UFOs
Every so often a flying saucer drifts onto the map near your colony. Catch it before it leaves and it hands you a free batch of resources. It is a small, friendly distraction in the middle of a hard strategy game, and it is yours alone: only you can catch the saucer that appears for you, and nobody else is racing you for it.
Your first UFO
The first saucer you ever see is a guaranteed one. Shortly after you start playing it appears right on your home colony, framed by the camera so you cannot miss it, and it does not leave. It will sit there patiently until you click it, even if you log off and come back. Think of it as a gentle tutorial: catch it once and you know what to look for from then on.
Catching one
Catching a UFO is exactly as simple as it sounds: click the saucer on the map. The reward, a random amount of one resource, is credited straight to your home colony, and you get a notification confirming what you caught. The resource and the amount vary from catch to catch, so a UFO is a small bonus rather than something to build a plan around.
After the first
Once you have caught your first, later saucers behave a little differently. A new one shows up roughly every half hour to hour near your home colony, lingers for a few minutes, and then leaves again if nobody catches it. A few things are worth knowing:
- They do not pile up. Only one of your saucers is ever out at a time. The next will not appear until the current one is caught or has drifted away.
- The timer waits for you. A drifting saucer only counts down its few minutes while you are actually online and active. Step away and it pauses, so being idle will not quietly cost you a catch.
- Missing one is fine. If a saucer leaves before you reach it you get a short "escaped" note, and another will come along later. Nothing is lost beyond that single batch of resources.
See also
Read Resources for what the rewards actually do for your colony, see The Map and Screen for reading the world a saucer appears in, and start with Welcome to RealmConquest for the core loop.