Skip to content

Scoring

Your planet has one number that defines its place in the universe: your score. It determines your ranking, who can attack you, who you can attack, and ultimately where you finish in the Hall of Fame.

This page covers exactly what contributes to score, the formula in plain terms, and how score interacts with combat mechanics.

What counts toward score

Your score is recalculated every tick by the engine, based on six factors:

Component Multiplier Contribution
Ships at home 1.0× build cost Highest weight — your stationed fleet
Ships in transit 1.0× build cost Fleets in flight count too
Nebula garrisons 1.0× build cost Ships stationed in nebula slots
Initiated orbitals 300 per orbital Working Ti/Si/Ur orbitals
Uninitiated orbitals 150 per orbital Half-value, still counts
Planetary Defense Systems 1.0× build cost Pulse Lasers, Plasma Turrets, Shields, etc.
Research completed 0.3× build cost Lower weight — knowledge counts less than firepower
Stockpiled resources 0.25× total All Ti + Si + Ur sitting in your treasury

The formula in plain terms

score = fleet_value × 1.0
      + nebula_garrisons × 1.0
      + (initiated_orbitals × 300) + (uninitiated_orbitals × 150)
      + pds_value × 1.0
      + research_value × 0.3
      + (stockpile_total × 0.25)

Every value is calculated from the cost of the underlying assets — a ship that cost 800 Ti + 600 Si + 150 Ur to build contributes 1 550 to your score.

Why fleet value dominates

A typical mid-game planet's score distribution:

Component Approximate share
Fleet value (ships + transit + garrisons) 55–70%
Orbitals 15–25%
Research 5–10%
PDS 5–10%
Stockpile 5–10%

Fleet value is the dominant contributor by design. The game rewards active play: building fleets, fighting battles, gaining and losing ships through combat. A player who builds nothing and just sits on resources scores lower than a player at the same activity level with a real fleet.

The 0.3× research multiplier is intentional too — research is a long-term economic investment, but it shouldn't outweigh military power. A player who maxes research but has no ships ranks below a player with a full fleet.

The 0.25× stockpile multiplier closes the "hoarding loophole" from earlier balance versions. In v1, you could mask your true score by sitting on huge resource piles (since stockpile didn't count). In v2, stockpiled resources contribute to score, so there's no longer a benefit to deliberately keeping resources unused.

How score updates

Score recalculation runs in phase 17 of every tick (see Ticks). This means:

  • After a successful attack, your score updates the same tick
  • After a successful scan, your uninitiated orbital count goes up — score reflects it the same tick
  • Resource production updates BEFORE scoring, so any income that arrives this tick counts immediately
  • Research completions activate before scoring, so newly-completed research updates score this tick

Score snapshots are saved every 48 ticks (24 hours in a regular season, 4 hours in a Speed Round). These snapshots power the stats site charts — they're how the game shows your score growth over time.

Score and attack rules

Your score determines who can target you in PvP combat. The v2 engine enforces a sliding floor that scales with the attacker's size:

min_target_score = attacker.score × GREATEST(0.20, LEAST(0.60,
    0.20 + GREATEST(0, attacker.score − 20_000_000) / 180_000_000.0 × 0.40))

The bigger the attacker, the bigger the minimum target. There is no upper limit — you can always punch up.

Attacker score Floor Smallest legal target
≤ 20M 20% 20% of attacker score
50M ~27% ~13.5M
100M ~38% ~38M
150M ~49% ~73.5M
200M+ 60% (cap) 60% of attacker score

Small players have full 20%–unlimited range; whales (200M+) are isolated — they can only reach down to 60% of their own score. Mid-tier players are protected from endgame farming.

Some practical implications:

  • Asymmetric protection. A 200M attacker can't target a 100M player (below 60% floor), but the 100M player can attack the 200M whale (no upper limit).
  • The Void is always attackable. NPC planets ignore the floor entirely. The Void is the universal farm pool — losing badly always leaves you Void to claw back from.
  • Score protection only applies to PvP. Nebula and Dominion battles ignore this rule (alliance vs NPC or alliance vs alliance).
  • Terminated planets bypass the check. A planet whose status is non-active (banned, abandoned, deleted) has score=0 effectively, but the engine separately blocks attacks on non-active targets.
  • Score ratio scales orbital theft. Within the legal range, attacking a planet bigger than you (up to 2× your score) doubles potential theft; attacking smaller halves it. See Combat — Orbital theft

Why the sliding floor matters

In v1, a fixed 20% floor let large players still farm mid-tier targets. A 200M whale could reach down to 40M planets, devastating the active mid-game. In v2, the same whale can only attack 120M+ players, protecting the entire mid-tier band.

The cap at 60% (kicking in at 200M score) means whales must either fight each other, push into Orbital Dominion ring tiers, or farm The Void. They can't grind down on growing planets.

Why you want to scan before attacking

You see another planet's score on the leaderboard or galaxy view. But you don't see what makes up that score until you scan them. A planet at score 500 000 could be:

  • 350k in fleet + 150k in orbitals — a balanced threat
  • 480k in orbitals + 20k in fleet — easy target (low defense)
  • 250k in fleet + 100k in PDS + 150k other — fortress
  • 350k stockpile + 100k research + 50k fleet — a "score whale" sitting on resources

Each of these requires a different fleet to attack profitably. Use scans to find out what you're hitting before you commit.

Three ways to win

The leaderboards tracked across a season:

Best Planet

The single planet with the highest final score at end-of-season. Single-player achievement — your name, your race, your final rank.

Best Galaxy

Sum of all planet scores in a galaxy. Rewards strong galactic neighborhoods. Even if you don't finish #1 personally, you can be part of the winning galaxy if your neighbors all play well.

Best Alliance

Sum of all member planet scores PLUS alliance Valor Points from Nebula War + Orbital Dominion. This is the most "team-strategic" ranking — it rewards alliance coordination over individual heroics.

A small alliance with three top-10 individual players can lose Best Alliance to a 25-person alliance whose members average rank 200 — because total score matters more than peak score.

Score and ranking

Your rank is your position in the score-ordered leaderboard. Ranks update every tick along with scores.

Movement up the rankings is active: gain a battle, scan up new orbitals, complete a research — your score goes up. Drop in the rankings is also active: lose ships in combat, lose orbitals to theft, lose PDS to repeated attacks — your score goes down.

The Hall of Fame records the peak score ever achieved by any planet in the season, not just the final score. A player whose score spiked at tick 1000 and then crashed to tick 2500 can still hold a Hall of Fame entry for their peak.

Tracking your score

Your current score and rank are shown on:

  • Your planet overview screen (always visible)
  • The galaxy view (when looking at neighbors)
  • The alliance roster (sortable by score)
  • The leaderboard tab (all planets sorted by rank)
  • The stats site (live during season + permanent archive after)

Quick reference

Concept Detail
Update frequency Every tick (phase 17)
Snapshot frequency Every 48 ticks (for stats site history)
Fleet value multiplier 1.0×
Nebula garrison multiplier 1.0×
Orbital value (initiated) 300 per orbital
Orbital value (uninitiated) 150 per orbital
PDS multiplier 1.0×
Research multiplier 0.3×
Stockpile multiplier 0.25× total resources on hand
Attack floor (≤20M attacker) 20% of attacker score
Attack floor (200M+ attacker) 60% of attacker score (cap)
Attack upper limit None — punch up freely
The Void exception Always attackable, no floor
Score protection scope PvP only — not nebula or Dominion
Three leaderboards Best Planet, Best Galaxy, Best Alliance
Hall of Fame tracks Peak score (not final score)

Documentation reflects Orbitarion v2.0. Last updated: 2026-06-07.