Glossary

Terms used in Citadel and on this wiki. Add a term in alphabetical order, with one or two sentences and a link to the page that explains it.

Aardvark, malamute: Regional slang for a Breacher.
Aberration: A rare organism that is living being and technological construct at once. See Aberrations.
Affinity: A hull's own progression track: XP, levels and points spent on one specialization. See Affinity.
Bastion Ship: A faction's stronghold, built on a boss hull. See Bastion Ship.
Battery: Either a battery hardpoint, a cell on the fitting grid for turrets, or a turret battery, the group of same-family turrets that fires as one. See Turret batteries.
Breach: In the game, a timed multiplayer zone inside the Citadel. In the world, the passage Breachers force into infrastructure the Citadel intended to keep closed. See Breach.
Breacher: A pilot or crew member who enters sealed zones for salvage, travel, research, or survival. Players are Breachers. See Breachers.
Build rating: The number that sizes up a ship: hull, fitted modules, affinity points and a quarter of the cargo. It gates breach tiers. See Build rating.
Champion: A named NPC with fixed bonuses and an escort. See Elites and champions.
Conduit: A one-cell core item that grows stronger for every module of its type pointing a port at it. See Ports and conduits.
Counter: A respected hereditary elder of a tek colony or family, who distributes communal haul and mediates disputes.
Daemon: A machine intelligence that once worked under mathron supervision. See Machine intelligences.
Elite: An NPC that spawned with one to three modifiers. See Elites and champions.
Extraction: Leaving a Breach with ship and cargo intact. Nothing recovered counts until then. See Breach.
Fascia: One of the large divisions of the Citadel. Mainframe is a fascia.
Fitting: Arranging modules on a ship's fitting grid. See Ship fitting.
Ghoul, golem: Machines that kept working after the Derailment. Golems continue assigned labor; ghouls developed unpredictable autonomy. See Machine intelligences.
Hangar: Where a captain manages stash, ships, trade and manufacturing between Breaches. See Hangar.
Hardpoint: A Battery, Subsystem or Propulsion cell on the fitting grid. A module of that kind must cover at least one. See Ship fitting.
Harmonic: A Normal module whose ports hold the right ciphers and were activated with a Cipher Key. See Tek Ciphers.
Harpoon: The main tool for interacting with the world: recovering loot, towing, connecting to machinery. See Harpoon.
Heap: A notional unit for barter in useful junk.
Licent: The ancient currency retained by Ordo Crucis.
Linked: Said of Regalia pieces of one set that touch edge to edge on the fitting grid. See Regalia.
Lock law: The old unwritten law that governs ships, docks, gates, mooring, freight, dues, and vassalage. See Mainframe.
Logists: Those who transport, guard, store, or seize cargo.
Mathron: A machine intelligence that sat directly beneath DAAT. See Machine intelligences.
Merits: The score a captain earns for a faction. See Merits.
Morning star: An armed robotic ghost ship controlled by an advanced daemon. See Machine intelligences.
Mound: Breacher slang for a sealed objective.
Mount: A part of a boss that can be targeted: an armor repairer, a hull bulkhead or a gun. See Bosses.
ORE: The dominant currency of Mainframe, issued by Ganden. See ORE.
Port: A socket on the edge of a module, for a Tek Cipher or a conduit link. See Ports and conduits.
Quality: Faction, Flawed, Standard, Superior or Masterwork. It scales what an item already does. See Rarity and quality.
Rarity: Normal, Advanced, Prototype, Artifact, Regalia or Harmonic. It decides an item's modifiers. See Rarity and quality.
Refit terminal: What a ship tethers to in order to change its fit or reach the stash. See Ship fitting.
Regalia: A rarity of module. Each is a piece of a set whose bonuses need the pieces to touch. See Regalia.
SCRAM: The reactor's emergency shutdown when heat reaches the top: a control rod burns, heat drops to zero and the ship is dead for 3 seconds. See Heat.
Secure hold: The cargo cells whose contents come home even if the ship does not. See Cargo.
Squad: A group of up to three captains entering a Breach together.
Stratum: A layer of a fascia. Mainframe has three: Land, Thermoconductor and Circuit.
Tek Cipher: An item that goes into a module's port for good. See Tek Ciphers.
Tide: A breach's 30-minute cycle. See Breach tiers.
Vagation: A Clementine pilgrimage into dangerous and forgotten regions to recover relics from before the Derailment.