Last updated 20 October 2026

Player guide

1. The one-minute version

Two to six sides share a hex map of open space, asteroid fields, nebulae, gravity wells and stations. Play goes round the table in seat order. On your turn you are paid credits for every station you own, then you move, attack, capture and build in whatever order you like, and press End Turn (or E) to pass play on.

Credits buy new units at stations. Starbases build ten of the twelve unit types, shipyards build the two capital ships (or, in a basic-only match, the skiff and the point-defence corvette), relays pay the most income but build nothing, and repair docks heal. Every unit is either basic or advanced, and a match can be set to basic units only, which trims what the stations offer (section 5). Most units can move and then fire in the same turn; the two artillery units must choose one or the other.

Combat is dice with the odds shown up front: before you commit, the game shows the exact chance of every outcome, including the return fire you will take. Stations change hands only when a marine squad or assault marines move onto one and capture it.

You win by being the last side standing, or by owning every station on the map once no other side has a unit left that could capture one back. A map can also set a turn limit, in which case the highest score when it runs out wins; without one there is no limit, and none of the three shipped maps sets one.

You can play on one screen, against the AI or with friends taking turns (hotseat), or online against other commanders, each turn on a clock (section 11). Units that do well in rated online matches are kept between matches (section 12), and from there they can be minted as tokens on Bitcoin (section 13).

2. Your turn

Start of turn. Three things happen automatically when your turn begins. You are paid income for each station you own: 100 credits for a starbase, 100 for a shipyard, 150 for a relay and nothing for a repair dock (a map may set its own rates; the three shipped maps use these). Your units that start the turn on a repair dock you own regain 2 HP, up to their full 10. And any unit whose last move ended in a gravity well starts the turn with 1 MP fewer than normal.

Your actions. After that you act with your units and stations in any order, and each unit gets one move and one attack per turn. To move, select a unit, click one of the highlighted hexes to mark it, and click it again to confirm (section 10). Every hex costs movement points (MP) according to its terrain and the unit’s movement class (section 6), and a unit can enter a hex only if it has enough MP left to pay for it. You can pass through your own units but not stop on them; enemy units block the way. To attack, select a unit and click an enemy in range (section 3). To capture, move a marine squad or assault marines onto a station you don’t own and press Capture (section 4). To build, click an empty station you own and pick a unit from its menu.

Moving, then firing. Ten of the twelve units can move and then attack in the same turn. No unit can move after it has attacked. The rail platform and the missile battery, the two artillery units, cannot fire after moving: in any one turn they either move or fire.

Zone of control. Moving next to an enemy can stop you short. If you enter a hex adjacent to an enemy unit that could fire on you at range 1 — its attack value against your combat class is above zero and its range starts at 1 — your move ends there, however much MP you have left. Artillery has a minimum range of 2, so it exerts no zone of control at all. Marines, assault marines and artillery have no attack against strike craft, so they cannot hold up a bomber this way either.

Gravity wells. A gravity well costs 3 MP to enter for every class and gives no cover. If a unit’s move ends inside one, it starts its next turn with 1 MP fewer; a fast unit that passes straight through pays only the entry cost. Units with only 2 MP — assault marines, the missile battery and the dreadnought — can never enter a gravity well.

Building. One build per station per turn. The station must be empty, so a unit parked on your starbase stops it building. A newly built unit cannot act until your next turn, and a station you captured this turn cannot build until your next turn. In a basic-only match a station offers only the basic units on its list (section 5).

Ending the turn. Press End Turn or E. In an online match a turn whose clock runs out is not ended for you: the other players choose whether to skip it (section 11).

3. Combat

Range. Most units attack only adjacent hexes (range 1). The point-defence corvette and the cruiser reach 1–2 hexes, the dreadnought 1–3, the rail platform 2–3 and the missile battery 2–4. Each unit has an attack value against each of the six combat classes (section 5); an attack value of 0 means it cannot attack that class at all, and no rank or upgrade changes that.

The edge. Every attack comes down to one number, the edge. Start with the attacker’s attack value against the target’s combat class and add the attacker’s rank and upgrade bonuses. Subtract the target’s defence: its base defence plus its rank and upgrade bonuses plus the terrain bonus for its movement class. Then adjust: subtract 2 if the attacker is firing from two or more hexes into a nebula (the missile battery ignores this), add 3 if the target is in the middle of capturing a station (its defence is cut by 3), and add any flanking bonus.

edge = attack vs target class + attacker rank + attacker upgrades
     − (target defence + target rank + target upgrades + target terrain)
     − 2 if firing from 2+ hexes into a nebula (not missile batteries)
     + 3 if the target is capturing
     + flanking (+1 per earlier attack on this target this turn, max +3)

The terrain file can also give an attacker a terrain attack bonus, but every terrain currently sets it to 0.

Chance per roll. The chance of each roll hitting is 50% plus 5% for every point of edge, never below 5% and never above 95%. An edge of 0 is a coin flip, +9 or better is 95%, and −9 or worse is 5%.

Rolls and damage. The attacker rolls six times for every HP it has left, so a full-strength unit with 10 HP makes 60 rolls and one at 4 HP makes 24. Damage is the number of hits divided by six, rounded to the nearest whole number with exact halves rounded down (9 hits is 1.5, which becomes 1; 10 hits is 1.67, which becomes 2), and never more than the target has left. The rule of thumb is that average damage is about the attacker’s HP times its chance per roll: a full-strength unit at 50% does about 5, at 75% about 7 or 8. Wounded units hit proportionally softer.

Flanking. Every earlier attack on the same target during the current turn adds 1 to the edge of the next one, up to +3. The second attack on a target gets +1, the third +2, the fourth and later +3. Flanking never applies to counter-attacks.

Counter-attacks. If the target survives, it fires back at once with the same formula, using the HP it has left after your attack and without any flanking bonus. It does so only if all of these hold: it is a unit that counters (artillery never does), it is not capturing, and your unit is within its range and of a class it can attack. That has three practical consequences. Units with range 2 or more can hit range-1 units from two hexes away without reply. Artillery is countered only by a target whose range reaches back: a point-defence corvette or cruiser when fired on from two hexes, a dreadnought from two or three; a missile battery firing from four hexes is out of everyone’s reach. And a target with no attack against your class cannot reply, which is why marines never counter a bomber.

The odds preview. Click an enemy in range once to see the odds, and click it again (or press Enter) to attack. The preview shows the edge and how it was built — attack with its rank and upgrade bonuses, defence with its rank, upgrade and terrain bonuses, and any nebula, capturing or flanking adjustment — the chance per roll, the full spread of damage you might deal, and the same for the counter-attack, worked out over every amount of damage you might do first. It is exact, not an estimate: it uses the same calculation the game uses to resolve the attack.

A worked example. A full-strength skiff attacks a marine squad in open space. The skiff’s attack against SOFT is 11 and the marines’ defence is 6, so the edge is +5 and each of its 60 rolls hits 75% of the time, for about 7 or 8 damage. Say the marines survive on 3 HP: they counter with 18 rolls at an edge of 4 − 7 = −3, which is 35%, for about 1 damage. Put the same marines on a starbase and their defence becomes 6 + 2 = 8, the skiff’s edge drops to +3 (65%) and it does about 6 or 7.

4. Stations

Stations are the only source of income and production, and good cover: every station costs 1 MP to enter and gives +2 defence to any unit standing on it, friend or foe. All four types can be captured.

The starbase pays 100 credits a turn and builds ten unit types: marine squad, assault marines, skiff, interceptor, gunship, heavy gunship, rail platform, missile battery, point-defence corvette and bomber. The shipyard pays 100 and builds the two capital ships, the cruiser and the dreadnought. Both are advanced units, so in a basic-only match a shipyard builds the skiff and the point-defence corvette instead. The relay pays 150, the most of any station, and builds nothing. The repair dock pays nothing and builds nothing, but at the start of your turn it heals 2 HP on any unit of yours standing on it, provided you own the dock.

Capturing. Only the marine squad and assault marines can capture, and only stations can be captured — never another unit. Move the unit onto a station you don’t own, neutral or enemy, and press Capture (or C). Each Capture action adds progress set by the unit’s current HP — 60 at 10 HP, 30 at 6–9 HP, 20 at 4–5 HP, 15 at 3 HP, 12 at 2 HP and 10 at 1 HP — and the station changes hands when progress reaches the threshold of 60. The station shows its progress as progress/threshold, such as 30/60. A full-strength unit therefore takes a station in a single action; at 6–9 HP it needs two, at 4–5 HP three, at 3 HP four, at 2 HP five and at 1 HP six. A unit hurt part-way through keeps the progress it has made and carries on at its new rate: 9 HP for one action and then 3 HP takes three in all. The unit is not used up.

From the moment you press Capture until your next turn starts, the unit is capturing: its defence is cut by 3 and it cannot counter-attack. Marines capturing an enemy starbase sit at defence 6 + 2 − 3 = 5. If the unit moves off the station, attacks, or is destroyed, the station’s progress resets to nothing.

When a station changes hands it is yours at once. It no longer counts for its old owner, it pays you from the start of your next turn, and it counts towards your score and towards owning every station. It cannot build on the turn you capture it. Capturing also earns the unit 6 XP (section 7).

5. Units

Every unit has 10 HP and two classes. Its combat class — SOFT, LIGHT, ARMOUR, ARTILLERY, STRIKE or CAPITAL — decides which column of an attacker’s table applies to it and which upgrades it can take. Its movement class — INFANTRY, CRAFT or CAPITAL — decides what terrain costs it to cross and how much cover terrain gives it. The two marine units are infantry and the only units that can capture. The cruiser and dreadnought are capital ships, built only at shipyards and unable to enter asteroid fields. The other eight are craft. Only the rail platform and missile battery cannot fire after moving, and only they never counter-attack.

Every unit also has a tier, basic or advanced. The basic six are the marine squad, assault marines, skiff, gunship, rail platform and point-defence corvette; the interceptor, heavy gunship, missile battery, bomber, cruiser and dreadnought are advanced. A match is created with its unit tiers set to all (the default) or to basic only; in a basic-only match no station offers an advanced unit, and since both capital ships are advanced a shipyard there builds the skiff and the point-defence corvette instead (section 4). Tiers gate building and, online, which hangar units may join a match: a basic-unit match admits basic-tier hangar units only (section 12). Otherwise a unit of either tier earns experience, ranks up, takes upgrades and can be minted.

Attack values by the target’s combat class (— means it cannot attack that class):

The percentages below are the chance per roll between full-strength, unranked, un-upgraded units in open space; terrain, ranks, upgrades, nebulae and flanking all move them.

Marine squad. At 80 credits the cheapest unit, and with assault marines the only one that can take a station. Its best targets are artillery (65% against a rail platform, 60% against a missile battery); its 6 against armour manages only 25% against a gunship, so armour is a job for something else. It cannot attack a bomber at all. It fears skiffs (75% against it) and missile batteries (80%), and on open ground anything bigger.

Assault marines. Twice the price of a marine squad for 2 more defence and a heavier punch, above all 11 against armour: 50% against a gunship, 60% against a point-defence corvette. The extra defence counts most while capturing, when the −3 penalty bites: on an enemy station they sit at defence 7 (8, +2 for the station, −3 for capturing), where a marine squad sits at 5. With 2 MP they are slow; a nebula or asteroid field takes their whole move, and a gravity well is closed to them. They fear skiffs (65%), missile batteries (70%) and dreadnoughts (65%).

Skiff. A 5-MP raider whose 11 against SOFT makes it the marine hunter: 75% against a marine squad, 65% against assault marines, and 70% against a rail platform. Against anything armoured it is poor (15% against a gunship). It fears gunships (70%), heavy gunships (75%) and cruisers (70%).

Interceptor. As fast as the skiff and built to kill bombers: 12 against strike craft is 70% against a bomber, and 9 against light craft beats a skiff (60%). It is weak against armour and capital ships (attack 3 and 2). It fears gunships (65%), heavy gunships (70%), cruisers (65%) and dreadnoughts (70%).

Gunship. The standard line unit: defence 11 and 11 against light craft (70% against a skiff, 65% against an interceptor), and it tears into artillery that lets it close (75% against a rail platform, 70% against a missile battery). Marine squads manage only 25% against it and assault marines 50%. It fears bombers (60%) and dreadnoughts (65%), and manages 40% against a bomber in return.

Heavy gunship. Slow at 3 MP and very hard to hurt: at defence 13, in open space only a dreadnought (55%), a bomber (50%) or a missile battery (50%) gets even odds against it; cruisers, other heavy gunships and assault marines roll at 40%. It hits light craft at 70–75% and artillery at 80–85%. Its weak spot is strike craft: 4 against a bomber is 30%.

Rail platform. Cheap fire at 2–3 hexes, but it cannot move and fire in the same turn, never counter-attacks, and with defence 4 every unit that can attack it rolls at 60% or better. Its best targets are marine squads (65%) and other rail platforms (60%), and its 10 against armour and capital ships lets it work on them from out of their reach (45% against a gunship, 40% against a cruiser). It cannot target bombers and exerts no zone of control.

Missile battery. The longest reach in the game at 2–4 hexes, and its fire ignores the nebula penalty. Attack 12 against SOFT, 13 against ARMOUR and 15 against CAPITAL gives 80% against a marine squad, 60% against a gunship, 65% against a cruiser and 50% against a dreadnought; it hits a rail platform at 75%. Like the rail platform it moves or fires, never both, never counters and cannot target bombers; with 2 MP it cannot enter a gravity well. From four hexes nothing can reply, but at defence 5 anything that reaches it hits hard: a dreadnought at 90%, a cruiser or heavy gunship at 80%, a bomber at 75%.

Point-defence corvette. A bomber screen: 15 against strike craft is 85% against a bomber, and a bomber that attacks it takes that counter at whatever HP the corvette has left. Range 1–2 also lets it counter artillery firing from two hexes. Its other attack values are low (5 against SOFT and ARMOUR). It fears dreadnoughts (75%), bombers and missile batteries (70%), and heavy gunships and cruisers (60%).

Bomber. The fastest unit at 6 MP and the anti-ship weapon: 13 against armour and 14 against capital ships give 60% against a gunship, 50% against a heavy gunship, 60% against a cruiser and 45% against a dreadnought — behind only the dreadnought itself and the missile battery against those last three. It also hits artillery at 75–80%. Marines, assault marines, artillery and other bombers have no attack against strike craft, so they can neither hit it nor hold it up with zone of control; equally it cannot attack another bomber. It is weak against light craft (35% against a skiff, 30% against an interceptor) and fears point-defence corvettes (85%) and interceptors (70%).

Cruiser. The first capital ship, built only at shipyards. Defence 12, range 1–2 and attack 11 against light, armour, artillery and capital targets (9 against SOFT, 8 against STRIKE). Range 2 lets it hit range-1 units from two hexes without reply, and counter artillery that fires on it from two hexes. As a capital ship it cannot enter asteroid fields. It fears dreadnoughts (65%), missile batteries at range (65%) and bombers (60%).

Dreadnought. Defence 15, range 1–3 and attack 14–15 against armour and capital ships. In open space nothing gets better than even odds against it: another dreadnought or a missile battery rolls at 50%, a bomber at 45%, a cruiser at 30%. With 2 MP it never enters a gravity well (and as a capital ship never an asteroid field), and a nebula takes its whole move. Range 3 means it counters a rail platform at any range the platform can fire from; only a missile battery at four hexes hits it without reply. Its weakness is strike craft: 6 against a bomber is 40%.

6. Terrain

Open space costs nothing extra and gives no cover; it is most of every map. Asteroid fields are the best natural cover for craft (+2) and a wall against cruisers and dreadnoughts, at double the move cost. Nebulae give everyone +1 and blunt long-range fire, so they are the place to wait out artillery — except missile batteries, which ignore the penalty. Gravity wells are pure obstacle: expensive to enter, no cover, a slow start next turn if you stop in one, and closed to every 2-MP unit. Debris belts are free cover, +1 at no extra cost; none of the three shipped maps has any yet. Stations give +2 to every class at no extra cost, matched only by asteroid fields for craft, for whoever is standing on them.

7. Experience, ranks and upgrades

Units earn experience (XP) as they fight: 1 XP per point of damage dealt, 8 for a kill and 6 for a capture. When a match ends, units also earn 5 XP for surviving it and 10 for winning it. Destroying a full-strength enemy single-handed is therefore worth 18 XP. In a rated online match, XP is scaled for the strength of the unit’s opponents as it is earned, during the match itself, so the rank a unit shows at the end is the rank that counts (section 11).

Rank follows XP and takes effect immediately, in the middle of a match, whether the unit was built that match or brought from your hangar. Chevrons under the hull show the rank. Elite and Ace also need rated online matches survived, and Ace rated wins, each counted once per opponent: a unit built in the match, in any game including against the AI and hotseat, rises no higher than Veteran, and only a hangar unit with that record behind it fights as an Elite or an Ace.

The attack bonus applies to every class the unit can already attack; a 0 stays 0.

Perks. A unit you keep also earns a perk at each rank: at Veteran and at Elite it chooses one of two perks for its class, and at Ace one of the two that matter most (Return fire, or Clean kill II; Return fire, or Breach team II for marines). An artillery Ace is given Long barrel, +1 range, instead of a choice, and a capital ship’s Ace offers Return fire alone. You choose on the Hangar page between matches, once for each rank, and the choice is never changed; the page shows what each perk does, and the odds panel in a match shows its effect. Perks act only in online matches, where a deployed unit brings its own; a unit built in a match has none. Your own units’ modifiers from rank, upgrades and perks count at most +3 in attack against any class, and +3 in defence.

The hangar. Units that survive a rated online match at Veteran rank or above carry on between matches, craft in your hangar, capital ships in your shipyard and marines in your barracks, keeping their XP and rank; section 12 covers what is kept and how it comes back into play. Kept units can take upgrades: each unit has 2 upgrade slots, and each upgrade fits only certain combat classes. Upgrades are not yet on sale; like every priced action in the game they will be paid for in the game token and need a connected wallet (section 12).

A persistent unit can also carry a callsign (up to 24 characters: letters, digits, spaces and the marks ’ - _ .), one of 10 emblems and one of 8 paint schemes. These are cosmetic only, and free to set and change until the unit is minted (section 13).

Every unit you have kept has already reached Veteran and survived a match, so every one can be minted as a token (section 13).

8. Winning

Elimination. A side is out when it has no units left and either owns no stations or owns none that can build (no starbase and no shipyard). Units on the board keep you in the game whatever you own, but relays and repair docks alone will not.

How a game ends. A game ends when only one side is left, or when one side owns every station on the map, neutral ones included, and no other side still has a unit that can capture: a surviving marine squad or assault marines keeps the game going, and it ends as soon as the last such unit is destroyed. If the map sets a turn limit, it also ends when the final round is complete — the limit counts rounds, so every side gets the same number of turns — and the side with the highest score wins. Score is 1000 for each station owned, plus credits in hand, plus the value of surviving units, each counted at its cost scaled by its remaining HP and rounded down (a gunship on 5 HP is worth 160). On an exact tie, the side earlier in turn order wins. None of the three shipped maps sets a turn limit and the rules default is none, so a game on them ends by elimination, resignation or station control.

Resigning. The resign button (with a confirmation) takes you out of the game at once; if it was your turn, play passes to the next side.

Online. An online match ends the same ways. One more applies there: when the other players Kick a commander whose clock has run out and that would leave only one side in command, which is always the case with two players, the kicked side forfeits and the match is over (section 11).

9. The maps

First Contact is the two-player starter map, 16 by 12 hexes. Each side begins with 300 credits, a starbase and a relay (250 credits a turn), two marine squads, a skiff and a gunship (in a basic-units match the second player begins with a third marine squad, a turn from its nearer neutral shipyard, to offset moving second). Four neutral stations are there to take: two shipyards near the centre and a repair dock in each of the two empty corners. Asteroid ridges and nebula patches break up the approaches, and a pair of gravity wells sits in the middle.

Twin Relays is a larger two-player map, 20 by 16. Each side begins with 400 credits (in a basic-units match the second player begins with 1,000, to offset moving second), a starbase, a shipyard and a relay (350 a turn), two marine squads, a gunship and a skiff, so capital ships are on the table from the start for anyone who saves for them. The prize is the pair of neutral relays in the centre, separated by a block of four gravity wells; two more neutral repair docks sit on the far left and right edges.

Crossfire is the four-player map, 20 by 20, one side in each corner. For now it is played with all units only: basic-units matches open on it after its four-player balance pass. Each side begins with 300 credits, a starbase and a relay (250 a turn), two marine squads and a gunship, and no skiff. There are ten neutral stations: a repair dock a few hexes in from each corner, a shipyard on each edge between neighbouring corners, and two relays in the centre ringed by asteroids. Four gravity wells sit on the diagonals.

10. Controls

The start screen sets the map, the mode (you against the AI, hotseat for several people on one screen, or AI against AI to watch), the AI difficulty, the number of players and the seed. The difficulty applies to every AI side in the game; Medium is the default, and the game remembers your last choice on that device. Easy underrates return fire, barely chases kills, never pulls a damaged unit back to repair and buys a cheap spread of units. Medium weighs return fire, finishes off weakened units, sends damaged units to repair, defends its stations and buys counters to what you field. Hard plays like Medium but knows that each of your units can attack only once a turn, so its units push forward together where Medium holds back; in games of three or more sides it is also warier of even trades.

Click one of your units to select it. The hexes it can reach light up, along with the enemies it can attack; hover over a hex to see the path. Each enemy it can attack shows on its hex the damage you can expect to deal, with the counter-attack you can expect back smaller beside it after a ↳ (no second number means no counter-attack). They are the odds panel’s expected-damage figures, so the best target shows without a click. Click a hex once to mark it as the destination: the path is drawn solid and the hex is ringed. Click it again, or press Enter, to move; click a different highlighted hex to move the mark there instead. Amber hexes are where the move must end, because entering them puts the unit in an enemy’s zone of control. Attacks work the same way: click an enemy in range once to see the odds, then click it again or press Enter to attack. Right-click or Esc backs out one step at a time: first the marked destination or the odds, then the selection. With a marine unit on a station you don’t own, press the Capture button in the unit panel or C. Click an empty station you own to open its build menu.

Hover over any hex for a short description: a unit’s name, HP, combat class and movement class; a station’s type, owner and income; the terrain’s name, move cost and cover (for the selected unit’s movement class, or for all three); and, with a unit selected, why a hex ends its move or cannot be entered. On a touch screen, press and hold a hex for about 0.4 seconds to see the same description (and, with a unit selected, the path to it); the hold does not count as a tap, and the description stays up until your next touch. A tap does what a click does.

The unit panel and every row of the build menu show the unit’s combat and movement class. Each build-menu row also says which combat classes the unit is strong and weak against for its price, and which it cannot attack at all. For each class, its attack value is compared with the attack a unit of its cost typically has against that class: a straight line fitted through the attack values of every unit that can attack that class, over the logarithm of their costs. More than three quarters of a standard deviation (of those units’ distances from the line) above it is strong, as far below is weak, and an attack value of 0 is “cannot attack”. The cruiser and dreadnought sit close to the line throughout and read “all-round for its price”. A capturing unit carries a yellow badge with its defence penalty (−3), and the station shows its capture progress out of the capture threshold, such as 30/60.

Press T, or the Threats button in the hint bar, to shade every hex that at least one enemy unit could attack on its next turn: every hex within its range of where it stands or, if it can move and fire, of any hex it could move to with the movement points it will have next turn. The more enemy units can reach a hex, the darker it is shaded. With one of your units selected, only enemies that can attack its combat class count, so a bomber sees no shading from marines. It is worked out from the board as it stands, so it changes as units move. It shows the threats to you against the AI, and to the player whose turn it is in hotseat. Press T again to hide it.

Units that can’t act again this turn are dimmed: those that have attacked, captured or were built this turn, and those that have moved with nothing left in range and nothing to capture. Press N to select the next unit that can still act; the camera follows it. Press E or the End turn button to end your turn. While any unit can still act, the game asks first: press E again (or End turn anyway) to confirm, N to go to the next idle unit, or Esc to keep playing.

The top bar shows the turn, the side to move, and every side’s credits, each in its side’s colour: yours first (in hotseat, the player whose turn it is), then the others. Under each balance is that side’s income per turn, such as “+250/turn”: what the stations it owns pay at the start of its turn, from the map’s income table. The game’s name at the left of the top bar is the way out: from a match or its replay it goes to the PvP lobby, and from a game against the AI or on one screen it goes to the site’s home page, after asking, since those games aren’t saved yet. The combat log at the top left has one entry per attack, “attacker → target, damage”, with the counter-attack on an indented line beneath it and the hits and chance per roll as fainter detail. The hint bar at the bottom has the Threats button, lists the controls, and has a one-line legend: each side’s colour and shape marker, the four station icons, the amber zone-of-control tint, and the colours of the expected damage and counter-attack shown on targets. On a touch screen the hint bar lists the gestures instead (tap, tap again, long-press, drag, pinch); on a phone on its side, the gestures and the legend fold behind the “?” button beside Threats, so they do not cover the map.

Drag to pan the map and use the mouse wheel to zoom; on a touch screen, pinch with two fingers to zoom. Animations can be skipped with a tap of Space (or a click on the board); hold Space to play them at 3×. The speed selector in the top bar sets the normal animation speed (0.5×, 1×, 2× or instant), and the sound button toggles audio. The resign button asks for confirmation before it takes effect; it is disabled when it is not your turn and once the game is over, and during a replay it and End turn give way to a Replay badge. On a phone the top bar wraps onto more rows where it does not fit, with the speed selector, sound, resign and End turn together on the right of the last row; turned on its side, the phone gets the same controls in one compact row.

After a game, Watch replay plays it back from the start at the speed set in the top bar, with Pause (or Play). The inner arrows go one action back or on, and the outer ones to the start of this turn (or the one before) or of the next; the turn list goes to the start of any turn, and the counter beside it shows the turn and the action. Each attack shows its odds panel as the odds stood before it. Played to the end, or closed with Close, the replay returns to the results.

11. Playing other people

Online matches are played through the game’s server one turn at a time, so the players never need to be there at once. Everything starts on the PvP page.

Signing in. There are three ways in. Email me a sign-in link sends a link to your inbox that signs you in when you open it; it is free and all you need to play. Connect XCP Wallet and Connect Horizon Wallet sign you in with that wallet’s browser extension, which asks you to sign a message to prove the address is yours; minting and the other token features need a wallet on the account (section 12). While minting runs on signet, Horizon Wallet is the wallet that works there; XCP Wallet is mainnet-only (section 13). An email account can add a wallet at any time with Connect XCP Wallet or Connect Horizon Wallet, on the PvP page or the Hangar page; it keeps everything, and its units become mintable. Each wallet belongs to one account only: a wallet that already has its own commander is refused, and you sign in with it instead.

Commander name. The first time you sign in you choose a commander name, and it is the only identity other players ever see, in the open games list, the sides table and chat. Your email address and wallet address are never shown. A name is 3 to 24 characters of letters, digits, spaces and the marks ’ . _ -, starts with a letter or digit, ends with a letter, digit or full stop, and must be unique across the platform, capitals ignored. Change name lets you change it at most once every 30 days.

Basic and Advanced accounts. Every account is Basic or Advanced, shown beside your commander name. A Basic account creates and joins basic-unit matches; an Advanced account plays those and all-units matches too. An account becomes Advanced with a card subscription or with a season pass held in a connected wallet; neither is on sale yet. During the alpha, the first 69 commanders to bring a unit home to the Hangar at Veteran or above from a rated Basic match against another player earn the alpha pass, HEXTREK.ALPHATEST on signet, which makes their account Advanced until the alpha closes and then stays in their wallet as a keepsake. Earning it also keeps the commander’s full rating and their units at the mainnet launch (section 13). A commander who takes a unit to Elite before the alpha closes graduates: HEXTREK.ALPHA on mainnet is issued to the graduates at the close, and its supply is then locked. It grants Advanced to whoever holds it, so it can be sent or sold with Advanced going to the new holder; badges and records stay with the commander who earned them. The alpha closes two weeks after the 69th place is earned. The alpha pass page has the details and the places left, and section 13 what carries across to mainnet. In the open games list, an all-units match shows Advanced only to a Basic account.

The lobby. The PvP page has four parts. Quick match makes a private match on First Contact for 2 players, with basic units, a 10 min clock and no hangar units, and takes you straight to its invite link to send to your opponent. Open games lists the public matches still waiting for players, with the commander who made each one; Join takes the next free seat. A private match is joined through an invite link (below). Your matches lists every match you are in and its state — waiting for players, committing hangar units, waiting for balance, your turn, or which seat is to move — and marks any whose clock has run out.

Creating a match. New match sets what Quick match decides for you. Map: First Contact or Twin Relays for two players, Crossfire for up to four (all tiers only, for now). Players: from 2 up to the map’s number of seats. Units: Basic (free to play), or All tiers (Advanced accounts). Turn clock: from 5 min to 3 days, 1 day unless you change it (below). Who can join: Invite link only, or Anyone (open games list). Hangar units allowed: ticked unless you untick it, and greyed out on Crossfire, since hangar units deploy only on two-player maps (section 12). A match name is optional. Create match seats you as the first commander. Until the match starts its creator can Cancel this match for everyone; a player who has joined cannot leave a lobby. A match with no hangar units starts as soon as its last seat fills; one where a side has added hangar units starts after the hangar step in section 12.

The match page. Every match has its own page. Under the match name it shows the map, the units setting, the turn clock and the number of players, then the turn and round, whose turn it is, and the time left on the clock. The Sides table lists every seat with its commander, account level, state, credits, stations, units, hangar units and missed turns; every side’s credits are visible to every player, as they are on one screen. A line on the page says whether the match is rated (below), and the Log lists every action taken. Open the board plays the match on the game board, where you take your turns.

The turn clock. The creator chooses how long each turn gets from a ladder: 5 min, 10 min, 15 min, 30 min, 1 hour, 4 hours, 12 hours, 1 day or 3 days. The clock starts with the match and restarts at the start of every turn, not after every action. With a clock of 1 hour or longer the game emails you when your turn starts, unless you untick Email me when it is my turn on the PvP page (an account that signs in with a wallet adds a notification address there); shorter clocks are for playing live. Beside it, Email me occasional HEXTREK news adds the occasional news emails, to the same address; it stays unticked until you tick it. An account that signs in with a wallet first gets a confirmation link at its notification address, and no news goes there until it is followed; every news email has a one-click unsubscribe link.

When your clock runs out your turn is not ended for you, and you can still play it until one of the waiting players acts. They are offered two choices: Skip as soon as your clock runs out, and Kick one clock period later. The second can cost you the match. Once a turn is overdue, its clock counts up (“over by 2 h 14 min”) on the board and on the PvP page.

When someone stops playing. Skip their turn ends the absent player’s turn with nothing done, and the turn earns them nothing: the income their stations paid at its start is taken back, as much of it as they still hold. The match carries on, and the Sides table counts the turn under missed. Any one waiting player can Skip. Kick them removes the absent player from command. With two players the waiting player decides alone, and a Kick is a forfeit: the match ends and the waiting player wins. With three or more it is a vote that passes when more than half of the waiting players agree (both of two waiting players, or two of three), and the page shows the votes cast so far. A Kick that would leave only one side in command ends the match in the same way.

Otherwise the kicked side becomes leaderless. Its units stay on the board but never move or attack; when attacked they still fire back, at −1 edge, and the odds preview shows it. A leaderless side earns no income, and its stations stay its own until someone captures them. The kicked player can take the side back with Reclaim command until that seat’s clock next runs out, which in effect gives them one turn: if the side’s turn comes round in that time, it runs on the normal clock so they can return and play it. After that the seat is closed for good and its turns pass at once. A side that is still leaderless when the match ends keeps no new units from it (section 12).

Draws. On your own turn you can offer a draw. One offer is open at a time, and you can withdraw yours whenever you like. Every other side still in command answers it on its own turn; one decline ends the offer. When the last of them accepts, the match ends as a draw: nobody wins, ratings move as for a draw, and surviving units are kept as after any rated match (section 12). Sides already out of the match have no say, and lose to the sides that agreed it. There are no draws in a match with an AI side still playing.

Replays. Once a match is over, Watch replay, on the match page and beside the match in Your matches, plays it back on the board from its first action, with the same controls as the replay after a game on one screen (section 10). It is seen from your side, at the bottom of the screen, and nothing on it can be moved. The board rebuilds every position from the match’s record and checks each action against the server’s; if anything does not match, it says the replay could not be rebuilt rather than show a wrong board. For now a match’s replay is open to its own players.

Chat. Seated players have a chat panel on the match page, for messages of up to 500 characters and one every 2 seconds per player. Mute, beside a commander’s message, hides their messages from you in every match; you unmute them from the PvP page. Chat is kept with the match’s record, beside the turns it was sent between.

Rated and unrated matches. Ratings change, and units are kept after the match, only in rated matches. A match is unrated when the commanders’ ratings are too far apart, when any of the accounts has not yet completed enough online matches (rated or not, so every new account starts with unrated ones), when two of the accounts share a wallet or payment source, or when a seat is not held by a player. An unrated match is still played in full, but no unit is kept, ratings do not change and hangar units stay at home. The exact limits are still being set, and the current limits are shown in the lobby: before the match starts the match page says Rated match, or Unrated with the reason and the limit it breaks. The verdict is fixed when the last seat fills.

In a rated match the XP each unit earns is scaled for the strength of its opponents: more against stronger commanders, less against weaker ones, between a floor and a cap. The scaling happens during the match itself, as the XP is earned, so the rank a unit shows when the match ends is the rank that counts, both for keeping it and for its rebuilds (not built yet: today the scaling is applied when the match is settled). When the match is over the page shows your result: your rating before and after, the XP scaling, and how many units were kept, were dissolved, came home or were lost.

Invites. The match page gives the creator of a match one invite link for each other seat, with Copy, X, Telegram and WhatsApp buttons that post the link with a short message, and Invite by email, which sends it from the game with your commander name in the subject. The link opens a page that names you and shows the map, the clock and whether the match is Basic or all units. Your friend signs in there with an email address or a wallet, chooses a commander name if they are new, and the seat is theirs. A match filled from an invite waits for you: it starts the next time you open the PvP page, the match page or the board, so your clock never runs while you are away, and the game emails you when the seat is taken. An invite lasts until its match starts or is cancelled. If the seat has gone by the time your friend opens the link, they can still sign up there: the game takes them to the lobby to find another match, and they still count as invited by you. Every commander also has a challenge link, the one on their share cards (below). Whoever follows it and signs in gets a new match against you on First Contact, with basic units and a 1 day clock, which waits for you in the same way; at most 5 such matches wait for you at once.

Referral bonuses. When a new commander signs up through your invite or challenge link, the game records bonuses in HEXBITS, the game token, for you both. You each have 100 HEXBITS recorded when they complete their first rated match, against anyone, and 250 HEXBITS more each when their first unit comes home at Veteran or above from a rated match. Up to 20 commanders you invite earn you bonuses; past that, they still earn their own. If a member of the game’s team invites you, you earn your own bonuses in the same way. A match ended by a Kick, a resignation or an agreed draw before round 5 does not count, and an unrated one never does, so two accounts that share a wallet or payment source earn nothing from each other. The link a new account signs up with is kept for good; an account that has already played cannot be referred. A community’s link signs you up with that community and records your own bonuses in the same way; each community’s link rewards up to 50 commanders. The PvP page shows your bonuses recorded. Prizes are paid in HEXBITS if, and only if, HEXBITS graduates on xcp.fun; if it does not, a different token and distribution will be decided and announced.

Sharing. The VICTORY, DEFEAT and DRAW screens have Copy image and Download. They make a picture of the screen, with the result, the scoreboard and the MVP unit, followed by a challenge and your challenge link, ready to post anywhere. Copy image also copies the card’s words and link as text where your browser allows it. A unit’s page offers the same to the commander who holds the unit: a card with its art and rank frame, its callsign, type, rank, kills, matches, rebuilds left and whether its certificate is verified. The Hangar offers an “I earned” card to a commander with an alpha pass, beside their pass badge. A card names you and nobody else, apart from the commander names the result screen already shows.

The ladder. The Ladder page lists commanders by rating, all time and this week. This week runs from Monday 00:00 UTC and ranks commanders by the rating they have gained in it. Both tables show rated matches played, wins and draws. Only commander names appear, and only once a commander has completed 3 online matches.

12. Your hangar, barracks and shipyard

What is kept and when. Every account, free Basic accounts and email sign-ins included, has a Barracks for its marines, a Hangar for its craft and a Shipyard for its capital ships. The game’s pages, and this guide where the difference does not matter, say hangar for all three, as in hangar units. The Barracks and the Shipyard are not built yet, so for now the Hangar page lists every unit. After a rated match, every unit of yours that is still alive and has reached Veteran rank (40 XP) is kept — marine squads and assault marines in your barracks, cruisers and dreadnoughts in your shipyard, every other unit in your hangar — whether it started the match on the map or you built it; hangar units you brought go home (below). Because XP is scaled for opponent strength during the match (section 11), the rank a unit shows when the match ends is the rank that counts. Units below Veteran are dissolved. A side that ends the match kicked and not reclaimed, or that forfeited, keeps nothing new from it; any hangar units it brought still come home if they survive. A side that resigns keeps nothing new either, and the hangar units it brought that are still on the board come home exactly as they came: no XP, and the match counts neither as survived nor as won towards their Elite and Ace records. Any it lost before resigning stay lost. Nothing is kept from an unrated match, nor from a game against the AI or in hotseat, which are played on your own screen and not recorded.

What a unit’s record holds. The Your units table shows each unit’s type, callsign, rank, XP, kills, matches and status: hangar, deployed (in a match), minting, minted (a link to its unit page) or retired. The record also keeps its wins, upgrades, emblem and paint. The Callsign button sets or changes the callsign, free and as often as you like until the unit is minted.

Deploying hangar units. Hangar units fight only in online matches against other commanders, never against the AI, and for now only in a rated match on a two-player map whose creator left Hangar units allowed ticked. You can bring up to 3 into a match, and a basic-unit match admits basic-tier units only. If any side adds hangar units, the match page asks every side to tick its units, or none, and press Commit. Each unit has a deployment rating in credits, from its type and its rank, shown beside it on the match page, and a side’s rating is the sum of its units’. The match then starts only inside the power band: every side has committed the same number of hangar units, and the gap between the sides’ ratings is no more than 20% of the stronger side’s. A gap of 125 credits or more is paid to the weaker side as extra starting credits; a smaller one starts as it is. Otherwise the match waits for balance, and the match page says why (the gap is too wide, or the sides brought different numbers of units) until a side commits again. A map for more than two players takes no hangar units, however level the sides. The ratings are measured values, to be refitted from rated matches. If no side adds any hangar units the match starts as soon as it is full, and if the match turns out to be unrated any committed units are dropped and stay at home.

Committed units are placed on or beside one of your stations when the match starts. A hangar unit that survives comes home with the XP it earned, scaled as in section 11, and the opponents it survived, and beat if its side won, count towards its Elite and Ace records (section 7). One that is destroyed is lost: it is retired (section 13 has what rebuilds will change for minted units). A unit cannot be minted while it is in a match, nor deployed while it is being minted.

Basic, Advanced and a wallet. Every account, free Basic included, earns XP and rank for its units, chooses a perk at each rank it reaches (section 7), keeps its Veteran-or-better survivors of rated matches, can give them callsigns, and can deploy them under the power band. Advanced adds all-units matches. Capital ships are advanced units, so a Basic account sees its Shipyard only as a locked preview while it is empty. If it does hold a ship, kept from a time when the account was Advanced or bought with a connected wallet, the owner sees it and can keep it, trade it and rename it once it is minted, but can deploy it only once the account is Advanced again. A connected wallet, at either level, adds trading and everything with a price, all paid in the game token: upgrades, minting, rebuilds, renaming a minted unit and paid customisations. Connecting a wallet later costs a kept unit nothing: it keeps everything and simply becomes mintable (section 11). Heroes, still to come, will exist only as on-chain game assets and will live in the Academy, so the Academy needs a connected wallet whatever the account level.

13. Minting, renaming and rebuilding

Minting turns a hangar unit into a token you own outside the game. This section is what that means for a player.

Minting. Any unit of any tier that has ranked up, to Veteran at 40 XP, can be minted, and that is every unit you have kept. Minting needs a connected wallet. It makes the unit a Counterparty subasset on Bitcoin that you hold in your wallet, one of one, and produces two records. The certificate is the unit as it was at mint — type, rank, XP, upgrades, callsign, emblem, paint and record — fixed for ever and anchored on Bitcoin by the mint itself. The live record is the unit now — its current stats, renames and rebuilds — kept up to date by the game after each match at no Bitcoin cost. The unit’s page shows the live state first and the mint certificate below it, and “Verified” there means one thing only: the certificate matches what is on chain. The live record is the game’s own word on the unit and is never called verified. Whoever holds the token commands the unit: send it to another wallet, or trade it with any tool that handles Counterparty assets, and the unit and its record go with it. A minted unit belongs to the account whose wallet holds its token; if that wallet has no account yet, the unit joins one when the wallet signs in or is connected. A unit that changes hands while deployed finishes its match under its old commander and passes to the new holder when the match ends; meanwhile its unit page says Deployed in a match. The game has no marketplace of its own.

Paying for a mint. Mints are paid in HEXBITS, the game token of HEXTREK, which also pays for renaming a minted unit and, when they open, for upgrades, rebuilds and paid customisations; it has nothing to do with credits, the in-match resource. The hangar page shows the price in HEXBITS. The price is pegged to a US-dollar amount and recomputed every hour, and your quote is locked for 60 minutes from your request: pay within that hour, or the request expires with its quote and the unit goes back to where it was kept. A payment that arrives late still counts: it reopens the request at the quoted price if the unit is still free, and otherwise is held towards your next mint; nothing is refunded. Mints are queued and go out when Bitcoin network fees are low, with a paid priority option for anyone who would rather not wait. There are no dispensers and no credit packs: a price and a button.

Minting, step by step. The hangar walks you through these steps with tips beside each control, the first time each comes up, and Show me how, beside the Mint button and at the top of the Minting box, runs them again; Skip walkthrough turns them off.

1. Connect Horizon Wallet, set to signet (Settings, Network); XCP Wallet is mainnet-only. Sign in with Horizon Wallet, or connect it to the account you are signed in with, from the Hangar or PvP page. Your units stay as they are.
2. Pick a unit at Veteran or above and press Mint. Set its callsign first: the certificate fixes it at mint. While free mints are open, the price line under Minting says until when, in your own time, and what a mint costs after that, and Mint claims one at once: go on to step 5.
3. Otherwise you get a quote in the game token, on the unit’s row with the time it holds until, 60 minutes from your request. Pay within that time, or the request lapses and the unit goes back to the hangar.
4. Press Pay and approve the payment in Horizon Wallet. Nothing is sent until you approve it there; if you decline, or the wallet is on another network, the hangar says so and nothing has gone out.
5. The row then reads “paid: the minter is delivering it” while the minter sends the unit to your wallet, and changes when the delivery lands on chain.
6. Once the unit is minted, its row links its token: open the unit’s page.
7. The card there says Verified when its certificate matches the hash written on chain at delivery, and only then.

Renaming. The callsign is free to set at mint, and it is fixed in the certificate. After that, changing the callsign or emblem is a rename: each owner, the one who minted the unit included, may change each of them once per holding, for a fee in the game token, so someone who sells a unit and buys it back may rename it again. Every rename is logged and shown on the unit’s page as “formerly X”, X being the old name. Paint stays free to change. A unit’s kills, matches, rebuilds and prior owners can never be edited. Renaming a minted unit opens with the token launch.

Rebuilding. A minted unit destroyed in a match can be brought back a limited number of times, at a price in the game token that rises each time. Marine units (marine squads and assault marines) are Reconstituted; vessels, every other unit, are Rebuilt. The rebuilds a unit has left are capped by the allowance of its current rank — 3 at Veteran, 2 at Elite, 1 at Ace — and never increase, so ranking up can cost a life: a Veteran with all three left keeps two when it reaches Elite and one when it reaches Ace, while a Veteran that has already used two still has its last one at Elite. Because XP against weaker or stronger opponents is scaled during the match itself (section 11), the rank a unit shows when a match ends is the rank that counts. When its last rebuild is spent the unit is retired: it still exists, with its record, and can be held and traded as a collectible, but it can never deploy again. The unit’s page and any listing show how many rebuilds it has left. Rebuilds are not built yet; until they are, a hangar unit destroyed in a match is retired at once, minted or not.

The test network. For now, minting runs on signet, Bitcoin’s public test network, and the hangar, PvP and unit pages carry a visible “signet test” label: tokens there are test assets with no value. During the alpha, minting is free for everyone until the free period closes, and the price line under Minting in the Hangar says until when; after that a mint on signet is paid in signet HEXBITS, the game token’s test version. Every alpha commander keeps their commander name, match history and an alpha participant badge on mainnet, and their rating carries across, eased halfway back towards the starting rating. Commanders who earn HEXTREK.ALPHATEST keep their full rating, and also keep their units, with their ranks, XP and perks; their units minted on signet are re-issued on mainnet free at the launch, to the mainnet form of the same wallet, with their alpha origin recorded in the certificate. Every other signet token stays in its signet wallet as a keepsake. Records from bugs or farming are voided. An alpha commander is an account that has finished at least three online matches against other players before the alpha closes. Horizon Wallet is the wallet that works on signet; XCP Wallet is mainnet-only.

Test XCP. On signet, XCP (Counterparty’s own token, here its test version) is what you will buy signet HEXBITS with when Buy opens in the Hangar, and so pay for a mint after the free period. Once it opens, every account with Horizon Wallet connected and at least 1 finished match can have 0.1 signet XCP from the game, once: press Get test XCP in the Test XCP box on the Hangar page. The minter sends it to your wallet’s signet address within a few minutes, and the box says it is on its way, then sent, with the transaction. There are a limited number of grants, and the box says when all are given. For more, burn signet BTC for XCP, about 1,500 signet XCP for each signet BTC:

1. Get signet BTC from a signet faucet, sent to your Horizon Wallet’s signet address (it starts tb1q; the Hangar shows it).
2. In the Test XCP box, give the BTC to burn, leaving a little for the network fee, and press Burn for XCP.
3. Approve the burn in Horizon Wallet. It sends that BTC to Counterparty’s burn address, mvCounterpartyXXXXXXXXXXXXXXW24Hef, which nobody can spend, with the change back to you. Nothing is sent until you approve it there.
4. When the burn confirms, the XCP is in your wallet. An address can burn at most 1 BTC in its life.

Buying HEXBITS. Once Buy opens, if Pay finds your wallet short of a mint’s price, a Buy HEXBITS with XCP button appears beside it. It buys what you are short from the signet HEXBITS/XCP pool, with XCP from the same wallet:

1. Press Buy HEXBITS with XCP, and approve the order in Horizon Wallet. It says how much XCP the order may give, at most 1% over the pool’s price now, for how many HEXBITS. Nothing is sent until you approve it there.
2. The order fills when the next signet block holds it, usually within a few minutes, and the Hangar follows it. When it fills, the Hangar says how many HEXBITS you bought (often a few more than asked), and you press Pay.
3. If the pool’s price moved past your order’s limit first, whatever did not fill waits up to 6 blocks, then its XCP comes back to your wallet, and you can press Buy again.

One Buy takes at most 25,000 HEXBITS, and only as many as the pool fills at once within that 1%; for more, Buy again after it fills.

14. Glossary

Academy — where Heroes will live. Heroes exist only on chain, so the Academy needs a connected wallet. Not built yet.

Ace — the highest rank, from 300 XP with 5 rated matches survived and 3 rated wins, each against a different opponent: +2 attack and +1 defence, three chevrons.

Advanced — the account level that plays all-units matches as well as basic-unit ones; it comes from a card subscription or a season pass in a connected wallet. Also the higher unit tier (see Tier).

Alpha pass — HEXTREK.ALPHATEST on signet, earned by the first 69 commanders to bring a unit home at Veteran or above from a rated Basic match against another player; it makes the account Advanced until the alpha closes, then stays in the wallet as a keepsake, and its earners keep their full rating and their units at the mainnet launch. A unit taken to Elite before the close graduates its commander to HEXTREK.ALPHA on mainnet, issued at the close with its supply then locked, which grants Advanced to whoever holds it. See the alpha pass page.

Artillery — the ARTILLERY combat class: the rail platform and missile battery. Minimum range 2, cannot fire after moving, never counter-attack, exert no zone of control.

Assault marines — the heavier of the two capturing units: 160 credits, defence 8, 2 MP.

Asteroid field — terrain costing 2 MP for infantry and craft, closed to capital ships; +1 defence for infantry, +2 for craft.

Attack value — a unit’s attack against one combat class; 0 means it cannot attack that class.

Barracks — where an account’s marine squads and assault marines live between matches; every account has one. Not built yet: the Hangar page lists them for now.

Basic — the free account level, which plays basic-unit matches. Also the lower unit tier (see Tier).

Build — buying a unit at an empty station you own; one per station per turn, and the new unit acts from your next turn.

Callsign — a unit’s own name, up to 24 characters: free to set and change until the unit is minted, fixed in its certificate at mint, and changed after that only by a rename.

Capital — both a combat class and a movement class, covering the cruiser and dreadnought. Capital ships are built at shipyards and cannot enter asteroid fields.

Capture — taking a station with a marine squad or assault marines: each Capture action adds progress set by the unit’s current HP (60 at 10 HP, 30 at 6–9, 20 at 4–5, 15 at 3, 12 at 2, 10 at 1), and the station changes hands at 60.

Capturing — the state of a unit from pressing Capture until its owner’s next turn: −3 defence and no counter-attacks. Shown as a yellow badge on the unit; the station shows its progress as progress/threshold, such as 30/60.

Certificate — a minted unit as it was at mint, fixed for ever and anchored on Bitcoin; the mint certificate on the unit’s page.

Chevrons — the rank marks centred under a unit’s hull: one for Veteran, two for Elite, three for Ace. A Rookie has none; the small caret at the lower left of the first side’s units is its side marker, not a chevron.

Class — every unit has two. Combat class (SOFT, LIGHT, ARMOUR, ARTILLERY, STRIKE, CAPITAL) decides which attack value is used against it and which upgrades fit it; movement class (INFANTRY, CRAFT, CAPITAL) decides terrain costs and terrain defence.

Commander name — the only name other players see: unique, 3 to 24 characters, changeable at most once every 30 days.

Counter-attack — the target’s immediate return fire if it survives, at its remaining HP, without flanking; only if it counters at all, is not capturing, and can reach and attack the attacker.

Craft — the movement class of every unit except the two marine units and the two capital ships.

Credits — the in-match resource, paid as station income and spent on building. Credits stay in their match; they are not the game token.

Debris belt — terrain costing 1 MP with +1 defence for every class.

Defence — how hard a unit is to hit: base defence plus rank, upgrade and terrain bonuses, minus 3 while capturing.

Edge — attack minus defence, after every modifier; each point is worth 5% per roll.

Elimination — being knocked out: no units and either no stations or no station that can build.

Elite — the third rank, from 150 XP with 3 rated matches survived, each against a different opponent: +1 attack, two chevrons.

Flanking — +1 edge for each earlier attack on the same target this turn, up to +3; never on counter-attacks.

Game token — HEXBITS, the game token of HEXTREK. With a connected wallet it pays for minting units and renaming minted ones, and, when they open, for upgrades, rebuilds and paid customisations. Mint and rename prices are pegged to a US-dollar amount. It is not credits, which are the in-match resource.

Gravity well — terrain costing 3 MP with no cover; a unit whose move ends there has 1 MP fewer next turn. Closed to 2-MP units.

Hangar — where an account’s craft live between matches; marines live in the barracks and capital ships in the shipyard, and “hangar units” means all three. Units that survive a rated match at Veteran or above are kept; up to 3 hangar units can join a rated online match on a two-player map, within the power band.

Hero — a game asset still to come that will exist only on chain, held in a connected wallet, and live in the Academy.

HEXBITS — the game token of HEXTREK; see Game token.

HP — hit points; every unit has 10 at full strength. A unit rolls six times per HP when it attacks.

Income — credits paid at the start of your turn: 100 per starbase, 100 per shipyard, 150 per relay, 0 per repair dock.

Infantry — the movement class of the marine squad and assault marines, the only units that can capture.

Kick — removing from command a player whose clock ran out at least one clock period ago: with two players the waiting player’s decision, and a forfeit; with three or more a vote that needs more than half of the waiting players, after which the side is leaderless.

Leaderless seat — a kicked side: its units stay but never act and fire back at −1 edge, it earns no income, and its stations stay its own until captured.

Live record — a minted unit’s current state, renames and rebuilds, kept by the game and shown on its page as the live state; never called verified.

Mint — turning a hangar unit into a Counterparty subasset on Bitcoin, held in your wallet; needs a connected wallet and Veteran rank.

MP — movement points, spent on terrain move costs each turn.

Nebula — terrain costing 2 MP with +1 defence; fire from two or more hexes into it suffers −2 edge, except from a missile battery.

Odds preview — the exact damage distribution for an attack and its counter-attack, shown before you commit.

Open space — terrain costing 1 MP with no cover.

Persistent unit — a unit kept in your hangar, barracks or shipyard between matches, with its XP, rank, upgrades and cosmetics.

Perk — a lasting ability a kept unit chooses in the hangar at each rank it reaches, from two its class is offered there, once and for good (section 7).

Power band — what a match with hangar units must meet before it starts: a two-player map, the same number of hangar units per side, and deployment ratings within 20% of the stronger side’s, a gap of 125 credits or more being paid to the weaker side in starting credits.

Quick match — the one-button private match: First Contact, 2 players, basic units, a 10 min clock, no hangar units.

Range — how far a unit can fire, in hexes, as a minimum and maximum (1 means adjacent only).

Rank — Rookie, Veteran, Elite or Ace, set by XP (and, for Elite and Ace, rated matches survived and won against different opponents) and effective immediately.

Rated match — an online match that changes ratings and keeps Veteran-or-better survivors for their commanders. A match is unrated when the ratings are too far apart, an account is too new, two accounts share a wallet or payment source, or a seat is not held by a player.

Rebuild — bringing back a destroyed minted unit for a rising price in the game token: Reconstituted for marine units, Rebuilt for vessels. The rebuilds left are capped by the allowance of the unit’s current rank (Veteran 3, Elite 2, Ace 1) and never increase, so ranking up can cost a life. Not built yet.

Reclaim — a kicked player taking their side back, possible until that seat’s clock next runs out.

Reconstituted — what a rebuild is called for a marine squad or assault marines; see Rebuild.

Relay — a station that pays 150 credits a turn and builds nothing.

Rename — changing a minted unit’s callsign or emblem: once each per holding, for a fee, logged and shown as “formerly”.

Repair dock — a station that pays nothing, builds nothing, and heals 2 HP at the start of your turn on your own units standing on it.

Resign — leaving a game; you are out at once.

Retired — a unit that can no longer deploy. A minted unit whose rebuilds are spent still exists and trades as a collectible; until rebuilds exist, any hangar unit destroyed in a match is retired.

Rookie — the starting rank, from 0 XP; no bonuses.

Round — one turn for every side still playing, in seat order. Turn limits count rounds.

Score — at a turn limit: 1000 per station, plus credits, plus the HP-scaled cost of surviving units.

Season pass — a pass held in a connected wallet that makes an account Advanced. Not on sale yet.

Shipyard — a station that pays 100 credits a turn and builds the cruiser and dreadnought, or in a basic-only match the skiff and point-defence corvette. Also where an account keeps its capital ships between matches (section 12); a Basic account sees an empty one only as a locked preview. Not built yet, so the Hangar page lists them for now.

Side marker — the small shape at the lower left of every unit, one per side: a caret for the first side, a ring for the second, then a diamond, a triangle, a hexagon and a comet. It lets sides be told apart without relying on colour; the legend in the hint bar shows which is which.

Signet — Bitcoin’s public test network, where minting runs under a “signet test” label until the parent asset is registered; test mints have no value.

Skip — ending the turn of a player whose clock has run out, with nothing done and the turn’s income taken back; any one waiting player can.

Starbase — a station that pays 100 credits a turn and builds every unit except the two capital ships.

Station — a starbase, shipyard, relay or repair dock: the sources of income and production, +2 defence to whoever stands on one, and capturable.

Strike craft — the STRIKE combat class, currently only the bomber.

Test XCP — signet XCP, for trying the game token on the test network: 0.1 from the game once per account with a finished match, or more by burning signet BTC, from the Test XCP box on the Hangar page (section 13).

Tier — basic or advanced, set per unit. A match set to basic units only lets stations build only basic units and admits only basic-tier hangar units; tiers never affect XP, ranks, upgrades or minting.

Turn — one side’s go: income and healing at the start, then any mix of moves, attacks, captures and builds, then End Turn.

Turn clock — the time each turn gets in an online match, chosen by the creator from 5 min to 3 days; it restarts at every turn.

Turn limit — an optional number of rounds after which the highest score wins; none of the shipped maps sets one.

Unit tiers — the match setting, all (the default) or basic, that decides whether advanced units can be built; see Tier.

Upgrade — a permanent improvement for a persistent unit; two slots per unit. Not on sale yet: upgrades will be paid for in the game token and need a connected wallet.

Verified — on a unit’s page, one thing only: its certificate matches what is on chain.

Veteran — the second rank, from 40 XP: +1 attack, one chevron. The rank a unit needs to be kept after a rated match and to be minted.

Wallet — a browser extension that holds your Bitcoin address and tokens and signs you in: XCP Wallet (mainnet only) or Horizon Wallet (the one that works on signet). A connected wallet adds trading and every priced action: upgrades, minting, rebuilds, renaming a minted unit and paid customisations.

XP — experience: 1 per point of damage dealt, 8 per kill, 6 per capture, plus 5 for surviving a match and 10 for winning it. In a rated match it is scaled for opponent strength during the match itself, so the rank shown at the end is the rank that counts.

Zone of control — entering a hex next to an enemy that could fire on you at range 1 ends your move there. Such hexes are tinted amber when you select a unit.