RipSpace allows races to join together and form Empires. Races in an empire will automatically see each others ships when in the same solar systems. They will also see the ships and mines as seen by all of the empire forces in the system.
When your vessels jump out of a system, members of your empire will not gain DarkLight from you - so if there are only members of your empire present then you will lose no DarkLight.
Currently the fleets of an empire are not merged for the jump-in calculation, there is no sharing of RipCurrents or any other benefit. This may change in the future.
Empires should be used to bring young races into the universe, perhaps using them to bolster your fleets defending key systems. The sharing of information can provide a vital boost in combat, and allows a larger joint fleet to be presented against enemies. The obvious counter to this advantage is to join forces to defeat enemy empires.
Any race can create and name an empire. Open the Empire menu item and select 'create empire'. When you send in your orders the server will create the empire.
When you load your next turn you can now open the Empire Manager, and invite races to join your empire. Again sending in your orders will cause the server to enact these requests.
If the invitee is already in an empire the invitation will simply never arrive. If not then their next turn report will contain the invitation which they can accept or reject. It is probably worth sending them a FarMail message prior to the invitation so that they understand your aims and want to enter into the empire.
If they accept then they become an member. Inviting a member who has already been invited into another empire will superceed the prior invitation, replacing it with yours.
Members of an empire can have the following grades:
Owner | These members can promote and demote other grades, and may kick or invite members in the empire. |
Council | These members can invite races and kick them from the empire. They cannot promote to the council, or to owner status. |
Member | A normal empire member cannot invite or kick others. |
Invitee | They can either accept or reject the invitation. |
Any race you have met, or have knowledge of will be listed in the Empire Manager window. Select the race and use the invite button. To cancel the invitation use the invite button again and cancel the invitation. Only council members or owners can invite other races. The invitation can be retracted by kicking the invitee at any time.
Accepting and Rejecting an invitation is simply done by clicking on the buttons that appear in the Empire Manager window.
Select one of the member races in the empire and change their role to either council or owner. Only owners can change the roles of members. Only owners can change the role of council members. Empire owners cannot change the role of other empire owners, they may demote themselves though.
Empire owners can kick council members and normal members. Council members can kick normal members. Kicking will simply remove the member from the empire.
Any race may resign from an empire. If the last member resigns then the empire will be removed. If the last empire owner resigns then a random empire member will be promoted to be the new owner.