Newbie Protected Zone

• The newbie protected zone is a temporary newbie protection
• It was added for the new 10x galaxy only but will probably be included in future galaxies
• It's in place for each player starting a new game and covers a wide area around their start position
• 3 very fast and powerful NPC guard fleets aggressively patrol and defend it - any non-friendly fleet entering will be attacked
• Newbie protected zones aren't granted to players joining with a spawn code

See also: Home Planet Protection, Galaxies

The image above shows a home system for a new player in the middle, the perimeter that marks the edge of the newbie protected zone and an NPC guard fleet in pursuit of a non-friendly fleet that has entered.

How it works

• 3 NPC guard fleets patrol and defend the zone
• Any non-friendly (no treaty, not in the same alliance) player fleets are automatically pursued and attacked (pirate fleets are ignored)
• The guard fleets are very fast and powerful, but if a guard fleet is destroyed a replacement guard fleet will spawn
• Once the player's newbie protection period ends the newbie protected zone and guard fleets will vanish
• If a non-friendly fleet does manage to reach the home planet there is an additional layer of protection

Visibility

• Newbie protected zones are visible from the star map
• Your own newbie protected zone is white/blue and other player's are red
• Hovering the border of a newbie protected zone will reveal the protected player's name (you can contact them with a private message)

Duration

How long the newbie protected zone and NPC guard fleets last depends on the galaxy:

• 1x speed galaxies: N/A
• 10x speed galaxies: 5 days

Note: newbie protected zones were added for the new 10x galaxy only, but will likely be included to some degree in all future galaxies.

Spawn codes

• Players that join a galaxy with a spawn code do not get their own newbie protected zone
• This is to prevent spawn codes from being used to tactically deploy a newbie protected zone over an enemy's territory and have the NPC guard fleets attack them!
• When a spawn code is used a treaty is automatically formed between the player that generated the spawn code and the player that used it. So if the inviting player still has a newbie protected zone covering the spawn code planet, the player spawning onto that planet will be ignored by the guard fleets and will also benefit from their protection to a degree

See also: Home Planet Protection, Galaxies