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Documents game v0.14.0

Sectors

A sector is a claimable region of space — a belt of asteroids with its own risk tier, signature resources, alien faction profile, and trait modifiers. Since v0.14.0 “The Restaurant at the Edge of the Sector” the home galaxy (g1) contains eight sectors, each re-themed to a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy race: Alpha (Sol Reach), Beta (Vorgon Verge), Gamma (Betelgeuse Cluster), Delta (Magrathea), Epsilon (Golgafrincham Drift), Zeta (Kakrafoon), Eta (Santraginus V) and Theta (Krikkit). They form the forward progression spine from your starting iron-and-ice colony to the xenophobic war-world behind the Wikkit Gate.

You explore sectors with expeditions, discover asteroids inside them, build a Sector Station to pool their output, and expand to the next sector by fully clearing a rift — see Sector Expansion & Rift Gates.

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

The Eight Home-Galaxy Sectors

Sector Name Race Tier Base Danger Signature Resources Default Traits
Alpha Sol Reach Human safe 1.00 iron, copper, ice Rich Veins, Trade Winds
Beta Vorgon Verge Vorgon dangerous 1.35 gold ore, titanium ore, crystal, bistromath alloy Pirate Activity, Dense Asteroids
Gamma Betelgeuse Cluster Betelgeusian ancient 1.80 rare relics, exotic materials, praxis crystal Ancient Ruins, Precursor Cache, Plague Vector
Delta Magrathea Magrathean stellar 2.30 helium-3, enriched fuel, exotic materials, magrathean goldveil Radiation Storms, Fuel-Rich, Anomalous Signals
Epsilon Golgafrincham Drift Golgafrinchan dominion 3.00 rare relics, exotic materials, helium-3, arkfoam composite Precursor Cache, Void Echoes, Gravitational Shear, Plague Vector
Zeta Kakrafoon Belcerebon dominion 3.40 exotic materials, silent resonite Void Echoes, Anomalous Signals
Eta Santraginus V Santraginean dominion 3.80 rare relics, santraginean searock Dense Asteroids, Void Echoes
Theta Krikkit Krikkiter krikkit 4.50 exotic materials, wikkit steelium Void Echoes, Precursor Cache, Gravitational Shear

baseDanger is a multiplier applied to expedition risk and supply drain before sector-trait modifiers stack on top. Each live sector instance may roll additional traits beyond its defaults (0–3 total, weighted by tier).

The stellar, dominion and krikkit tiers (Delta through Theta) are first-pass and pending enum registration; treat them as the designed late- and end-game tiers. Each non-human sector adds its own alien material, race station, race drone and research branch — see Sector Expansion & Rift Gates.

Unlock Gates — Now Rift-Driven (v0.14.0)

Major v0.14.0 change. The old “Unlock Sector” buttons are gone. You no longer assemble a gate from a mega-project milestone + research tier + stockpile. Instead, each locked sector sits behind a rift gate crewed by that sector’s race, and fully clearing a rift rolls to tear open the corridor to the next sector.

Alpha is your gate-free starting sector. Beyond it, expansion is the rift-clear loop:

clear a rift (all 10 levels)  →  roll to break through  →  next sector + 2 free asteroids

The break-through chance starts at 50% and halves per tier (Alpha 50% → Beta 25% → Gamma 12.5% …), floored at 10%: max(0.10, 0.50 / 2^sectorIndex). A successful clear bypasses the old gates and seeds the new sector with 2 free starter asteroids. The legacy research/mega-project/stockpile requirements still exist in sectors.json as a soft flavour spine, but they no longer block you — the rift does.

Full detail, including the per-race gate flagships and the unlock chance table, lives on Sector Expansion & Rift Gates.

Sector Traits

Traits are data-driven modifiers (shared engine with galaxy rulesets) in three categories. A sector applies its defaultTraits; instances may roll more.

Economic Traits

Trait Effect
Rich Veins Yield ×1.25 (excludes Thin Deposits)
Dense Asteroids +2 asteroid claim slots; expedition risk ×1.10
Trade Winds Market sell price ×1.20; cargo travel time ×0.85
Mineral Glut Yield ×1.40 but sell price ×0.75
Thin Deposits Yield ×0.70 (excludes Rich Veins)
Fuel-Rich Nebula Yield ×1.50 and fuel production ×1.25 (fuel chain only)

Hazard Traits

Trait Effect
Radiation Storms Expedition risk ×1.35, health damage ×1.25, supply drain ×1.20, raid frequency ×1.30
Pirate Activity Expedition risk ×1.40, supply drain ×1.30, raid frequency ×2.00
Ion Tempests Expedition risk ×1.30, stage timer ×1.20, cargo travel ×1.25
Low Gravity Yield ×1.15 but expedition risk ×1.20, fatigue ×1.30
Gravitational Shear Expedition risk ×1.50, build time ×1.20, raid frequency ×1.50
Plague Vector Health damage ×1.40, hospital recovery time ×1.25

Discovery Traits

Trait Effect
Ancient Ruins Artifact drop ×2.00, rare-branch chance ×1.50, enemy threat ×1.20 (automatons)
Anomalous Signals Rare-dwarf recruit ×1.60, new-asteroid discovery ×1.30, raid frequency ×1.10
Derelict Fleet Artifact drop ×1.75, salvage loot ×1.50, expedition risk ×1.20, raid frequency ×1.20
Void Echoes Artifact drop ×1.40, outcome variance ×1.50, raid frequency ×1.20
Precursor Cache Artifact drop ×2.50, enables unique-artifact pool, enemy threat ×1.40 (automatons)

Most modifiers stack multiplicatively; flat ones (like Dense Asteroids’ claim slots) are summed and applied once. uniqueArtifactChance is a binary gate — the unique-artifact pool opens when any active source provides it at ≥ 1.0.

The Sector-Station Shared-Pool Economy

Major v0.10.0 change. Sector Stations are now storage + logistics hubs, not gatekeepers.

Each sector you have invested in can host a Sector Station (state.stations[id]), built and upgraded in Projects → World (not on an asteroid). A station holds a shared inventory pool (inv) with a per-level storage cap that scales 25,000 → 1,000,000 across its upgrade levels.

Direct-draw shared pool. Any owned asteroid in the sector can build structures and run recipes drawing from its station’s pool. The spend logic uses local asteroid stock first, then the station pool, so you don’t have to micromanage where a resource physically sits. The station’s inventory counts toward your empire aggregate totals.

Logistics & limpets. Cargo shuttles move resources between endpoints:

  • asteroid → station and station → station burn fuel;
  • station → asteroid within the same sector is a free, instant LIMPET transfer;
  • asteroids cannot shuttle out of their own sector — the station is the sector’s gateway.

The station gates almost nothing. As of v0.10.0 the Science Dorm, Trade Lodge, Component Factory, Cargo Shuttle Dock, the Orbital Foundry, and the Beta sector unlock no longer require a station to exist. The only future station-gated content will be station modules (reserved moduleSlots). See Stations for station tiers, specialisations, and modules.

The older “Manage” panel on each asteroid has been retired. Manage asteroids via the surface + Build drawer, the Mine Shaft modal (deposit allocation), the Inventory panel (stocks), the Dwarves panel (crews), and Projects (stations).

Asteroids Within a Sector

Every sector contains a roster of claimable asteroids, each with named deposits (primary + secondary). You acquire them mainly through expedition discovery (~18% per successful expedition in that sector grants one free — see Expeditions); a legacy paid-claim path still exists. A newly acquired asteroid automatically joins its sector station’s connected set if a slot is free. You then build a Mine Shaft to tap its deposits, feeding the shared pool.

There are 5 claimable asteroids per sector. Example asteroids: Copper Drift, Silica Reach, Carbon Hollow (Alpha); Form 27B Stroke 6, Poetry Appreciation Belt (Beta, Vorgon Verge); Pan Galactic Drift, Hoopy Reach (Gamma, Betelgeuse Cluster); Slartibartfast Shelf (Delta, Magrathea); Disaster Area Stage (Zeta, Kakrafoon); Wikkit Gate Spur (Theta, Krikkit).

How You Expand

  1. Work the current sector — claim/discover asteroids, build the shared-pool station, run production chains.
  2. Run expeditions in the sector for loot, asteroid discovery, and to find rifts (≈10% per successful expedition).
  3. Fully clear a rift to roll for a break-through to the next sector — its rift gate is crewed by the next sector’s race. A successful clear grants 2 free starter asteroids.
  4. Repeat through all eight sectors — each non-human sector introduces an alien material, race station, race drone and research branch, all the way to Theta (Krikkit).

After Theta, expansion continues into new galaxies — there is no prestige and no reset; the empire only grows.

Documents SpaceDwarves v0.10.0 · Changelog