Soil is a slow-paced space RTS game where you mine resources, build ships and fight your enemies. Campaign features persistent fleet, research, and optional mission objectives that can affect rest of the missions.

Game features simulated projectiles, beams and missiles, and armor system that promotes variety of ships in your fleet.

Ships

Ships are composed of subsystems, which provide functions like engines, sensors, shipyards, fighterbays etc., and hardpoints that house turrets. Damaging them reduces their effectiveness, destroying them removes their function, or removes the turrets. Destroy the engines to prevent ship from moving, destroy reactor to strip ship of most of its energy generation, destroy fighterbay to prevent new fighters from being produced. Destroy hardpoint to remove its turrets from action. This type of damage can only be fixed by ships with shipyards for resources.

Ships in Soil gain two types of experience. Offensive experience is gained by causing damage and it increases ship's accuracy, rate of fire and other attributes. Defensive experience is gained by taking damage, and increases passive self-repair, and reduces incoming damage.

Fighters

Fighterbays on ships produce and house fighter or interceptor groups that can provide fighter cover, or bomber groups to supplement your firepower or perform precision strikes. Fighters need resources to be present on carrier to be built or repaired, and will also run out of ammo and fuel and will need to return to carrier to replenish those.

Resources & research

Soil has a single resource type for building ships and fighters. It is mined from asteroids or dropped cargo containers from exploding ships, and needs to be returned to the ship that will be using them. There is no global pool of resources ready to be used.

The second resource type "crystals" is used to power special research that unlocks abilities and upgrades, such as making production cheaper or faster, increasing starting ship experience or experience gain, etc. The research that unlocks building of ship types is free, and costs only time. In campaign, you won't see this resource much, and will receive it for completing objectives.