Decay

Everything in the universe decays over time if it is not visited or used. Commodities dropped on the ground will decay, unless placed as static items. Spacecraft slowly decay when they are without a captain or officer. Officers abandon their command if not hailed monthly. Cities decay when they become deserted. Even whole solar systems can decay and revert back to their original state.

City Decay

Cities don't decay with out a reason, most commonly it is due to morale issues.

When a city's morale is negative the population slowly leaves.

When the population of a city is one or zero, the city is deserted. The buildings and roads of deserted cities crumble away, a few at every city report. After no more buildings or roads remain, the town square itself crumbles away, leaving no trace that it ever existed on the world.

City Abandonment

Days	Penalty
7 - 13	-1
14 - 20	-2
21 - 27	-3
28 - 34	-4
35 - 41	-5
42 - 48	-6
49 - 55	-7
56 - 62	-8
63 - 69	-9

Abandonment is the primary force for city decay. Cities must be visited by an avatar to prevent abandonment. A morale penalty begins to grow 7 days after the last visit by an avatar who is online, increasing by one every 7 days. At first, the morale penalty is not significant. In time, the morale penalty outweighs all positive morale factors. This inevitably causes the population to dwindle to nothing.

For the purpose of preventing abandonment, city visitation can be satisfied in two ways:

• An avatar passes through the city's solar system. All cities in a system are visited by the presence of an avatar who is online, regardless of political stance.
• An avatar remotely visits their home sector. An avatar can declare a home city. The solar system containing an avatar's home city is visited whenever the avatar is online, wherever they are. In addition, all solar systems in the same sector as their home city, that contain cities of their empire, are also visited.

Spacecraft Decay

Environmental Decay

Spacecraft slowly decay in the form of environmental damage. If a spacecraft is inside an atmosphere it will very slowly take damage from the environment.

There are two ways to prevent this:

• Have an officer on the spacecraft and either have it landed on a slab or in orbit
• Store the spacecraft in a hangar

Hailed by Command

All spacecraft need to be hailed once every 4 weeks or the ship will be lost to mutiny. The officer will order the spacecraft to self-destruct.

Since last hailed by command
Days	Ship log message
0 - 6	The crew has high spirits. Every day seems filled with anticipation.
7 - 13	More than a week has passed since we were last hailed by command. The crew is quiet, intent on their work as they attend to their duties.
14 - 20	More than two weeks have passed since we last heard from command. There have been some tense confrontations between the crew members.
21 - 27	More than three weeks have passed since we lost contact with command. Some of the crew have become surly and insubordinate. Fighting among them is a daily occurance.

Officer Homesickness

If all cities on an officer's homeworld is lost, either to decay or captured by an enemy empire, the officer will commit suicide.

When committing suicide, the officer will self-destruct the spacecraft on which he is stationed, unless there is another officer or captain on the spacecraft's roster.

Commander-less Officer

If there is no Avatar in charge of the homewold of an officer, it will commit suicide.

The spacecraft the officer was stationed on will not be harmed.