Raven's Battle Basics Guide
Content:
Prologue
This guide is not intended to be a template for good ship designs nor is
it intended to write some kind of simulators because of the lack
of specific formulas. What it does is trying to explain some basics of how
combat works. I tried to give as much information as I can get.
Even some which you may not find in any manual or forum posting. My goal
generally is also to educate the common player and avoid common
misunderstandings.
Especially newbies are adviced to read it from top to bottom. Alot of
misunderstandings and mistakes could be prevented by reading.
However even the best understanding does not guarantee your victory, the game
is much too complex in its dynamics to ensure it :)
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How the number of batteries are being determined
Targeting is done with slots put together in batteries.
Each battery has one more slot than the previous battery in
row.
All batteries together can't have more slots together than
the ship has mounted for that weapon.
The rest will be put together in the last battery.
Let's make an example to show what I mean:
You have a heavy destroyer with 5 beam slots and 60 beam damage.
So your battery distribution is as following:
Battery 1: 1 slot <- this is the first battery and
always has one slot
Battery 2: 2 slots <- this is the second battery and has one
more slot than battery 1
Battery 3: 2 slots <- we only have 5 total slots, 3 have been
assigned already, so 2 are left and put into this last battery
_____________
Total
5 slots
That means the destroyer could virtually target 3 ships within
one shooting round.
First damage is calculated by damage per slot:
60 / 5 = 12 damage
So batteries do following damage:
Battery 1: 12 damage
Battery 2: 24 damage
Battery 3: 24 damage
________________
Total 60 damage
Same is valid for missiles.
Fighters work a bit different:
Let's say they have also 5 fighter slots and 60 fighter damage, then slots
are doubled but damage is halved per slot.
First we double the slots, we get 2 * 5 slots = 10 slots.
Battery 1: 1 slot <- first battery, 1 slot
Battery 2: 2 slots <- second battery, one more than battery 1
Battery 3: 3 slots <- third battery, one more than battery 2
Battery 4: 4 slots <- fourth battery, one more than battery 3, we have 0 slots
left which means this is the last battery
_____________
Total 10 slots
60/(2 * 5) = 6 damage
Battery 1: 6 damage
Battery 2: 12 damage
Battery 3: 18 damage
Battery 4: 24 damage
________________
Total 60 damage
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How targeting orders vs. ships work
You have to understand first that targeting orders have an impact in battle. So read this part carefully.
How damage is distributed
Races benefitting: Turians (+10% shield resistance), Gorgoths (+4.5%
basic piercing bonus & + 0.125% piercing per weapon tech level for that
specific weapon, +15% damage, chance for critical hit), Drall (+100% hull repair)
If the amount of shield of a targeted ship is greater 0 then
there is shield piercing and shield resistance:
What influences shield resistances ? Your currently researched
shield tech level, race (Turians
have a bonus here), ship class and size.
What influences shield piercing ? Your currently researched weapon tech level of
that used weapon, race (Gorgoth
have a bonus here) and the weapon class.
Beams have 0% piercing bonus (100% resistance bonus).
Fighters have 25% piercing bonus (75% resistance bonus).
Missiles have 50% piercing bonus (50% resistance bonus).
When your ship targets an enemy ship then it deals certain damage. However
this damage is applied by distribution to hull and shields.
Shields work as damage dampeners for the incoming damage, some weapons gain a
piercing bonus as described above.
Shields gain depending on that ship type and class your ship is targeting at
a certain basic resistance bonus. Resistance is something like the negation
of piercing bonus, which means if beams have 0% piercing bonus then enemy shields
have 100% resistance bonus against them.
The enemy shields offer then a basic resistance bonus, added to that is the
piercing of your weapons vs. his shields (depending both on the factors
mentioned above) multiplied by the resistance bonus. What is left is the
percentage of damage going to his ship's shields, the rest goes to hull.
If shields are down on a ship it will receive hull damage when
being targeted next time.
Thumb rules and clarifications:
The higher your weapon tech the higher the piercing factor against
shields, the higher your shield tech the higher the resistance factor
against weapons.
Piercing is steadily flattening out in higher tech levels when
the opponent keeps up with his shield techs even with lower ratio.
E.g. level 7 missiles are really hurting when you have only level
1 shields. But the picture looks different when you have level 11 shields
and the enemy level 17 missiles.
While the missile still has his 50% piercing bonus the additional piercing
is roughly reduced by 50% than when both sides had 10 levels
lower techs.
The Turian bonus is unresearchable and also the Gorgoth' one is too. As
for Gorgoth, they get +0.125% added per each additional weapon tech in a
weapon class
for that weapon class (which means if you are researching fighters you are
increasing that for fighters while your beams will still have the same bonus
unless you are researching
them too) to its piercing bonus.
But nevertheless a lack of shield techs make your ship
significantly more vulnerable, more weapon techs may be fine but if you have
nothing to protect these weapons
then the weapon techs are wasted as well.
After the battle tick hull is repaired (+100% higher for Drall).
Gorgoth special: If weapon tech is higher than enemy shield tech then there's
a chance for a critical hit, which means a weapon can completely bypass
enemy's shields
NOTE: You could have built a light destroyer with the commonly used configuration in early game but it will have weapon and shield efficiency of your current technologies. So if it has 79 shields because you had only level 1 in shield technology your current shield technology, let's assume level 10, will determine your shields efficiency against enemy piercing weapons. This may sound good but keep in mind that damage being resisted goes to shields, if you have not much shields like in this case then in the worst case your ship may die quicker than if you would have let's say level 5. It's a do-or-die thing but definitely you can say the higher your shield technology the less useable your old ships will get. For weapons you may say the same, surely your formerly level 1 missiles may get through easier now with level 10 in missile technology but the downside your lack of hull may make this advantage void. So keep in mind that ships are entities in a whole,like in real life: a Trabant 601S with Porsche motor is still a Trabant 601S when it comes to test drive the motor.)
How evasion works
Races benefitting: Oomari, Kreel, Toags (+10% sensor bonus), Turians
(deflection)
There's a minimum chance to hit of 2% and a maximum chance to hit
of 98% (it does not go higher than that).
If your number of sensors is higher than the enemy's
evasion then following formula is applied:
ChanceToHit= WeaponBaseAccuracy + MissMod * (YourSensors - EnemyEvasion)
else this formula is applied:
ChanceToHit= WeaponBaseAccuracy + YourSensors - EnemyEvasion
WeaponBaseAccuracy is:
65 % for beams
55 % for fighters
45 % for missiles
MissMod is:
0.35 (35%) for beams
0.45 (45%) for fighters
0.55 (55%) for missiles
NOTE: It is confusing to look at but don't take the "%" in this
formula as order
to divide it by 100. Ignore the percent character and just take the
integer value as is.
So 100% evasion means just the value 100 and not 0.01, same for Base Accuracy.
The final value is the chance in percent however.
An example is that enemy has 40% evasion against fighters and you have 75
sensors on your ship, so we get 55 + 0.45 * (75 - 40) = 70% final chance to
hit which is greatly different to the 88% your fleet display is showing.
That is because the fleet display only computes versus targets with 0%
evasion. In another example you have 0 sensors but the enemy has 40% beam
evasion so you get 65 + 0 - 40 = 25% final chance to hit.
ChanceToHit is calculated for each battery separatedly
. It works like a dice.
That means you can have luck and all slots hit even at bad
sensoring or bad luck and
all slots miss even with good sensoring though that will be
rarely the case.
50% of your beam slots will be used as additional evasion against missiles
and subtracted as percent value from enemy's ChanceToHit, which means if you
have 10 slots
of beams then 5% will be subtracted.
25% of your beam slots will be used as additional evasion against fighters.
This won't reduce your total firepower.
Turians have a minimum bonus of 3% as deflection chance and a max. of 15%.
What does that mean ? Simple: It's a chance to ignore a hit since the
shields managed to evade a shot completely, like a stone thrown in flat angle
over a water surface hopping away.
The chance is depending on the difference between two times of your shield
tech and the enemy weapon tech .
If you have shield tech level 15 and he only a weapon tech of 10 then
you get max. of 15% chance to evade a shot before normal evasion is computed.
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How ship vs. ship battle basically works
Races benefitting: Kreel (first strike)
Attackers and defenders fire synchronously but there's an initiative
being calculated for each ship (see below).
Both sides will always fire with the leftover integrity. A dead
ship won't return fire.
If a dead ship is being targeted then it is allowed to retarget
one time, if it hits a again a dead ship this shot is counted as debris
shot and not counted.
The battle report does not count debris shots and they may vary greatly per
round if alot of ships have been killed.
In each order a ship targets three times. That means it will
grab three random targets and checks these targets against the attack
or defense order's conditions e.g. vs. ship class.
If the condition is being fulfilled it will fire at that target
with a bonus else it will grab the most damaged target or the ship found
within the targeted ship class and fire at it.
When battle tick is over, the battlefield is cleaned of dead ships
which are converted into salvage which represents 10% of the ore spent on
building that ship.
Initiative - how does it work and what
is it ?
What is initiative ? Initiative is basically a value determining
which of two selected ships (one from your and one from the other side) fires
first. These ships must not necessarily
fire at eachother but in a whole combat the amount of first-firing ships
determine the amount of those who may deal most damage in the end. The
selected targets then have to suffer
damage before they can return fire and eventually do deal less damage than
they basically could do.
Some may ask why is it not just attacker vs. defender as
the meaning of the word may suggest ?
The reasons are more simple than someone may think. In earlier times we had
the defenders firing first and then the attackers returning fire.
Not just the players but also the developers found that being an unfair
advantage for defenders.
The change to this was called alterating battle in which both sides
virtually shoot synchronously with the firing order just being determined by
what we call today initiative.
The second reason it was never the goal to have some kind of hit &
retaliate concept which is alien to the game's idea and much more like
some martial arts like swordplay or some roleplaying games.
How does initiative work ? - step by step without going to deep into
numbers Pre-requisite is at least one living ship on both sides.
1.) If this is round 1 then we look if there is a Kreel-owned ship on one
side, if there are one or more on both sides then the side with the Kreel player
having higher stealth level gets selected
for first strike. If both levels are equal then there won't be a first
strike for either side.The first strike a the classical
'one-side-completely-fires-first' scenario. If first strike has been
accomplished then the other one completely returns fire. If there was no first
strike then procedure step 2.) is processed.
2.) We give basic initiative values for each side as following: 60
for beams, 55 for fighters and 50 for missiles. If there are
multiple weapons than an average is computed.
Now we take the difference of both and get the basic initiative modifier.
3.) We compute so-called ECCM modifiers based on sensors mounted on
both selected ships and charge it with the basic initiative modifier.
4.) We now determine if either side has a Kreel player, if so then we take
his/her current stealth level, if not then we take it as level 0. We compute
the difference and furtherly
charge it with the basic initiative modifier and get the basic
chance. Your ECCM modifier improves the basic chance
in favour for your ship.
5.) Now we compute so-called ECM modifiers based on stealth mounted
on both selected ships and charge it with the basic chance.
Your ECM modifier negatively influences the other side's basic
chance.
6.) We check if some side is outnumbered and add +15% to the basic chance. We
apply the upper and lower cap of minimum of 20% or maximum of 80%.
We have now determined the final chance or initiative.
7.) Now we let the dice determine based on initiative, if it
rolls positive then defender fires first either the attacker.
As you can see is that the initiative is some shifting of chance kind value,
anything lower than 50% means pro attacker, anything higher means pro defender
but as always you can be unlucky, and your roll can miss. ECM and ECCM
are not equal in power, in fact ECM can cause a relatively stronger
shift but in the end it's up to you which way of initiative improvement you
prefer.
Salvage, tonnage and ship experience
Salvage gathered is always 10% of the amount of ore spent for building the
ship your ship has just destroyed. It is not production and not production
converted to ore used for building, it is
just the ore. There is some difference for the Shy'dow
unique. Salvage adds to tonnage gathered. Ship experience is measured
in kills (each kill adds +1 sensor and +1 stealth) and in the sum of all
tonnage gathered the enemy ship had at the time you destroyed it. It all adds
up towards your ranking, so the more tonnage the enemy gathered the more
experienced your ship gets and the more weight it has for your ranking.
Ambush/Attempt Stealth
Ambush and Attempt Stealth are 100% identical with the difference that Ambush
works only for defense and Attempt Stealth only in attacks.
At the moment the way it works is like this: You do need stealth for best
success ! Of
course you can try it without stealth too but we will get to it later.
Where stealth is the average max. stealth of all your ships in a fleet also
called fleet stealth. The higher the stealth the higher the chance for
success.
Once you at least maintained to be undetected for 3 ticks the state of stealth
will remain but each 3rd tick another test roll will be made to decide if the
ship remains stealthed.
During this state fleet will not attack or defend vs. any ships, no battle
will be triggered.
What determines the chance of detection ? There is an internal roll done based
on a complex logarithmic formula, in defense it is average sensors of all
present fleets divided by 4 which determine chance to detect else the number
of scanners on planets divided by 4.
If there is no fleet stealth at all a fixed minimum chance
of 5% is being used, so there will be a 95% chance to fail.
If scanners or APFS/4 is less than 11 then no detection can be done at all
which means the stealth roll will be always successful.
You cannot change to either of these orders during a engagement, only BEFORE
engagement. The fleet will not become anything special, will not assist any friendly fleet
in whatsoever operation and behave like any other fleet. So once undetected
the usual rules for combat will be applied, which are equal to Standard Attack/Standard Defense. It will
of course be removed from the playing field after the player's death as well.
The orders can be used on any kind of ship.
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How ship vs. planet basically works
Races benefitting: Turians (planetary shields)
There are three planet attack modes: Normal bombardment, explicite
bombardment and raid.
Explicite bombardment rolls dice, there's a fifty percent chance a ship
either fires at another enemy ship or fires at planet.
It rolls a dice where you got 50% chance to attack either the planet or an
enemy ship.
If enemy ships are gone it will revert to normal bombardment.
Normal bombardment kills population first and buildings after it.
Raid gives you 3 units of the resource produced by the raided building, there
are three building types which can be raided:
Ore mines, factories and research labs. The buildings are destroyed
afterwards. Raiding does not attack population.
However if there is no building to raid left it will revert to bombard.
Fighters gain +50% to raiding revenue and missiles gain -50% to raiding
revenue.
Before bombing or raiding anything you have to deactivate planetary defenses also
known as planetary shields.
Each generator generates a field of around 15 TC.
The output increases exponentially depending on your current shield tech.
In the end your planet generators the number of generators multiplied
by output per generator as total fieldpower:
like 20 TC/generator * 200 generators = 4000 TC total output.
You have to deal at least 10% of the total generator point as damage to
reduce its power. Once the power is zero the shield generators go offline.
If the defense was successful then the total power will recharge to 100% of
its maximum output value. During a battle the generators are recharging
slowly.
Generators cannot be destroyed directly similar to scanners, but they will be
destroyed once the planet has been conquered.
Turians get their +25% bonus as well applied to planetary shields.
You will kill normally 400 population for each point of damage after
ship integrity.
Missiles will kill 0.0064% of population for each point of damage it
goes back to usual 400 per damage point if it's lower.
Fighters dominate by generally higher damage but no damage in planetary
assaults.
Beams will kill double amount of buildings.
If planet has lost a certain amount of buildings and population then
it's being conquered. The new owner will be the person doing the last shot.
What about ship's shields ? Note: Planet conquest is counted as
battle. Your shields only recharge after battle !
Some advises how to prevent disadvantages during
conquest for some players having single weapon preferences:
- keep in mind that beams do most damage to buildings but the least against
population
- keep in mind that missiles do most damage to population but least against
buildings
- keep in mind that fighters are excellent raiders but do not gain specific
bonuses against population and buildings but do the most damage of all weapons
- keep in mind that someone with more total batteries present will do more
shots
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How retreat works
Races benefitting: Oomari, Kreel
A retreat always happens after battle. If it was successful
it retreats at the end of the battle tick.
The attacking ship is counted as pursuer. It's sensor value is
the retreat prevention factor used against the retreat success factors,
stealth and speed, of the ship trying to retreat.
There's a minimum and maximum retreat chance, which range is slightly
increased for Oomari and Kreel.
Dead ships can't retreat. Thumb rules are: Evasive ships retreat
better, better sensored ones prevent retreats better due to better long-range
tracking capabilities.
Always retreat gives the retreating fleet a +30% bonus to overall evasion but
it does not fire. Bigger fleet get a small bonus to retreat chance where the
bigger the better,
it is small but not overwhelmingly strong.
NOTE: It's a chance, that means it can fail or you may have good luck
and you succeed.
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How minefields work
Races benefitting: Kreel
For minefields you just need the following techs: Stealth
(damage, hiding from beams), Hull (less vulnerable to beams),Missile
Weapons (vs. enemy shields) and
Advanced Sensors (for chance to hit vs. ships).
You need the following buildings: Minefields and Scanners.
The number of scanners will be capped at 50.
At 300 minefields you get max. to hit. Base damage is 24 (27 for
Kreel) hull damage it is increased by (StealthLevel - 1) * 10%.
If the resulting damage is lower than 6% of ships maximum hull
points then it does 6% damage to hull. One mine hits max. one ship per
turn.
Which does not mean that one ship can only get hit once per round.
Each stealth point on an attacking ship decreases mine hits by
1%. Sensor tech increases mine hits.
Mines get a +20% bonus versus capital ships including unique ships but suffer
a 20% malus versus escort class ships.
Minimum to hit is 12% and maximum is 88%. One mine has 40 % (35%
for Kreel) chance to misfire.
That means: First it is determined by chance to hit if mine detonates
or not. Once it detonates it can misfire and miss the ship.
Detonated mines are lost. So a good configured minefield with maximum to hit chance a minefield battle
against unstealthed ships will look like this:
Defense of one of Lynx' planets round 1
Condition: Yellow
Own fleets:2 ships:0 lost:7
Ally fleets:0 ships:0 lost:0
Enemy fleets:1 ships:200 lost:1
Own shots: fired 28, misses 8
812571 Turian citizens are shocked about the loss of 679233 fellow citizens.
The local governor has sent a distress
call to the Emperor.
Mines triggered:176 (<- 88% max. to hit)
Mines hitting enemy ships 105, misses 71 (<- 40% misfire)
Your forces destroyed 1 ships
You gained 56 ore salvage
Your planet lost 1 shield generators
Planetary defenses down
At minimum to chance a minefield will look like this against highly
stealthed ships:
Defense of one of Lynx' planets round 1
Condition: Yellow
Own fleets:2 ships:0 lost:7
Ally fleets:0 ships:0 lost:0
Enemy fleets:1 ships:200 lost:1
Own shots: fired 28, misses 8
812571 Turian citizens are shocked about the loss of 679233 fellow citizens.
The local governor has sent a distress call to the Emperor.
Mines triggered: 24 (<- 12% min. to hit)
Mines hitting enemy ships 14, misses 10 (<- 40% misfire)
Your forces destroyed 1 ships
You gained 56 ore salvage
Your planet lost 1 shield generators
Planetary defenses down
Mines are also now objects in space which can be destroyed by beams.
50% of all beam slot will be used then as so-called point defense against mines.
Due to different distribution of sensor capacities only 25% of all beam slots
will be used if the ship has several kind of weapons aboard.
However mines can hide quite good against beams, best sweepers would be heavy
battle cruisers and battleships with good sensors (not accuracy !).
Point defense does not reduce firepower against ships. Mines do not give salvage when
being destroyed. Mines do not create any salvage when destroying ships.
Minefield sweeping is done before mines are exploding.
As long as your ship(s) have shields there is a possibility to absorb
minefield damage partially. It works quite simple: If enemy missile tech
multiplied by 1.5 is
higher than or equal to your current shield tech level, then shields are ignored and full damage goes to hull. If your shield tech is
higher than a fractional part goes to shield, keep in mind that even high
shield tech won't protect you 100% vs.minefield damage also there is no racial advantage here on either side.
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Fleet strength bonuses are depending on ships within a fleet.
One escort ship gives 0.25 FSP (Fleet Strength Point), that includes: scouts,
corvettes, frigates and escort carriers.
One ship of the line gives 0.5 FSP, that
includes: destroyers, cruisers and battle cruisers.
One capital ship gives 1 FSP, that includes: battleships, assault carriers,
weapon platforms and uniques.
Each FSP gives 1% bonus. If your bonus is less
than 5% then it is being ignored, max. bonus is 10%.
That means, in offense mode (you are attacking a planet), you get this bonus
to MissMod (see above) while attacking targeted class successfully, in defense
mode
it means you get a bonus in evasion when being targeted by the class you are
defending against nevertheless and if you targeted the class
successfully.
Every fleet bonus works accumulative to the officer bonus, for fully
understanding how fleet bonuses are applied see Officers.
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Officers - how great are they ?
Similary to fleet bonus officer are providing a similar boost.
Accuracy provides additional bonus to chance to hit (NOTE: (1 + x/100) *
MissMod
(see above))
Evasion provides additional bonus to evasion (NOTE: evasion + x).
Damage provides cumulative bonus to damage. (NOTE: (1 + x/100) * damage).
x is the number of skill points of that officer in that area.
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The Uniques - a more in-depth description
An unique is a race's special ship which is available
with Nanotechnology researched at level 10 plus the specific requirements for
that unique.
Uniques affect other
ships and themselves during battle. Though they are classed as capital ships
they are quite fragile due to their mostly non-combatant nature. The only
exceptions are the Turian Nightmare, the Gorgothian Dreadnought and the Zeeb
Overseer.
One thing people have to adapt first is the fact that they are very costly and
take long to build which makes the decision whether you need them or not quite
difficult for some players.
The greatest thing about uniques are that they can affect other ships however
for that they need 20 non-unique and non-affected ships belonging to the same
owner like the unique.
Once an unique has found 20 free ships within the same fleet the unique is in
these get affected and the unique working for these ships.
Imagine you have 21 destroyers and one unique in a fleet, then 20 destroyers
will get affected but one stays unaffected, now if you add one more unique to
the fleet this one destroyer will still stay unaffected. Imagine you have 42
destroyers and 2 uniques in a fleet then 40 destroyers get affected but 2 stay
unaffected. The report will tell that 42 ships were affected that is because
the uniques are affected as well by standard. To find out how many ships are
not affected in a fleet just compute the modulo (integer division where the
rest is counted as result), so 42 mod 20 results in 2. Which ships are
affected or not cannot be controlled however they will just be choosen
randomly from the pool of free ships. The Zeeb unique however works a bit
differently, as the only unique it works by ratio between non-unique ships and
unique ships in a fleet. It's ability works at 100% with a cover of 1:20 or
higher. If you have only 1 unique in a fleet and 10 destroyers in the same
fleet with the unique then you have a ratio of 1:10 which is higher than 1:20
and thus grants 100% functionality. It looks different for 40 destroyers, then
we get 1:40 which is lower and means 1/(40 / 20) = 0.5. So the functionality
is reduced to 50% below normal level. However 2 Zeeb uniques and 40 destroyers
will result in 2:40 ratio which is the same like 1:20.
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Terms:
Bonus (lat.): - good (we use the English grammar, so the plural is bonuses)
Malus (lat.): - bad (we use the Latin grammar, so the plural is mali)
The unique ships for each race and a detailed
description
Drall Fist
Primary bonus: Capture enemy ships when shields are down with 10% chance per shot for each affected ship
Secondary bonus: none
Malus: capturing ship and the ship being captured will have their current shields depleted, Drall Fists can be captured by enemy Drall Fists
Additional requirements: Missile Weapons level 12, Nanotech and Design level
13, Hull Strength level 12
This ship is able to convert an enemy ship into an own one. The requirements
for a successful capture are however quite strict, the shields of the enemy's
ship must be down and the hull integrity at least downto 70%. If the capture
was successful then +30% hull are added. Further restrictions are depending on
the targeted ship's experience represented by the number of kills it has. Each
2nd experience level reduces the chance per shot by 1% which means a ship with 20
experience levels is
basically uncaptureable. Additionally each 2nd
experience level reduces the required hull
integrity by 5% to a minimum lower limit of 20%. The captured ship
cannot be cloned however but is fully functional after battle. A captured ship
is in transfer for that round it has been in captured in, that means it will
not appear in fleet count in battle report, it also cannot be targeted further
during this round. The malus however is something the player has to live with
as the capturing ship will be very vulnerable without shields in a fight Drall
versus Drall additionally the risk of loosing your Fist is not to
underestimate.
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Oomari Warpship
Primary bonus: 20% chance to warp back a missile or fighter shot to the attacker
Secondary bonus: Halved retreat time for entire fleet depending on fleet coverage (if 100% coverage then its halved retreat time, if none is covered then its normal retreat time)
Malus: 5% decrease in accuracy for all weapons
Additional requirements: Engine Construction level 16
This ship has the unique ability to enable affected ships reflecting back a missile and/or fighter shot
and avoiding it that way. It will behave like if the enemy has shot at itself
with all the bonuses and techs he has except it cannot be avoided by evasion
of ship which got his shot reflected, except for Turians using deflection. However the experience measured in
experience points of the ship whose shot should be
warped back is important here, each experience level of the defender reduces the chance by 1% which
means a ship with 20 experience levels cannot have its shot warped back by an affected
ship.The chance increases by 1% per each experience point the targetted
affected ship has. Another thing is the halved retreat time bonus, which is quite handy
when retreating from a heavy battle with reduced hull integrity. The fleet
coverage however is important basically it's 100% - 50% * (number of affected
ships in a fleet/fleetsize), in other words if all ships are covered then
retreat time is halved else it's somewhere between 50% and 100%. If only 50%
of all ships are covered then it's 75% of normal retreat time or 25% reduced
retreat time. The malus however is 5% reduced accuracy for all weapons, in
opposite to the computation of fleet and officer bonuses this one gets
directly subtracted from the final chance to hit.
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Ji Gateway Ship
Primary bonus: each weapon slot on affected ships in their fleet targets separately
Secondary bonus: 5% increase to fighter damage for each affected ship
Malus: 5% decreased evasion for each affected ship
Additional requirements: Nanotech and Design level 16
This ship has a very unique and often underestimated combat ability to have
each affected ship's single slots targeting separately instead using its batteries.With
battery fire you will still have some damage wasted in some cases with slot
fire you have this effect greatly reduced which works well against large
swarms of small or medium-sized ships. We remember that standard attack/defense
order likes to fire at the most damaged ship and the more ships have scratches
the higher the chance it will be targeted next. This unique does not work so
well against the bigger ships especially the upper ships of the line and
capital class ships alone because the fact that bigger ships have better
repair rates. It does not make them however useless in the latter case because
it is always a matter of how you manage your fleets and how you cooperate with
your allies. It's primary bonus can be of great use in ship battles and
planetary battles throughout the game. The secondary bonus gives players using
fighters a boost in damage for affected carrier-class ships, this can be of
great use in combination with the primary bonus. However the malus must not be
ignored: if you are using capitals you may just accept it but if you are using
escort ships or light ships of the line you may notice the lack of 5% evasion
if your ships lack this already.
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Kreel Matership
Primary bonus: makes affected ships in fleet invisible and keeps them untargettable for the enemy for the first tick but they will decloak and fire anyway
Secondary bonus: Stealth effect increased against missiles and fighters for each affected
ship
Malus: 5% decrease in damage for each affected ship
Additional requirements: Stealth Technology level 16
This unique has one of the most interesting main abilities in the game but
still leads to confusion how it exactly works. It works basically like an
extended first strike which is the Kreel's race ability in battle (see here).
There are however differences: it only works for the affected ships, only for
the first round of battle (as reminder:
round 1) like first strike, and independant from
any parameter which normally is additionally required for a first strike
that means two Kreel engaging each other with a fully covered fleet may result
in an interesting report with having a round where no shot has been fired at
all despite the content of the message in the report. Which points to the
extension of this first strike: the affected ship is practically
cloaked for the other side and cannot be targeted by the other side but the
affected ship itself is fully capable to open fire, that can be a very
dangerous ability if exercised well. The second bonus targets an issue Kreel
players mainly have throughout the game: stealth works only effective versus
beams, averagely versus fighters and poorly versus missiles. In a
missile-loaded game this can be a problem, also a very big one if looking on
the fact that bigger ships have poor modifiers on missiles. This unique
doubles the effect of stealth equipped on an affected ship versus missiles and
increases it by 20% versus fighters. The malus however is that the total
damage on an affected ship is reduced by 5%. Which may not be much on small
but a notable amount on large capitals, since damage is not something a Kreel
player does at high level anyways this may depending on the playing style
being disregarded or just accepted as fact to live with.
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Shy'dow Æthercraft
Primary bonus: convert 50% hull damage to salvaged ore in relation to the building costs of the ship targetted (effectively 0.5% of ore costs per 1% hull damage)
Secondary bonus: 10% reduction of received damage
Malus: no other
(additional) salvage for affected ships in the fleet, missile-armed affected
ships have an ecologically devastating effect upon conquest
Additional requirements: Ore Mining level 16
This unique is quite easy to handle but some has to understand first how
works. When a ship has been built then ore and production is spent. Let's
imagine a ship cost 10,000 ore and has 2000 hull. One affected ship now deals
250 hull damage to it which equals 12.5% hull integrity. We now divide this by
2 and get 6.25% since the ship cost 10,000 ore we get now 625 ore in return.
This should clear up how it works basically. Another nice feature is that
incoming damage is reduced by 10% which may not look very shaking but can be
very helpful in large fights involving many enemy capital ships. The side
effect is however that you do not get additional salvage when the ship has
been destroyed, depending on how much damage you did and at which targets it
can be either be ignored or be an annoyance if an affected ship just spent a
finishing shot on a large expensive ship or even worse an enemy affected
Shy'dow ship but that's what a Shy'dow player has to learn to live with. The
other side effect has to be taken more carefully, sure it can be avoided, but
if not taking care much your conquered planets may end up with cruel
habitability stats for your race, that is because if your last shot was done
by a missile from an affected ship the planet will become a dry, toxic and
deserted wasteland.
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Sirnef Scythe
Primary bonus: convert 100% hull damage to salvaged ore in relation to the building costs of the ship targetted (effectively
1% of ore costs per 1% hull damage)
Secondary bonus: none
Malus: no ore salvage for entire fleet
Additional requirements: Researching level 13, Advanced Sensors level 14
Another very easy to handle ship, with an ability easy to understand as it
does what you read: affected ships are converting the ore used for production of a
targetted enemy ship into research points upon a hull hit. Note: if there is an overflow
then in the next tick your technology will progress by one or more tech
level(s) and excessive points will be used. The downside however is that the converted ore will not be
available as salvage. This can be again depending on playing style a fact to
be dismissed or something you won't like that much.
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Toag Trader
Primary bonus: captures upto 50% of planets population instead killing them
per tick and stores them within the trader's large cargo rooms, 375 per hull
point of max. hull, population will be used to fill newly colonized planets
when trader(s) are present in orbit at the time of colonization to a maximum
of the currently provided capacity of megapolis constructed during
colonization process
Secondary bonus: +25 sensors free for each ship affected
Malus: ships in fleet with a Trader have their retreat times increased by +150%
This unique enables affected ships to capture 50% of the
population of the supposed to be killed one per shot of the affected ship and have it transferred
as slaves into the onboard prisons of the Trader. If a Trader is full then
another Trader is selected until all slaves found room. If there has been no
freem room found then these slaves are executed. Only Traders belonging to the
attacking player hovering over that planet are being browsed for slave
distribution. The slaves will stay within the trader until the trader is being
moved over an uncolonized planet, if the player colonizes this system then the
slaves will be dropped to fill up all free megapoli space on that system
during colonization. That is a very powerful ability. The second ability is however something which can be useful for
combat situations: any affected ship gets +25 sensors for free. What does this
mean ? Imagine your ship has been equipped with 75 sensors so it will have 100
sensors. An affected ship with 0 sensors gets 25 sensors then. Depending on
your fleet strategy and how you design your ship this could be useful thing
because 25 sensors add +8% to beams accuracy, +11% to fighter accuracy and
+13% to missile accuracy (if target has 0% evasion). Note:
it's adding sensors, not +25% to sensors and not +25% to accuracy !
The malus however is linked with the primary bonus, it needs 2.5 times longer
to retreat than normal. So be careful when it comes to retreat, a normal ETA 3
retreat takes 7 ticks then.
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Turian Nightmare
Primary bonus: most powerful ship, combat unique
Secondary bonus: each affected ship in fleet gains +2% to shield resistance
and +5% deflection bonus
Malus: each affected ship in fleet gets his weapon efficiency vs. shields reduced by 2 level in
battle (Level 1 will stay minimum)
As the name says it's purpose is to be a nightmare for it's enemies. It has 32
slots and very huge modifiers on hull, shields and weapons and also a huge
basic shield resistance modifier of 9.8%. It can be a nice but expensive
addition to the fleet. It's secondary bonus gives each affected ship (that
includes the Nightmare itself) +2% to shield resistance and +5% deflection
bonus but as malus you have
to live with the fact that your weapon levels cause any affected ship having a
shield piercing effect on enemy's shields as if they are two levels lower than
they are now. Which either means that you need to compensate it by adding a
few extra weapons techs or just as usual: live with it.
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Gorgothian Dreadnought
Primary bonus: second powerful ship, combat unique
Secondary bonus: each affected ship in fleet gains +2% to shield penetration
Malus: each affected ship in fleet gets his shield efficiency reduced by 2 levels in battle
Some may argue that it is the most powerful ship, it's a question of taste and
love here. It has 32 slots, a very huge modifier on hull, an average shield
modifier but a huge one on weapons and additionally a basic shield resistance
modifier of 7.84%. It's secondary bonus gives each affected ship (that
includes the Dreadnought itself) +2% to shield piercing which lets your
weapons basically work as if they have been researched a few levels higher,
adding to the main ability of the Gorgoth it could lead to a few headaches for
the enemy. However this comes with a malus of having your shield resistance
being lowered as if your shield tech is just two levels lower than it is now.
You can however compensate this in various ways if you want.
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Zeeb Overseer
Primary bonus: mobile repair platform similar to a flying Space Station,
fit-for-action unique
Secondary bonus: adds 4 times repair rate to an affected ship
Malus: slow speed, low accuracy
As described in the introduction for uniques the way you need to cover an
Overseer is a bit different and more relaxed compared to the other uniques. It
has very similar modifiers and the same number of slots (30) like a Space
Station but its basic shield resistance-wise a bit stronger with its 7.28%. Note: Despite the common belief
this unique does not benefit from halved building time for balancing reasons. It's
main ability means it adds +4 times repair to a ship. A normal ship as a
repair rate of 1. With the overseer it gets 5 times in total. So if a ship
would repair 5 hull per tick normally it would suddenly be able to repair 25
hull per tick if the unique is covered properly. Another side effect: as it is
practically a flying Space Station it also gets the Space Station's ability to
recharge shields at the same rate a Space Station would do. This can be a
powerful advantage in battle as some low-damage ships are barely able to
scratch an overseer-affected ship. However this comes with a price, the slow
speed is real, as the overseer has a speed modifier of +0% which means that an
overseer is basically the slowest ship in the game. Another disadvantage is
the 25% malus to sensors so people wanting to make it a pure combat unique
may face the fact that this does not work well, so this unique will be a mix
between a combatant and non-combatant unique.It's pros however should
outweight the contras. In an offensive battle it can be a great help when
facing a hard-to-crack defender on a heavily fortified location and in defense
it can easily replace a Space Station.
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History of this document
(top most changes are most recent):
May 22th 2004
- updated the whole guide with current data (actually those which were
missing last version)
- +30% evasion on Always Retreat is now +45%
- unrevealed hidden bonus of Gorgoth: chance of critical hit
Apr 12th 2004:
- Introduced minimum requirements for targeting orders
- determination of radar depth lowered from 33% to 25%
- determination of chance to prefer lowered from 38% to 30%
- determination of final target does not go necessarily for a random ship anymore
- changed way how the chance for success for stealth is being determined
- raised minimum sensors required to detect from 10 to 11
- changed way how planetary shields work
- changed way of minesweeping and added clarifications
- added several updates to uniques
July 17th 2004:
- +45% evasion on Always Retreat is now +30% again instead bigger fleets get a
small retreat bonus
- added minefield damage dampening by ship shields
July 29th 2004:
- updated new information to minefield damage