Seasons
Orbitarion is played in seasons. A season is a complete cycle of the game — from the first tick to the last battle, from empty planets to a crowned champion. When a season ends, the universe resets and everyone starts over on equal footing.
Seasons are what keep Orbitarion fresh. A new season means new rivals, new alliances, and a new chance to do better than last time.
How long does a season last?
At least four weeks. Beyond that — no one knows for certain.
A season runs until the administrators decide it's time to end it. There's no fixed end date announced at the start. The game doesn't stop at a predetermined tick. Seasons end when the competitive landscape has settled, when a clear winner has emerged, or when the time feels right.
This is intentional. Knowing exactly when a season ends changes how people play — it leads to calculated sandbagging, last-minute rushes, and gaming the clock rather than playing the game. The uncertainty keeps the pressure on.
What you can count on: a season will last long enough to matter. There's time to build, time to fight, and time to climb the rankings. No season has ever ended before the mid-game.
Season phases
Every season moves through the same arc, from careful economy-building to full-scale galactic war.
Protection
Approximately the first 48 hours after you join
Every planet begins with a protection window — a period during which you cannot be attacked. This is your time to build your economy, scan for orbitals, start research, and get your first ships off the production line.
Protection is relative to when you join, not when the season started. If you sign up three weeks into a running season, you still get your full protection window before you're exposed to attack. There is no penalty for joining late.
Use this time well. The decisions you make during protection — which resources to prioritize, which research to pursue first, how many shipyards to build — set the trajectory for your entire season.
Early Game
First fights, first alliances
Protection ends and the universe becomes dangerous. Neighboring planets start probing each other. Fighters and corvettes clash in the first skirmishes. Alliances form. Orbitals begin changing hands.
This is also when the social layer of Orbitarion comes alive. Who do you trust? Who shares your galaxy? Who's already building something that threatens you? The conversations you have in Discord during the early game often determine your fate in the late game.
Mid Game
The long war
The galaxy settles into patterns. Alliance territories emerge. Destroyers and cruisers appear. The gap between active players and passive ones starts to widen.
Scanning becomes less efficient at this stage — the more orbitals you have, the harder it is to find new ones. Combat becomes the primary growth engine. Stealing orbitals from defeated enemies is faster and more efficient than scanning for them. This is the phase where the game rewards aggression.
Large coordinated alliance attacks begin in earnest. Fleets that took weeks to build are sent into battles that last a single tick.
Late Game
Battleships and endgames
The most powerful ships in the game are on the field. The rankings are taking shape. The gap between the top alliances and everyone else is real, but not insurmountable — a well-coordinated strike on a top-ranked planet can change everything.
This is when the politics of the game reach their peak. Who betrays whom. Which alliance breaks apart under pressure. Which underdog alliance makes a desperate coordinated push.
Havoc
The final chapter
At some point near the end of the season, Havoc begins.
Resources flood into the universe at an accelerated rate. The careful economies players have built become almost irrelevant — everyone is suddenly resource-rich. Fleets that would have taken weeks to assemble can be built in days. The scale of battles escalates dramatically.
Havoc is chaos by design. It's the game's way of saying that the endgame belongs to boldness, not to whoever spent the most weeks hoarding resources. Anyone who has survived to Havoc has a chance to make their mark on the final rankings.
Signing up
Before a season starts, there's a signup period. You register your planet name and choose your race. When the season begins, all registered players are distributed across the galaxy — sorted into galaxies within clusters, each assigned a coordinate position.
If a season is already running when you find the game, you can still join. You'll be placed in a galaxy that has an open slot, and your protection period starts from the moment you land. Late joiners start smaller, but the comeback mechanics are built into the game — scanning gets easier the fewer orbitals you have, and the score protection system prevents the very largest planets from targeting the very smallest.
When a season ends
When a season concludes, three winners are announced:
| Category | Winner |
|---|---|
| Best Planet | The single highest-scoring planet at season's end |
| Best Galaxy | The galaxy with the highest combined score |
| Best Alliance | The alliance with the highest combined score |
Score is based primarily on fleet value — the total resource cost of your surviving ships — with orbitals and buildings contributing as well. A planet with a massive fleet but few orbitals can still rank highly. A planet that turtled behind defenses and never fought will not.
After the winners are announced, the universe resets. Planets are cleared. Orbitals go back to zero. Research starts from scratch. Everyone — winner or not — begins the next season on the same footing.
Persistent alliances
One thing does carry between seasons: alliances.
While your planet, ships, and resources reset with each season, your alliance membership persists. If you fought alongside people in Season 1 and want to continue in Season 2, your alliance is still there. You don't have to rebuild the social layer from scratch every season.
This makes alliance-building a long-term investment. The relationships you forge in one season compound over time.
Quick reference
| Minimum season length | 4 weeks |
| Protection window | ~48 hours from when you join |
| Late joining | Always allowed — full protection guaranteed |
| Winners | Best planet, best galaxy, best alliance |
| What resets | Everything except alliance membership |
| What carries over | Alliance membership |