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Systems
Visible: 0Income: 0Colonies: 0
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Stellarum Manual
Goal
Stellarum is a game of exploration, empire-building, and war against the Ancients who still garrison the galaxy's most valuable systems. The first player to reach 60 points wins (every seat gets equal turns once someone crosses the line — ties make co-winners); if nobody has by round 30, the highest score wins.
Banked points (permanent): found a colony +1, raise a tech level +2, win a battle +2.
Status points (lossable — they vanish if you lose the holding): +10 per held Monolith system ▲, +5 per held captured gold base slot.
The scoreboard in the lower-right shows every player's bank + status = total.
BTUs (actions)
Every action — move, teleport, explore, colonize, build, research, battle, reinforce, withdraw, retreat — costs 1 BTU. At the start of your turn you receive 25 BTUs for your home base, +5 for each captured gold base you hold, and +10 for holding the galactic center. Each colony also consumes 1 BTU of upkeep per turn.
BTUs are the whole budget: when your last available BTU is spent you must end your turn. Abandoning a colony (free) returns its upkeep BTU to the pool mid-turn.
The final 5 BTUs cost Material on top of the action: 🔩10 with 5 left, then 20, 30, 40, and 50 for the last one. If you can't pay, those BTUs are unusable — same as having none left (they still bank as Material). The countdown by the Systems panel shows the next BTU's cost.
Resources
🔩 Material is the empire's single treasury: colonies produce it at the start of your turn (each system's yield is shown on the map and in the focus panel), and at the end of your turn every unspent BTU banks as 1 Material. It builds ships, buys research, and pays the final-5 BTU surcharge — acting more means saving slower. The stockpile carries over between turns.
Exploring & Colonizing
Only explored systems are visible — and exploration is shared by ALL players: anything anyone explores, everyone sees, fleets included. Every system you could explore right now shows as a dotted circle, and explored systems always show connection stubs toward unexplored space.
Explore: click (or right-click) any dotted system — it explores immediately, one action each. A discovery card appears for a few seconds listing the system's resources, Ancient garrisons, Monoliths, and alien tech.
Colonize: with your fleet on an explored, open system, hit Colonize. Only colonies produce resources and hold territory; each costs 1 BTU upkeep per turn. Abandon reverses it (free) and frees the upkeep.
Build: on one of your colonies, Build… turns Material into ships (1 🔩 each, 99 cap per system). Each BTU spent building buys up to 5 ships. Your empire supports at most 20 ships per held base (home, gold bases, the center) plus 1 per other colony — checked only when you build (ships in sieges count); you never lose ships for losing a base.
Research & Blueprints
Five ship techs — shield, computer, weapon, hull, missiles — each level 0-3. Raising a level costs 50/100/150 Material (and +2 points). Level 2 requires a colonized ring-2 system (a Tier II forge world); level 3 requires ring-1. Some systems grant alien tech ⚛ while you hold a colony there — grants apply instantly to your fleets and vanish if the system is lost. The Research… panel shows researched vs. effective levels — the effective row is your ship blueprint.
Battles
Moving onto a hostile system (an Ancient garrison or a defended enemy system) starts a battle: click it once to arm the attack, click again to engage. 1 round resolves immediately; the siege then continues at your turn starts with 2, then 3, then 4… rounds per turn — battles escalate, so bring enough ships or plan to leave.
Missiles fire once per cohort of ships as it joins the battle, before the gun duels.
Between rounds, on your turn (not the turn you attacked): reinforce by moving ships into the battle from an adjacent system, or Withdraw the whole siege fleet to an adjacent system — withdrawing loses the battle (the defender banks the win).
The defender may Retreat the garrisoned fleet out on their turn — that also loses the battle, and the attacker occupies.
A contested system shows a dashed ring in the attacker's color with the siege count; the focus panel shows the full battle status.
Walking into an undefended system is never a battle (and scores no battle points) — the fleet just takes it, eliminating any colony there.
Ancients
The old empire's garrisons (red ring) guard valuable systems — always the capital and gold base slots, and more often toward the center. They never move and never attack, but they must be defeated in battle before you can take what they guard, and their ships outclass yours near the core. A damaged garrison left alone for a full round heals back to strength — half-measures are wasted ships.
▲ Monolith systems are worth +10 points while you hold a colony there.
⚛ Alien tech systems grant a tech level while you hold a colony there.
Gold glow marks the capital and gold base slots — colonize one you've cleared for +5 BTU per turn and +5 points.
Hypergates & Supply
Your home and every colony automatically carry a hypergate. Two adjacent systems where you hold gates are joined by a hyperlane — drawn twice as thick on the map (yours in the normal blue; other players' lanes in light gray). You can also build a gate on any open system your fleet occupies (Hypergate button, 1 BTU + 🔩1) to string lanes across neutral space.
Supply flows along lanes: a colony pays its Material income only while a chain of your hyperlanes connects it to your home system. Cut-off colonies still cost upkeep — the Systems panel shows how many are cut.
Enemy fleets cut the web: any fleet arriving at a system destroys all enemy hypergates there (and eliminates an undefended colony as usual). Abandoning a colony keeps its gate.
Lane moves lose no ships: moving (or teleporting) between two systems that both carry your gate suspends fatigue attrition — fatigue itself still accrues, so range stays 5.
Home succession: lose your home and your earliest-colonized surviving base slot (gold base or the center) becomes the new home, granting the home's 25 BTUs. Lose your last base slot and you are out of the game — colonies and fleets alone don't save you.
Fleets
Fatigue: each hop adds a fatigue dot (10% combat penalty each; 5% of a moving group arrives disabled, into the destination's dock — suspended on your hyperlanes). Fatigue and dock repair reset at your turn start.
Each system holds at most 99 operational ships.
Teleport: select a base, then Shift-click another colonized base slot's edge marker to jump the fleet there (1 BTU, normal move costs).
Passing fleets don't hold territory: a non-colonized system reverts to open space the moment your last ship leaves. Colonies are what you own.
Live Play
Multiplayer turns are live: every action is committed and streamed the moment it is made—no takebacks—and while you wait you watch the acting player's moves play out on your own board (arrows, battles, explorations, fleet splits and merges). A watch bar shows whose turn it is and who is online. Follow keeps your camera tracking the acting player's view; panning the map yourself pauses it, and re-ticking Follow (or the start of your own turn) turns it back on. ⟲ Replay last turn re-plays everything since you last acted, at Fast/Normal/Slow pace. The Pause button (where solo shows save) leaves for the lobby; the game lives on the server, so you can resume any time from My Games.
Mouse Controls
Click - Act (does not select). With a fleet selected: click an adjacent explored system to move/merge; click a hostile system once to arm the attack and again to engage; click a contested system to reinforce its battle. Click an unexplored system to stage an Explore. Click empty map to clear selection and staging.
Right-Click - Select your fleet on an owned system (or an empty owned colony). Does not move or attack.
Shift+Right-Click - Center/refocus view on a system (clears selection). The focus panel (bottom-right) shows the focused system's full details.
Shift+Click - Base-to-base teleport via the edge markers only.
Left-Click+Drag - Pan the map. Mouse wheel - Rotate the map (adjusts the count in split mode).
Double-Click - Start a fleet split (1 moving / rest staying; Shift+double-click = halves). In split mode, click an adjacent system to move/attack/reinforce with just the moving group. Splits are broadcast — opponents watching live see your fleet divide.
Action bar (lower-left): Colonize, Build…, Research…, Abandon, and — when a battle is focused or selected — Withdraw/Retreat. Hover a disabled button to see why.
E - Fire the staged Explore. End Turn - hand off (income and battle rounds arrive at the start of the next turn).
Phone and tablet (touch)
On a touch-first device you get extra on-screen controls; pinch-zoom still zooms the page for readability.
Shift next - Tap the orange button to arm the next action as if Shift were held: teleport via a base marker, or equal-half split on double-tap. Turns off after one use or after a timeout.
Rotate map - Use the rotation slider: along the top in portrait, or a vertical rail on the side in landscape.
Split amount - In split mode, use the horizontal split slider below the map.
Tap / double-tap - Same as click / double-click. Long-press - same as right-click (select). Shift next + long-press - refocus. Drag - pan.
Reading the Map
Player colors - each player has their own earth-tone hue; a dark rim marks a colony (colonies read as bases).
Light blue - explored open systems (owner none). Gold glow - unheld capital / gold base slots.
Red glowing count - an Ancient garrison; a fleet count glowing in a player's color is that player's fleet camped on a neutral system. Dashed ring - a battle in progress (attacker's color, siege count above-right).
▲ Monolith, ⚛ alien tech; the small m·t·s triple is the system's resource output.
Dotted circles - systems you can explore right now; connection stubs - edges toward unexplored space.
Thick blue links - your hyperlanes (your supply web); thick gray links - other players' hyperlanes. ⛩ in the dossier lists a system's hypergates.
Fatigue dots sit above the ship count; brown lower-left number is the repair dock; the Ship Losses ticker (lower-left) logs each battle round as your losses | enemy losses.