Glossary

A quick A–Z of the terms you’ll see throughout SpaceDwarves and this wiki. Each entry links to the page where the topic is covered in full.

A #

Accommodation — A building that houses dwarves and holds a stat domain (comfort, extraction, research, etc.). Training and recovery happen at the accommodation, so every dwarf housed there shares the benefit. See Accommodations & Training.

Ale buff — A temporary, strategic bonus from drinking brewed ale, applied to the colony or to an expedition squad before launch (e.g. Stout for production, Courage for risk reduction). See Ale & Potions.

Artifact — A rare, persistent reward (mostly from expeditions) that grants a bonus when equipped, scoped Global, Sector or Squad. See Artifacts & Reliquaries.

Asteroid — A claimable rock you build on and mine; each has primary and secondary deposits. New asteroids are found through expedition discovery. See Sectors.

Automation — Tiered quality-of-life unlocks that remove manual steps (auto-collect, auto-transport, full sector automation). See Automation & QoL.

C #

Capital level — A capital ship’s individual combat level (1 + floor(sqrt(shipXP/50))), earned from rift combat; each level grants a talent point. See Rifts & Fleet.

Capital ship — A dwarf-crewed individual warship built from rift ship parts; the main combatant in rift dives. Crew rarity and class drive its power. See Rifts & Fleet.

Capital equipment — Procedural gear fitted to a capital ship’s four slots (Weapon / Armour / Core / Reactor) across seven tiers (Common → Exquisite), dropped power-scaled from rifts. See Rifts & Fleet.

Capital talent — A permanent upgrade unlocked in a capital ship’s per-class talent tree (offense / defense / command branches), bought with talent points from levelling. See Rifts & Fleet.

Conduit — The two merchant-only materials, Polymer Conduit and Clay Conduit, that cannot be mined or refined and are required to open the Alpha→Beta sector route. Sold only by the Traveling Merchant — expensive and scarce.

Credits — The game’s currency, earned by selling resources, completing quests, and defending raids. Tracked live on the HUD.

D #

Deep Space Explorer — A single, relocatable mobile beachhead station (unlocked once you hold Alpha) that you can move to any sector via a move modal and which pulls resources instantly from your other stations. See Stations.

Difficulty tier (rift) — The 1–5 dive setting (Greenbeard, Stonehelm, Grimhammer, Emberwrath, Voidforged); it adds to your Flagship Level to set the effective rift difficulty. See Rifts & Fleet.

Doctrine — A set of standing orders that auto-resolves routine expedition stages (e.g. return at X% health, prefer relics, avoid high risk), surfacing only flagged decisions. See Expeditions.

Drone — One of the four fleet swarm roles (Bulwark Cruiser, Fighter Wing, Duplicator Drone, Uplink Frigate); cannon fodder that screens your capital ships in rifts. See Rifts & Fleet.

Drone (Sentry Drone) — An automated enemy unit — a remnant of a precursor defense grid — encountered in combat and raids, not a player-controlled unit. See Combat Overview.

Duplicator Drone — The healer drone role (formerly Repair Tender) that duplicates allied ships mid-battle to rebuild swarms. See Rifts & Fleet.

Dwarf — A member of your crew, with a class, traits and possibly a signature ability. Dwarves are never permanently lost — injuries heal over time. See Dwarves Overview.

E #

Expedition — A player-directed, 5-stage, supply-fed exploration with branching outcomes and push-your-luck returns; the main source of artifacts, rare crew and exotic loot. See Expeditions.

F #

Fatigue — A dwarf stat that builds from work and expeditions and reduces output until rested. Recovered at accommodations (especially the Tavern). See Status & Needs.

Flagship — Your fleet command hub; its Flagship Level (raised by career FXP) sets your base rift difficulty and reward. See Rifts & Fleet.

Flee — Pulling a single capital ship out of a rift mid-dive while the rest of the fleet fights on. See Rifts & Fleet.

FXP (Fleet Experience) — Experience earned in rift combat; it raises your Flagship Level and is spent in the fleet skill trees. See Rifts & Fleet.

G #

Galaxy — The top expansion tier above sectors; each new galaxy has its own ruleset modifiers and is purely additive — no progress is reset. See Galaxies & Rulesets.

Guard Capital — A Bulwark Cruiser ability that for 2 turns intercepts every Vorgon hit aimed at a chosen capital ship, absorbing the damage itself. See Rifts & Fleet.

H #

HUD — The always-visible top bar showing corp identity, live resources and colony wellbeing. See The Interface & Panels.

L #

Leaderboards — Ranked, competitive boards (credits, dwarves, galaxies reached, and more); VIP corporations appear, free players can view. See Leaderboards.

Limpet — A free, instant cargo delivery from a Sector Station to any asteroid in the same sector — no dock and no fuel required. The core convenience of the sector-station hub model. See Stations.

M #

Mega Project — A months-long, multi-phase build (Orbital Foundry, Dwarf Citadel, Stellar Extractor) where each phase delivers a partial bonus and reward. See Mega Projects.

Market — The buy/sell interface for resources; prices are improved by Trader dwarves and Trade Hub stations. See Market & Trading.

O #

Offline progression — The fast-forward catch-up applied when you return, using a diminishing-returns curve (24h half-life), a base 8h effective cap raised by research, and a hard 72h ceiling. See Core Game Loop.

Q #

Quest — A guided, rewarded objective in the questline that teaches and paces the early game. See Quests.

R #

Raid — An enemy attack on your asteroids, triggered partly by your wealth; defended with turrets, garrison and shields. See Raids.

Reliquary — The collection and equipping interface for your artifacts. See Artifacts & Reliquaries.

Research — The permanent five-branch tech tree (Deep Delving, Ancestor Lore, Runic Engineering, Void Navigation, Guild Administration) that unlocks and boosts systems. See Research Tree.

Rift — A dimensional portal (found via expeditions) that opens a 10-level turn-based dungeon; each sector’s rift is held by that sector’s alien race, and clearing one can break through to the next sector. See Rifts & Fleet.

S #

Sector — A region of a galaxy (Alpha through Theta — eight HHGTTG-themed sectors) with its own danger tier, race, signature resources and traits; sectors unlock by clearing the previous sector’s rift. See Sectors.

Sector raid — An online-only hostile-fleet assault on a sector station you hold beyond Alpha; defended with parked capitals/drones, turrets and garrison, and it grinds the station’s infrastructure durability until repelled or repaired. See Sector Raids.

Shared pool — A Sector Station’s shared storage that recipes anywhere in that sector can draw from directly, and which counts toward your empire totals. The backbone of the station hub economy. See Stations.

Ship part — A typed capital-ship build material (Hull, Reactor, Main Gun, Bridge, Plating) dropped by a rift level’s mini-boss. See Resource Catalog.

Signature ability — A rare, qualitative game-changer on some dwarves (e.g. Relic Hunter, Last Stand, Pathfinder) that alters expedition outcomes rather than just tweaking numbers. See Dwarves Overview.

Station (Sector Station) — A regional hub that holds the shared pool, enables free in-sector limpet deliveries, and buffs connected asteroids; later specialises into Industrial, Research, Trade or Military variants. See Stations.

Supplies — The fuel for expeditions, derived from Meals; running out forces a return or cuts loot. See Expeditions.

T #

Tick (SIM_STEP_MS) — One 250 ms simulation step; the fixed unit by which every system advances. See Core Game Loop.

Traveling Merchant — A periodically-visiting NPC vendor; a deliberate rip-off on ordinary goods but the only source of conduit materials. See Traveling Merchant.

U #

Unit Overview — The in-battle dossier (v0.16.1): tap any rift unit — yours or the enemy’s — for its live stats and full ability list, with every ability’s real numbers shown as chips. Also opened by the ℹ button out of combat. See Rifts & Fleet.

V #

VIP — The optional subscription that adds persistence and convenience perks (cloud save, cross-device play, leaderboard participation, extra queue slots) — no pay-to-win power. See VIP.

Vorgon — The alien fleets you fight inside rifts. See Rifts & Fleet.

Where to Next #

• Start here: Your First Session.
• Understand the engine: Core Game Loop.
• Learn the screen: The Interface & Panels.