Docking and citizenship
What this does
Every ship needs a port. Docking at a system makes you one of its citizens: the system’s Lighthouse broadcasts buffs to your hull no matter where you fly or extract. Choose wisely — switching citizenship costs a 24-hour cooldown.
Prerequisites
- You have completed onboarding and have an active account. See the onboarding guide if you haven’t started yet.
- You know which system you want to call home. The Cartography room shows every charted system grouped by sector with Warden and current-citizen status — a useful shortcut before committing.
Step-by-step walkthrough
1. Open Cartography in your home base
Run /base to open your home base, then select
Cartography from the room menu.
The Cartography overview lists all charted systems grouped by sector. An ⚓ icon marks the system you are currently docked at (if any); a 🗼 icon marks systems where you hold the Warden seat.
2. Select a system and dock
Use the “Chart a system…” dropdown to open a system’s detail view. The detail view shows the system’s stats along with your current status. If you are not yet docked there, an ”⚓ Dock here” button appears at the bottom. Press it to dock.
The button is greyed out and reads “Already docked” if you are already a citizen of that system — no action needed.
Alternatively, you can dock directly with the slash command:
/dock system:<system-name>/dock takes a single required argument: the system
name. Autocomplete surfaces all known systems.
3. Confirm the dock
The bot replies with a private confirmation: “Docked at #<system-name>.” for a new or switched dock. The Cartography detail view also updates: the ⚓ badge appears in the header and the “Dock here” button becomes “Already docked”.
What “success” looks like
Once docked, your home Lighthouse immediately applies citizen buffs to your account. A bare Lighthouse (no upgrades installed yet) grants these baselines:
| Buff | Effect |
|---|---|
| Expedition success | +1% to expedition success checks |
| Repair cost | −1% to ship repair costs |
| Ambush rate | −1% to ambush encounter rate on expeditions |
| Expedition turnaround | −1% to expedition return time |
When the Warden installs upgrades, those upgrades override the 1% baseline for their category. Citizens benefit automatically — no extra steps after docking.
The turnaround and success buffs apply to all expeditions — including resource-extraction runs and Lighthouse claim attempts. See the resource loop guide for how citizenship affects yield throughput.
Common gotchas & troubleshooting
“Switch cooldown: Xh Ym remaining since your last dock change.”
You switched citizenship within the last 24 hours. The cooldown applies to
switches only — your very first dock has no cooldown. Wait out the timer,
then run /dock again.
“You are already docked at #<system-name>.” You are already a citizen there. No action needed; your buffs are active.
“System ‘<name>’ not found.”
The system name you typed does not match any charted system. Use autocomplete
in /dock or browse the Cartography room to find the
exact name.
“No system specified.” / “System not found.” (Cartography button)
The session likely expired. Close and reopen the home base with
/base and try again.
Buffs appear to be zero after docking.
The system may not have a Lighthouse registered. Run
/lighthouse status in that system’s channel —
if none is shown, the buffs cannot resolve. Dock at a system that has one.
You were auto-docked after winning a Lighthouse claim. If you won a Wardenship contract, the Authority auto-docks you at that system without consuming your switch cooldown. Your previous citizenship is closed automatically.
Related guides
- Claiming a Lighthouse (becoming Warden) — once you hold the Warden seat you are auto-docked, and you can post upgrades that increase the buffs your citizens receive.
- Resource loop — citizen buffs reduce extraction expedition turnaround time and improve success rates, directly affecting your yield throughput.