Moon

Should a gigantic battle occur in the vicinity of a planet, there is a slight chance that the debris scattered in the planet's gravity field will condense into a solid, subzero, somewhat smaller satellite. In short: a moon.

A Moon is special because it is the only place where the Lunar Base, Sensor Phalanx, and the Jump Gate can be constructed. The lunar base must be built first to provide three fields for other buildings.

moon fully developed

Moons are important because they allow you to invisibly fleetsave where the Sensor Phalanx cannot see.

The following buildings can be constructed on a moon:

• Robotic Factory
• Shipyard
• Metal Storage (useless*)
• Crystal Storage (useless*)
• Deuterium Tank (useless*)
• Lunar Base
• Sensor Phalanx
• Jump Gate

*Storage useful only for scrap merchant, and that is hardly enough reason to build it and waste slots.

Resource mines, Research Lab, Nanite Factory, Terraformer, and Missile Silo cannot be built on a moon.

As long as the required Shipyard level is constructed, any Defenses can be built on a moon. Just like on a Planet, constructed defenses do not use up fields.

Since OGame 0.78a, IPMs can be used to destroy defenses on a moon and ABMs from the planet will defend the moon in those cases.

It is possible to build storage tanks on the surface, but bear in mind moons cannot produce any resources. Building slots on a moon are very expensive and must be put to careful use.

Obtaining

Having a moon is so desirable for success in OGame that many players team up to organize a series of moonshots until they get one. Because the largest default chance any single attack can have at forming a moon is 20%, it can often take many moonshots in order for a moon to form on the desired planet.

Please note: On Barym, as it is a special server with 40% of resources to debris field, these numbers are reduced by 1/4. So for a 20% chance using Battleships instead of 112 it would be 84, etc. Ultimately, the size of the debris field is the indicator of the odds of a moon. 100k resources in the DF per 1% chance - and deuterium normally does not go into the DF.

Higher % of resources to debris field universes make trading moonshots much easier, as less of the resources invested are lost for a given moonshot. The high resources in the Debris Field also make other players look to recycle your ships.

Probability of moon formation from ship debris

Ship	1%	2%	3%	4%	5%	6%	7%	8%	9%	10%	11%	12%	13%	14%	15%	16%	17%	18%	19%	20%
Small Cargo Ship	84	167	250	334	417	500	584	667	750	834	917	1,000	1,084	1,167	1,250	1,334	1,417	1,500	1,584	1,667
Large Cargo Ship	28	56	84	112	139	167	195	223	250	278	306	334	362	389	417	445	473	500	528	556
Light Fighter	84	166	250	334	417	500	584	667	750	834	917	1,000	1,084	1,167	1,250	1,337	1,417	1,500	1,584	1,667
Heavy Fighter	34	67	100	134	167	200	234	267	300	334	367	400	434	467	500	534	567	600	634	667
Cruiser	13	25	37	50	62	75	87	99	112	124	136	149	161	173	186	198	210	223	235	247
Battleship	6	12	17	23	28	34	39	45	50	56	62	67	73	78	84	89	95	100	106	112
Colony Ship	12	23	34	45	56	67	78	89	100	112	123	134	145	156	167	178	189	200	212	223
Recycler	21	42	63	84	105	126	146	167	188	209	230	250	271	292	313	334	355	375	396	417
Espionage Probe	334	667	1,000	1,334	1,667	2,000	2,334	2,667	3,000	3,334	3,667	4,000	4,334	4,667	5,000	5,334	5,667	6,000	6,334	6,667
Bomber	5	9	14	18	23	27	32	36	40	45	49	54	58	63	67	72	76	80	85	89
Solar Satellite	167	334	500	667	834	1,000	1,167	1,334	1,500	1,667	1,834	2,000	2,167	2,334	2,500	2,667	2,834	3,000	3,167	3,334
Destroyer	4	7	10	13	16	19	22	25	28	31	34	37	40	43	46	49	52	55	58	61
Death Star	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	1
Battlecruiser	5	10	15	20	24	29	34	39	43	48	53	58	62	67	72	77	81	86	91	96

Destroying

A moon can be destroyed by a fleet of Deathstars. If there is any fleet or defense, the attacker must win first then the moon destruction chance begins.  A draw or loss by the attacker will send any surviving Deathstars back with no moon destruction. Regardless of if the moon is destroyed or not, there is a chance that the moon will destroy the Deathstars. The formulae are provided below. It is important to note that when a Moon, the Deathstars, or both are destroyed there is NO debris field created in the moon destruction mission.

Moon Destruction Results: There are 4 possible outcomes for a moon destruction mission:

1. Moon survives, Fleet survives
2. Moon survives, Fleet is destroyed
3. Moon is destroyed, Fleet is destroyed
4. Moon is destroyed, Fleet survives

Fleets returning to the destroyed moon will be rerouted to the planet. This will mean the fleet would be visible to a phalanx.

Formulae

Key:
S = Size of the moon (Km)
D = number of Deathstars

Chance to destroy moon (in percentage)= $( 100-\sqrt{S} )\times\sqrt{D}$

Chance the deathstar* is destroyed (in percentage)= $\frac{\sqrt{S}}{2}$

Before deathstars destroy a moon, they have to fight with fleets and defences on the moon. There is almost always a greater chance that the deathstar(s) will be destroyed than the moon - however, take for example a size 8944 moon being attacked by 100 deathstars. There is a 54.27% chance that the moon will be destroyed yet a 47.29% chance the deathstars will be destroyed. Additionally, any number of deathstars greater than 339 causes a claimed chance greater than 100% of moon destruction.

'*this is a single roll for the entire fleet

The Size of the Moon used to have an impact on how many fields are available, via the formula: (MoonSize/1000)^2. However this was removed some years ago, now the amount of fields is theoretically limitless, however there are practical upper bounds due to cost and time constraints.

See also

• Fleetsave
• Moonchance