Fleet Saving
Fleet saving (FS) is the practice of keeping your fleet in flight so it cannot be attacked while you are offline. A fleet in the air cannot be targeted. This is the single most important survival skill in OGame.
While you sleep, other players are scanning your planets with Sensor Phalanxes, watching your fleet land, and timing attacks to hit the moment it returns. A fleet left on a planet overnight is likely gone by morning.
Core Principles
- Vary your timing. Never save to the same landing time every day. Pattern-aware attackers will deduce your flight duration and intercept you on return.
- Take your resources with you. Load all metal, crystal, and deuterium into cargo ships before saving — resources in flight cannot be raided.
- Check your return time. After sending, confirm in Overview that the fleet returns when you will be online. A typo in coordinates or speed can be fatal.
- Stay online briefly after saving. An attacker watching your activity stars can estimate when you fleetsaved. Staying in-game for a few minutes after sending the fleet masks the dispatch time.
Calculating Flight Time
Longer flight = more time covered offline. Use lower speed percentages to extend duration:
where = distance, = effective ship speed (base speed × drive multiplier), = universe speed.
In practice: a fleet at 10% speed takes ~10× as long as at 100%. Pick a target far enough that the round trip covers your full offline window.
Pre-Moon Methods (Planet-Based)
Before you have a moon, your options are limited. These methods are less secure because fleets sent from a planet are visible to Sensor Phalanx.
Planet → Debris Field (Harvest)
Send your fleet with at least one Recycler to a nearby debris field on a harvest mission.
Security: Very low once phalanx exists. The arrival time is visible to anyone scanning the origin planet. Only viable in the very early game before any nearby player has a Sensor Phalanx.
Planet → Attack on Inactive
Send your fleet on an Attack mission against an inactive player.
Security: Low. The return path is phalanxable from the origin planet. The attacker also risks the fleet being counter-defended with ACS Defend at the target. Only use against genuinely inactive accounts far from active players.
Planet → Deployment (Safest Pre-Moon Method)
Send your fleet on a Deployment mission to one of your other colonies.
Security: Highest. The key property: a recalled deployment disappears from the Sensor Phalanx — deployment is a one-way mission, and once recalled it becomes invisible. This makes it very hard for an attacker to pin down the return time.
Tips:
- Keep two colonies reasonably close so the deployment is affordable in deuterium
- If you suspect you are being watched, recall and redeploy to change your return timing
- Don't always recall at the same time each day — the attacker can narrow down the window over several days of observation
If an attacker is trying to catch your recalled deployment, they have to spam the Sensor Phalanx at 5,000 deuterium per scan to catch the exact recall moment. This is expensive and requires knowing roughly when you'll recall — change your schedule to make it unpredictable.
Moon Methods
The moment you have a moon, fleet saving becomes far more secure. Moons cannot be scanned by a Sensor Phalanx — any mission sent from a moon is invisible to attackers.
Moon → Debris Field (Common Method)
Send your fleet on a Harvest mission from your moon to a nearby debris field.
Security: Medium. Although the departure from the moon is invisible to phalanx, an attacker can watch the debris field in Galaxy View and note when it disappears — this reveals the exact arrival time of your harvest mission. From there they can back-calculate your return.
Shadow wave technique: Send one or more single Recyclers to the same debris field shortly before your main fleet arrives. The attacker cannot tell which harvest is the main fleet. If the gap between the leading recyclers and the main fleet is under ~20 seconds, the attacker cannot reliably distinguish them.
- For very valuable fleets, use multiple shadow waves of equal recycler counts
- The safest variant: never let the fleet arrive. Recall it mid-flight, so the debris field never changes and an observer gains no timing information
Debris fields on empty, inactive planet slots are not publicly visible in Galaxy View — these are the safest DF targets. They are wiped weekly (Sunday night ~1:30 AM server time) unless a fleet is en route at that moment.
Moon → Colonisation Save
Send your entire fleet plus a Colony Ship (and all resources) to an empty planet slot you cannot colonise (insufficient Astrophysics).
Security: Medium. The mission is invisible from the moon, and other players cannot tell from the outside that the colonisation will fail and return. The Colony Ship returns with the fleet.
If you have a free colony slot available, the colony ship will successfully colonise — leaving your resources stranded on the new planet until you handle it. Confirm you are at your colony limit before using this method.
Moon → ACS Hold at Ally's Moon
Send your fleet on a Hold mission (ACS Defend) to a trusted ally's moon with a hold time of 0.
Security: High — the departure is invisible to phalanx. Risks: the ally's moon could be destroyed while your fleet is holding, or the ally could betray you. Only use with genuinely trusted players.
Moon → Moon Deployment (Safest Method)
Send your fleet on a Deployment mission from one of your moons to another of your moons.
Security: Highest of all planet-based methods.
- The departure is invisible to phalanx (sent from a moon)
- The destination is also invisible (a moon cannot be scanned)
- Neither the departure nor arrival time is revealed to any attacker
- If the fleet is recalled mid-flight, it disappears from phalanx immediately and returns to the origin moon
The only way an attacker can intercept this save is by destroying one or both moons — an expensive and risky operation that only makes sense for very large fleets.
Two of your own moons in the same system give you the safest possible fleetsave with the lowest deuterium cost. Many experienced players deliberately keep one pair of colonies in the same system specifically for this.
Comparison Table
| Method | Phalanx-safe departure | Phalanx-safe return | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Planet → DF | No | No | Avoid once phalanx exists nearby |
| Planet → Attack | No | No | Also vulnerable to ACS defend at target |
| Planet → Deployment | No* | Yes (if recalled) | Best pre-moon option; recall hides return |
| Moon → DF | Yes | No | Watch for shadow-wave technique; DF timing reveals return |
| Moon → Colonisation | Yes | Yes | Fail-safe method; check Astro level first |
| Moon → ACS Hold | Yes | Yes | Requires trusted ally |
| Moon → Moon Deploy | Yes | Yes | Safest method overall |
*Deployment from a planet is not visible on the origin planet, but the destination planet is visible if phalanxed.
Common Mistakes
| Mistake | Consequence |
|---|---|
| Same save time every night | Attacker deduces flight duration and times the return |
| Landing fleet and going offline | Immediate raid target |
| Leaving resources on the planet | Resources raided even if fleet is saved |
| DF save without shadow waves | Attacker watches the DF disappear and calculates exact return |
| Colonisation save with a free slot | Colony ship succeeds — fleet and resources dumped on new planet |
| Forgetting deuterium at the destination | Fleet lands at destination moon but cannot fly anywhere |
| Not checking return time after dispatch | Typos in coordinates or speed cause fleet to return unexpectedly early or late |
See Also
Sensor Phalanx · Jump Gate · Moons · Missions · Computer Technology