GALAXY EVENTS

Asteroid Dominion's galaxy is a persistent world, but it isn't a static one. Every session, the environment changes in predictable cycles and in unpredictable surges. Knowing the event schedule is the difference between getting caught in a storm and using a storm to escape pursuit.

Three event types you'll learn to read: the gravity cycle (constant background, predictable), the Bonefall (every ~15 minutes, dangerous), and hit list rotation (every ~90 seconds, tied to leaderboard).

The galaxy's gravity is not constant. It cycles through six 90-second phases, giving a complete cycle of roughly nine minutes. The current phase is shown by the gravity indicator on the HUD.

• 1x — Normal. Baseline gravity. The wormholes and the galaxy's boundary currents pull as designed. Four of the six phases sit here — it is the default state.
• 1.5x — Storm. The dangerous one. Gravity ramps up by half. Wormholes you could safely skirt at 1x now reach out and pull you in, and the boundary currents drag harder toward the edge. The gravity indicator turns red. Wait it out in open space.
• 0.5x — Weakened. The opposite of storm. Gravity halves. Wormholes barely pull. You can coast wide and mine in safety. The best phase for long-range mining circuits and for transit across the galaxy.

The cycle runs in a fixed order — mostly normal, with one calm 0.5x phase and one 1.5x storm each lap — and every phase lasts ~90 seconds. Watch the gravity indicator.

Using the Cycle

Experienced pilots time their actions to the cycle:

• 0.5x weakened — transit time. Cross the galaxy. Approach contested asteroids. Position for an attack.
• 1x normal — routine activities. Mine, build, defend.
• 1.5x storm — survival mode. Pull back from the wormholes and the map edge. Don't fight in a storm unless your enemy is caught in it worse than you are.

Every ~15 minutes, the Bonefall activates. The event bar pulses red. A galaxy-wide warning fires through the event feed.

During a Bonefall, the Bone Collector swarm activates in force. Its ranks swell — fifteen extra ships boil out of the dark to join the regular crew — and every Bone Collector in the galaxy goes hunting for anyone not flying their colors. The galaxy gets dangerous, fast. Mining in the open is a bad idea. Solo flights through contested sectors are a bad idea. Sitting still in a Build screen is a bad idea.

The Bonefall lasts about a minute and a half, and anyone who survives it banks a big XP bonus. The event bar returns to normal when it ends. Watch for the warning and respond:

• If you're high-level and well-shielded — this is when you score huge. The bot density rewards combat. Stay in the action and rack up kills.
• If you're low-level or low-shielded — retreat to low-density space. Hide in your home sector. Wait out the timer.
• If you're at the bottom of the hit list (unlikely target) — this is good mining time. The AI is busy elsewhere. Strip-mine tier-7+ asteroids while everyone else is fighting.

The Bonefall is a session-rhythm event. It creates intentional spikes of chaos that interrupt the routine mining-and-patrol loops. New players sometimes find it overwhelming; experienced players treat it as a recurring opportunity.

Every ~90 seconds, the hit list refreshes. The top scorer on the galaxy leaderboard becomes the Hit List Target. A gold ring marks their position on the galaxy map. Killing them earns a huge XP payout.

This is the game's built-in rubber-banding mechanic. The leader is constantly under pressure. New top scorers replace fallen ones immediately. The rotation prevents a single player from running away with the leaderboard during a long session.

See the combat page for the strategy of hunting (or hiding from) the hit list. From an events perspective, the key insight is that hit list status shifts the galaxy's attention every minute and a half. The previous target stops being a magnet for traffic. The new target becomes one. Plan your routes around the rotation.

The gravity indicator on the HUD shows the current force phase, reading the live multiplier so you always know what the currents are doing:

• ½x — the weakened phase. Gravity is at its lightest; safe to coast wide and mine.
• 1x — normal. No special reading; the default state for most of the cycle.
• 1.5x (red) — a storm. Gravity ramps up by half and the indicator turns red. Pull back from the wormholes and the map edge.

A separate red pulse and a galaxy-wide feed warning mark a Bonefall. The event feed also surfaces notable in-galaxy events: hit-list target changes, Bonefall warnings, and major structure destructions. Glance at it between actions. The feed tells the story of what's happening across the galaxy in real time, even in parts of the map you can't see.

• Combat — how the hit list connects to your XP curve
• Mining & Economy — using gravity cycles to your advantage during mining
• Survival Tips — what to do when you see the storm icon
• AI & Autopilot — how the AI itself reacts to gravity changes