Most of the questions we get in support tickets are about items. In almost every case we investigate, the item is not broken. It simply works differently from what the player expected.

This guide explains what each item family does, what it affects, and what it does not affect, with worked examples.

Three rules first

1. Every item has a scope. Some work only on the planet where you activate them, others across your whole account.
2. Speed-up items only affect the job that is currently active, not the ones waiting in the queue.
3. A speed-up shortens the time. It does not hand you the product instantly.

Each of these is unpacked below.

PART 1 — Speed-up items

There are three speed-up items and each one looks at a different queue.

KRAKEN shortens the building that is currently under construction.


DETROID shortens the ship or defense order currently in production.


NEWTRON shortens the research currently in progress.


All three come in the same tiers: Bronze 30 minutes, Silver 2 hours, Gold 6 hours. None of them are sold in the shop. They can only be won from the Auctioneer.

Rule 1: only the active job

KRAKEN does not shorten your whole building queue. It only shortens the building that is actually under construction at that moment. The same applies to DETROID and NEWTRON.

The jobs waiting behind it keep their own durations. But because the active job got shorter, everything behind it shifts forward by the same amount, so the whole queue does finish earlier.

A concrete example. Three buildings in the queue, 5 hours each:
                   Without item    With a 2h KRAKEN
1st finishes          05:00              03:00
2nd finishes          10:00              08:00
3rd finishes          15:00              13:00
As you can see, each building did not lose 2 hours. Only the active first one was shortened, and the other two shifted forward by 2 hours. The total gain is 2 hours, not 6.

Rule 2: ships are not credited instantly

This is the single most misunderstood item behaviour.

Shipyard orders are not delivered in one lump at the end. The shipyard has a production rate per second, and ships arrive continuously throughout the order. DETROID speeds up that flow. It does not pay out in bulk.

Let us walk through it with real numbers.

Order: 50,000 Large Cargos
Shipyard rate: 2 ships per second
Total duration: 50,000 / 2 = 25,000 seconds, which is 6 hours 56 minutes 40 seconds

Now you use a 2 hour DETROID right after placing the order. The item removes 7,200 seconds:

New total duration: 25,000 - 7,200 = 17,800 seconds, which is 4 hours 56 minutes 40 seconds
New rate: 50,000 / 17,800 = 2.81 ships per second

The number of ships did not change. The only thing that changed is that the same 50,000 ships now flow at 2.81 per second instead of 2.

Here is how many ships are actually sitting on your planet at each point:
Time elapsed        Without item      With item
-----------------------------------------------
1 hour                   7,200          10,112
2 hours                 14,400          20,224
3 hours                 21,600          30,337
4 hours                 28,800          40,449
4h 56m 40s              35,600          50,000  <- done
6h 56m 40s              50,000          (finished long ago)
Right after you use the item the ship counter does not jump, which is why it looks like nothing happened. But one hour in, you have 10,112 ships where you would have had 7,200 without it. The gap widens as the order progresses, and the order closes exactly 2 hours earlier.

If you use it mid-order

Most players use the item in the middle of an order. The logic is the same:

• Every ship delivered up to that point stays on your planet. Nothing is taken back.
• The remaining ships keep arriving, at the new faster pace.
• The finish time still moves forward by exactly the item's duration.

The new per-second rate always comes from the same formula: total ships divided by (original total duration minus the item's duration). When you use the item does not change that rate.

Buildings and research are simpler

With KRAKEN and NEWTRON there is a single job and nothing is delivered piece by piece. The item simply takes its duration off the countdown and the building or research finishes that much earlier. The confusion only happens in the shipyard, because the shipyard is the one queue that delivers units one at a time.

Careful: when less time is left than the item covers

The item subtracts its duration from the remaining time and stops at zero. If 40 minutes are left and you use a 2 hour DETROID, the order finishes immediately, but the leftover 1 hour 20 minutes is wasted. It is not refunded and it does not carry over to your next order.

So before using one, make sure the remaining time is longer than the item's duration. The most efficient use is at the start of a long order.

If the button is locked

It means there is no active job in that queue right now.

• DETROID needs production running in the shipyard.
• KRAKEN needs a building under construction.
• NEWTRON needs research in progress.

One detail: NEWTRON looks at your account-wide research queue, so it does not matter which planet you are on. KRAKEN and DETROID look at the queue of the currently selected planet. If your construction is running on another planet and you are standing on an idle one, the button will look locked.

Finishing with Dark Matter

You can shorten building and research queues with Dark Matter. That option is disabled for shipyard and defense production for balance reasons. DETROID is the only way to speed up the shipyard.

PART 2 — Production boosters

Metal, Crystal, Deuterium and Energy Boosters, plus the All Resource Booster which covers all of them at once.

Metal Booster increases your metal mine output.


Crystal Booster increases your crystal mine output.


Deuterium Booster increases your deuterium synthesizer output.


Energy Booster increases your energy output.


The percentage and the duration depend on the tier you buy. The rules are the same for all of them:

• They are per planet. A booster only works on the planet where you activated it. If you have ten planets and want it everywhere, you need ten separate boosters. This is the most common mistake.
• Only one booster of the same type can be active at a time. Two Metal Boosters will not stack.
• Different types do run together. Metal, Crystal and Deuterium Boosters can all be active on the same planet at once.
• If you activate a second booster of the same type, the durations add up. The percentages do not.
• Boosters stack on top of the Geologist and Engineer bonuses, they do not replace them.

PART 3 — Expedition items

Expedition Resource Booster


This item increases the amount of resources you find, not the chance of finding them. Your expeditions will not find resources more often. When they do find resources, you get more. It has no effect on the other outcomes such as finding ships, returning empty or running into a battle.

One important detail: the booster must be active on the planet you launch the expedition from, not on some other planet you own.

Discovery Computer


This one affects the outcome itself: it raises the chance of a good expedition result and lowers the chance of a bad one. It is also per planet.

The two complement each other. One changes how often you get a good result, the other changes how much you get when a good result lands.

PART 4 — Slot items

Expedition Slots raise how many expeditions you can have out at once.


Fleet Slots raise how many fleets you can have in the air at once.


These two behave differently from everything else:

• They are account wide. It does not matter which planet you use them from.
• They do stack. Unlike boosters, you can keep several slot items active at the same time and the bonuses add up.
• They have a duration. They are not permanent.

PART 5 — Permanent and one-shot items

Planet Fields and Moon Fields


These permanently add building fields to the body you use them on. Different tiers add up: a Silver (+9) and a Gold (+15) together give +24. You cannot use a second item of the same tier on the same planet. Planet items do not work on moons and moon items do not work on planets.

M.O.O.N.S.

The moon creation item. On top of its Dark Matter price it also costs metal and crystal, and those resources must be available on the planet. The moon does not appear instantly. It forms after a short preparation period. It can only be used on a planet that does not already have a moon.

Scrapper Offer


Guarantees the stated return rate on your next scrap trade on the planet where you activated it. If you already bargained your way to a better rate, the item will not lower it. It only raises the floor.

Avatars

Permanent and tied to your account, not to a planet. Only one avatar can be selected at a time, but you can switch freely between every avatar you own, at no cost. Selecting an avatar does not consume it.

Common misunderstandings

"I used a 2 hour speed-up and no ships arrived."
They are arriving, just not instantly. The production rate went up and the order will finish exactly 2 hours earlier. The table above shows how far ahead you are at each hour.

"The speed-up did not finish my whole queue."
It will not. It only affects the job that is currently active. The ones behind it shift forward, but their own durations do not change.

"I activated a booster but it is not working on my other planet."
Production boosters are per planet. Each planet needs its own.

"I have an expedition booster but I still come back empty."
That item raises the amount found, not the chance of finding anything. For the chance, you want the Discovery Computer.

"The item button is locked."
Either there is no active job in that queue, or a booster of the same type is already running on that planet.

If you run into something that contradicts this guide, open a support ticket. We will go through your order step by step and show you exactly what happened, with the numbers.