Game guides

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Learn how to build your colony, explore the galaxy and manage your empire. New to the game? Start with Getting started. Already playing? Browse by task to find the answer you need.

53 guides · 10 categories

Getting started

Learn the game, choose your starting setup and establish your first colony.

What is Nexus: Downfall?

Learn how this browser-based space strategy game works, what you can do in a shared universe and how to begin.

Choose your universe, civilization, and origin

Compare the civilization traits and starting packages before joining a universe.

Your first session

Stabilize your first colony by checking its resource production, food, power and workers.

Buildings

See what each structure does and when to build or upgrade it.

Build and upgrade buildings

Compare building costs, benefits, requirements and timers before starting construction or an upgrade.

Command Center

Use the Command Center to adjust taxes, manage planetary government and activate researched laws.

Minerals Mine

Produce minerals and check the workers, power and storage space your mine needs.

Chip Factory

Produce microchips for buildings, ships and other technology costs.

Hydrogen Mine

Produce fuel for fleets and probes, and keep an eye on the mine's workers, power and tank.

Farm

Balance food production against consumption to support the population on a planet.

Power Generator

Meet your colony's power demand and avoid efficiency losses across its buildings.

Nuclear Reactor

Unlock advanced power generation and compare the reactor's cost with other ways to meet demand.

Residential Zone

Add housing and support population growth while planning for higher food consumption.

Research Center

Generate Science Points and meet technology requirements with Research Centers across your colonies.

Espionage Center

Build probes, scan systems and carry out planetary espionage from the Espionage Center.

Spaceport

Build ships and manage which ones are ready to join your fleets.

Defense Center

Build planetary defenses and distinguish them from the garrison supplied by the Center.

Component Factory

Turn resources into advanced materials through production orders.

Economy

Manage resources and workers, use your cards and learn to trade.

Understand your empire's resources and points

Learn which resources belong to a planet, which points are shared empire-wide and where to manage them.

Manage population, workers, and happiness

Assign workers to the buildings that need them and balance population growth with food and happiness.

Expand storage

Increase storage capacity for minerals, microchips, hydrogen and food independently of production.

Earn credits and adjust taxes

Review the tax rate, projected income and effect on happiness before changing a planet's taxes.

Activate production boosters

Boost a planet's resource production for a limited time and check its staffing, power and storage first.

Use resource and population consumables

Use a consumable card to add resources or residents to the planet that needs them.

Buy from a trade hub and collect goods

Buy resources or star maps at a sector trade hub and arrange delivery to one of your colonies.

Sell resources and choose transport

List resources from a trade hub bank or transport them from a colony before a sale.

Schedule a trade route

Set a regular shipment schedule and make sure the colony and fleet can support each run.

Mine an asteroid belt

Send a fleet to an asteroid belt and manage its extraction, cargo, risks and return.

Build and maintain a trade hub

Set up a trade hub at the sector capital's frontier outpost and keep its base in good standing.

Expansion

Choose whether to found colonies, build outposts or contest planets.

Found a new colony

Find a free planet and check habitability, resources, fuel and fleet requirements before colonizing it.

Terraform a planet before colonizing

Change a planet's type and habitability before colonization, and review the added cost and time.

Build a frontier outpost

Build an orbital outpost in a system where you have a colony and review its upgrades and requirements.

Occupy a planet

Reduce a planet's resistance to zero, then occupy it if the conquest rules allow it.

Annex an occupied planet

Turn a planet occupied by your forces into a colony by paying Diplomacy Points.

Laws and diplomacy

Activate policies you can sustain and generate points for your decisions.

Research and activate a planetary law

Unlock a planetary law through research, then check its effects and upkeep before activating it.

Generate Diplomacy Points

Increase diplomacy generation by supporting your population, Command Center staffing and colony conditions.

Use edicts and review policy upkeep

Manage empire-wide edicts separately from planetary laws and check their ongoing costs.

Research

Read the tech trees, generate science and choose what your empire needs next.

Fleets

Prepare the right ships and review missions, fuel and orbital positions.

Merchants and pirates

Review merchant offers and decide how to respond to pirate activity.

Exploration

Build probes, scan systems and search the galaxy for new routes.

Daily management

Assign your characters, track missions and use reports to review your empire.