Weapon selection for ships and fleets will make the difference between victory and defeat. As an empire grows, so will its access to increasingly more powerful weapons. However, strength shouldn’t be the only consideration when designing your ships…
In this post, we’ll take a closer look at some of the ship weapons currently being used in the Alpha galaxy. You can find more details on ship weapons on our recently updated wiki page.
Weapon types
The most important point to consider when choosing a weapon is whether to go for energy or ordnance based – each option has its pros and cons.
Energy
Energy weapons are powered by a ship’s energy supply, which is manipulated into other forms and fired at the enemy. Ship engines provide a fixed amount of energy that can power weapons and parts, but additional generators can be added to increase capacity.
Energy weapons don’t require ordnance, which means they take up less space on a ship (ordnance weapons require an onboard ordnance module to store weaponized limbalt) and there is no danger of them running out halfway through a battle. This makes them an appealing choice for situations where ordnance/limbalt is scarce, ship space is limited, or a fleet is far from home.
The main weakness of energy weapons is that they can’t penetrate shields. Each strike will reduce shield strength, but damage to a ship’s hull only begins once shields are down. However, once they are down, energy weapons can deliver more damage than their ordnance-based counterparts.
Ordnance
Ordnance-based weapons require ordnance to fire. Ordnance is generated using limbalt via an ordnance module that must also be attached to a ship (limbalt is transferred to a ship’s ordnance module and converted at a rate of 1 limbalt to 5 ordnance units – each weapon uses a different number of ordnance units per round).
Ordnance weapons have the advantage that they aren’t blocked by shields, so each strike delivers damage to a hull, and has the potential to be the final blow.
Rockets
Rockets (missiles and torpedoes) are types of ordnance weapons that have their own additional advantages:
- They also deal damage to any other ships caught inside the impact zone
- They can change trajectory mid-flight which enables them to strike against ships without having a clear line of sight
Fleet formation
Fleet formation decisions have serious consequences in battle. Ships can’t fire at other ships if they don’t have a clear line of fire. So a ship behind another ship is both protected and unable to attack. Except for rockets, which can strike ships without having a clear line of fire…
Although ships may not be positioned behind each other in a fleet, they could find themselves so, depending on the angle at which an enemy attacks.
More weapons
Other types of ship weapons include orbital bombers and minelayers (both require ordnance). We’ll take a look at these in a later post.
More ship weapons will be added over time, and we will continue to make modifications to weapon balance and how they work inline with player feedback we get via the forum.
If you would like to find out more about some of the in-game weapons, check out the wiki page. We’ll be back soon 🙂
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