Expeditions/Fleet Mechanics

Expedition Fleet Composition & Support Mechanics

Subpage of Expeditions. Wiki path: Expeditions/Fleet_Mechanics.

This page explains how fleet composition affects expedition results. Formulas are simplified to help you estimate how close you are to each cap.

All chance bonuses use diminishing returns and have maximum caps.

1. Specialist ships — item family bias (max +3 points)

Certain ships raise the chance of one item family.

Reward type	Specialist ship	Max bonus
Relic pieces	Orbital Refinery	+3 points
Monument pieces	Advanced Recycler	+3 points
Nano boosts	Support Vessel	+3 points
Tech boosts	Frigate	+3 points

Rules:

• Only one specialist type applies per expedition. If you send several, the priority is:

relic > monument > nano > tech

• A single higher-priority specialist turns off a lower one: one Support Vessel in a Frigate fleet removes the tech boost bonus.
• More ships = higher bonus, but gains slow down at higher counts.
• The added chance comes out of nothing found, so resources, ships and other items keep their odds.

Scaling formula:

bonus ≈ 3 points × ( specialistShips / (specialistShips + 175) )

Examples:

• 1 ship → ~0.02 points
• 175 ships → +1.5 points (a 4% tech boost chance becomes about 5.5%)
• 500 ships → ~+2.2 points
• 1,000 ships → ~+2.55 points
• The bonus never exceeds +3 points

Other rules still apply afterwards: the late-game boost throttle, the Realm 1–3 relic / monument multipliers and the decay past depth 3 (see Expeditions/Rewards).

2. Probes — find chance (max +15%)

Probes raise the weight of positive outcomes (resources, ships, items).

• Affects whether something is found.
• Does not change which item family you roll, and does not boost empty / stun / damage outcomes.
• Maximum bonus: +15%.

Scaling formula:

bonus ≈ 15% × ( probes / (probes + 175) )

Examples:

• 50 probes → ~3%
• 175 probes → ~7.5%
• 500 probes → ~11%
• 1,000 probes → ~13%

Probe-only fleets (nothing but probes) find resources, relic pieces, monument pieces and boosts at only 20% of the normal chance; the rest becomes nothing found. Ship and cosmetic finds are unchanged. Add at least one other ship to roll at the full rate.

3. Science Vessels — bigger finds (max +100%)

Science Vessels make resource and ship finds bigger. They do not change which outcome you roll or how often items drop.

The bonus grows logarithmically.

Formula (exact):

bonus = MIN(100%, log₂(scienceVesselCount + 1) × 5%)

Examples:

• 1 ship → 5%
• 3 ships → 10%
• 7 ships → 15%
• 31 ships → 25%
• 127 ships → 35%
• 1,023 ships → 50%
• ~1 million ships → 100% (cap)

Each doubling of ships adds roughly +5%.

The same multiplier also raises the per-expedition cap, so a large stack is not immediately flattened by the score ceiling. Science Vessels count lightly toward ship loss: they are counted as quantity / 1,000 when a loss event applies (see Ship loss).

4. Combat ships — discovery pool

The highest ship class in the fleet sets which ships can be recovered.

• Sending only low-tier ships keeps discoveries in the low-tier pool.
• Sending higher-tier ships unlocks higher-tier pools.
• Recovered ships are usually at most one class above your strongest ship, unless a jackpot stretches the pool.

5. Overall fleet size

Larger fleets (by catalog build cost):

• Increase total resource volume (~15% of sent fleet value before difficulty / depth / variance)
• Increase the ship-recovery budget (also ~15% of fleet value, with a steeper difficulty curve)

Fleet size affects volume, not probability caps. Payouts are still limited by the score / realm / daily ceilings (see Caps).

6. Cargo

Cargo capacity limits how many resources you bring back.

• If a find is larger than free space, all resource types are scaled down together — you keep a proportional slice.
• Recovered ships are added without a cargo check; you do not lose them for lack of cargo.

7. Class

• Explorer: +12% loot, +10% success weight, +10% anomaly (item) weight, +15% exploration speed.
• Warlord: −10% expedition loot.

8. How bonuses stack

The following stack together:

• Probe bonus (find chance)
• Specialist ship bonus (one item family)
• Science Vessel bonus (size of resource and ship finds)
• Research, class and monument bonuses (see Research, class, and monuments)

All caps still apply.

Strategy insight

Because of diminishing returns:

• The first 100–200 specialist ships or probes give the biggest impact.
• Extremely large specialist or probe stacks give smaller additional gains.
• Science Vessels benefit from doubling counts, and each doubling is worth less relative to the stack.
• Bring one specialist type only, matched to the item family you want.

Balanced fleets are usually more efficient than extreme stacking.

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