Command the journey to the inner asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars. Settle Asteroids and gather their ressources. You'll also have to maintain a fleet of space ships to defend your colony against pirates and other mining companies.
On this screenshot you see an asteroid colony attacked by anti-surface-equipped ships - those ships are just attacking the surface.
In the orbit is a defending fleet shooting at the attackers, trying to bring them down before the colony is damaged heavily.
Trivia: Because of the Ship-AI the engagers will cloud above surface buildings.
In the case of multi-slot ships (ie. equipped with blaster AND bombs) the ship will primarily use their bombs and during reloading time will attack enemy ships (if there are any)