gauss Weapons, shields add Shields, and jump drives add Jump Point Theory and Jump Drives. A standard-level normal NPR without jump drives still adds Jump Point Theory. Launchers add Missile Weapons and Engine Power. A launcher-free race with boost above 1 adds Engine Power. The fighter-production check runs before fighter factories can be set, so it never adds its category.

In the game database each category is a TechProgressionCategoryID. The values are 1 Naval Combat Systems, 2 Fleet Logistics, 3 Fleet Logistics without ordnance, 4 Orbital Modules, 5 Engines and Reactors, 6 Fuel Consumption, 7 Gauss Weapons, 8 Genetic Enhancement, 9 Ground Combat, 11 Ground Combat Utility, 12 General Industry, 13 Fighter Production, 14 Missile Production, 16 Jump Drives, 17 Jump Point Theory, 18 Engine Power, 19 Missile Weapons, 21 Shields, 22 Survey Sensors, 23 Troop Drop Capacity, 24 Troop Boarding Capacity, 25 Salvage and Raid, 26 Stealth, 27 Missile ECM .

The race’s technology progression holds the DIM_DesignPhilosophyTechProgression rows in those categories, sorted by ProgressionOrder, and the game rebuilds it when a game is loaded. At creation the race spends its starting tech points down the list. A row with a tech type researches the cheapest unresearched, non-automatic system of that type. Other rows apply their tech group. The race is recorded as having completed the row.

After each row, spending continues while points stay above 0 or while that row was mandatory (Mandatory 1) for an NPR. If a non-mandatory row exhausts the points, spending stops immediately. If a mandatory row exhausts the points, spending continues through later mandatory rows and stops after applying the first non-mandatory row with no points left.

During play the race’s next research target is the lowest uncompleted row. The game prices that row and applies it when the race’s research reaches the price. After a completion, the population step refreshes classes when the row was a Propulsion group and rebuilds ground units when the row was an Armour tech type. When an AI-run NPR that is not pre-industrial or conventional has a ResearchTargetCost of zero, the construction cycle sets it to the price of the next row. The research-point arithmetic is under completion cascades.

Researching the next system of a type, or a baseline system, completes it without an event log entry and subtracts its development cost from StartTechPoints, during play as well. The cost-limited form acts only at or below the limit. A group works out all its research before any of it is recorded, so a technology type listed twice picks the same system twice and charges its cost twice.

Tech group Applied research Cost notes
Propulsion Engine, power plant, fuel consumption, and max thrust when the missile strategy is None Same next costs
Jump efficiency twice Counted twice
Troop modules Drop bay, or standard and small boarding bays Baseline costs
Beam weapons Preferred beam types, then capacitor and beam fire-control range and speed Energy mount researched at or below 1.25 times the wavelength cost, priced only when strictly below
Sensors Active, EM, thermal, and planetary at or below the active cost Planetary priced only when strictly cheaper
Industry Ten steps over nine economic types, wealth twice, ordnance production for Industry Omits orbital mining diameter, counts wealth twice
Other groups The listed component, ground or logistics types Sum of next costs

In the particle beam pricing, a lance cheaper than beam strength replaces the running total with range, strength and lance, discarding earlier beam costs. Pre-industrial races complete tech systems 65778 and 65811 free, and race creation then forms one Preindustrial Regiment per 50 million population, fraction dropped.

Standard component generation

Section titled “Standard component generation”

Standard component generation builds the philosophy’s reusable components. A first run rolls sizes. An upgrade run, made by the propulsion refresh, scales hull size and engine proportion by 1 + 5 x d5 / 100, truncated. It also adds 1 terraform module on a coin flip, d10 harvester modules, round(d10 / 2) mining modules (half to even, so a d10 of 1 gives 0, 3 gives 2, 5 gives 2, 7 gives 4 and 9 gives 4) and d6 maintenance modules.

First-run parameter Rule
Active resolution 80 + 3d20
Engineering, engines 2 + d2 engineering, and 2 engines
Survey sensors d3, raised to the template value
Harvester, mining, maintenance modules 10 + 3d10, 5 + d10, 10 + d10.
Terraform modules d6 at most 2 gives 1, at most 4 gives 2, else 4.
Support hull caps Diplomatic and salvage 4 for normal NPRs. Geo d4 + 2 for normal NPRs . Scout, stabilisation and tanker d4 + 2 for normal NPRs . Grav d4 + 2 for normal NPRs. Minor races use grav 0, stabilisation 0, tanker 1, scout 2, diplomatic 1 and geo 2
Warship hull size 120 + d60

The caps of 4 come from a one-sided die plus 3, which always gives 4. The roll never gives 3 terraform modules, because every d6 result of 4 or less already gives 1 or 2.

For normal NPRs a template ship size multiplier above 1 wins, with armour +1 below 2, +2 below 3 and +3 from 3. Otherwise a d50 of 50 gives x5, 49 gives x4, 47 to 48 give x3, each with +3 armour, 44 gives x2.5 with +3, 40 to 43 and 45 to 46 give x2 with +2, 31 to 39 give x1.5 with +1, 21 to 30 give x1.25 with +1, and 20 or less x1. Hull size, engineering and engine count are multiplied and rounded half to even, and the decoy launcher size is ceil(hull / 8).

Engine proportion is round(hull x (34 + d8) / 100) without launchers and round(hull x (32 + d6) / 100) with launchers . Both rounds go half to even. Military engine size is the truncated proportion per engine. Each engine technology level above 3 repeats the upgrade scaling and module growth and adds an engineering space.

Salvos follow d25 - launcher size. Below 10 picks size modifier 26584 with 2 + d3 salvos, below 14 picks 26237 with 3 + d4, below 18 picks 26236 with 5 + d5, else 26234 with 8 + 2d4. Anti-missile salvos are ceil((24 + d16) / anti-missile size). Warship armour is R plus a die of (round(R x armour multiplier) - R) sides, with the round going half to even. R is the armour rating of the race’s best armour technology plus the hull multiplier bonus. The hull bonus applies only on a first run, so an upgrade uses the plain rating. An upgrade never lowers the armour, and a die with 0 sides gives 0.

An upgrade first marks the previous philosophy components and missiles obsolete. The two High Power Microwave weapons, the three hive jump drives and the decoy launcher are not marked obsolete. The set then covers active sensors of size 1, 3, 6, 9 and 11 + d7 at the philosophy resolution, and size 6 anti-FAC and anti-fighter sensors at resolution 20 and 5. Missile fire controls are size 0.5 for FACs, 2 for standard missiles, 2 at resolution 20 for anti-FAC, 2 at resolution 5 for anti-fighter and 0.2 for fighters. The anti-missile fire control is sized 0.75 + 0.1 x d10 + anti-missile size / 4. Its anti-missile active sensor is 3 times that size. A separate small anti-missile sensor has size 2. Passive sensors of size 1, 2, 3 and 6 complete the sensors. Jump drives cover 1, 2, 3 and 6 warship hulls, plus a survey drive for 15 times the jump drive efficiency.

Launchers exist only with missiles, and the decoy launcher is built once. Engines cover military, commercial at minimum thrust, FAC at thrust 2 and size 5, fighter at thrust 2.5 and size 2 + d20 / 10, and survey at boost 0.45 + 0.05 x d9. The FAC and fighter thrusts drop to the maximum thrust technology when it is smaller. The beam fire-control tracking multiplier is the truncated warship speed divided by the fire-control speed rating, rounded to 2 decimal places with an exact half going to the even neighbour, then capped at 4. Weapons cover every beam family, the fighter railgun, a point-defence weapon that is the plain railgun or a turret on the preferred beam, CIWS and three cloaks.

A first run with a Random primary beam rolls a d11 for a primary and point-defence pair. Below 5 gives Laser with Laser, below 8 Railgun with Gauss, below 10 Particle Beam with Gauss, 10 Meson with Meson, and 11 Carronade with Gauss.

The ship design window contains a command that runs standard component generation, but no control triggers it. Granting independence to a population runs it on a fresh philosophy without the design philosophy setup. The fresh philosophy has no progressions and no owning race, so automated class creation builds nothing. The next save fails when it reaches that philosophy, because it has no race to record (Function #1507). Saving design philosophies then stops, so that philosophy and every philosophy after it in race order are not written.

Component reuse helpers

Section titled “Component reuse helpers”
  • Power plants step size from 0.1 to 30 by 0.1 and take the first size where round(tech times size times sqrt(size), 2) meets the power. The race reuses a component with the same size, value and cost, or registers a new one.
  • Power plants for weapons search against a weapon recharge rate and use the best power boost when boosted, although the size test omits the boost.
  • Minimal power plants for energy weapons run the search without registering a component and return no plant above size 30. The fighter railgun uses this search.
  • Shields size a request above the maximum generator by its ratio to the maximum. They take the maximum at a ratio of 3 or more, floor(size / 3) above a ratio of 2 with size 30 or more, the maximum below size 20, otherwise floor(size / 2), capped at the maximum. A request at or below the maximum gives floor(size).
  • Magazines step size from 1 to 50 until capacity is met, with at least 1 armour layer. When none suffices the result is the unregistered size-50 candidate.
  • Capacitors use the known capacitor with the lowest recharge rating that meets the full power need when the current one exceeds it, then half the need, then a third, else the current one. Energy weapon designs use this choice only for NPRs.

A separate test finds another race-known component with the same type, size, value, cost and set of component tech systems. Another test checks that every component tech system is known. Stored-component conversion and alien technology checks use them.

Automated missile design

Section titled “Automated missile design”

Standard component generation designs the standard, FAC and anti-missile missiles. The standard missile engine uses 2 x max thrust x (0.75 + 0.025 x d8), capped at 4. The FAC engine uses 2 x max thrust. Both are sized launcher size x (0.45 + 0.01 x d10). Design range is 0.75 of the fire-control range. The anti-missile range is its fire-control range times 0.3 squared.

The warhead increment is 1 / strength rounded up to 4 places. Speed is engine value / (size / 20) x 1000, rounded to 1 decimal place. Fuel is engine value x efficiency x flight time / 3600 / 2500, rounded to 4 places and then capped at free space. Both rounds go half to even.

Order Anti-missile Anti-ship
1 Retargeting 0.5 above size 2, extra warhead with 0.1 overhead None
2 ECCM 0.25 ECCM 0.25
3 None Laser warhead when efficiency exceeds 32 and the strategy is laser-pumped
4 Second extra warhead Two ECM decoys of 0.5, random warhead increment
5 Terminal guidance 0.25 Terminal guidance 0.25, random increment, thermal sensor 0.25 with reactor
6 None Decoy, two random increments, retargeting 0.5, decoy
7 None Remaining space as increments, each with a 1 in 3 chance of a decoy

Leftover space becomes fuel.

A laser warhead splits its damage into i beams for i from 1 upward. It takes the first split whose focus x damage / i - 1000 is within twice the beam fire-control range and below 50,000 km, 90,000 with 2 or more beams, or 130,000 with 3 or more. The decoy missile is recreated on every run. Missile formulas are in missile design.

Automated class design

Section titled “Automated class design”

At creation, automated class creation takes every element design of the race’s progression groups. On a refresh it takes the designs of the race’s existing classes outside the shipping line, ordered by deployment duration. Players skip designs with unknown key technology, and the commercial jump tender is designed last. A refresh names each new NPR class after the oldest class of the same design with a Roman numeral. Carriers first build a missile or energy fighter when none exists, and that naming override counts carrier classes, not fighters.

Each new class first completes unknown key technologies free of charge for NPRs. It then sets the design, rank, hull description and deployment, takes a name, and sets armour. Other classes use the race’s class naming theme above theme ID 1 and fall back to DefaultClassName. Shipping-line classes take the line’s short name, the design’s ShippingLineName and the engine technology level. A design with AdditionalArmour gets WarshipArmour + ArmourAdjustment layers, at least 1. A design with an ArmourAdjustment of -1 gets 1 layer and is marked as carrying no armour. Every other design gets 1 layer.

Target size is HullSize for FACs, fighter engine size / 0.32 for missile fighters and fighter engine size / 0.4 for energy fighters, capped at 10, and otherwise HullSize x warship hull size. FACs and fighters drop the bridge. Engineering, philosophy modules, cargo and passenger counts follow. NPRs add command modules and troop bays, which players add only with the baseline technology. NPRs also add bio-energy storage, which players never get.

  • Active sensors map the design types to philosophy components, and a Railgun beam race adds a small anti-missile sensor when no secondary sensor is set.
  • The half split adds NumFireControls / 2 range and the same number of speed controls. The third split adds NumFireControls / 3 range controls and the rest as speed controls. Both splits drop fractions. Short range uses the short-range control only when the point-defence weapon has no tracking speed.
  • Missile fire controls map the Standard, Small, anti-missile, anti-fighter and anti-FAC types.
  • Passive sensors of a fixed plus random size exist only for sizes 1, 2, 3 and 6.
  • Most advanced components add salvage, stabilisation, refuelling and survey sensors, with the survey counts multiplied by the philosophy survey sensors.
  • Jammers go on combat, scout and tender roles. With a target size above 250 HS the ship class gets sensor, fire-control and missile jammers, above 180 fire-control and missile jammers, and otherwise a fire-control jammer without missiles or a missile jammer with them.

Engines use EngineNumber engines when EngineNumberType is 1 (fixed), and EngineNumber plus a die of RandomEngineElement sides when it is 3 (variable). Types 2 and 4 multiply the philosophy engine count by EngineNumber or subtract EngineNumber from it. Military and commercial engine counts have a minimum of 1. FAC, survey and fighter engine counts have no minimum. Fuel covers efficiency x engine value x engines x FuelDuration x 720 / 50000, capped by MaxFuelHullPercentage, plus half a unit per harvester, at most 0.4 for fighters. Fuel storage takes one tiny tank up to 0.1 when tiny fuel storage is researched, and otherwise 0.2 tanks up to 0.8. Above 4 it takes 5-unit tanks plus standard tanks when large fuel storage is researched, and otherwise standard tanks. Nothing resets the tanks, so each repeated engine increment adds more.

Jump drives map the design type to a philosophy drive, or grow a military or commercial drive until it covers the ship class. The tender drive is ceil(largest commercial class / 5) + 1. Survey classes shed sensors, then the drive, until the design fits. A diplomatic ship drops its jump drive when the ship class outgrows it. Troop transports add engines until engine space reaches at least 60% of bay space. Spinal designs add 1 to 4 spinal lasers with power plants when the spinal laser draws more power than the large laser.

Weapons then fill the space for every role except non-combat support. The ship class adds DecoyLaunchers, and shields when (target - size) x shield proportion is at least 10 HS.

Role First pass Shrink step while oversize
Beam, battle carrier 95% of space, secondaries by proportion, primaries, min(6, EngineNumber + 2) power plants for the draw One secondary if present, else one primary, and a spare power plant
Missile Launcher and magazine pairs, magazine NumSalvos x size, or NumSalvosAMM below 4 MSP, magazine armour WarshipArmour - 3, anti-missile fire controls ceil(pairs / 5) One pair
Military tanker Large fuel tanks One tank
Energy fighter, boarding FAC One weapon, boosted power plant except for boarding None
Commercial jump tender Engines up to the fastest commercial speed None
Missile carrier Bay and magazine pairs, magazine bay capacity / fighter size x fighter magazine x 2 One pair
Energy carrier, FAC, missile fighter Primary components One

Other roles, such as scouts and survey ships, add nothing in this step. The filling repeats while the ship class is oversize and allocation is incomplete, and a first pass of zero weapons adds one.

The primary weapon maps the weapon type to a launcher, the fighter railgun, a point-defence launcher or weapon, component 26276 for carriers, the small microwave, the point-defence laser or component 65848 for boarding. Beam types map to the preferred beam or the AlternativeWeapon beam. The secondary weapon is the point-defence weapon for Large Beam and component 26276 for Hangar Deck.

Magazines then merge into one of the total size with armour WarshipArmour - 2. An oversize class other than a fighter or FAC sheds armour layers, then fuel when fuel exceeds 3 times the excess. An undersize FillSpace class adds scout engines, one CIWS, one decoy launcher, armour, then CIC, main engineering and auxiliary control , then fuel.

The ship class loads decoys, missiles and carrier fighters to capacity. A class above 10 HS that exceeds a positive target size skips these loadouts unless it is a Scout design. Tankers keep 15% fuel as their minimum and harvesters 10%.

Class refresh and design recognition

Section titled “Class refresh and design recognition”

A Propulsion completion refreshes the race’s automated classes. The refresh marks every race class obsolete, regenerates components as an upgrade and rebuilds every automated design. It then clears every shipyard’s build class, reloads the old classes’ missiles and fighters with the new types, relabels population stockpiles of the old standard, point-defence and FAC missiles in place, and deletes every ordnance project.

Design recognition assigns a design to a captured class. Ship transfer runs it for NPR captors and moves captured colony ships, liners and freighters to the shipping line. Sizes are in HS of 50 tons.

First match Design
Grav or geo sensors Gravsurvey, Geosurvey
Highest missile fire-control resolution of 1 Missile defence base below speed 10, Missile DE below 200, CLE otherwise
Other missile fire control Missile base below speed 10, FAC to 20, DD below 200, CA below 400, BC
Beam fire control Battle carrier with hangar, Beam DE or CLE for point defence, else FAC to 20, DD, CA, BC below 800, Dreadnought
Hangar Missile carrier with magazine, else energy carrier
Refuelling above 2,000,000 fuel, or small refuelling Tanker
Military Scout with active sensor above 3 HS, jump ship with drive
Commercial Tender, troop transport, terraformer, miner, harvester, salvager, construction ship, colony ship or freighter by size

A point-defence class below speed 10 is first given Beam Defence Base, but the size rule that follows always replaces it with Beam DE below 200 HS or Beam CLE otherwise, so recognition never assigns Beam Defence Base. A military class matching neither military row keeps its design.

Automated ground forces

Section titled “Automated ground forces”

A race formation template is built from a row of DIM_AutomatedGroundTemplateDesign and its elements in DIM_AutomatedGroundTemplateElements. Normal NPRs first reset species capabilities from the homeworld terrain with desert, jungle, mountain and rift-valley warfare.

Element Count
Primary BaseAmount + sum of DiceAmount dice of DiceSize sides x Multiple
Support Primary formula / 1000 x primary count, truncated
Construction BaseAmount, or dice sum x Multiple / 10000 x primary count, truncated, at least 1
Logistics BaseAmount, or ceil(supply cost x Multiple / logistics points)
HQ BaseAmount of a class sized for the formation

The template reuses the most expensive non-obsolete unit class of each type. Otherwise it designs a new class with known armour and components for the type. Infantry takes the best armour below strength 2 and the best one-shot weapon by penetration. HQ capacity is ceil(required x 1.05 / 1000) x 1000, and brigade HQs use 50,000.

Automated ground formations build templates for designs with a positive StandardProportion, and stop there for players . A player race reaches this step when the Auto-Design Ground Forces box of the Create New Race window is ticked, so the stop for players can happen. NPRs form round(budget / T x StandardProportion) formations of each template, where the budget is the ground forces build point budget and T is the sum over the built templates of template cost x StandardProportion. An exact half goes to the even neighbour. NPRs then attach regiments and garrisons to brigade HQs while capacity remains. The special races build the templates whose SpecialNPR matches.

Formations from an automated template find or build the race template, create a front-line formation, mark a Civilian Garrison as civilian, and optionally deduct the build cost with the fraction dropped. Pre-industrial regiments, mining outposts, ruins use them. A starting construction regiment step creates 4 construction regiments. Only a command in the ground unit design window runs it, and no control triggers that command.

An Armour completion rebuilds the race’s ground units. Every non-obsolete race unit class becomes obsolete. A new class of the same type and HQ capacity takes the oldest name with a Roman numeral, and template elements switch to it. Existing formations keep their units. Blueprint mechanics are in ground force organisation.

Operational groups and fleets

Section titled “Operational groups and fleets”

An operational group row in DIM_OperationalGroup carries a description, two standing orders, a tech requirement, a main function and priority, and mobile, offensive, static and avoid-danger flags. Each race’s composition is its saved group elements, drawn from DIM_OperationalGroupElement.

The starting navy walks the progressions in order. It stops at the first non-mandatory one once StartBuildPoints is negative, and skips a group whose TechRequirementA is unknown. Each progression makes NumGroups fleets named with its CountGroupType, so they share a number, and each ship deducts its cost.

the game then assigns shipyards. Military classes faster than 10 come first, then classes by protection. Each naval yard, largest first, grows to the ship class tonnage rounded up to 100 when it is smaller, gets at least 2 slipways and takes the next class in rotation. Commercial yards rank construction ships first and round to 1,000. A yard reached after assigned capacity exceeds the original total is deleted.

A normal NPR’s fleet creation makes fleets of the highest or lowest priority group of a main function, numbered by the race’s fleets of that function, deducting ship costs. The special races use a variant. In single-fleet mode it puts NumShips x quantity ships in one fleet. Group size is NumShips x size x 50 x quantity tons. Ruins use this variant.

An instant group at coordinates is placed without an orbit body, and its tankers are set to fleet refuelling. It renames the fleet and sets its standing orders again for every element it adds, not once per fleet.

A fleet that changes hands to an NPR is regrouped by its capabilities.

Capability, first match Group
Shipping line Civilian
Survey, terraforming, harvester, salvage, stabilisation, mining, diplomacy Matching support group
No fire control, refuelling or troop bays Tanker, Troop Transport Group
No fire control, one ship Scout with a 3 HS sensor, else unchanged
No fire control, several ships Reinforcement Group, each ship then detached into its own fleet
More missile than beam fire control Missile base without engines, FAC Hunter below 30,000 t, Missile Battle Squadron below 60,000 t, else Missile Battle Fleet
Beam fire control Beam-only base, DD squadron, battle squadron or battle fleet on the same thresholds

A fleet needs reinforcement for a design when its group calls for more ships of that design than the fleet holds plus reinforcements under a join order to it. The nearest-fleet search for reinforcements uses this test. The join standing order falls back to the group whose key element matches the design. Readiness uses the key element as in fleet aggregation.

Banned bodies

Section titled “Banned bodies”

Normal NPRs update their banned bodies each construction cycle. A body is banned when it holds a population above 10 of a race that is neither this one nor hostile, except bodies with this race’s own or hostile populations. The ban adds moons of banned bodies and sibling moons of banned moons, minus the race’s own bodies, and each banned moon’s parent without that exclusion.

A position is within banned-body distance when a banned body in the system lies closer than the distance. Contact and diplomatic waypoint rules use a radius of 10,000,000 km to suppress NPR points of interest, and civilian mining excludes banned bodies. The geological survey selector skips them as in exploration surveys.

NPR template form

Section titled “NPR template form”

A checked customised-NPR box in the Game Information window makes the NPR generator build an NPR generation template and show the template setup window modally for every standard NPR. The template starts with random images, a race name with a title and a “Prime” homeworld, naming themes, six personality values of 4d25 each (determination, diplomacy, militancy, expansionism, xenophobia and trade) and translation 5d10 + d6 - 31. When the game has no missile naming theme, building the template fails with an error.

The Create button copies names, themes, personality, transits and seven modifiers, appends checked terrains and reads the doctrine choices. It sets no survey sensors, home survey flags or progression type, which only the Empire preset sets.

Modifier Clamp Used by
Growth, production, research 0.5 to 3 Species
Build and tech points 0.5 to 3 Starting budgets
Ship size 1 to 5 Hull multiplier
Population size At least 0.2 Starting population

The population size upper check writes 5 to the ship size modifier instead.

Closing the window without Create still passes on the starting template. Select Home System appears only in known-star games. A Manage NPR Templates window exists with one drop-down list, no behaviour and no way to open it.

Worked examples

Section titled “Worked examples”

These examples use chosen rolls.

Inputs Literal outcome
Hull 120 + 30, d50 of 45, launchers, engineering 3, d6 of 4, engine tech level 3 or below 45 is neither 44 nor above 46, so x2 and +2 armour. Hull 300, engineering 6, engines 4, decoy launcher ceil(37.5) = 38, engine proportion 108, engine size 27
Same with d50 of 44 x2.5 and +3 armour, hull 375
1,500 million, year 0, speed 100, species research rate 1, template tech x0.5 Labs 60, 60 x 20 x 200 = 240,000, template 120,000, floor 150,000, so shields need d10 below 3
Homeworld 1,000, value 10, target 3, depth 1 Modifier 3, colony 1000 x 10 x 3 x 0.0025 = 75, 2 Deep Space Tracking Stations
Same at depth 2 Modifier 1.5, colony 37.5, 1 Deep Space Tracking Station
75 colony, 0.8 homeworld mines per million Mines 120, construction factories 60, financial centres 30, refineries 30, each limited by workforce
200 homeworld automated mines, four outposts Batches 50, 50, 50, 50, each with a shuttle station and 5,000 MSP
Half split with 3 fire controls 3 / 2 = 1 range and 1 speed, 2 in total
2 ships of 300 HS and 1 of 150, quantity 2 (600 + 150) x 50 x 2 = 75,000 tons
Shield space 40, maximum generator 10 Ratio 4, generator 10, and a size-10 component gives 4 shields
Template population size 8 Ship size becomes 5, population stays 8
DangerousLevel 5,000 5000 / 10000 = 0, so any amount fails the body

Persistence and reload

Section titled “Persistence and reload”
State Stored in On reload
Design philosophy FCT_DesignPhilosophy, component and missile IDs, sizes, counts, preferences, flags, type, armour multiplier IDs resolve, and a missing one leaves that slot empty. Ground deployments and the operational group progression list are rebuilt from the catalogue
Progression categories FCT_DesignPhilosophyTechProgressionCategories The technology progression list is rebuilt from these categories
Completed progressions FCT_TechProgressionRace, ProgressionOrder and race The first catalogue row with that order receives the race
Group elements FCT_RaceOperationalGroupElements, group, design, ships, key flag Rows with an unknown race, group or design are skipped
Fleet group FCT_Fleet.NPROperationalGroupID An unknown ID leaves the group unset
Class design FCT_ShipClass.AutomatedDesignID An unknown ID leaves the ship class without a design
Starting points FCT_Race.StartTechPoints, StartBuildPoints Read back as whole numbers
Research clock FCT_Race.ResearchTargetCost, CurrentResearchTotal Read back directly
Banned bodies FCT_BannedBodies, players only NPR lists refill on game load and at each construction cycle
Template Not stored Exists only in the session that created it

The scout and carrier substitutions and the minor-race exclusions are not saved. A reloaded race gets the unmodified catalogue progressions for its type, while its saved elements reflect the substituted groups. The catalogue has two pairs of rows sharing a ProgressionOrder, 1700 and 8850, so either row’s completion reloads onto whichever row loads first. Automated design rows are catalogue data in DIM_AutomatedClassDesign and the save does not write them. Components, classes, fleets, ground forces, populations and installations follow their own save rules.

Concept map

Section titled “Concept map”

Resources

Section titled “Resources”

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