Expeditions

An expedition is a five-stage timed sequence in which you send a squad of dwarves on a task into a sector. Each stage fires a comms event that offers outcome options; you (or an active Doctrine) choose one. Expeditions are the game’s primary source of:

• Rare resources and artifacts
• Dwarf Health / Fatigue pressure (real stakes, but never permadeath)
• Discovery events — new asteroids, new sectors, rare dwarves, anomalies
• Long-horizon engagement through Doctrine automation and stage-depth unlocks

Expeditions unlock once you have accumulated 1,000 Refined Iron. They tie directly into Sectors (where you run them), the Research Tree (which unlocks more tasks and automation), and your dwarves.

All tuning numbers below are first-pass / balance TBD unless drawn directly from the game-data files.

Setup Phase #

Before a squad departs you make three decisions, in order.

1. Task Selection #

Pick an expedition task from the catalog. Each task has a domain (the capability it tests), a base difficulty (scales roll weights toward riskier options), a reward profile, and sector applicability (which tiers/traits it can run in). See the Task Catalog.

2. Squad Assignment #

Assign 1–4 dwarves from your roster (first-pass cap of 4).

Squad composition — which Signature Abilities are present — matters more than raw stat totals for unlocking rare outcome branches.

3. Supplies Provisioning #

Supplies are expedition fuel, drawn from your colony’s Meals stockpile at launch.

• Base provisioning cost: 20 Supplies per dwarf.
• You may over-provision up to a cap of 120 Supplies to improve the suppliesFactor roll modifier and push deeper.
• If meals are insufficient to meet the base cost, launch is blocked until Meals are available.

4. Optional Ale Buffs #

You may allocate Ale from the Tavern/Mead Hall to the squad before departure. Ale is consumed on launch and is non-refundable even on early return.

Only one Ale buff of each type may be active per expedition (stacking identical brews has no extra effect).

The 5-Stage Structure #

Each stage is a countdown timer. When it expires a comms event fires and the stage resolves. After every stage you face the return decision.

[Depart] → Stage 1 → Stage 2 → Stage 3 → Stage 4 → Stage 5 → [Return / Debrief]
              ↕          ↕         ↕         ↕         ↕
           [Return?] [Return?] [Return?] [Return?] [Return?]

Timers run against wall-clock time and advance during offline progression.

These stage durations are fixed in tasks.json for all tasks; the Lost Navigation Matrix artifact cuts all stage timers by 25%, and the stageTimerDuration modifier (e.g. Ion Tempests, galaxy rulesets) scales them at runtime.

Stage Escalation #

Each deeper stage produces higher-risk, higher-reward outcome tables:

• Base loot weights rise about +30% per stage.
• Health-risk and supply-cost ranges shift upward.
• Rare / flagged / ability-gated branches become progressively more likely from Stage 3 onward.

Per-stage option ranges (from outcomeTables.json):

What Happens at Each Stage #

1. The engine rolls outcome options (typically 2–4) weighted by the roll formula.
2. You select one (or a Doctrine auto-selects).
3. Resolving the option deducts its supplyCost, applies its healthRisk as variance-rolled damage, adds its loot to bankedLoot, logs flavorText to the comms digest, and — if the option is flagged — forces a player interrupt even under a Doctrine.
4. The return decision window opens.

Roll Formula #

The weight of each outcome option is the product of six factors:

outcomeWeight(option) =
    base(option, stage)                    // 0.5–3.0, from the static stage table
  × squadCapability(task.domain)           // accommodation stat × classFit × traits × health% × (1 − fatigue)
  × signatureAbilityModifiers(squad)       // Relic Hunter, Pathfinder, Lucky Stars, etc.
  × sectorTraitModifier(sector, task)      // e.g. Ancient Ruins ×artifact weight
  × aleBuffModifier(active)                // Deep Delver's loot, Courage risk, etc.
  × suppliesFactor(remainingSupplies)      // degrades as supplies run low (floor 0.3 at empty)

Higher weight = an option is more likely to appear and yields more of its preferred type. Riskier options carry higher base weight at deeper stages.

Task Catalog #

Eight tasks ship in tasks.json. Stage durations are identical for every task (300 / 480 / 720 / 1080 / 1500s). They differ in domain, difficulty, supply cost, rewards, and where they can run.

Notes on standout tasks:

• Deep Core Extraction pairs best with a Miner squad and Deep Delver’s Ale — the strongest task/ale reward pairing in the game; an Ancient Drill Core artifact can drop on Stage 5.
• Excavate Ruins rewards the Relic Hunter ability (doubles artifact yield); a Precursor Warden boss may appear at Stage 4–5.
• Contact Anomalous Signal has very high outcome variance — it can yield ancient tech, a galaxy lead, or a hostile encounter; Lucky Stars (re-roll) is extremely valuable.
• Void Mapping Run has modest loot but a Stage 5 success can reveal a new sector or improve the next Galaxy ruleset roll (see Galaxies & Rulesets). Pathfinder boosts new-sector discovery.
• Infiltrate Trade Convoy unlocks unique negotiation branches with the Silver Tongue ability, which can recruit rare dwarves.

Every task includes at least one Pathfinder-gated legendary branch at Stage 5 (requiresAbility: "pathfinder").

Asteroid Discovery — the Discovery Mechanic #

In v0.10.0, asteroids are discovered through expeditions, not bought. This is the primary expansion mechanic.

On a successful expedition return, the engine rolls _rollAsteroidDiscovery:

• ~18% chance (ASTEROID_DISCOVERY_CHANCE = 0.18) per successful expedition.
• It picks a random unowned, claimable asteroid in the expedition’s own sector.
• That asteroid is granted free (no cost) and added to your empire.
• If the sector is fully charted (no unclaimed asteroids), nothing is found.

A newly discovered asteroid is automatically connected to that sector’s Sector Station if one exists and has a free connection slot. You then build a Mine Shaft on it to tap its deposits.

The roster of discoverable asteroids spans Alpha, Beta, and Gamma — e.g. Copper Drift (copper + iron), Silica Reach, Carbon Hollow in Alpha; Gilded Vein (gold), Titan Spur (titanium) in Beta; Eldlight Drift and Runespar Hollow (rare earth) in Gamma. A legacy paid claim path still exists, but discovery is the intended route. See Sectors for how asteroids feed the shared station economy.

Surviving squad dwarves may also discover a new trait on a successful return (separate roll, scaling with research and trait slots; legendary traits are never randomly discovered).

Rift Discovery #

Older builds spawned rifts at a flat ~10%. That number is stale — rift discovery is now stage-scaled.

A successful expedition can also tear open a combat rift in the explored sector (see Rifts & Fleet). The deeper you push, the likelier a rift surfaces:

chance = RIFT_DISCOVERY_BASE + RIFT_DISCOVERY_PER_STAGE × (stage − 1)
       = 0.22 + 0.07 × (stage − 1)

So a Stage-1 bank-and-run has a 22% chance while a full Stage-5 push reaches 50% — deeper pushes are much likelier to surface a rift. Source: RIFT_DISCOVERY_BASE = 0.22, RIFT_DISCOVERY_PER_STAGE = 0.07.

Attrition Model #

Three resources drain as you go deeper: Supplies, Health, Fatigue.

Supply Drain #

Each chosen option deducts its supplyCost, plus a passive drain per stage (5 / 8 / 12 / 16 / 20 — see the stage table above). Sector hazard traits multiply passive drain (e.g. Pirate Activity ×1.3). If Supplies hit 0, suppliesFactor floors at 0.3 — the squad can still act but outcome weights are heavily degraded. The squad does not auto-return on supply exhaustion; you (or a Doctrine) must order it.

Health Damage #

Damage from an option’s healthRisk is variance-rolled per dwarf:

actualDamage(dwarf) = roll(0, healthRisk) × (1 − Guardian_reduction) × Courage_Ale_factor

• Guardian ability reduces the result 20% for the whole squad.
• Courage Ale reduces it 25%.
• These stack multiplicatively (Guardian + Courage = 0.8 × 0.75 = 0.6× damage).

Fatigue Gain #

fatigueGain(dwarf, stage) = baseFatiguePerStage(stage) × fatigueScalar(health)

Base fatigue per stage is 3 / 5 / 7 / 10 / 14. fatigueScalar rises when health is low (×1.5 below 50 health, ×2.0 below 25). Firebrew halves base fatigue. At 100 Fatigue the dwarf is exhausted and capability is severely penalised; high fatigue forces rest on return but does not halt a run mid-expedition. See Status & Needs.

Return Decision — Push Your Luck #

After every stage (1–4) you choose, with no time limit:

Bank and go home — keep bankedLoot now, safely. Push on — run the next stage for richer rewards at ongoing cost.

This is the core push-your-luck mechanic. Suggested (not hard) signals:

Banked loot is safe. If a dwarf goes down in a later stage, loot banked up to that point is still recovered. Only a whole-squad wipe forfeits everything. There is deliberately no timer on the return decision — an idle-game courtesy so you are never punished for stepping away.

Downed → Rescued → Injured #

There is no permadeath. Stakes come from downtime and lost capability.

When a dwarf’s Health hits 0 mid-expedition they become downed. On return (voluntary or forced) downed dwarves are automatically Rescued and arrive home Injured, sent to the Hospital/Medbay and benched until healed.

Recovery timers advance offline — they are recovery timers, never death timers.

Whole-squad wipe (every dwarf at 0 Health): the expedition returns immediately, all banked loot is forfeited, all members return Injured, and an optional 50–200 credit emergency-extraction cost may apply. The Last Stand ability prevents a wipe once per run — its carrier stabilises at 1 HP so the squad limps home with loot intact.

See Combat overview for the in-stage encounter resolution that can cause this damage.

Doctrines & Auto-Resolution #

Running many concurrent expeditions must not mean hundreds of clicks. A Doctrine is a saved set of standing orders that auto-resolves stages and the push/return decision. Six presets ship in doctrines.json:

Doctrine fields: autoReturnHealthPct / autoReturnSuppliesPct (return thresholds), prefer (relic / credits / resources / safe), avoidHighRisk + highRiskCeiling, maxStage, preferArtifact, flaggedInterruptEnabled, and flaggedTimeoutMinutes (default 10 — how long the system waits for you on a flagged option before falling back to the best non-flagged choice).

Flagged Interrupts #

Any option with healthRisk > 70 or an ability-gated branch is flagged. When a Doctrine is active, flagged options still surface as a player interrupt (if flaggedInterruptEnabled), so you never miss a legendary decision while automating routine ones.

Automation Tiers #

The engine enforces which Doctrine fields are active based on your automation level:

VIP players unlock Standard Doctrine without the research gate and can save up to 10 templates. Pilot-class dwarves improve auto-resolution quality. See Automation & QoL.

Concurrent Expeditions #

You begin with 1 expedition slot (unlocked alongside the Cargo Shuttle Dock). More slots come from Guild Administration research, the Orbital Foundry mega-project (Phase 4 grants +1), and the Military Outpost station specialisation (+1 per level). VIP adds a few convenience queue slots.

The Expedition Report #

Every expedition that ends now surfaces an Expedition Report (🧭) modal — a gains-summary read-out shown on return (v0.15.0). It pops whether you voluntarily banked, ran to the final stage, or suffered a whole-squad wipe. If several expeditions return back-to-back (for example during offline catch-up), the reports queue and show in order.

On a successful return the modal lists:

• Credits earned — with a note that any overflow above your storage cap is auto-sold at muster.
• Resource loot, itemised per resource.
• Any capital-ship equipment drop, shown as an accented, tier-coloured headline row with its effect (see below).
• Artifact drops.
• Crew trait discoveries.
• A newly charted asteroid (from the discovery roll above).
• A rift torn open (from the rift-discovery roll above).
• Injuries, with their severity.

On a wipe the modal instead shows “💀 Expedition Lost — all banked loot was lost” plus injuries only.

The report is a pure read-out — every reward it lists was already applied when the expedition resolved. Nothing is claimed or confirmed from the modal.

Capital-Ship Equipment Drops #

If you own at least one capital ship, a completed expedition has an 8% chance to drop a piece of capital-ship equipment.

• Expedition drops are Common-centred and hard-capped at Rare — only rift bosses can drop above Rare.
• Expedition depth raises the item’s level but not its tier: dropLevel = stage + 0–2, so roughly level 1–7 depending on how deep you pushed.

For the full capital-equipment system — the seven tiers, the four typed slots, and how boss drops differ — see Rifts & Fleet.

Related Pages #

• Sectors — where expeditions run and what asteroids they can discover
• Galaxies & Rulesets — galaxy modifiers that reshape expedition risk and reward
• Progression Path — how expeditions gate sector expansion
• Dwarves and Ale & Potions
• Artifacts & Reliquaries
• Research Tree