You are not the only one looting the universe. The game runs six pirate lairs in it: bases no player controls, which launch real attacks on players and hoard what they steal. They are outside the ranking and the public figures. Nobody can log into them or write to them.
Finding them
On the map, a lair is a red dot with a double ring (legend “Pirate lairs”). Each one has a name — Croc-Noir, Rade-aux-Os, Gueule-Rouge, Ecume-Noire… — and sits at the heart of the universe, at most 15 squares from the centre of the players' bases. A lair never relocates: its raid is what travels.
Raids
Each lair launches one raid a day. The six lairs take turns: one departure roughly every four hours, across the whole universe. A raid is an ordinary mission, with its journey, the attack warning on your main page (and on your phone, if you have the app), its battle and its report.
Who gets targeted? Only active players (seen in the last 7 days) who are no longer protected. A player hit by a lair is left alone for 72 hours: no lair will target them again before then. A target already chosen by a raid on its way is not chosen twice. Among the possible targets, the lair takes the nearest in hours of travel. Seven times out of ten, it goes for a player rather than a bot.
How strong? The raid is cut to fit your defence, including allies who came to defend you:
- combat ships, enough to weigh 40% of your space defence (5 at least);
- soldiers for 30% of your ground defence, never fewer than 200 nor more than 5,000;
- harvesters, one per ten soldiers (10 at least);
- and the transports to carry them, plus one.
It brings no annihilators, no deviators, no bombs: a raid loots, it does not raze. It stays one or two hours on site, then flies home with its loot.
What a raid takes from you
The ordinary combat rules apply. If the raid holds your ground, its soldiers loot at most 5% of your stocks. Its harvesters loot even contested ground, up to 10%. The loot travels in its transports and only reaches the lair when it returns: a sunk transport leaves its share on your planet.
Protecting yourself
- A balanced defence. The raid comes at 40% of your fleet and 30% of your garrison: a well-kept defence usually drives it off.
- Resource vaults. Each vault takes one point off both lootable shares (5% and 10%), and that counts against a raid too.
- Cannon and shield. The attack warning gives you time to switch them on.
- Interception. A raid is a squadron like any other: you can catch it on its way, going out or coming back with full transports.
Attacking a lair: the hoard
A lair is attacked like a planet, with the Attack order (not while you are protected yourself). If you win its ground phase, you take half of its stocks of vitarium, energy and food: its hoard, made of what its refineries produce and what its raids have stolen. No harvesters needed, but you need transports to bring it back: with no transport afloat, nothing is taken. With several attackers, the hoard is shared in proportion to the ground troops still standing. Ordinary looting adds to it every hour on site.
The hoard has a cap: a lair stores no more than 15,000 vitarium, 2,000 energy and 2,000 food. One capture therefore brings in about 7,500 vitarium at most.
What awaits you: a garrison of at least 400 robots, 300 soldiers and 30 combat ships, with no research, no cannon, no shield and no station. The lair does not strike back.
In the universe, a battle against a lair is public: its 3D replay shows up on the galaxy 24 hours later and stays there 30 days.