Forces are represented by stacks in the current sector. Every merchant can leave one stack. In there he can place a maximum of 50 mines, 50 combat drones and 10 scouts. It is possible for alliance members to add to the stacks of other alliance members.

Example of a two stack minefield

1. Combat Drones
Combat drones are small computer controlled ships that have a static offensive/defensive capability. Combat drones that are deployed in a sector participate in combat if an allied ship is attacking or defending. Combat drones will also attempt to defend allied forces in the event that they are attacked by an enemy ship. Combat drones are passive unless targetted, attacked directly or an allied ship in the same sector is attacked.

As we know much technology and knowledge of the workings of existing technology disappeared in the destruction of Zentauri 0, but the following interesting pieces of information were reverse-engineered by the Imperial Weapons Division:

• A single combat drone does 1.5 damage + a random number between -0.5 and 0.5
• For combat drones installed on ships the quantity that will engage:
  Number of CDs * (0.55+(player level/100)+TC bonus + Defender's Tactical Defense calculation (unfortunately to this day the DTD has not been reversed engineered)
• In defense, CD's have 3 life points and 1/3 of the damage caused by a shot is absorbed by CD's.

2. Scout Drones
Scout drones have no offensive capability. Their sole purpose is to report to their merchant owner on the movement of ships. If attacked, scout drones will explode causing minor damage to the attacking ship. Scout drones are not affected by targetting. Control of scout drone reporting is done under the Preferences menu.

3. Mines
Mines do not participate in ship combat and their triggering mechanisms are based upon movement. Mines actively seek out and explode upon enemy ships that are moving into or out of a sector. An enemy ship that enters a sector that has been mined will be forced to defend itself from all of that sector's mines. The newly arrived ship will initially detonate half of the sector's total mine count, or none at all, depending the merchant's ability to evade the mines (a function of experience). The ship has the choice of:

1. leaving the sector from the original entry point and not detonating any of the remaining mines (does not work if the merchant entered the sector via jump drive)
2. attacking the remaining mines and facing the possibility of further mine detonations
3. leaving the sector via an exit point that was not the original point of entry and facing further mine detonations

Mine fields of 20 mines or greater can be set to be repulsionary mine fields. Repulsionary mine fields prevent merchants from entering a sector. Merchants have the option of proceeding through the repulsionary force and attacking the mine field. If a repulsionary mine field drops below 20 mines, it can longer function as repulsionary. Mines are always active against any non-allied ships unless carefully targetted.

The following has been discovered about mines:
when hitting a mine stack half the mines explode, and each mine does 7 damage, therefore in a stack of 50 mines, 25 explode for 50*7 damage.

Forces options:

• Mines and combat drones can be targeted to specific alliances and/or persons. Do that either in current sector or press INF/Merchant Status/Forces in the menu and choose
• Forces can be recharged in current sector so they wont expire (left alone, they expire within a week)
• Forces can be remotely destroyed