Capturing

The main goal of DarkSpace is to capture planets and eliminate all threats effectively. This section of the manual explains the steps involved in your quest for dominance.

Control

Each planet's loyalty to a faction is determined by it's Control value. A planet with a high Control indicates a strong governmental faith in the Faction which controls it. Conversely, a low control shows that the ruling government does not believe in their parent faction, and will not hesitate to change sides.

Control is affected by the presence of friendly and enemy military. A large garrison of allied warships, space platforms and ground troops will improve control, but the presence of a larger insurgent fleet will cause it to fall.

In determining the change to control, each ship is given a uniform weight for both capturing and fortifying. The weight of bomber ships is greater than normal while capturing, and the weight of engineering vessels is greater for fortifying.
The weight of infantry is determined by their rank. A small group of elite infantry is worth more than an entire deployment of green infantry. The weight of 3 ships is worth nearly an entire planet full of green infantry.

Ships affect the control value of planets when they are within 600 gu range of it. If a planet cannot detect the ship then it will not acknowledge the threat presented by it. Infantry affect the control if they are present on the surface, thereby actively presenting a threat to planetary structures and infantry.

Capture Requirement

For a successful capture, the planet's control value must be brought down to zero. There are a variety of ways to achieve this :-

• Solo capture:- If the player encounters a neutral or hostile planet which does not have any defending infantry or ships, then the player can slowly capture it simply by staying near it. This is highly prevalent in scenario servers where neutral and undefended planets are found.
  
• Infantry drop:- If the player needs to capture multiple planets together, then the method of deploying infantry on all the planets can be used. The infantry will slowly shift the control in their faction's favour. This proves useful when the player has to perform other tasks while slowly gaining control of subsidiary planets.
  
• Fleet invasion:- If a fleet needs to capture a planet but does not have any infantry or bomber vessels for killing ground troops, then it can capture the planet by swarming the planet with ships and platforms. This is a very time-expensive method, used when other methods are not sufficient.

Reward for Capture

When a planet is successfully captured, all players of the victorious faction within the control range of the planet receive a point for Planet Capture, and prestige.

• Players receive points in Planet Damage, for deploying troops on an enemy planet. The longer the troops survive, the more the points received.
• Infantry set to raze structures earn more prestige for damaging structures than for fighting enemy infantry.
• If a planet is captured by a player's infantry, the infantry do not earn the player any additional points. If the concerned player is not within the capture range, then he will not earn a point for Planet Capture.