BUILDING & CLAIMING

Building structures in Asteroid Dominion is the long-game side of the game. Combat is the moment-to-moment; mining is the income; structures are the assets. A pilot who never builds is a tourist. A pilot with a network of claimed asteroids in defensible positions is a power player whose presence shapes the sector around them.

Structures persist when you log off. They keep firing at intruders. They mark your faction's territory. They make the next session you start a richer one because you're returning to defended assets, not starting from scratch.

And — critically — structures are how you spend the materials you've been mining. Materials in your hold are a target on your back. Materials converted to a turret on an asteroid you own are an active defense that can't be looted.

The build flow is four steps:

1. Find an asteroid you want to build on. It must be radius 40 or larger — smaller rocks (radius 25) can only be mined, not built on or claimed. The white-outlined arrow on the HUD points toward the largest unclaimed rock of radius 85 or more in your view — that's usually the right pick.
2. Cycle your weapon to harpoon (W until you see the harpoon icon), point at the rock, and fire (Space). The harpoon attaches with a rope.
3. The BUILD button on the HUD flashes green. Click it (or tap on touch). The Build Screen opens.
4. Select a structure. ANTI-AIR is available now. Confirm. The asteroid is now claimed by your faction. It tints to your faction's color.

The whole sequence takes about ten seconds if the asteroid is already in range. Most of the time is spent flying to the rock and lining up the harpoon shot.

Pro tip: Build on big asteroids when possible. The number of structures you can stack on an asteroid is one less than its Tier (both are shown on the asteroid's own screen) — a radius-85 rock is Tier 6 and holds 5, a radius-145 rock is Tier 10 and holds 9, and the largest (radius 160) are Tier 11 and hold 10. A claimed radius-145 rock covered in ANTI-AIR is a no-fly zone for enemies.

ANTI-AIR (available now)

The ANTI-AIR turret is a rotating-barrel weapon platform mounted on a claimed asteroid. It scans a 180-degree arc, identifies non-friendly ships within range, and fires a dotted-line tracer beam at them. Damage is automatic; you don't aim it, and you don't have to be online for it to fire.

• Range — roughly 1000 units. Ships within range get tagged and shot at.
• Damage — modest per hit, but continuous. A single ANTI-AIR will steadily chip an enemy's shields. Three or four together can ruin a fly-through.
• Friend-or-foe — ANTI-AIR uses faction logic. It never fires on its own faction, ignores Outlaws who own structures on the same asteroid (rare), and fires on everything else.
• Health — turrets can be destroyed by bullets. Once destroyed, the structure is gone, the Command Point refunds, and if no structures remain the asteroid reverts to unclaimed.

More Structure Types

Five structure types are buildable today. Each one costs a Command Point and takes a slot on the rock, so what you plant is a real choice.

• COMMAND CENTER — the claim structure. It is the only thing you can build on an unclaimed asteroid, and placing it takes the rock for your faction.
• ANTI-AIR — the turret. Tracks enemy ships through a 180° arc, telegraphs its shot, then fires. The one structure that shoots back.
• SHIELD GENERATOR — projects a dome over the whole asteroid. Enemy fire is swallowed at the edge, enemy ships and drifting rocks bounce off it, and your own faction flies and shoots straight through. Drain it and it collapses for five seconds, then reboots and recharges.
• MINING RIG — a heavy rig that bites into the host asteroid and holds ground on your claim.
• SPACE HANGAR — a bay mounted on the rim of your claim that builds DRONES. Each one costs materials and fuel, waits in storage, and launches the moment an enemy closes on your base. Drones are always under thrust and cannot brake, so they fight in sweeping arcs; when their fuel runs low they come home, refuel and go again. Three per hangar, one more for every level.
• GATE — twin pylons that reach out and lock onto a friendly Command Center on another asteroid within range. Once joined, the two rocks hold station together, and a shield wall spans the gap between them: enemy fire dies against it, enemy ships and drifting rocks bounce off it, and your own faction passes straight through. Starve it of fuel and the wall drops, but the link holds.

New structure types roll out in regular updates — part of the continual advancements and improvements released every week. Follow the X / Twitter account or join the Discord for the latest.

Asteroids drift. The galaxy's currents pull every rock toward the wormholes and the boundary, and a big enough enemy can harpoon your claimed asteroid and simply tow it away — base and all. A Command Center answers both problems: it can be upgraded with anti-gravity from the asteroid's own screen, and the more you upgrade it, the more the rock resists being moved.

• Every Command Center starts at 50% resistance the moment you claim the rock — for free.
• Each upgrade level adds 2.5%, across 19 levels, for a maximum of 97.5%.
• Resistance applies to the galaxy's gravity currents and to an enemy trying to tow your rock. A near-maxed base barely budges.

It never reaches 100%, by design: a perfectly immovable rock could drift out past the wormholes and never be recalled, so the last sliver of pull keeps even a maxed base tethered to the playable area. But 97.5% is more than enough to make a forward base a permanent fixture an enemy fleet can't just drag home.

Anti-gravity does not stop collisions and does not resist a friendly haul — you and your teammates can still reposition your own base whenever you like. It only fights the currents and hostile tows.

Every structure costs 1 Command Point (CP) to build. CP is the cap on how many structures you can have built simultaneously. The mechanic prevents one mega-rich player from carpeting the galaxy with turrets — your fleet size is bounded by the levels you've actually earned.

• You start with 1 CP max. Enough for one structure.
• Every level point spent on the Command stat adds +1 CP max. A pilot with 10 Command Points can have 10 structures simultaneously.
• Destroying your own structures refunds the CP. You're not locked into a bad build location forever.
• Switching factions destroys ALL your structures. Every CP refunds, but you have to rebuild from scratch under your new colors.

Command is the stat you want to invest in if you're playing the territory game. A Concordium patrol leader with 15 Command Points and 15 ANTI-AIR turrets covering their home sector is genuinely difficult to break.

An asteroid is unclaimed, your faction's, or an enemy faction's. The build flow checks claim state and behaves differently in each case.

• Unclaimed asteroid. Anyone can build — but the COMMAND CENTER is the only structure you can place on an unclaimed rock, and building it is what claims the asteroid for your faction. The rock tints to that faction's color, and everything else becomes buildable from then on.
• Your-faction asteroid. Your teammates can add structures (up to the asteroid's tier limit). You can too. Outlaws are exempt from this — see below.
• Enemy-faction asteroid. You see a MALFUNCTION message on the Build Screen. You cannot build. You CAN destroy the enemy's structures with bullets to free up the asteroid (when all structures are destroyed, the asteroid reverts to unclaimed and you can claim it yourself).
• Outlaw-claimed asteroid. Only the original builder can add more structures. Outlaws have no team-sharing — every claim is individual.

The asteroid's Tier sets its max structure count, at one less than the Tier number (the Asteroid screen shows both). A radius-85 rock is Tier 6 and holds 5 structures total (across all claimants if you're in a non-Outlaw faction); the largest rocks (radius 160) are Tier 11 and hold 10. Once full, no one — even teammates — can add more.

Destroying all structures on a claimed asteroid reverts it to unclaimed. The asteroid is back in the unclaimed pool and anyone can re-harpoon it. This is the practical way to "take" enemy territory: blow up their turrets, then build your own.

Locking a claim. As the owner, you can lock a claimed asteroid from its Asteroid screen. A locked rock shows a dashed outline and cannot be towed by anyone — the harpoon rope snaps the instant it touches a locked rock, so no enemy can drag your base away, and even your own escort bots leave it in place. Unlock it when you want to reposition it. Locking is the low-tech companion to anti-gravity: anti-gravity makes a rock hard to move, a lock makes it impossible.

To keep the galaxy from filling up with abandoned structures from inactive players, an automatic cleanup runs every 15 minutes. If a player has been offline for 24+ hours AND their ship was destroyed before they last disconnected, their structures are destroyed and their claimed asteroids revert to unclaimed.

This rule has two conditions and both must hold. Logging off with an alive ship is safe — your structures persist indefinitely. Dying right before logging off and then not coming back for a day frees your claims for other players to take.

Returning within 24 hours, even after a death, keeps your structures intact. The mechanic is designed to recover unused assets from truly inactive players, not to punish casual play schedules.

A few patterns experienced base-builders follow:

• Cluster, don't scatter. A single radius-115 asteroid with 7 ANTI-AIR turrets covers more space than seven isolated small-rock turrets across the galaxy. Density of fire matters more than coverage area.
• Claim chokepoints. The approaches to your home sector — the lanes enemies have to fly through to reach your mining circuit — are where turrets earn their materials back.
• Don't waste Command Points on the smallest buildable rocks. A radius-40 rock holds only 2 structures and has little mass. Save your structures for big rocks (radius 85+) where the asteroid itself is a physical defense.
• Mix Command into your stat build early. Each Command level pays for itself the moment you build the structure it unlocks. Don't max Health and Shield and then realize you have no CP to use materials on.
• Defend the asteroid, not just the turrets. The structures on a claimed rock CAN be destroyed individually — a pilot circling at long range will pick off turrets one by one, and a fast-moving asteroid slamming into your claim damages them too. Lose the last structure and the rock reverts to unclaimed. Patrol your own base, and consider a Shield Generator.

• Mining & Economy — how to get the materials structures cost
• Leveling & Stats — where Command sits among the eight stats
• Factions — how each faction's playstyle interacts with territory
• Survival Tips