There are dozen of planets in the game for you to explore. All of them with different compositions — some richer in alloys other in gases. This different composition makes each planet have a given mass, which, subsequently is used as a variable to recalculate the planets position in the universe every 5 minutes. Yep: gravity plays an important role in our Cosmo Crafters journey.
This “simple” — on our everyday basis — mechanic makes our Universe even more exciting and always dynamic. Yes: planets will collide with each other. Some will drift apart by thousands of miles. Some will initiate “steady” (steady as can be) orbits around their stars or even between themselves. It’s a beautiful, ever changing universe that we’re thrilled to bring to you.
How exactly this impacts your gameplay? Well, the fact that your planet and your enemies planets are moving afar or a-near, will result in either you having to spend every time more fuel consumption and time to reach (and return) from your destination or — if the planets are on a collision course — you’ll end up with other foreign races and enemy users right at your doorstep, since after a planet collision, the settlements of both planets merge together and 20% of the mergers mass will be expelled in the form of debris into the universe. Users might loose defences, mining workers, available storage units and buildings might downgrade by this destructive event.
…oh! and every time you send your fleet to another planet, it’s your call on the “excess” fuel. The fuel required is calculated on departure, but since planets keep moving, the fleet might need additional fuel to carry out the plans. Imagine that you’re attacking another settlement on a planet 3000 units away. Let’s say you use the Spacecraft Lunar Legion R6S (PS: it might not be available on your universe). This spacecraft has a velocity of 15,95 and consumes 0,70 of helium-3
If the planets were static, it would take you exactly 3h, 8 minutes and 9 seconds to get there and the same amount of time to get back. It would cost you (assuming you’re sending only one ship) 263 units of Helium-3.
Let’s now assume that the planets are coming closer to each other (and let’s assume too that this movement is happening in a linear way — which isn’t probably the case): great! the distance was 3000 but half-way through your journey the planet was at a distance of 2500 from your origin (these numbers are just figurative for the easier comprehension of the math), when you finally arrive, the planet is at a distance of approx. 2300 from your origin. This means that you’ll be saving approximately a total of 90 minutes of travelling time (including the return). You’ll also save approximately 51 units of Helium-3 (which will be returned to the settlement on arrival).
It gets tricky when the planets distance keeps increasing. Let’s now assume that the distance half way though is now 3250. When you finally get to the planet the planet’s distance from your origin is approximately 3585. The entirety of the journey will take you an additional hour and 12 mins, and will consume additional 50 units of Helium-3. If you didn’t prepare the reserve of fuel, then it might happen that your fleet will have to come back without ever reaching its destination. So, Cosmo Crafters, while attacking settlements on the same planet is always very linear, attacking settlements on further away planets can be an “engineering” challenge and requires some preparation (prepare your pencils and papers for some math and physics).
