Combat Guide

Basics Of Combat And Research

Battle Turns

Battle turns now run every 10 minutes, and the global game tick updates every 60 seconds. Whenever a battle turn occurs, your forces will fight against the enemy and a battle report will be published. The space battle occurs before the ground battle, but both occur inside the same turn. This means that if you are fighting another player you can still lose transports in orbit and fail to land your ground forces. Because turns are shorter you should check the combat panel frequently or enable battle-report push notifications so you can react between ticks.

Weapon Basics

Power

A weapon's power is its ability to breach an opponent's shield (space) or armour (ground). A weapon will only do damage to a unit if the power rating is greater than the shield/armour rating. This means that a weapon with 500 power will do no damage against a unit with 500 or more armour. In addition, power does not stack. Two weapons (or two units) with 500 power each will still do no damage against a unit with 500 or more armour.

In addition, the difference between power and shielding also plays a role in deciding the final damage, with a larger difference resulting in more final damage. Power isn't the only factor in deciding final damage though.

Damage

Influences how much of a unit you kill but, as stated above, final damage is also affected by the difference between the weapon's power and enemy shield. An analogy that could be applied here is to think of the damage stat as the bullet size and explosive capability. A high damage weapon can score splash damage on smaller units (i.e. tank shell vs infantry) but will take up more space which will sacrifice other attributes such as accuracy, range and rate.

Accuracy

This is the likelihood of hitting an enemy. A higher accuracy will result in a larger number of hits from the same number of shots.

Range

Longer range weapons fire first, which gives you a chance to destroy enemy units before they can get a shot in. In addition, shorter range weapons will need less accuracy to maximise their hit rate.

Rate

Influences the number of shots fired. Higher rate weapons will experience a hit rate boost since the bullets can spread around the target to increase the likelihood of a hit occurring. A high rate is especially useful in anti-infantry or anti-fighter weapons.

Defensive

Making a weapon defensive will mean that your unit will not move towards the opponent in order to fire this weapon and will only use it against enemies that come within its range. This will reduce both the shot number for this weapon and the likelihood of your unit being shot at. This has applications for secondary weapons that hold a smaller range than the primary weapon of your unit.

Unit Basics

Hull

This determines the size of the unit, the available build points (also influenced by tech level) and then also the unit's "health". Smaller units will be more difficult to hit and can carry smaller unit components (i.e. less armour, smaller weapons).

Armour/Shield

See weapon power

Combat (Maneuverability)

This is decided by the number of engines on a unit and its hull size. Having a higher CM results in a unit that is more likely to get within the required range to fire a weapon (resulting in more shots) and is also more likely to avoid incoming shots (and so will get hit less).

Command

This component provides combat bonuses to units within an army or fleet, think of it as the computer systems and military leaders that coordinate your forces. It should not be placed on every unit, and you should read this article for more information.

Battle Salvage

Destroyed units leave exium debris on the planet where the battle took place. If the planet has a colony, that exium is added to the colony stockpile; otherwise it is held as pending resources until a colony is established. Debris scales with the recycle value of units destroyed in that battle turn.

Fully resolved battles can also leave behind more than debris. If one side is wiped out, the winning side may recover Components, a scarce salvage resource generated from the destroyed enemy force. Higher-tech opponents can also produce a larger Components reward because their wreckage is more valuable to strip down and analyze.

Battle Report

A battle report is published every Battle Turn for every planet that conflict is occurring on. As a player, you will be able to see any battle report from any member of your empire in the combat menu. Battle reports are lost (presumed deleted) after 48 hours.

A battle turn consists of a space battle followed by a ground battle.

The battle report shows the outcome of these battles.

The report shows the attacking unit, the defending unit, the weapon used (and shot order). It then states how many shots were fired, hits scored and kills achieved.

The shot order is an indication of which weapon fired first. Weapons that fire first have the possibility of killing enemy units before they get a chance to fire, reducing their effectiveness.

Size Comparison Indicators

Each attacking unit in the battle report displays a size comparison icon that shows how the attacker's hull size compares to the defender's hull size. This helps you quickly understand the tactical situation.

Icon Colors

Icon Intensity

The number of chevrons indicates the magnitude of the size difference:

Why Size Matters

Hull size affects combat effectiveness. Larger units generally have more firepower and durability, but smaller units may have advantages in numbers or specialized roles. Use these indicators to:

• Identify mismatches in your fleet composition
• Understand why certain units performed well or poorly
• Plan future unit designs and fleet compositions

Understanding the Report

In some cases, the entirety of your forces may be wiped out by a single unit type. An example would be if you have a small group of infantry that get killed by a sniper force. In this case, you will only see information on the sniper unit and any other enemy units will be unknown to you.

At the end of the battle report is a list of losses and remaining forces for each party involved.

Battle reports are useful for allowing you to judge the effectiveness of your units against an enemy and make changes, based on the information you get about their units, that work to your benefit. This is not always an easy thing to do though.

Battle Salvage Rewards

When a battle fully resolves and one side is wiped out, the surviving winners can recover Components from the destroyed enemy force. The Components payout is based on the size of the enemy force destroyed on the finishing battle turn, with an extra bonus possible when the defeated side had better technology.

Combat Maneuverability

Combat Maneuverability (CM) is a measure of a unit's ability to close down other units and dodge incoming attacks.

A high CM means that a unit can get within the range required to shoot a short range weapon earlier than the a unit with low CM. High CM units are also more likely to avoid shots from opponent weapons, causing them to miss more often.

It is unwise to combine a low CM unit with a low range weapon because it will be low on the shoot order, giving a higher chance that the unit will be shot at, and destroyed before getting a chance to shoot.

On all units except soldiers, the CM is affected by hull size and number of engines. Increasing the number of engines will generate a high CM rating. A larger hull will make a unit less maneuverable. This means that a larger hull ship must have more engines to achieve the same CM rating as a smaller hull ship.

Naturally, you should play to how you would expect a unit to behave. A 300 hull tank, with lots of engines will not perform as well in a main battle tank role as a similar sized tank with more powerful, longer ranged weapons.

It is also possible to design stationary units that have no engines and no CM rating. These units are therefore unable to move, even between planets.