Expeditions are the single best source of Dark Matter, free ships and bonus resources in OGame — but only if you send the right fleet, at the right speed, with enough expedition slots to make it worth the deuterium. Rather than doing the math by hand every time your research levels change, plug your numbers into the calculator below. It covers everything that actually decides how your expeditions perform: how many expedition slots your Astrophysics level unlocks, your fleet's expedition points (which roughly maps to your risk band and find size), total cargo capacity with your Hyperspace Technology bonus applied, real flight time and deuterium cost to position 16, and how many runs you can realistically fit into a day.
These are community-derived formulas verified against the OGame Wiki and cross-checked against this site's own expedition strategy guide — not official Gameforge source code, so treat the output as a strong estimate rather than an exact guarantee, especially on private servers with non-standard speed, cost or cargo settings.
Whether you call it an expedition calculator, an expo calculator or an expedition simulator, the questions are the same: how many expeditions can you run at once, which fleet should you send, and what will each run cost and bring back? Fill in your research levels and fleet below and the calculator answers all three.
How these numbers are calculated
Expedition slots
Your number of simultaneous expedition slots is the square root of your Astrophysics level, rounded down: slots = floor(sqrt(Astrophysics level)). That gives 1 slot at Astrophysics 1, 2 slots at level 4, 3 slots at level 9, 4 slots at level 16, and 5 slots at level 25 — the requirement roughly quadruples for every extra slot. The Admiral officer adds a flat +1 slot on top, which is why it's usually one of the first officers serious expedition players activate permanently.
Expedition points
Every ship you send contributes expedition points equal to its metal-plus-crystal cost, multiplied by 5, divided by 1,000 — deuterium cost doesn't count. A Small Cargo (2,000 metal + 2,000 crystal) is worth 20 points; a Battleship (45,000 metal + 15,000 crystal) is worth 300 points; a full Deathstar is worth 45,000 points on its own. Total points across your sent fleet roughly determine how big a risk band you're flying in — more points generally means better average finds and safer odds against pirates and aliens, but it also means more deuterium and more ships exposed if something does go wrong.
Cargo capacity
Add up the cargo capacity of every ship in the fleet, then apply your Hyperspace Technology bonus (+5% per level) to the total. A Large Cargo carries 25,000 base, a Small Cargo 5,000 — Large Cargos are the standard backbone of an expedition fleet because of their far better cargo-per-point efficiency. A single Pathfinder in the fleet doubles the maximum possible positive find on top of your raw capacity, which is why most serious expedition fleets carry at least one even though its own cargo hold (10,000) isn't huge.
Flight time and fuel
Expeditions always fly to the deep-space slot beyond position 15 in your own system (referred to as "position 16"). Distance is 1,000 + 5 × |16 − your planet's position|, so a planet at position 8 is 1,040 units from its expedition slot. Flight time depends on that distance, your slowest ship's speed (after Combustion/Impulse/Hyperspace Drive bonuses), and the speed percentage you choose on the fleet dispatch screen — flying at less than 100% burns noticeably less deuterium but takes proportionally longer, which is the standard trade-off expedition farmers make once they have enough slots to not need every last minute back.
Outcome odds
Gameforge has never published the exact outcome formula, but large community-tracked samples across many universes converge on a fairly stable distribution: resources roughly a third of the time, a fleet find about 1 in 5, nothing about 1 in 5, and Dark Matter around 1 in 11. Combat encounters (pirates or aliens) show up combined a little under 1 in 12 runs, and total fleet loss to a "black hole" event is genuinely rare — about 1 in 300. The table above uses these figures; your own results will naturally swing above and below them run to run.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many expedition slots do I get in OGame?
Take the square root of your Astrophysics level and round down. Astrophysics 1-3 gives 1 slot, 4-8 gives 2, 9-15 gives 3, 16-24 gives 4, and 25+ gives 5. The Admiral officer adds one more slot on top of whatever your Astrophysics level provides, so most active players keep it running permanently.
How are OGame expedition points calculated?
Points equal a ship's metal cost plus crystal cost, multiplied by 5, then divided by 1,000 (deuterium cost is excluded from the formula). A Battleship is worth 300 points, a Small Cargo 20, a Destroyer 550. Add up every ship you're sending to get your fleet's total — the calculator above does this automatically as you type.
How much cargo capacity do I need for expeditions?
There's no hard minimum, but most players size their cargo hold to whatever the maximum expected find could be, since a find larger than your remaining capacity is simply capped at what you can carry. Large Cargo ships (25,000 capacity each) are the standard choice; add your Hyperspace Technology bonus (+5% per level) and, if you're carrying one, remember a single Pathfinder doubles your maximum possible positive find.
What speed percentage should I use for expeditions?
100% gets your fleet there and back fastest, letting you squeeze in more runs per slot per day, but deuterium cost rises sharply with speed. Many players run 100% while slots are scarce and time matters more than fuel, then drop to 70-80% once they're running expeditions around the clock and want to stretch their deuterium reserves further. Use the speed dropdown in the calculator to compare both options against your own fleet.
Can I lose my fleet on an expedition?
Yes, though it's uncommon. Pirates or aliens can intercept your fleet in combat (roughly 1 in 12 runs combined) — a fleet with real firepower alongside its cargo ships usually survives these encounters and can even come home with salvage. A total fleet loss from a "black hole" event is genuinely rare, around 1 in 300 expeditions. Sending an unescorted stack of pure cargo ships maximizes capacity but carries the most risk if you do run into a fight.
How much Dark Matter can I get from expeditions?
Dark Matter shows up in roughly 1 in 11 expeditions, in three rough tiers: small finds around 300-400, medium finds around 500-700, and large finds between 1,000 and 1,800. There's no way to target a specific tier — it's part of the random outcome roll — but running more slots more often naturally increases your long-run average income, which the calculator estimates in the weekly projection above.
What's the best fleet composition for expeditions?
A Large Cargo-heavy fleet for capacity, a handful of combat ships (Cruisers, Battleships or Bombers) for defense against pirates and aliens, and at least one Pathfinder for the doubled maximum find, is the standard mid-to-late-game setup. Early on, before you can afford that, some players send cheap Espionage Probes purely to occupy a slot at near-zero cost and risk — the finds are small, but so is everything you're risking.
Why doesn't my in-game flight time match this calculator exactly?
This calculator uses the standard OGame ruleset formulas. If your server runs a custom fleet speed factor, deuterium consumption factor, or altered ship stats, adjust the matching dropdowns above to your server's actual settings — the fleet dispatch screen in-game is always the final authority on exact numbers.
Want to put these expedition strategies to work? ogame.life is a free-to-play OGame server where you can start building your fleet and sending expeditions today.
