ASTEROID DOMINION
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GLOSSARY

Every term in the black, defined in plain language.

Updated July 2026 · Sandbox Studios LLC

New to Asteroid Dominion and hitting words you don't recognize? Here's the whole vocabulary, grouped by topic. Each entry links to the guide page that covers it in depth.

Factions

  • Concordium — "The Law." Home sector: south. Coordinated patrols whose harpoon ability is ARREST. See Factions.
  • Unbound — "The Free Traders." Home sector: east. The economic faction; harpoon ability LOOT.
  • Bone Collectors — "The Swarm." Home sector: north. The largest fleet in the galaxy; their EAT harpoon is AI-only.
  • Outlaws — "The Lone Wolves." Home sector: west. No teammates at all — every ship, even other Outlaws, collides with and can shoot you. Harpoon ability LOOT.
  • Named cast — the fixed roster of named pilots each faction fields (25 per galaxy) that persist across deaths and level up. See Commanding the Swarm.

Weapons & Harpoon Abilities

  • Bullets — your primary weapon; short-lived (they expire after about a second) and scaled by the Weapon Damage stat. See Combat.
  • Fire mode — a five-step slider by your weapon buttons that trades fire rate against damage: up for faster/weaker shots, down for slower/heavier ones.
  • Harpoon — a rope-and-hook weapon used to tow asteroids and ships, and to trigger your faction's signature ability on an enemy.
  • ARREST — the Concordium harpoon ability: locks a target's engine and weapons for 7 seconds.
  • LOOT — the Unbound and Outlaw harpoon ability: drains 10% of a target's cargo per second while the rope holds.
  • EAT — the Bone Collector harpoon ability (AI only): drains a target's health directly, bypassing shields.
  • Mining laser — a continuous beam that strips materials and fuel from an asteroid; it doesn't damage ships. See Mining.

Shields, Fuel & Survival

  • Shield — your first line of defense; it regenerates from fuel, so no fuel means no shields.
  • Shield reboot — a 5-second outage triggered by any hit that drops your shield to zero. During it your shield is offline no matter how much fuel you have.
  • Fuel — powers both your engines and your shield regeneration. At zero it drains engine and shield, then starts eating hull after five seconds.
  • Hit list / Bounty — every 90 seconds the top scorer in the galaxy becomes the Hit List Target, marked by a gold ring; killing them is a huge XP payout. See Combat.
  • Danger pulse — the whole cockpit HUD flashes red when your health, shield, or fuel runs critical. It's your cue to disengage.
  • Stay mode — press S to hold your position automatically (it fights gravity and brakes drift), handy for mining. See Controls.

Mining & Building

  • Tier — an asteroid's size rank (Tier 1 to Tier 11, based on radius). It sets mining yield, mass, and how many structures the rock can hold — a rock holds one fewer structure than its Tier number, so a Tier 6 rock holds 5. See Mining.
  • Claim — an asteroid taken for your faction. Only a Command Center can claim an unclaimed rock, and doing so tints it your faction's color. See Building.
  • Command Center — the structure that claims a rock. It's also the one you upgrade with anti-gravity.
  • Command Point (CP) — your structure budget: every structure costs 1 CP, and your cap is set by the Command stat. See Leveling.
  • Anti-gravity — a Command Center upgrade (from 50% up to 97.5%) that makes a claimed rock resist the galaxy's currents and resist being towed by enemies.
  • Lock — an owner-only toggle that stops a claimed rock from being towed at all — the harpoon rope snaps on a locked rock.
  • ANTI-AIR — the turret structure; it auto-fires on non-friendly ships within range, even while you're logged off.
  • Shield Generator — a structure that projects a dome over the asteroid: enemy fire is swallowed at the edge and enemy ships bounce off, while your faction flies and shoots straight through.
  • Materials — the resource you mine and spend on structures. Fuel is the other mining drop.

The Galaxy & Events

  • Gravity cycle — a roughly nine-minute rotation of gravity phases: mostly 1x (normal), with one 0.5x (calm) phase and one 1.5x (storm) phase each lap. See Galaxy Events.
  • Gravity storm — the 1.5x phase, when the wormholes and boundary currents pull harder. The gravity indicator turns red.
  • Wormhole — a gravity well that pulls in a fixed compass direction (not toward its center). Enter one at a tangent to slingshot for free speed.
  • Bonefall — a galaxy-wide event about every 15 minutes: the Bone Collector swarm swells and hunts everyone not flying its colors. Survive it for a big XP bonus.
  • Best-target arrow — the white-outlined HUD arrow pointing to the largest unclaimed tier-5+ asteroid just off your screen.

Ships & Stats

  • Stat categories — the eight things you upgrade: Health, Shield, Fuel, Engine, Storage, Weapon Damage, Bullet Speed, and Command. Six of them split into a max and a rate, so there are fourteen individual upgrade paths in all. See Leveling.
  • Building Speed — the rate track of the Command stat: how fast a structure assembles once you begin a build.
  • Auto Upgrade — three one-tap presets (Tank, Speedster, Commander) that re-spend your whole ability-point pool.
  • Re-Design Ship — resets your allocation and refunds every point so you can rebuild from scratch.
  • Four-engine flight — the flight model: two forward engines (Q, E) and two reverse (A, D); steering emerges from thrusting one side harder, with no dedicated turn key. See Controls.

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