Orbitals
Orbitals are your economy. Every meaningful resource production beyond your planet's baseline core income comes from orbital structures floating in your planet's gravity well. The more orbitals you control, the faster you grow.
You don't build orbitals — you find them. Scanning your local space discovers uninitiated orbital wreckage that you then activate by choosing which resource it produces.
This page covers everything about orbitals: how to find them, how to initiate them, how production scales, and how attackers steal them.
What are orbitals?
An orbital is a small autonomous mining/refining platform anchored in your planet's orbit. There are three types:
| Orbital type | Produces | Per tick |
|---|---|---|
| Titanium | Titanium | +150 Ti |
| Silicon | Silicon | +150 Si |
| Uranium | Uranium | +100 Ur |
Each orbital produces independently and continuously. A planet with 10 Titanium orbitals adds +1 500 Ti per tick on top of its core income.
A fresh planet starts with:
- 3 Titanium orbitals already initiated and producing
- 2 Silicon orbitals already initiated and producing
- 1 Uranium orbital already initiated and producing
- 2 Uninitiated orbitals waiting to be activated
Plus core income of 200 Ti, 200 Si, 200 Ur per tick that never changes. Total starting production: 650 Ti / 500 Si / 300 Ur per tick.
From there, every additional orbital comes from scanning.
Uninitiated vs initiated orbitals
When a scan succeeds, you don't gain a working orbital immediately — you gain an uninitiated orbital. It sits in your dock as raw wreckage until you activate it.
Initiating an orbital means choosing what resource it produces — Titanium, Silicon, or Uranium — and paying the initiation cost. Once initiated, it starts producing the chosen resource every tick. The choice is permanent. You cannot reassign an initiated orbital later.
| State | Counts toward score? | Produces? | Costs to maintain? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Uninitiated | Yes | No | No |
| Initiated (any type) | Yes | Yes | No (one-time cost only) |
Both states count toward your planet score and toward your scan difficulty. So sitting on a stack of uninitiated orbitals doesn't hide them from attackers — they still see the total count.
Getting orbitals — scanning
Scanning is the primary way to discover new orbitals. Every successful orbital scan adds 1 uninitiated orbital to your planet.
What you need
- Basic Sweep Sensors researched (Tier 1 Scanning) — without this, you cannot scan at all
- Silicon to pay the scan cost
- Or a free scan (rewarded ad, alliance tier bonus)
Scan cost
The cost to scan increases as your planet grows. The formula:
scan_cost = 1000 + (total_initiated_orbitals × 50) silicon
So a fresh planet (6 initiated orbitals) pays 1 300 Si per scan. A mid-game planet with 50 orbitals pays 3 500. A late-game planet with 100 orbitals pays 6 000.
Uninitiated orbitals do not count for cost scaling — only fully initiated ones. This means you can stockpile uninitiated orbitals without making future scans more expensive.
Spymaster T1 (Sharp Intel) reduces scan cost by 10% if you have it. STC race no longer gets a scan cost discount in v2 — that was a v1 perk and is now gone.
Success rate
A scan can fail. The formula:
chance = 80 − (total_orbitals × 0.5) + scan_bonus + spymaster_bonus + pity_bonus
Clamped between 5% and 95%.
| Factor | Effect on chance |
|---|---|
| Base | 80% |
| Each total orbital (initiated + uninitiated) | −0.5% |
| Scanning research (4 tiers) | Up to +40% |
| STC race | +10% |
| Spymaster T1 (Sharp Intel) | +5% |
| Pity bonus (4+ fails in a row) | up to +30% |
A starting planet (8 orbitals total) with no research has a chance of 80 − 4 = 76%. As you grow, this drops — at 100 orbitals you're at 80 − 50 = 30% baseline. Scanning research is essential to keep success rates high in mid- and late-game.
Pity bonus — never get permanently stuck
If your scans keep failing, the game gives you a comeback bonus. After 4 consecutive failed scans, the next scan gets a +10% chance bonus. Each additional consecutive failure adds another +10% (capped at +30% total).
| Consecutive fails | Next scan chance bonus |
|---|---|
| 0–3 | None |
| 4 | +10% |
| 5 | +20% |
| 6+ | +30% (capped) |
A successful scan resets the streak to 0. This guarantees that even very high-orbital planets eventually find new orbitals — they just might have to grind through a few losses first.
Free scans
Three sources of free orbital scans (no Silicon cost):
| Source | Frequency | Requirements |
|---|---|---|
| Rewarded ad — orbital choice | 1 per 4-hour cooldown (real time) | Choose "orbital" from the 4 rewarded-ad rewards. Premium skips the ad |
| Alliance Gold tier | 1 per 24 ticks | Your alliance has Gold tier or higher |
| Alliance Platinum tier | 2 per 24 ticks | Your alliance has Platinum tier or higher |
| Alliance Diamond tier | 3 per 24 ticks | Your alliance has Diamond tier |
Alliance-tier free scans reset every 24 ticks and stack with the rewarded-ad orbital reward.
Rewarded ad rewards (4 options, shared cooldown)
In v2, the rewarded ad is no longer a "watch for a scan" trade. You pick one of four rewards from a menu, watch one rewarded ad (or skip with Premium), and claim:
| Choice | Effect | Cooldown after claim |
|---|---|---|
| Orbital | +1 uninitiated orbital, immediately | 4 hours |
| Resource boost | +25% Ti/Si/Ur income from all sources, for 4 hours real time | 6 hours |
| Production token | Next ship build runs at ×0.5 ticks (bypasses the normal 60% build-time floor). One-shot, consumed on use within an 8-hour window | 8 hours |
| Research token | Next research runs at ×0.5 ticks. One-shot, consumed on use within an 8-hour window | 8 hours |
The cooldown is shared across all four choices — picking the orbital reward locks you out of all other rewards (and the orbital reward itself) for 4 hours. Picking production locks you for 8.
Premium subscribers skip the ad but get the same shared cooldown — Premium removes the ad interruption, not the wait.
The orbital reward is the only rewarded-ad reward that grants a free orbital. The other three (resource, production, research) don't. Choose carefully based on what your planet needs most right now.
Resource boost stacking
The resource boost is additive with the Engineer Commander's income_bonus trait (the only other trait that increases income directly). So a player with an active Engineer T2 (+25% income) and an active resource boost (+25%) sees +50% income for the duration of the boost.
This means the resource boost is most valuable for Engineer-archetype Commander players — they can briefly hit 50% boosted income during the 4-hour window, then settle back to their normal +25%.
Scan batching
You can queue up to 25 scans at once. The system processes all queued scans during the next tick, in order. There's no queue limit on free scans separately — the cap is a total of 25 pending scan orders per planet.
When a batch processes, all scans use the baseline orbital count locked at the start — newly-gained orbitals from successful scans within the same batch do not increase the difficulty of later scans in that batch. This makes batched scanning more reliable than scattered single scans.
Initiating orbitals
Once you have an uninitiated orbital, choose its production type from the Orbitals screen.
Initiation cost
The cost scales with your existing initiated orbital count:
cost_titanium = CEIL((300 + total_initiated × 30))
cost_silicon = CEIL((200 + total_initiated × 20))
A fresh planet (6 initiated orbitals) pays 480 Ti + 320 Si to initiate its first new orbital. A mid-game planet with 30 initiated orbitals pays 1 200 Ti + 800 Si per initiation.
There is no Uranium cost. There is no time delay — initiation is instant. The new orbital starts producing the chosen resource on the next tick.
Choosing resource type
Different resources have different in-game roles:
| Resource | Used for |
|---|---|
| Titanium | Ships, PDS, research, initiation |
| Silicon | Same as Titanium — universally needed |
| Uranium | Late-game ships (Destroyers and up), late research |
Most early-game planets benefit from a balanced mix of Ti/Si orbitals. Uranium becomes critical only when you start building Destroyers and beyond — that's where Ur costs explode.
A common mid-game ratio for a "balanced" planet:
- 40% Titanium
- 40% Silicon
- 20% Uranium
Players specializing in heavy fleets push Uranium higher (30%+). Players running scan-heavy or alliance-builder economies push Silicon higher (50%+) since scans, research, and PDS all consume Silicon.
Losing orbitals — combat theft
When you lose a battle, the attacker can steal some of your orbitals. The mechanic is covered in detail in Combat, but the summary:
| Outcome | Orbs stolen |
|---|---|
| Defender wins | floor((Fi × 0.5 + Fr × 1.25) × score_ratio × 0.25), capped at 40% of your total (75% vs Void) |
| Draw | floor((Fi × 0.5 + Fr × 1.25) × score_ratio × 0.60), capped at 40% of your total (75% vs Void) |
| Attacker wins | floor((Fi × 0.5 + Fr × 1.25) × score_ratio × 1.00), capped at 40% of your total (75% vs Void) |
Where Fi = surviving Orbital Pods, Fr = surviving Fr-class capture ships (Atlas Transport, Brood Carrier, Conduit, Infiltrator).
Orbital Pods (Fi-class) contribute 0.5 orbs each, while Fr-class capture ships contribute 1.25 orbs each. Sending more — and keeping them alive — directly determines how much you walk away with. No capture ships survive? You steal nothing regardless of outcome.
The result is multiplied by score ratio (0.5×–2.0×) and hard-capped at 40% of the defender's total orbitals per raid in PvP. Attacks on The Void NPC raise the cap to 75% — Void planets have no Panic Retreat or raid-recovery protection, so they can be farmed much harder per attack.
Stolen orbitals are split proportionally across your existing Ti/Si/Ur orbitals. If 60% of your orbitals are Titanium, then 60% of stolen orbitals will be Titanium.
Shield Generators reduce theft
Each surviving Planetary Shield Generator at battle's end reduces stolen orbitals by 5% (linear, capped at 10 Shields = 50% reduction). See Planetary Defense Systems.
Raid recovery protection
If an attacker steals 30% or more of your orbitals in a single raid, your planet automatically enters a 24-tick protection period — the same P status that new planets have. No one can attack you during this window.
This uses the same protection timer as new-player protection, so if you already have active protection remaining it is extended to whichever is later — your existing protection is never shortened.
Stolen orbitals arrive pre-initiated
When the attacker steals your orbitals, they land in their dock pre-initiated with the same per-resource type they had on your side. If they steal one of your Uranium orbitals, it becomes a working Uranium orbital on their planet immediately — no initiation cost, no waiting.
This is a meaningful buff to raiders in v2: stolen orbitals contribute to the attacker's economy from the next tick, not later. The simplest path to late-game resource production is winning a fight against someone who already paid for the orbital growth.
This is why diversifying orbital types matters defensively. A pure-Uranium economy is easier to cripple in one attack, AND the attacker walks away with a working Uranium economy of their own.
Orbitals and score
Your planet's score is heavily weighted by total orbital count. Both initiated and uninitiated orbitals contribute equally. This means a planet sitting on 50 uninitiated orbitals from aggressive scanning looks identical to an attacker as a planet with 50 producing orbitals — both score the same and both face the same scan difficulty.
Implications:
- Scan defensively as well as offensively. A growing orbital count makes you a bigger target.
- Initiation timing doesn't matter for score — you can sit on uninitiated stockpiles without "appearing smaller".
- Score-based attack range applies. The v2 attack range uses a sliding floor that scales with attacker size: 20% for small players, sliding up to 60% for whales (200M+). There's no upper limit — you can always punch up. See Scoring for the full algorithm.
Quick reference
| Concept | Detail |
|---|---|
| Starting orbitals | 3 Ti + 2 Si + 1 Ur + 2 uninitiated |
| Starting income | 650 Ti / 500 Si / 300 Ur per tick (with starting orbitals) |
| Per-orbital income | 150 Ti / 150 Si / 100 Ur per tick |
| Core income | 200/200/200 per tick (race-independent) |
| Scan cost formula | 1000 + (initiated × 50) Si |
| Scan success formula (orbital) | 80 − (total × 0.5) + bonuses clamped 5–95% |
| Max scans in queue | 25 |
| Rewarded ad: 4 rewards | orbital · resource · production · research |
| Rewarded ad orbital cooldown | 4 hours real time (shared with other rewards) |
| Resource boost effect | +25% income for 4 hours (additive with Engineer trait) |
| Production token effect | Next build × 0.5 ticks, one-shot in 8h window |
| Research token effect | Next research × 0.5 ticks, one-shot in 8h window |
| Resource boost cooldown | 6 hours (shared) |
| Production token cooldown | 8 hours (shared) |
| Research token cooldown | 8 hours (shared) |
| Premium and ads | Skips the ad, same cooldown |
| Alliance Gold free scans | 1 per 24 ticks |
| Alliance Platinum free scans | 2 per 24 ticks |
| Alliance Diamond free scans | 3 per 24 ticks |
| Pity bonus threshold | 4+ consecutive fails |
| Pity bonus max | +30% (after 6+ fails) |
| Initiation cost | (300 + initiated × 30) Ti + (200 + initiated × 20) Si |
| Initiation choice | Permanent — cannot reassign |
| Theft formula | floor((Fi × 0.5 + Fr × 1.25) × score_ratio × mult); mult = 1.0 / 0.6 / 0.25 (win/draw/loss) |
| Theft cap | 40% of defender’s total orbitals per raid (75% vs The Void) |
| Raid recovery protection | 24-tick P-status if ≥30% of orbitals stolen in one raid |
| Score ratio range | 0.5×–2.0× |
| Shield Generator reduction | −5% per surviving shield, capped at 10 (50% max) |
| Stolen orbitals state | Pre-initiated in same Ti/Si/Ur breakdown as defender |
| Attack range floor | 20% (small) → 60% (whales 200M+); no upper limit |
| STC v2 scan discount | None (v1 only) |
| STC v2 init discount | None (v1 only) |
Documentation reflects Orbitarion v2.0. Last updated: 2026-06-07.