Colony Ships & New Worlds
A colony ship founds worlds. It is not a warship and not a trader. There are two kinds. The difference is the jump gate, and what is already standing on the new world.
Interstellar colony ship
This is the ship for a new solar system.
- It may pass a jump gate, like any other fleet. Fuel, zeropoint, and the gate limits apply here too.
- In a system where you do not own a world yet, it founds the first colony.
- You receive that map's starting stock, an administration, defense, a power plant, and a transport platform.
- The platform is what later lets freight from home arrive.
In a system you already own, this ship only founds another world: administration and defense. The power plant, the platform, and the map's starting stock do not come again.
Ordinary colony ship
It stays in the solar system where it was built.
- A jump gate refuses it. It cannot reach a system it is not already in.
- On the star map you send it to an empty planet, moon, station, old ship, or asteroid.
- When it arrives, you confirm the colony.
- The new world gets an administration and defense. No power plant and no transport platform from the ship, and no starting stock for the whole map.
Each colony ship is used up when it founds a world. The next world needs a new hull from the shipyard.
Requirements
- A colony-capable ship from the shipyard.
- A valid empty target you can reach (not owned by someone else).
- For jumps to new solar systems: jump gates, fuel, and gate capacity like any interstellar move.
- A ship that is digging cannot set off until the dig is finished.
Strategy
Do not colonize everywhere at once. Secure one new solar system, supply it via interstellar transport, stabilize economy and population, then expand again.
A scattered empire without logistics collapses under its own weight.