Planetary Defenses and the Iris

Orbital defenses protect the planet during space combat.

They take part in battles against attacking fleets, alongside the ships on the planet.

Some defenses have special mechanics:

• Plasma Forge and Rupture Relay: can inflict critical damage on attacking ships;
• Weave Aegis: redirects up to 100 shots per round away from non-Aegis orbital defenses; only the Monarch Cannon and the Monarch Beam can damage it, while all other shots have no effect;
• Iris: blocks ground incursions via the Pillars; see ground interception by the Iris.

Only the Iris has a per-planet maximum. Other orbital defenses have no per-planet quantity cap.

Building defenses uses the universe's defense speed. The shared rules for active and queued batches are detailed in Construction, research, and queues.

Some orbital defenses can trigger a critical effect when they fire during space combat.

These critical effects apply to shots fired by the defender against attacking ships.

• Plasma Forge: each relevant shot has a 1% chance to neutralize the shield of the ship it hits. The effect begins on the following turn, and the shield remains at 0 until combat ends.
• Rupture Relay: each relevant shot has a 1% chance to instantly destroy the hull of the ship it hits, but only if that ship no longer has an active shield when the critical occurs.

These effects do not apply between defenses. An orbital defense therefore cannot trigger a special critical hit against another orbital defense.

When the attacking fleet's statistics are visible in the combat report, critical hits from Plasma Forge and Rupture Relay also show the affected ship types.

Example

If a Plasma Forge triggers its critical hit on a ship on turn 2, that ship will be without a shield from turn 3 onward.

If a Rupture Relay triggers its critical hit on a ship whose shield is already inactive, that ship can be destroyed instantly.

Conventional orbital defenses participate in space combat.

The Iris does not participate in space combat. It is used to block a ground attack via Pillars.

The Iris blocks ground incursions instead of fighting normally. An active Iris can stop an attack before combat begins.

If the target planet has an available Iris, a ground attack via the Pillars can be repelled before combat:

• one charge is consumed;
• no ground combat takes place;
• the attacking troops do not engage in combat and leave.

The report result is recorded as an attack blocked by Iris.

The Pillars’ Force Field comes into play before the attack is launched. If the field rejects the attack, no Iris charge is consumed. If a Pillar Virus with a level strictly higher than that of the field gets through it, the Iris can still repel the attack according to the rules above.

Example

A planet can repel an entire ground attack without losing defense units if an available Iris activates in time.

The Iris does not work like a standard shipyard defense.

The Iris is tied to items and inventory, not to standard shipyard production.

A planet can have several activated Irises, within the limit set by the system.