Pre-alpha codex — written from the build in internal testing. Systems, numbers and features can change before launch. · Found Your Empire

The Sensor Array is the first building of the sub-orbit layer — the moons and station extensions hanging off your orbits. Sub-orbits never produce anything; they change what a system can do. This one does something no mine ever will: it sees.

Building it

• Unlocks at System Administration L4 — the level the Administration building always kept in reserve.
• One array per system, on any sub-orbit. Three levels, each one buying a deeper look.
• It is the only building that watches. The mission anchorages share the sub-orbit layer but carry no sensors.

What it sees

Without an array, you see nothing incoming — no warning, no countdown, no courtesy call. That is the doctrine, not a gap: your warning system is a thing you chose to build. With one, hostile fleets heading for one of your covered systems appear as contacts, and each array level earns a deeper reveal:

• Level 1 — something approaches. That is all you know.
• Level 2 — and you know when it arrives.
• Level 3 — and roughly how strong it is.

Reach grows twice: higher array levels watch further along your lanes, and every level of Intelligence Service research extends all your arrays by one more hyperlane hop. The research screen shows the exact numbers.

What it does not see

Spy probes. They are too small to show up as contacts — arrays report only fleets that come to fight, and espionage stays viable. Catching spies is a different discipline, and it is live: Counter-Intelligence Service research can detect a scan, name the spy and destroy the probes. An array still helps there — at a system it covers, its level counts on top of your Counter-Intelligence against spies.