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 — and it participates in battle as a structure the attacker has to burn through.
The shield arrived in v3.1.0 and replaces the old Planetary Shield Generator theft-reduction mechanic entirely.
How protection works
One rule decides everything:
While your shield's charge is at 25% or more of its maximum after a battle, 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 battle, so an attacker who breaks through the 25% line in combat steals normally in that same strike — that is what a SHIELD BREACHED battle report means.
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. The more orbitals you own, the bigger the shield — and the more worth protecting.
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, more total absorption — but higher upkeep, and the 25% protection threshold sits higher in absolute HP.
- Lower strength → cheaper, and because the threshold is 25% 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 25% until regeneration catches up.
Upkeep
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 (≈ 12 ticks from empty to a 25% threshold at full strength) |
| 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 25%.
The shield in battle
When someone attacks your planet with the shield enabled and charged, it joins the defense as a single Battleship-class structure:
- It absorbs damage aimed at the Bs class — attackers reach it through normal Bs-targeting chains, or via fallback once your defending ship/PDS classes are cleared. In practice the shield is hit last.
- It never fires back, never dies, and doesn't count toward battle dominance — damage dealt to it drains charge, nothing else.
- It is EMP-immune. Aetherian freeze tactics do nothing to the shield itself.
- A disabled shield (or one at 0 charge) does not participate at all: your orbitals are protected only by the ordinary theft rules.
The battle report shows the shield line on both sides: damage absorbed, charge before → after, and the verdict — SHIELD HELD or SHIELD BREACHED.
Scouting enemy shields
- A basic Planet Scan reveals the target's shield tier (I–IV).
- A Military Scan additionally reveals the combat-effective charge % — the number that matters for the 25% gate. A disabled shield reports 0%, because it won't fight.
The Battle Calculator accepts shield tier, strength and charge (or prefills them from an imported Military Scan) and simulates the breach.
Attacking through a shield
From the attacker's side, the gate changes raid math:
- Scout first. A Military Scan showing 30%+ charge means capture ships are wasted until the shield is down.
- Break it, then take it. The 25% check runs after the battle — a single strike that burns 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.
Quick reference
| Fact | Value |
|---|---|
| Protection threshold | charge ≥ 25% of run_max, checked post-battle |
| Capacity per orbital | 6 000 / 12 000 / 20 000 / 30 000 (tier I–IV) |
| 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 | one Bs-class structure, hit last, EMP-immune, never fires |
| Disabled shield | decays, gives no protection and no combat absorption |
| Gated | orbital theft only — resource raids go through |