¶ The new Solaris Combat System
This article serves as an introduction and detailed description to the new Solaris combat system, released on 2026-07-28.
If you have experience with the previous combat system, there is a short article comparing the main differences: combat-rework-comparison. This article explains it from the ground up.
¶ Combat occurence
¶ Carrier-to-star combat (C2S)
Carrier-to-star combat happens when any number of incoming carriers in the same tick fights the star they arrive at and any carriers that are stationed there.
¶ Carrier-to-carrier combat (C2C)
Carrier-to-carrier combat happens in two possible situations. The more common situation is carriers encoutering each other in transit. This can only happen if both carriers are travelling between the same two stars (in either direction).
¶ Transit
C2C combat is resolved in the following way:
- For every star pair A and B, carriers travelling between A and B (or B and A) are collected.
- We find collisions between any two carriers. A collision can happen when carriers either meet head-to-head or when one carrier overtakes another (due to speed difference). For each collision, the collision time (the fractional tick) is noted.
- Now, collision pairs from step 2 are grouped into larger groups if the collisions happen in the same place at the same time
- Combat is resolved between all carriers, with the earliest collision groups fighting first
Head-to-head case:
Overtaking case:
¶ Star claiming
Second, C2C combat can also happen when multiple players have carriers arriving at an unclaimed star. Combat is then resolved between the carriers, and the largest singular carrier in the sole remaining group claims the star for its owner.
None of the carriers receive any bonuses pertaining Carrier-to-star combat or defender bonus.
¶ Combat resolution
¶ 1. Grouping
Depending on whether combat happens between carriers (C2C) or between carriers at a star (C2S), multiple objects owned by different players can be involved in the combat. Combat is resolved between groups of objects. Objects of a group fight together and weapons levels and specialists are handled at a group level. Unlike the previous combat system, where there were effectively only two groups (the attacker and the defender) the new system supports an arbitrary number of groups participating in combat, representing distinct alliances.
As a first step, players involved will be sorted into groups.
Players are grouped by alliance, therefore, players A and B are in one group if a) A and B are allied or b) there exists a player C who is allied with both. Alliance is therefore transitive, two players do not need to be allied directly to end up in the same group.
Objects are then sorted into the actual combat groups based on their ownership, so that every group has any number of carriers and 0-1 stars. The combat group that has a star in C2S combat automatically is the defender. In C2C combat, there is no defender group.
Players are put into the same group if they are allied. Alliances are considered transitive, e.g. A and B are allied either directly or if there exists a player C who is by the same definition allied with both.
If after this phase only one group remains, no combat happens. For example, if there are three players A, B and C, and A and C are enemies, but both are allied to B, in any combat involving an object owned by B neutrality is enforced.
¶ Examples
Players A, B, C, D, E exist.
A and B are allied.
B and C are allied.
D and E are allied.
A and C are not allied.
Resulting groups: A, B, C vs. D, E
Players A, B, C exist.
B owns a star, A and C have carriers incoming.
A and B are allied.
B and C are allied.
A and C are not allied/hostile.
No combat happens because B enforces neutrality.
Players A, B, C, D, E exist.
A and B are allied.
C and D are allied.
E is not allied to anyone.
Resulting groups: A, B vs. C, D vs. E
¶ 2. Weapons level calculation
After combat groups are formed, the effective weapons levels are calculated. Due to how specialists work, each group needs to have its weapons level calculated against every other group, since in some cases more or less damage will be dealt.
First, the base weapons level is established. The base weapons level is the maximum weapons level of the players in the group.
Then, defender bonus is applied for the defending group (including specialists that modify it). The defending group is the group containing the star in C2S combat.
The effective weapons levels between two groups are affected by the specialists in both groups. For each group A the weapons level it has against another group B is computed as follows:
- Base weapons level and defender bonus
- Added onto that, the highest buff from A's specialists (e.g. lieutenant)
- Substracted from that, the highest debuff from A's specialists (e.g. explorer)
- Substracted from that, the highest debuff from B's specialists (e.g. infiltrator)
Weapons bonus/malus from specialists apply permanently for the entire combat, even if the carrier a specialist is on would be reduced to 0 ships.
¶ Attack-only specialists
Specialist bonuses can apply differently in different situations, e.g. a weapons boost that only applies in C2C combat. One specific rule exists for attack-only specialists (e.g. siege breaker). Normally, the siege breaker's bonus would apply only to the defender group. To avoid trickery however, the bonus instead applies to the current defender group and any group that contains a player who was allied to the owner of the star when the siege breaker was launched. In practice, this should be of little relevance since the situations where it applies are very unlikely to happen because they can now not be used to neutralise the siege breaker.
If there are more than two groups fighting in C2S, the attack bonus of attack-only specialists is applied to the defender group and all groups containing an ally of the star owner at the time of launch (of the specialist carrier). Alliances are resolved transitively (allies of allies count as allied).
¶ Examples
A group has a base weapons level of 7.
It has a star with an orbital cannon (+1 defender bonus) and an asteroid field (+1 defender bonus).
It has two carriers stationed, with an explorer (-3 weapons) and a colonel (+2 weapons).
The resulting weapons level is:
7 (base) + 3 (defender bonus) + 2 (colonel) - 3 (weapons) = 9
A group has a base weapons level of 5.
It consists of a carrier with a lieutenant (+1 weapons) and one with a general (+3 weapons).
The resulting weapons level is:
5 (base) + 3 (general) = 8
A group has a base weapons level of 4.
It has a carrier with a siege breaker (+4 weapons) and is attacking a star.
It also has a carrier with an admiral (-1 weapons).
The opponent has an infiltrator (-1 weapons on opposing side).
The resulting weapons level is:
4 (base) + 4 (siege breaker) - 1 (admiral) - 1 (opponent infiltrator)
¶ 3. Combat
Combat is performed in rounds.
In every round, every group attacks every other group. Damage is inflicted by deducting ship numbers. The damage a group deals to another is its effective attack value. The effective attack value is computed newly every round, because there is a special rule:
If a group has
nships and a weapons level ofwwheren < w, its effective attack is nown. However, if that group is the defender, its effective attack isn + defender bonus.
The purpose of this special rule is to make small ship numbers viable for defense.
Damage is deducted at the end of a round, so even a 1-ship group will perform attacks on all other groups. A group is eliminated when it has 0 ships remaining. Once there is only a single group left at the end, combat ends and the remaining group is the winner.
In C2C combat, mutual annihilation is possible. In C2S combat, of course the star owning group wins if all groups end up at 0 ships.
¶ Examples
¶ Example 1
Groups A and B, C2C combat, no defender.
| Round | A ships | A attack | B ships | B weapons |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Before | 24 | 5 | 30 | 6 |
| 1 | 18 | 5 | 25 | 6 |
| 2 | 12 | 5 | 20 | 6 |
| 3 | 6 | 5 | 15 | 6 |
| 4 | 1 | 1 | 10 | 6 |
| 5 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 6 |
Group B wins.
¶ Example 2
Groups A and B, C2S combat, A is defender. Defender bonus is 2.
| Round | A ships | A attack | B ships | B weapons |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Before | 24 | 5 | 30 | 6 |
| 1 | 18 | 5 | 25 | 6 |
| 2 | 12 | 5 | 20 | 6 |
| 3 | 6 | 5 | 15 | 6 |
| 4 | 1 | 3 | 10 | 6 |
| 5 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 6 |
Note in round 4 that A does 3 attack with 1 ship, this is due to the defender bonus.
Group B wins.
¶ Example 3
Groups A and B and C, C2S combat, A is defender. Defender bonus is 2.
| Round | A ships | A attack | B ships | B weapons | C ships | C weapons |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Before | 13 | 5 | 22 | 4 | 40 | 2 |
| 1 | 7 | 5 | 15 | 4 | 31 | 2 |
| 2 | 1 | 3 | 8 | 4 | 22 | 2 |
| 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 15 | 2 |
| 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 12 | 2 |
Group C wins.
¶ 4. Damage distribution
Damage distribution basically matches the previous behaviour, but it is now specified.
Once combat ends, damage is distributed between the participating objects.
Each group has received a certain amount of damage. Within that group, damage is distributed equally. Damage is dealt first to objects without specialists and larger objects, thus in the case of a remainder, these objects receive more damage.
Carriers with 0 ships are destroyed. Stars with 0 ships receive no effect, unless they entirely lost combat and get captured by the enemy.
¶ Examples
A group consists of:
A star with 1 ship
A carrier with 70 ships
A carrier with 70 ships and a lieutenant
82 damage are received.
After combat, the star has 0 ships.
The carrier has 38 ships.
The carrier with the lieutenant has 39 ships.
¶ 5. Star capture
In C2S combat, if the defender side loses, its star will be captured by the remaining group. The player who owns the largest carrier after combat will capture, with the distance travelled in the last tick as tiebreaker (closest carriers first).