Fleet Mechanics

Fleet travel in MWarfare is built from three things:

how far you are going
how fast your slowest ship can move
whether your origin has enough deuterium for the trip

These rules apply within the selected game galaxy. Check the live launch quote for its fleet-speed settings and your current research.

Choosing Ships in the Launch Pad

On desktop and tablet, the route reads Origin → Target → Mission. You can set the target before choosing a mission. The Select button stays on the left beneath Arrival, Duration, Return, and Fuel, even before the route is complete. Open it to choose ships from your origin, then use Done to return to the launch summary; reopening it keeps your quantities. Selecting ships does not launch them or bypass mission requirements.

The ship picker shows abbreviated labels to fit the whole launchable roster: LF, HF, CR, BS, BC, BO, DS, RIP, SC, LC, FR, REC, RE, EP, WF. Hover a desktop tile or focus its quantity control to find its full ship name. DS means Destroyer, RIP means Deathstar, FR means Heavy Freighter, and WF means Wayfinder. Unowned ships are dimmed and cannot be selected. Solar Satellites, Space Docks and interplanetary missiles are not in Select Ships. For a missile attack, choose that mission and set the missile count in its separate Missile Target controls.

On PC, the wider Select Ships button shows your selected ships' icons and quantities underneath it. Check that summary after closing the picker. Fleet, Patrol, Trade, Recon and Explore slot counts move into two columns directly below the mission selector, instead of separate slot widgets. Counts show slots in use against their limits. Cargo, fuel and travel-time text is larger for easier reading; ship selection, mission requirements and slot limits are unchanged.

Coordinate galaxies are nonnegative, systems may be negative, and planet positions must be positive. The current desktop/tablet Launch Pad accepts valid zero-galaxy/system and signed-system destinations, as does phone Launch. Blank fields do not count as zero: enter the coordinate and check the live route preview before sending.

On phones, open Units → Launch, choose your origin and destination, then tap the rocket to choose a mission. You can choose a mission before selecting ships; launching still requires an eligible fleet and enough fuel and cargo space.

Desktop and phone Launch screens show your stations' equipped skins (or the standard hull) without a planet image behind them. Origin, Target and Mission controls have transparent backgrounds; their selection dialogs keep readable backgrounds. Coordinates and station slots still identify the route.

Click an available ship icon to select one and focus its quantity field. Enter the number to send, up to the amount at that origin; click the icon again or set the quantity to zero to remove it. Quantities are whole numbers, and restored selections cannot exceed current inventory. Changing the origin reloads its inventory and resources; check your selection and fuel before launching. In Load Cargo, use >> beside a resource to fill it up to the remaining hold or origin stock, and << to clear it. Load All starts fresh, then loads Fuel Cells, Deuterium, Crystal and Metal in that order. Red Not enough cargo appears beside a resource only when some of its available stock cannot fit alongside your other loaded resources. Travel fuel does not consume hold space, but the origin still needs enough deuterium for the trip; Fuel Cells spent on a mission boost cannot also be loaded as cargo.

Quick Facts

Topic	Rule
Fleet speed setting	Uses the selected galaxy settings
Travel speed	Always 100% (no slider)
Slowest ship rule	Yes
Fuel must fit in cargo	No (fuel comes from the origin world)
Missile attacks use fleet slots	No

Step 1: The Game Measures Distance

The game first counts how many galaxies, systems, and positions you cross.

It uses the shortest route for donut travel:

Galaxy and system wraparound depend on the selected galaxy settings.
Read the final travel and fuel quote; do not assume the shortest visible map direction.

After that, it converts the route into three distance components:

galaxy_distance = galaxies_crossed × 6000
system_distance = 2000 + (systems_crossed × 47.5)
position_distance = 1000 + (positions_crossed × 5)

What These Numbers Mean

Galaxy travel is treated as the longest jump.
System travel has a fixed base cost before the per-system distance is added.
Position travel is the short in-system movement between slots.

Step 2: The Slowest Ship Sets Fleet Speed

Your fleet always travels at the speed of its slowest ship after research bonuses are applied.

Every new fleet launches at 100% of that speed. There is no selectable flight-speed percentage:

actual_fleet_speed
  = slowest_ship_speed

That is why adding one very slow ship can dramatically increase travel time. Drive research, the universe's fleet-speed multiplier and ACS arrival synchronization still apply. Fleets already in flight keep their scheduled travel times; this change does not retime them.

Step 3: Travel Time Is Calculated Per Component

Each distance component gets its own time value, and those times are added together.

The per-component formula is:

component_seconds
  = round((35000 / speed_step × (distance × 10 / slowest_ship_speed) + 10)
    / fleet_speed_setting)

Where:

speed_step is fixed at 10 (100%) for every launch
Fuel Cells cannot change travel speed

Final travel time:

total_travel_time
  = galaxy_time + system_time + position_time

The game enforces a minimum of 1 second.

Fuel Consumption

Fuel is not just based on raw ship fuel values. The game first calculates an effective fuel number for the whole fleet.

Effective Fuel

For each ship type:

ship_speed_factor
  = actual_fleet_speed / that_ship_max_speed

ship_fuel_contribution
  = ship_base_fuel × ship_speed_factor × ship_count

Then the game adds those contributions together:

effective_fuel = sum(all ship fuel contributions)

This is why mixed fleets can be cheaper than players expect: fast ships burn less when a slower ship forces them to cruise below their own max speed.

Example

If your Light Fighters normally fly much faster than a Deathstar, then a mixed fleet containing a Deathstar forces those Light Fighters to travel at the Deathstar's pace. Their fuel use drops in proportion to that slowdown.

That can save a lot of fuel, but your travel time becomes much longer.

Travel Fuel Formula

After effective fuel is known, the game builds three fuel components.

Galaxy Fuel

galaxy_cost = effective_fuel × 10 × galaxies_crossed

System Fuel

system_cost
  = effective_fuel
  × (systems_crossed × 0.5)
  × (1 + 0.01 × systems_crossed)
  / 30
  × 60

You do not need to memorize the internal compensation constants. In practice, the important player takeaway is:

more systems crossed costs more fuel
long same-galaxy routes also get a 1% efficiency penalty per system

Position Fuel

position_cost = effective_fuel

Combining Components

The game uses the triangle method when more than one movement component is active:

galaxy + system:
travel_cost = floor(sqrt(galaxy_cost² + system_cost²)) + position_cost

galaxy + position:
travel_cost = floor(sqrt(galaxy_cost² + position_cost²))

system + position:
travel_cost = floor(sqrt(system_cost² + position_cost²))

If only one component exists, the game just uses that one directly.

The final travel cost is never lower than 1 fuel if the fleet actually moves.

Hold Fuel

Missions that stay on station add extra hold fuel:

hold_cost = floor((effective_fuel / 10) × hold_hours)

Total mission fuel:

total_fuel = travel_cost + hold_cost

For Exploration, Harvest and Deployment, Frontier Logistics starts with a 2% fuel discount at level 1. Completed five-level tiers add another initial discount before bonus compounding; fuel still rounds to at least 1.

Cargo Capacity Check

Fuel costs do not add a cargo-space requirement. A fleet only needs enough hold space for the resources you choose to load, even when its fuel quote exceeds its hold capacity.

total_cargo = sum(ship cargo × ship count)
loaded_cargo = metal + crystal + deuterium + fuel_cells you load
launch_allowed = loaded_cargo <= total_cargo

A fleet of warships with no freighters can therefore launch with an empty hold as long as the origin world holds enough deuterium and the mission is eligible. Zero available cargo space alone does not require adding cargo ships.

Loaded deuterium is used for fuel first. The origin automatically supplies any shortfall; only the loaded deuterium left after fuel consumption travels with the fleet. To deliver deuterium, include the fuel quote in the amount you load.

If the origin world cannot cover the fuel, the launch is refused and the game reports the missing deuterium. If you loaded more cargo than the hold can take, the launch is refused and the game reports the available cargo space. Long-range combat fleets no longer need freighters attached just to carry their own fuel.

Fuel Cell Speed Boost

Travel speed boosts are removed. All new fleets travel at 100% and pay normal deuterium fuel. Legacy boost requests spend no Fuel Cells and cannot waive fuel. Existing in-flight missions are unchanged.

Fuel Cell Reward Boost

These deep-space missions use the reward-style Fuel Cell boost instead:

Default reward multiplier for Exploration resource and ship finds:

reward_multiplier = 1 + min(5, fuel_cells_spent / 100)

That creates:

Fuel Cells Spent	Reward Multiplier
0	1x
100	2x
200	3x
300	4x
400	5x
500	6x

See each mission page for what "reward" means on that mission. Trade reaches its full 6x trade-bonus multiplier at 100 Fuel Cells:

trade_bonus_multiplier = 1 + min(5, fuel_cells_spent / 20)

Trade applies score scaling only to the boosted trade-bonus portion. The base market-ratio conversion is always added back unchanged.

Patrol is mission-specific: its Fuel Cell reward boost caps at 2x debris with 100 Fuel Cells, without increasing encounter size. Recon is also mission-specific: Fuel Cells improve positive Recon reward amounts and raise its active-mission manifest scan chance. Recon Technology starts at +10% positive rewards; completed five-level tiers increase that base bonus before later compounding. Its separately capped manifest chance follows the same research tier rules. Manifest chance still caps at 25% per tick, and neither Fuel Cells nor Recon Technology changes target-slot count or report-roll odds. Exploration is split: resource finds and ship-find value still use the full reward ladder, but hostile encounter debris caps the Fuel Cell portion at 2x while encounter size stays unchanged.

Fleet Slots

Every empire starts with 5 fleet slots. Computer Technology adds 2 at level 1; completed five-level tiers increase its rounded bonus. Missile attacks do not occupy fleet slots.

Deep-space families also have a separate cap. Patrol and Trade each have one dedicated slot. Recon Technology and Wayfinder Research add rounded whole-number bonus slots to Recon and Exploration respectively. Level 1 adds one slot; later retained levels follow their research's rounded progression. Check the Research panel for supported quotes.

A fleet uses capacity through launch, hold and return until it finishes. Check the Launch Pad's displayed used/maximum counts before planning another mission.