Contested sectors get a new combat structure: one Custody Network base per sector, with layered assault and shared rewards.

How the assault works

Eight towers hover in a ring around a core, and the core is immune while any tower still lives. There is no shortcut: bring the towers down one by one, then open up the centre. When you hit the protected core, a floating “IMMUNE” and a violet ring appear, so nobody wastes ten minutes shooting something that cannot take damage.

The towers spread their fire across the pilots present instead of focusing one down: each tower picks a different candidate by proximity. It’s group pressure, not instant execution. The core fires its siege missile vertically from the upper muzzle and the guidance curves it toward the target.

It is built for groups of two to five ships, and soloable with patience.

Rewards for what you contribute

Each player’s real damage, excluding overkill on the final blow, is recorded. XP and Nexite are split proportionally, and anyone who contributed at least 10% also receives Elisium: the first source of premium currency in the game, which until now deliberately had none.

Mission credit, by contrast, goes to everyone who took part.

Rebuilding

A downed tower rebuilds itself after two minutes, but only if the base is left in peace: every hit on the group resets the timer. If the core falls, the entire base returns together fifteen minutes later.

Also, in everyday combat

  • Your shot tells you what actually happened. The tracking cannon’s tracer dies against the hull with a flash on a hit, and glances off with a dry spark on a miss. No more checking the target’s health bar to find out whether it landed.
  • Every silhouette takes hits where it should. Custodian structures are tall, narrow spires, and shooting at their flank now connects where you can see it connect.
  • Missiles are visible from the moment they leave the tube, whoever fired them and wherever you are. There are few of them and they are the stars of the show: they can’t turn up halfway there.

And some polish

Missiles now have their own silhouette per faction — Coalition, Axios and Guardian — with trail, flame and light in the colour of whoever fired: you can read who is aiming at you at a glance. Each thruster also leaves a plume of smoke hanging behind it in space.

Lighting in space was rebuilt from scratch. Turning the camera used to leave your ship blown out to white on one side and sunk into black on the other. Now the metal reads the same wherever you look, and engines and lasers stand out against the background instead of getting lost in it.