Orbital Shield
The Orbital Shield is your planet's answer to orbital theft. It is a planet-wide energy barrier, charged by your orbital network, that makes your orbitals unstealable while it holds.
The shield arrived in v3.1.0 and was rebuilt in v4.0.0: it no longer fights in the battle itself. Instead, every attack drains a fixed percentage of its charge based on how strong the attacking fleet is relative to the orbital network the shield protects. Any fleet can wear a shield down now — but a token fleet barely scratches it.
How protection works
One rule decides everything:
While your shield's charge is at 60% or more of its maximum after an attack, zero orbitals can be stolen from you. Not reduced — zero.
There is no partial protection. Above the threshold the attacker's capture ships come home empty regardless of how many survived; below it, normal orbital-theft rules apply in full. The check uses the charge after the drain, so an attacker who pushes the charge below the 60% line steals normally in that same strike — that is what a SHIELD BREACHED battle report means.
How attacks drain the shield
The shield never joins the combat rounds. It absorbs no fire, blocks no targeting, and cannot be killed. Instead, one deterministic drain is applied per attack:
drain % of max = level_base × ( attacker fleet value / (orbitals × per_orbital) )
| Shield tier | level_base | per_orbital |
|---|---|---|
| I | 25% | 6 000 |
| II | 16% | 12 000 |
| III | 11% | 20 000 |
| IV | 7% | 30 000 |
Attacker fleet value is the total build cost (Ti + Si + Ur) of every ship in the attacking fleet. There is no cap and no floor on the ratio.
Because the drain is a percentage of the maximum, the absolute size of your shield stops mattering: a planet with 6 000 orbitals needs the same number of attacks to break as one with 300. What matters is how big the attacking fleet is compared to your orbital network.
Roughly, the number of attacks needed to drain a full shield below 60%:
| Attacker fleet value vs (orbitals × per_orb) | I | II | III | IV |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.1× (token fleet) | 16 | 25 | 36 | 57 |
| 1.25× | 1.3 | 2.0 | 2.9 | 4.6 |
| 5× | 0.3 | 0.5 | 0.7 | 1.1 |
A serious fleet cracks a Shield I in one strike; a Shield IV forces even an overwhelming attacker to hit several times — while small harassment fleets regenerate away before they matter.
Research
The shield is a four-tier chain in the Defense Engineering branch, unlocked after Orbital Defense Platforms:
| Tier | Requires | Capacity per orbital | Research time | Cost (Ti / Si / Ur) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Orbital Shield I | Orbital Defense Platforms | 6 000 HP | 24 ticks | 8 000 / 8 000 / 1 000 |
| Orbital Shield II | Orbital Shield I | 12 000 HP | 36 ticks | 15 000 / 15 000 / 3 000 |
| Orbital Shield III | Orbital Shield II | 20 000 HP | 48 ticks | 25 000 / 25 000 / 6 000 |
| Orbital Shield IV | Orbital Shield III | 30 000 HP | 60 ticks | 40 000 / 40 000 / 12 000 |
Your shield's potential scales with your economy:
potential = total_orbitals × capacity_per_orbital (highest researched tier)
A 100-orbital planet with Shield III has a 2 000 000 HP potential. Higher tiers give more HP per orbital and a lower drain base — a Shield IV loses charge less than a third as fast as a Shield I against the same fleet.
Strength, charge and the slider
On the Overview screen you set the shield's strength (0–100%):
run_max = floor(potential × strength%) ← your effective maximum
charge = current HP, capped at run_max
Strength is a running trade-off:
- Higher strength → bigger maximum and more upkeep. The 60% protection threshold sits higher in absolute HP.
- Lower strength → cheaper, and because the threshold is 60% of run_max, the same stored charge is a larger percentage of a smaller maximum. Dropping strength can lift you back over the protection line instantly — at the price of a smaller total buffer.
Raising strength does the opposite: your charge becomes a smaller share of the new maximum, and can drop you below 60% until regeneration catches up. Lowering strength asks for confirmation — it is easy to strand yourself under the line by mistake in the other direction.
The strength slider also shows your net income at the drafted setting and, if it goes negative, how long your stockpile lasts. The top-bar income figure is already net of shield upkeep.
Upkeep
A newly installed shield starts at 0% charge and switched off (v4.2) — you enable it and set strength yourself, so it never bills upkeep while protecting nothing.
While the shield is enabled and strength is above 0, it costs resources every tick:
upkeep = ceil( upkeep_rate × strength% × (600 + total_orbitals × 400) )
paid as 40% Titanium / 40% Silicon / 20% Uranium
| Tier | Upkeep rate |
|---|---|
| I | 6% |
| II | 10% |
| III | 15% |
| IV | 22% |
Upkeep scales with your total orbital count, but Uranium income only comes from your Uranium orbitals — planets with a lopsided Ti/Si-heavy economy can find the Ur share of upkeep genuinely hard to sustain at high tiers. That is by design: a maxed shield is an economic commitment, not a free wall.
If you can't pay the full upkeep on a tick, nothing is deducted and the shield decays that tick (see below). You get a "Shield upkeep unpaid" notice in your Intel feed when this starts happening.
Regeneration and decay
| State | Effect per tick |
|---|---|
| Upkeep paid, no hit for 6+ ticks, below max | + potential / 48 (≈ 2.08% of potential per tick) |
| Upkeep unpaid, or shield disabled | − potential / 96 |
Two consequences worth internalizing:
- Being hit stalls regeneration. Repeated pokes every few ticks keep the 6-tick no-hit timer reset — a besieging attacker can hold your shield down.
- Turning the shield off doesn't freeze it. A disabled shield decays, and when you re-enable it you are exposed until the charge climbs back over 60%.
When your shield climbs back over the 60% line you get a "Shield recharged" notice — your orbitals are protected again.
Scouting enemy shields
- A basic Planet Scan reveals the target's shield tier (I–IV).
- A Military Scan additionally reveals the charge % — the number that matters for the 60% gate. A disabled shield reports 0%.
The Battle Calculator accepts shield tier, strength and charge (or prefills them from an imported Military Scan) and computes the drain and whether the strike breaks the shield.
Attacking through a shield
From the attacker's side, the gate changes raid math:
- Scout first. A Military Scan showing a healthy charge means capture ships are wasted until the shield is down.
- Bring fleet value, not tricks. Drain scales with your fleet's total build cost against the defender's orbital network. Ship classes, targeting chains and EMP don't matter to the shield — only how much fleet you bring.
- Break it, then take it. The 60% check runs after the drain — a single strike that pushes the charge below the line steals normally in that same battle.
- Siege it. Hits reset the regeneration timer; sustained pressure keeps the shield suppressed for a follow-up raid.
- Raid corvettes don't care. The shield gates orbital theft only — resource raiding works against a fully charged shield. The shield protects orbitals and hulls, not the vault.
Quick reference
| Fact | Value |
|---|---|
| Protection threshold | charge ≥ 60% of run_max, checked after the drain |
| Drain per attack | level_base × (attacker fleet value / (orbitals × per_orb)) % of max |
| level_base (I–IV) | 25% / 16% / 11% / 7% |
| Capacity per orbital (I–IV) | 6 000 / 12 000 / 20 000 / 30 000 |
| Upkeep rate | 6% / 10% / 15% / 22% × strength × (600 + orbs × 400), 40/40/20 Ti/Si/Ur |
| Regeneration | potential / 48 per tick, after 6 ticks without being hit |
| Decay (unpaid or disabled) | potential / 96 per tick |
| In battle | never a combat unit — cannot be targeted, killed or frozen |
| Disabled shield | decays and gives no protection |
| Gated | orbital theft only — resource raids go through |
Documentation reflects Orbitarion v4.2. Last updated: 2026-08-25.