Eidolon

Corruption rises as your ships use their abilities, increasing their weapon damage at the cost of escalating penalties. Build Corruption Reservoirs to corrupt planets and empower Shrouded planet modes.

Overview

The Eidolon, introduced in the Harbinger expansion, are an enigmatic extra-dimensional power. Their fleets distort space, cloak themselves, destabilize enemy defenses and turn gravity wells into shrouded domains.

Distinctive systems

Ship Corruption: Spending antimatter builds Corruption, which raises weapon damage but causes continuous hull damage at high levels.
The Shroud: Corruption Reservoirs corrupt planets. A fully corrupted planet can be Shrouded, unlocking special planetary modes.
Effects on other races: Corruption hits each enemy race differently: it disrupts sensors on TEC ships, destabilizes phase travel for Vasari ships, and interferes with abilities while raising Psi Power on Advent ships.

Core mechanics

Ship Corruption

Casting abilities raises a ship's Corruption. Higher Corruption increases weapon damage, but at high levels it wears down the hull, though never to destruction. Corruption starts to decay 60 seconds after it was last raised.

Shrouded planet modes

A Shrouded world runs one mode at a time:

Exploitation: Increases resource output.
Propagate: Spreads corruption to nearby worlds.
Summoning: Speeds up ship production.
Phasic Veil: Disrupts phase travel.

Cloaking

Eidolon cloaking is a matter of degree, not permanent invisibility. Taking hull damage, firing weapons or jumping lowers cloak strength and makes ships easier to detect.

Enemy countermeasures

Enemy Phase Jump Inhibitors slowly remove corruption from nearby planets and ease development restrictions by one level, with research making them stronger. Neither effect removes the Shroud itself. In team games, Propagate and Vile Presence do not corrupt allied planets.

Iskazhar Epitaph

The Iskazhar Epitaph starbase can teleport, which requires vision of the destination and a 30-second preparation. Its Phase Destabilizer drains hull and antimatter from fleeing enemy ships without destroying them directly.

Strategic trade-offs

Damage vs. durability: Maximum Corruption gives peak firepower, but the hull damage leaves fleets fragile against a counter-attack.
One mode per planet: Each Shrouded world gives up the other modes' benefits while one is active.
Fighting Advent: Corrupting Advent ships disrupts their abilities but also raises their Psi Power.