Fleet Mechanics

Fleet travel in MWarfare is built from three things:

how far you are going
how fast your slowest ship can move
how much fuel your fleet can carry

This page explains the real launch calculations used on live s2, but in player language.

Quick Facts

Topic	Current `s2` Rule
Fleet speed setting	1x
Travel slider	10% to 100%
Slowest ship rule	Yes
Fuel must fit in cargo	Yes
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 donut is active
System donut is used when you stay inside the same galaxy

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.

Then your selected speed slider reduces that value:

actual_fleet_speed
  = slowest_ship_speed × selected_speed_fraction

Examples:

100% speed = 1.0
50% speed = 0.5
10% speed = 0.1

That is why adding one very slow ship can dramatically increase travel time.

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 your slider value on the internal 1 to 10 scale
10 means 100% speed
5 means 50% speed
1 means 10% speed
current live s2 fleet speed setting is 1

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

Cargo Capacity Check

Your mission only launches if the fleet can carry its own fuel.

total_cargo = sum(ship cargo × ship count)
available_cargo = total_cargo - total_fuel
launch_allowed = total_fuel <= total_cargo

That is why long-range fleets sometimes fail to launch even when you own the ships and the deuterium.

The fuel has to fit in the cargo hold. When you launch, the game counts any loaded deuterium toward that fuel first. If your loaded deuterium is lower than the fuel cost, the game automatically loads only the missing shortfall from the origin world so the fleet can depart. If your loaded deuterium is higher than the fuel cost, the fleet burns the fuel out of that carried deuterium and keeps only the leftover deuterium as cargo.

Fuel Cell Speed Boost

These missions support the speed-style Fuel Cell boost:

Transport
Deployment
Harvest
ACS Defend

The game calculates the mission's normal deuterium cost first, then turns that into a Fuel Cell fee:

fuel_cell_speed_boost_cost
  = max(25, ceil(normal_deuterium_cost / 100))

If you pay that Fuel Cell cost:

your selected travel speed is doubled
the mission's deuterium fuel cost becomes 0

This is a launch-only choice. You either pay for the boosted trip or you do not.

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, and it does not increase encounter size. Recon is also mission-specific: Fuel Cells improve positive Recon reward amounts and raise its active-mission manifest scan chance from 5% up to 25% per tick instead of changing 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

Your maximum concurrent fleet slots are:

max_fleet_slots
  = 5
  + (2 × floor(Computer Technology / 2))

In plain language:

every player starts with 5
every even Computer Technology level adds 2

Missile attacks do not use fleet slots.

Deep-space mission families also have their own separate active slot caps:

patrol_slots      = 1 + Space Dock research
trade_slots       = 1 + Moon Base research
recon_slots       = 1 + Recon Technology
exploration_slots = 1 + Wayfinder research

An active launch, hold, or return row in that family uses one family slot until the fleet is fully processed.