Rules of Play
The short version: the galaxy is one shared, persistent world that every player acts in together. Because of that, the map is never edited on any one player's behalf — not rewound, not hand-corrected, not deleted — and everyone plays by the same rules, at the same speed, with the same costs. The rest of this page spells that out.
- Playing means agreeing
- One shared galaxy, never edited for one player
- Your account
- Fair play
- Names and words you put in the game
- Leaving: abandoned empires and successor states
- Enforcement
- The service itself
- What we do not promise
- Changes to these rules
- Contact
1. Playing means agreeing
By creating an account or filing an order in Astral Sovereignty you agree to these Rules of Play and to the Privacy Policy. You must be at least 13 years old. If you do not agree, do not play; you can delete your account at any time (section 6).
2. One shared galaxy, never edited for one player
Every galaxy (a "shard") is a single persistent world. Every colony founded, fleet built, battle fought and border drawn becomes part of a record that every other player on that shard has acted on: they scouted it, traded with it, fought it or steered around it. That record is the game.
So the following rule binds everyone, including us:
- The map is not mutated for any individual player. We do not delete, rewind, relocate, refund or hand-edit an empire, colony, fleet, battle or report on request — yours or anyone else's. Doing so would silently change what other players earned, lost or planned around, which is the definition of an unfair game.
- This includes leaving. When a player deletes their account, their empire is abandoned, not erased (section 6). Removing it from the map would hand its neighbours free territory and delete the history of everyone who fought it.
- The only exceptions are announced and apply to everyone: repairing a genuine server defect (documented on the status page and in the game's What's New), renaming a name that breaks section 5, and retiring a whole galaxy on a schedule announced in advance.
The same principle is why the game resolves on a fixed tick: every order from every player and every computer-run empire is applied in the same window, under the same rules, at the same cost. Nobody — including our own computer-run empires — gets faster build times, cheaper ships or extra actions.
3. Your account
- One person, one account. An account is for a single human being. Do not create or operate more than one account, and do not share, lend, sell or transfer an account.
- Sign-in is by emailed code (or Google Sign-In). Keep your email account secure: anyone who can read your email can play as you. Tell us at once if you think that has happened.
- You are responsible for what your account does, including orders filed by any tool or client you connect to it.
4. Fair play
The following are forbidden because each of them takes something from other players that the rules never gave you:
- Exploiting defects. If a bug lets you gain resources, ships, information or actions the rules do not allow, report it (More → Support & feedback, or email us) instead of using it. Knowingly exploiting a defect is cheating, and gains obtained that way may be corrected as a defect repair under section 2.
- Multiple accounts and puppets. Running a second account to scout, feed, shield or vote for your main, or coordinating accounts you control as if they were separate players.
- Circumventing limits. Evading rate limits, order caps, cooldowns or any other limit the server applies to everyone.
- Attacking the service. Probing, overloading or interfering with the game servers, the website, the Discord integration or other players' connections.
- Impersonation. Pretending to be Space Junk Industries, a moderator, or another player.
- Harassment. Using names, alliance names, notes or any channel the game provides to threaten, abuse or target a person. In-game rivalry is the game; abuse of the human behind the empire is not.
What is allowed: everything the game itself offers, including its in-game automation (standing orders, the colony manager, convoy networks, autopilot). We publish our game API for people who want to build their own client or tools; anything built on it must file orders the same way the official client does and stay inside the same limits. Diplomacy, alliances, deception and betrayal between empires are part of the game.
5. Names and words you put in the game
Empire names, account names, colony and fleet names, ship design names, alliance names and tags are visible to other players. They pass an automatic moderation filter, and we may rename any name that is offensive, that impersonates someone, or that identifies a real person (yours or anyone else's), without notice. Private map notes and tags are visible only to you. By putting words into the game you allow us to display them to other players as part of the game and to keep the map's colony, fleet and design names as part of the shared record even after you leave (section 6).
6. Leaving: abandoned empires and successor states
You can stop playing at any time, and you can delete your account at any time from More → Account → Delete account or as described on the account deletion page. Deleting your account removes all of your personal data. Your empire is a different matter, because of section 2:
- Your empire is abandoned, not deleted. Its citizens take over: the empire is renamed to a new, system-generated name and from then on it is run by the same computer players that run every other non-player empire — with the same orders, costs and rules as everyone, and no advantages. Its colonies, fleets and borders stay exactly where they were. Other players on the shard are told that a people have risen; they are not told who left.
- Nothing about you stays. Your old empire name is rewritten wherever other players' reports and notes quoted it. Your private notes and tags are removed. Your email, sign-in, sessions and support history are deleted. The names you gave colonies, fleets and ship designs remain as part of the map; they are not linked to you. If one of them identifies you, email us and we will rename it.
- Inactivity is not deletion. If you simply stop playing, your empire stays yours. We do not delete empires or accounts for inactivity.
7. Enforcement
Breaking these rules may lead, depending on severity, to a warning, a forced rename, the rejection of specific orders, a temporary suspension or a permanent ban of the account and of any accounts we reasonably believe belong to the same person. Where a ban ends an account, its empire is treated as abandoned under section 6. Decisions can be appealed by email; we will explain what we found. We may also act to protect the service or other players without prior notice where waiting would cause harm.
8. The service itself
- Free to play, no purchases. There is nothing to buy in Astral Sovereignty and no advertising.
- Alpha software. The game is in active development. Rules of the game itself (costs, ranges, timings) change with releases; every change is announced in the game's What's New and on Discord, and applies to everyone at once.
- Galaxies have lifetimes. A shard may be paused for maintenance, and may be retired on an announced schedule; a retired galaxy's world is archived or removed on our schedule. New galaxies start everyone from nothing.
- Availability. We aim to keep the game up and ticking on time, and the status page shows when we have not, but we cannot guarantee uninterrupted service.
9. What we do not promise
Astral Sovereignty is provided as it is, free of charge, for entertainment. To the fullest extent the law allows, Space Junk Industries LLC makes no warranty about the game's availability, accuracy or fitness for any purpose, and is not liable for any loss arising from playing it, from a defect, from downtime, or from the actions of other players — including the loss of an empire, its colonies or fleets to any of these. Nothing in these rules limits liability that cannot be limited by law, or affects rights you have as a consumer that cannot be waived.
These rules are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, United States, without regard to its conflict-of-law rules, except that if you live in a country whose law gives you protections that cannot be overridden by agreement, those protections still apply to you.
10. Changes to these rules
We may update these Rules of Play. If a change matters, we will say so in the game's What's New and on Discord before it takes effect, and the effective date at the top of this page changes. Continuing to play after that date means you accept the updated rules.
11. Contact
Space Junk Industries LLC · registered in the State of Delaware, United States · [email protected] · in the game: More → Support & feedback.