Galaxy Online I Ship Design Guide

The Codex of Ship Design By Ex-Redux

Chapter 1: The role of your warship.

Chapter 2: Picking a hull.

Chapter 3: Picking modules to go on your warship, it’s like playing dress up with 200,000 tons of death.

Chapter 4: Other ships for the fleet that help my main warship.

Chapter 5: Target Settings for your fleet.

Chapter 6: How to use your new fleet.

Chapter 1: The Role of your warship.

There are many different jobs for warships to do, and most of them are very necessary during modern combat in Galaxy Online.

Basic Jobs for Warships:


1) Decoy.

The most basic use of any warship, a decoy is essentially a cheap target for enemy fleets to fire at. The key importance of this is because when an enemy warship fires, even if its only at 1 ship, it cannot fire again, or do anything until the next round. In very large scale battles such as Leo Minor (Rofilla Vs Bakran, 14m + losses on both sides) rounds lasted more than 8 hours. A ship sitting in combat for 8 hours because it shot a PrimaryWarship is a huge disadvantage for the enemy. This alone is a huge advantage, but in addition to that, decoys are very cheap, and very fast to build, and require no specific commander to be effective.

Basic decoys can be filled by anything that moves, and has a close range weapon. The closer the decoy is the better. Decoys are often prey to the Ultimate Counterattack System, and sometimes reflective plating, so an advanced technique in designing decoys is to use a level 1 Lander Capsule, and set the decoys on max attack. This will make the decoy “follow” enemy fleets around the battleground, and also prevent the decoy from firing at the enemies, making Ultimate Counterattack Systems useless.

2) Sweeper.

A sweeper is a warship very similar to a decoy in its use, but it’s built for killing decoys at the same time. The most important weapons you can have on a decoy are either Ballistics (Ares), or high level missile weapons (Hydrogen or Siva). If you use Siva, or Hydrogen, you may wish to have a level 1 planet attack module on it, so your sweeper will continue to stay in close range, and when on the attack, it will crawl close to planets to absorb hits. High level Missiles and Ballistics make sure the warship is capable of clearing small decoys with minimal effort, while maintaining close range, so they double as a decoy and get shot. Sweepers, although not as cheap as decoys, are still cheaper than having a 1,000 warship stack of actual Warships dying.

These kind of sweepers are basic, and used for defending systems against enemy Attack Sweepers. The only difference between an attack sweeper and a normal sweeper is the attack sweeper MUST be cloaked, and it should be a higher tech hull, and contain larger stack sizes. Skywolf, Niya, and Brilliance, all fill the role of sweeper well. Skywolf is the cheaper of the group, and brilliance being the most effective. This is because all three of those hulls come with cloaking built in, and enough slots to be a good sweeper. Brilliance is the most effective because it has low durability (helps it get targeted by other sweepers which will usually be set on the Min Durability Target Setting), and having large storage capacity, and many slots.

3) Scouts.

These are ships that move with tremendous speed to their destination, and are almost always cloaked. They are used to start combat in other faction’s systems, allowing your own faction to access that system, and view what is in it. There really is no way to describe building a basic scout, since there is a warship hull made specifically for scouting called a Recon Ship-Panorama. It has no Installation Slots, thus there is no design for it except for naming your warship. Its movement speed isn’t the fastest, nor is it cloaked (Having a speed under 15 minutes, does not prevent it from being reported on Radar. (Untested theory) Special thanks to Unifex and Gliese for this information.)

Advanced Scouts are usually Hamdar or Brilliance hull based warships, with a Nano Station warehouse (provides supplies for long distance runs, and Hamdar can’t support the engines without it), Misty Team Engine, and 10 Super Transmission Engines IV. You may ask why I put more engines required for 10 movement, and that is because you don’t use the additional engines for movement, you use the additional engines to reduce Transmission time, which is unaffected by the 10 movement limit. People will sometimes put weapons on scouts to kill other scouts. Often during intense war, a system that is taken and abandoned will be the site of many small fleet battles, ranging from scout vs. scouts, to sweepers and decoys fighting, but people will not send real fleets due to the probability of being ambushed.

4) The “Glass Cannon” Warship.

This is the most common warship in Galaxy Online. It’s cheap, it’s fragile, and it hits extremely hard. Almost all “Glass Cannons” use Seaborne as a weapon. Seaborne has a low construction time, and fairly low cost, but maximum firepower. Almost all hulls in the game (with the exception of -999% hit depots) can be used to make a Glass warship. People tend to use Assault warships, though, because they’re cheaper, and build the fastest of the 3 hull types.

The most effective hulls for Glass warships are Quick Reaction Lurker, Dark Dragon, Bolencia Warship, Skywolf, Electronic Frigate-Niya, Galactic Fortress-Libra, and Command Ship-Brilliance. In order of cost/time, these ships have many favourable stats to be glass. The most important 2 of this list are Skywolf, and Brilliance. They’re the best for glass, because they both have high % hit, low construction time, and they’re both cloaked. Cloaking is an expensive mod, so if the hull is cloaked, it’s a huge advantage, and it’s almost always necessary when attacking, especially with fragile ships.

The main feature of glass is that they will have no defence, all attack. (An exception is made for Daedalus Damage Control System. If the hull has more than 5,000 durability a Daedalus should be equipped on it. This is because most ships of under 5,000 Durability will never survive a hit from other warships even if it has Daedalus, but when a ship has over 5,000 durability Daedalus because a powerful module, and can’t be wasted.)

5) Hybrids.

This is a term given to ships that have balanced firepower and defensive modules. This style of ship doesn’t tend to be used by players after their technology tree is maxed. At higher levels of technology firepower and defence modules don’t scale balanced. Earlier on, 1 defence module can be a huge advantage to a ship, giving it maybe 20-30% more defence. When technology is maxed, offensive modules tend to surpass defence modules in usefulness. A Pandora (max tech Seaborne weapon) hits for 700 Damage, and an additional 180% vs. Durability.

After tech level 10, there are no additional modules to increase a ships health and tech level 5 Simple Ship Reinforcement is the highest. It increases durability by 190 … A Pandora hits for 700, and 2 simple ship increase by 380. As you can tell, it’s not balanced. Added with the fact, Max Level lasers ignore armour modules, max level ballistics ignore shields, and max level missiles ignore both, defence modules become even more useless. BUT there are good reasons to use a hybrid ship, and that is simple for the fact that when raiding another system (a small group of players set up an attack, to take control of another system) planets will literally tear through glass ships with ease. Planet Defence weapons don’t scale anywhere near as unbalanced as ship based weapons, thus defence modules are still effective.

A few Nano Armour on a ship can save it from being killed by planets, and dodge modules are very effective against sweepers, and decoys (the primary defence warships). Shields on the other hand are only useful early on when taking weak defence systems, or fighting weak weapons. They have high repair rate and thus can usually be continually recharged against weak weapons and planets. But as damage goes up, the repair rate doesn’t, and it is quickly outclassed by firepower, and Nano Armour. The key advantage that Nano Armour has over shields its increased base health. It won’t recharge as well as shields, but it will usually stop a lot more damage. All it takes is 1 hit to get through your defences from planets, and most of the time your ships are dead. The increased health help prevent that 1 hit the first time around.

Hybrid warships are generally advanced designs even for “basic” hybrids, and generally should not be built by inexperienced players, as they will usually be disappointed with the results. They’re also more expensive, and more time consuming then “Glass Cannons” and can sometimes be more expensive and time consuming then Tanks (next section). The favourite weapons of hybrid warships are High Tech missiles. They do good damage, as well as hit the entire fleet, ignore defence, and are generally the best for clearing out systems of weak ships. Lasers and Ballistics are also good second choices, but hybrids don’t usually use Seaborne unless its mixed with missiles (later section).

6a) Tanks.

Very expensive and very time consuming, these types of warships should only be built by players who have large income and at least 75% ship production speed. They also have limited uses, and they will usually not survive battles unless your commander is amazing. It’s almost important to note that Commanders are very, very, important for tank fleets. A crappy commander will make any number of tanks just large decoys.

The primary use of a tank is control an enemy’s firepower. When an enemy shoots at a tank, it uses its defence systems to lower, and redistrabute the damage, making it a lot less harmful. This saves weaker ships such as “Glass Cannons” from being destroyed. In most cases a tank will die while doing so, and that is a good sign. A 30,000 warship stack of tanks should be able to take the damage done by 100,000, 120,000, or even 130,000 warships. If that tank wasn’t there, chances are those 130,000 warships would kill 130,000 of your own warships, if not more.

The most used hulls for tanks are K6 Energy Transports, Command Flagship-Enigma, Electronic Frigate-Niya, Frigate-Wraith, Daybreak (2nd Generation), Honourable (2nd Generation), Nihelbet (2nd Generation), Alliance Admiral (2nd Generation). Unlike “Glass Cannons”, tanks cannot be built on any hull. Those hulls mentioned above are practically the only hulls that will result in a great tank. K6 Energy Transport has low slots, and hp, but it has high storage, and above average dodge, but also has very fast construction time, and is very cheap. It’s essentially the “Poor man’s tank”.

There are two stats commanders have for tanks, and both require completely different tank designs, these are Dodge and Electron. Dodge is the most used tank stat in the game, since it completely outclasses Electron in 90% of situations. Electron has so far only proven useful when tanking planets, and that is mostly because you can’t dodge high level planet weapons … if you could dodge high level planets weapons, electron would be totally useless. Dodge does just what the name says, it allows your ships to dodge enemy weapons, and dodge low level planet weapons (Theory concept based on information gathered by players, I haven’t been able to test it yet (Rofilla doesn’t play nice with my tanks)). Electron on the other hand is a lot more complicated. At this time, it’s believed that electron alters the amount of damage absorbed by shield modules, and energetic armour, and the intercept rate of anti-air defence modules. Every 100 electron is said to modify absorption and intercept by 1.7. This sounds useful, doesn’t it? Well it’s not. Dodge directly reduces damage, electron reduces damage on hulls with high shields (shields are useless remember?), lots of energetic armour (Useful, but still not as useful as dodge), and anti-air (situational). Pretty much comes down to, why get hit by something when you can dodge it?

The most important modules on tanks are Daedalus Damage Control System, Ultimate Counter Attack System, White Noise Generator, Reinforced Tracking Disruptor, Cloaking Device, Nano Station Warehouse, and a Misty Team Engine. With those modules alone you can build a tank (not a good one, but you can).

6b) Glass Tank

There is a new commonly used tank design going around. Its called the Glass tank. Its most commonly used with Dilira right now, but it may become widely used for Dodge Tanks. In this design, you sacrifice all the defences gained from modules, to cut cost/construction time. Hulls like Enigma and Abyss work the best for this. Most glass tanks will only have a Daedalus, and perhaps Ultimate Counter and dodge electronic modules. All other modules, including engines and nano warehouse aren’t added to keep the cost and build time low.

7) Tank Killer.

Essentially the same as a glass ship, but the hull is Brilliance, Warlord, or Skywolf, with as high hit % as possible, and as many Pandora on it as possible.

8) Transports and Depot ships.

The only thing easier than building a transport is making a decoy. Transport ships are used for exactly what their name entails … Transporting stuff. The best hulls for transports are Industrial Ship (P or MX class), Titan Depot Ship-Villomis, Command Ship-Helmis (2nd Generation), K6 Energy Transport, and Command Ship-Brilliance. Like decoys, though, you can pretty much build a transport out of any hull you want, it will just change how effective it is.

To build a basic transport, select a hull with high storage and base movement, stick a Nano Station Warehouse, and name your blue print. Normal Station Warehouses cost a lot more resources, and take a lot longer to build then just building another ship. So for MX class Industrial Ships, a simple Nano Station Warehouse and its one of the best transports in the game.

Best part about Industrial Ships is they don’t cost supplies when moving from system to system. The trade-off is they’re incredibly slow, and fragile. It’s much the same thing as wrapping up your resources in Christmas wrapping and throwing it in to space towards the destination.

Helmis, Brilliance, and K6, are mostly used for Fast Transports. They hold as many resources (they do use normal Station Warehouse) and a Misty, and 10 Engines (to lower transmission time) to get an expensive, but insanely fast transport ship.

Depot ships are very similar to transports, but they don’t haul as many resources/supplies. They’re practically Transports with defence. Brilliance, K6, and Helmis are the primary hulls for these. Personally when I build a Depot, I like to put Quick Reaction Armour, and Reflective Plating. These 2 modules greatly increase their survivability. They should all have a Daedalus, and Nano Station Warehouse, and they should all have 10 Movement (so they can keep up with any ship you put it in a fleet with).

9) Planet Attack.

These ships fall under the same categories as Glass and Hybrid. But are equipped with planet attack weapons.

Chapter 2: Picking a hull.

So you’ve got an idea what ship you want to build, but what hull should you use? Well, warships are divided in to 4 basic groups. These are Assault, Cruiser, Battleship, and the ones that don’t have a class, from this point on I will call those Null (such as 2nd Generation hulls, transports, and recon ships).
I won’t be writing out all the individual stats for each ship, as I would like to finish this guide before I die, so I don’t have to pass its legacy on to my children.

The 4 Starting Hulls:

Predator: This would be the “glass” of the 4 starting ships. It’s cheap, and builds relatively fast, and has a high Hit %, but virtually no defence.


Angel: The depot and transport ship and tank of the starting 4. It’s about the same cost as glass (you won’t notice much different at these rates) but it has higher defence then the predator, but it doesn’t have the hit, or dodge % to make it offensive, or defensive. But it does have high Durability.

Firefox: The hybrid of the 4. It has low durability, but balanced dodge, and hit %.

Dawnstar: This hull is weird, it doesn’t have the hit% to hit anything, but it has high slots. It doesn’t have the dodge (in fact it has -10% dodge) to be a great tank, but it has high durability. It’s pretty much the Abyss of the newbie ships.

2nd Generation Hulls of Interest:

Nihelbet: This is the most important 2nd generation hull after Command Ship-Brilliance, and Command Flagship-Enigma were released. The reason everyone loves to have Ninhelbet is because it can achieve the highest dodge of any other hull. The average Nihelbet will have around 70% dodge. The high dodge makes it an extremely nice tank.

Last Stand: This hull has bonuses to attack power and bonuses to ballistic damage. It increases its damage by 30% making it almost as high as other more expensive hulls. This is often a faction’s second choice if they can’t get Nihelbet.

Fast Assault: The seaborne hull of the 2nd generation group, it has bonuses to seaborne damage and critical strike, so its not really hard to tell why people love it. All of its stats are below average, and its durability is average.

Warlord: This is the Nihelbet of Hit bonuses. It is often a great choice for Tank Killers because it can achieve well over 50% hit. It also has bonuses to Missile Damage. Because Siva Ignore Armor and Shield Mods, warlord can often devestate enemy tanks.

Command Ship-Helmis: This hull is essentially a larger version of the K6. It maintains its high speed, and high storage, but it has more slots, and defence. Its also uneffected by flanking. So side attacks, and rear attacks won’t do increased damage to it. Because of that effect, its an amazing depot ship as well.

Assault Ships of Interest:

Supporter Wikes: Commonly used later on to increase their individual warship rank. It doesn’t have any outstanding stats, or uses except being the fastest building ship in the game (and it has 1 movement, so it doesn’t need any modules).

Freighter-Amy: This is the starting Transport/Depot for assault ships. It’s the only depot that is considered an assault ship, and it makes a nice little tank too. It requires Industrial Theory Level 5 as well as Assault Craft Theory. A great addition to any newbie’s fleet, but not good enough after Training Field.

Noah’s Ark: A little Armoured assault ship. Even better then Freighter-Amy in terms of tanking ability early on.

The Nightmare: A personal favourite ship. In terms of Glass, it’s almost as good as Skywolf. It lacks the cloaking, and extra 2% hit, but in almost everything else it is the same. Its a great offensive ship at level 7 assault (10 Energy Shields required also).

The Hamdar: Fastest ship in the game, also the most used as a colony ship, and advanced scout. Both of those are based on its speed entirely. It’s as good as The Nightmare in terms of glass, but it requires assault theory 9 which is the same as Skywolf, and thus it’s useless.

Skywolf: The most outstanding hull for glass. It’s cheap, has great hit, its self cloaked, it builds fast, and holds enough Pandora to kill or dent any hull. This hull makes some of the best Glass warships, a great sweeper, and a great decoy. Its transmission time is also low enough to make a colony ship, or scout (self cloaked).

Quick Reaction Lurker-A1: Everyone loves this ship. It builds insanely fast, and is extremely cheap, but holds enough Pandora to be very annoying. An MP Player can produce over 5,000 of these a day, and they can effectively maintain over 3,000 attack in combat, with no storage. This is because the 1500 storage it gets from 1 Nano Station
Warehouse allows it to fire twice. It’s cheap enough that if it fires once, it done its job. If it fires twice, it’s working overtime. It also has +1% critical strike … that’s not much, but its the only assault up until Dark Dragon to have anything special.

Sentinel Command Ship-Dark Dragon: An amazing tank early on. It has high durability for its requirement but even more so, it has the highest stability in the game, 500%. It also has +5% critical Strike, and makes a good hybrid, and sweeper.

Command Ship-Brilliance: The mother of all Assault ships (at this time), it is the definition of glass. It has only 5,000 durability, but has 49 Slots, and +15% hit. It also has increased flight speed, making it almost as fast as a Hamdar, and increased construction time, making it build faster than its battleship, and cruiser counterparts. (Note that the extra slots when filled, usually make it build time close to Enigma, and Abyss. Enigma has 42 slots, so the extra build time on the hull is a trade off for having less slots to build).

Electronic Frigate-Niya: A good little assault ship, makes a great tank, and has increased dodge, and a bit of hit. Has higher durability then brilliance, but lower slots. It has enough slots, however, to make a decent tank. The only problem though, is other tanks in similar cost, and time consumption outclasses it. Such as Nihelbet, and K6 Energy Transport. Also makes a good Hybrid.

Cruisers:

Liberated Cruiser-Nyx and Command Ship-Shine: These are the primary attack ships for early cruiser levels. They are not very outstanding for attack ships, but then, no cruiser makes an outstanding attack ship. Assaults early on are generally better for attack ships, but don’t be fooled, cruisers get some later on.

Depot Ship-Tac: It’s so damn ugly I refused to build it when I had this level of cruisers. It does make a decent tank though for its level, and a great transport. I think the Assault version is better, but this one is still nice.

Heavy Patrol Ship-U8: An upgraded attack cruiser, it’s pretty bad for level 6, but it does do a good job as an attack cruiser. It has higher then average shields, which allows it to maintain a good defence earlier on. There is no such thing as a glass cruiser in this game, or at least until later on. I recommend waiting until level 7 cruisers.

Swift Support Ship-Venom: A lovely little ship, great glass. Higher than average (for a cruiser) hit %, and better than average transmission time, it allows a nice offensive warship.

The Flyingfish: Your tank cruiser, also at level 7. The only problem with this ship is that it’s dodge is -5% so that prevents it from being an outstanding dodge tank. But it does make up for that by having increased Shields, Armour, and Durability, and enough slots to make a good tank.

Command Ship-Holy Shield: The best tech level 9 cruiser which doesn’t say much. It does have outstanding shields but at this time, weapons have become unbalanced, and shields are now useless.

Bolencia Warship: This is great for its level; it’ll probably serve as the main attack cruiser in a person’s fleets until they get Wraith, or Enigma. It has increased critical, decent costs, and production time, and +5% hit rating.

Command Flagship-Enigma: This ship makes every other tank in the game look like a kitten. It has extremely high Shields, Armor, and Durability, while having above average slots, and hull effects. The hull effects for this ship are -5% enemy critical, +5% critical, -3% damage taken, +3% attack power. Because of the attack power boosts, it makes a great hybrid, and if you wanted, glass. The only problem is it fails to meet fast construction time, and cheap costs, and thus is expensive, even when designed to be glass.

Frigate-Wraith: This ship is awkward to put it simply. It has lower defences then Enigma, but higher effective warships (the amount of ships in 1 grid of a fleet that can activate modules). It also has +100% stability, -15% enemy critical, -4% damage taken, +3% attack power, +Flight Speed, and its cloaked. It has the most hull effects out of any other hull. It has 5% hit, and 10% dodge, high storage, high installation slots, above average shields, and armour, average durability, and low construction time. If you haven’t guessed by now, it’s pretty much the most balanced warship in the game, being at least average, or above average in everything.

Allied Space Forces Flagship: A nice little ship, one of the most used warships early on a server because it’s accessibility. It only requires tech, assault, cruiser, or battleship, at level 8 to use, and for any of the level 8 hulls, it’s the best. It has above average shields, and armour, but below most other high level warships durability. At 5,000 durability, it’s below other faction and corp tech hulls, but above all tech level 9 hulls.

Strategic Cruiser-WYZ: Great shields, low armour, great durability, it’s a very balanced warship pre-wraith. It also has 6% dodge, and 9% hit rating, allowing it to fill a variety of rolls. Its trade off is price, and construction time. It has a higher construction then that of brilliance, or wraith.

Battleships:

Destroyer-RV766: The basic offensive battleship. It has 0% hit, which is high for a battleship. As with all battleships, it has good storage, and durability.

Heavy Interceptor-Juuka: Practically an upgraded Destroyer-RV766.

Calamity-Swift Depot Ship: The starting transport/depot ship for battleships, it works the best as a tank early on of the 3 starting transport/depots. Has high storage and durability, but low dodge.

Imperial Admiral-Pason: Nothing special about it, it has low dodge and hit %, but will work as an offensive battleship.

The Explorer: One of the only, if not the only, battleship with base shields. It’s a decent hybrid, or tank, but it has low dodge and hit% making its usefulness greatly limited.

Infiltrator-Rahab: Upgraded offensive Battleship.

The Calamity: The most amazing low tech battleship. It has 5% hit, and 5% dodge, and 1 movement. It also has decent armour and durability, and good storage.

Scura Zerg Matrix: Has low, but positive hit %, and good durability, storage, and installation slots. It’s an upgraded offensive battleship. It’s not very special.

Command Ship-Abyss: At one time this ship used to be the biggest, and the best tank. Then Enigma, Brilliance, and Wraith came out. Since then Abyss has become a Depot ship. But even then it’s outclassed as a depot ship by Brilliance. In my opinion this hull is worthless.

Galactic Fortress-Libra: The best offensive battleship in the game, having 10% hit, great storage, and great defences. The trade off of this ship is being expensive to build but having an incredibly long construction time. Enigma takes only about 6 minutes longer to build.

From this list the best ships in the game are:

Quick Reaction Lurker-A1
Sentinel Command Ship-Dark Dragon
Bolencia Warship
Hamdar
Skywolf
Electronic Frigate-Niya
Strategic Cruiser-WYZ
Galactic Fortress-Libra
Allied Space Forces Flagship
Command Ship-Brilliance
Command Flagship-Enigma
Frigate-Wraith

Chapter 3: Picking modules to go on your warship, it’s like playing dress up with 200,000 tons of death.

By this point you know what you want your ship to do, and you know what hull you want. Putting modules on your ship is the next step, but what modules should you use?
One of the most important things when designing a warship is to make sure that all the modules are in the correct order. Many modules can interfere with other modules.

I’ve devised a list of these modules which will always make sure that you’ve placed them in the write order.

The list is as follows:

Weapons (Starting at lowest level weapon, and as you go down the list, the weapon levels increase. EX. Siva IV First, and then Siva V)
Ultimate Counterattack System
Reflective Plating
Anti Air Modules (Ship Based Interception Cabins should be first, and then PPC second)
Quick Reaction Armour
Daedalus Damage Control System
Shield Boosters
EoS Phase Shields/other Damage Asorbtion Shields
Shield Regen
Nano Armor/other Damage Asorbtion Armors
Armor Repair Units
Energetic Armor
Ship Reinforcement/Gravity Maintance
Durabillity Repair
Radar
Auto Targeting
Evolution Ray
White Noise
Tracking Disruptor
Cloaking Device
NanoWarehouse
Warehouse
Misty Team Engines
Engines

Couple Notes:

If your ship doesn’t have very high armor, it isn’t a good idea to have both reflective plating and quick reaction armor on the same ship. Unless its a depot and it needs the extra damage reduction. Usually its better to put static HP modules on it like Simple Reinforcement, or Nano Armor then both Quick Reaction Armor and Reflective Plating. Also, Quick Reaction Armor should only be put on a ship with over 1000 armor. Usually 1500 is better.

The only important parts of the list are the defensive modules. The rest of the list will not have much effect on its efficiency. I put them in this order to make it more organized, however. Also, the reason I put weapons first, is because when you modifiy a fleet, and hover your mouse over a stack of ships, only the first 6 or so modules will be shown. I tend to find it more beneficial to see the weapons equiped to the ship, then the electronics.

If you’ve only got 5 types/levels of weapons on a hull, you may wish to put cloaking after the weapons, so you can hover your mouse of the warship and see that it is cloaked.

Offensive Modules:

Lander Capsule: This module is the primary weapon on decoys, and the secondary weapon on sweepers. This is because it’s the closest ranged planet attack weapon in the game. Being a planet attack weapon, it won’t attack other ships, but it will move them closer. On a sweeper this can be traded off for junior cannons, or other extremely close range weapon.

Fire Bomb: This is the middle weapon between Lander Capsules, and Nuclear Bomb. There is no advantage to using this module instead of Nuclear Bomb.

Nuclear Bomb: The best planet attack weapon in the game. It is worth stacking some IV, and some V on the same ship, in case you shoot a small weak “decoy” planet, or you only need a bit of firepower to finish off a planet, it won’t waste all the weapons.

Junior Cannon: The introductory weapon to ballistics. For the introductory weapons, it has average attack, very low range, 0 packing rounds, and very low supply cost. You’ll
never really use this weapon.

Auto Cannon: Practically a Big Junior cannon.

250mm Rapid Cannon: Even bigger junior cannon, but now the supply cost to fire it goes up. But it still uses incredibly low supplies.

Dual 320mm Scattered Howitzer: This weapon is close range, as all ballistics are, but its packing rounds are no longer 0. It now takes 1 round to reload. The module volume is also increased. It now takes 2 installation slots. The supply cost, yet again increases, but now these weapons start to deal dispersion damage (Untested, according to XML and Tooltips). This means that these weapons will hit everything in a vertical line. It does 30% of the damage to those ships in the line.

650mm Automatic Scattered Howitzer: The Dual 320mm’s big brother. The biggest difference is that the range of the weapon is increased to 2. Damage, and Supply cost also goes up, but nothing else changes. It also does dispersion damage like the Dual 320mm.

General Nuclear Fusion Cannon-Ares: The biggest, most deadly ballistic weapon. It ignores shields (not the most useful effect) and deals 50% dispersion damage to enemies in a vertical line. The module volume is increased to 3 installation slots, and the attack is the highest of ballistic weapons.

Junior Laser Transmitter: Introductory weapon to Lasers. It has 3 range, which is higher than ballistics but lower than the other weapons. The packing rounds and module volume are the same as the Junior Cannon, but the supply cost is doubled.

Pulse Laser: A larger Junior Laser Transmitter. Supply cost and damage go up.

Nuclear Pulse Gathering Shoe: Again, just larger than the last. The range, however, increases to 4.

Particle Laser Gun: The first special weapon. This weapon deals 150% more damage to targets that do not have shields. The range is lower than the Nuclear Pulse Gathering shoe, but the damage is doubled. It now has 1 packing round, and the supply cost is slightly higher.

Plasma Energy Beat: This weapon is also special. It no longer deals 150% more damage to targets with no shield, but it deals 25% piercing damage, and hits all targets in a horizontal line. The range is lower than Nuclear Pulse Gathering Shoe, but the damage is higher than that of the Particle Laser Gun. Its module volume is increased to 2.

Nemesis High-energy Railgun: The final and most deadly laser available. It doesn’t deal the 150% damage to targets without a shield, but its base damage is increased yet again. It deals more damage than the Particle Laser Gun does with its bonus. The real advantage is that it ignores Armour. It has 4 range and 1 packing round. It requires 30 supplies, making it more than its ballistic counterpart. It also deals 30% piercing damage to targets in a horizontal line.

Junior Missile Launcher: Introductory weapon to Missiles. It has a starting range of 4 and higher attack then both lasers and ballistics. However, its supply cost is 6 times higher than the Junior Cannon, and 3 times higher than the Junior Laser. It also starts with 1 packing round. This weapon hits hard, and far, but falls behind in all other stats.

Standard Missile Launcher: Increased Range and Damage, but its supplies go up to being only 5 less than the Ares or Nemesis weapons.

Rocket-boosted Launcher: Same range as Standard Missile Launcher and now has 2 packing rounds. It requires twice as many supplies as Ares does, and 10 more supplies then Nemesis does. It does deal very high damage though, and is often found on high level hulls because of this and its relatively low packing rounds.

Fire Bomb Launcher: This weapon would be amazing, except the fact that no one can prove that it works, and its effect seems to be broken.

Tactical Cruiser Hydrogen bomb Launcher: Once a good weapon, it dealt higher AoE damage (hits the entire enemy fleet) the Siva Dual Nuclear Bomb Launcher, but there was a patch that nerfed this weapon. It now deals the same AoE damage as Siva does, but it requires more supplies, more module space. It does have 1 less packing round however, which makes its raw damage slightly higher than Siva.

Siva Dual Nuclear Bomb Launcher: An amazing weapon, people often whine about it being overpowered in combat. It ignores both shields, and armour, but deals significantly less damage than all other weapons. It requires 4 module spaces, and deals the same dispersion damage as Hydrogen Bomb does. It also has a very low chance to be intercepted by anti-air, so low in fact, it is almost unstoppable. It requires 180 supplies to fire, significantly higher than lasers and ballistics. The biggest issue with this weapon is the cost, and its raw damage.

There is no Seaborne introductory weapon.

Ship-Based Fighter-Hawk: Has higher range then even Siva Dual Nuclear Bomb launcher, but has 4 packing rounds. It also costs 70 supplies. It does deal a lot of damage however, and it does increase critical strike by 1%.

Ship-Based Fighter-Hunter: This is a great weapon; it deals very good damage for its packing rounds, and module space, and only costs 75 supplies. With this weapon you can start to produce glass ships as the damage is good enough to take down a lot of weaker hulls with ease. It also increases critical strike by 1%.

Ship-Based Self-Service Plane-Wanderer (IGG started to get really fond of the – when naming things at this point): This weapon cannot compare to the Ship-Based Fighter-Hunters. The supply cost goes up, the range is only slightly higher, the packing rounds are the same, but the biggest issue is the module space required is doubled, but the damage it does is not.

Self-Service Alarm Plane-Paras: A really unique seaborne weapon. This weapon combines anti-air and offensive weapons. Each one has a 30% chance to hit incoming enemy air based weapons. The supply cost for these weapons is low, but the range is increased. Packing rounds are also reduced to 3, from the previous ship-based weapons.

Ship-Based Armour Hunter-Pandora: The most used and most deadly weapon in the game. This weapon wins on raw damage and its ability to increase its damage by 180% when hitting durability. It has above average supply cost, very high packing rounds (4) and the highest range in the game (10). With only 2 module volume and 700 attack, you can put a great deal of firepower on even the smallest hull. This is the primary weapon of glass warships.

Defensive Modules:

Simple Ship Reinforcement: This module increases a warships durability by 190, which is more than any other modules. It also increases stability by 10% which is a good way to prevent losses in combat.

Side Note: Stability increases the amount of damage a warship needs to take when in a stack with other warships to be shot down. Let’s say we have a hull with 1,000 durability, and 100% stability. When in a large stacks of warships, for every 1,000 damage, 1 warship will be shot down. Let’s take the same warship and make it 500% stability. Now, for every 5,000 damage, 1 warship will be shot down.

Gravity Maintenance Facility: A very commonly used Module in tanks because it increases the dodge of a warship, as well as increases its durability by 100, and its stability by 15%. Almost all tanks will have 7 of these equipped.

Hull Repairer: In theory it’s a good module. But it doesn’t do enough for its module space required. A level 5 Hull Repaired will repair 25 durability per round. Early on when your warship only has 200 durability, it’s fairly useful. But even then, the ship only has 4 module spots, so it’s a waste of one. Later on when an Enigma has over 10,000 durability and only 42 slots… and Pandora are hitting for over 1200 damage… and the rounds are lasting 6 – 8 hours… that 25 durability really doesn’t matter a hell of a lot.

Reflective Plating: This module is fun. Since an advanced technique for putting attack modules on a ship is to put a few of each level (Lets say Pandora, players will put 1 Pandora I, 1 Pandora II, 1 Pandora III, 1 Pandora IV, and 3 Pandora V) this module will only stop the first level of one weapon type that hits it. So it usually doesn’t end up doing much. However, in certain circumstances, and when you’re really lucky, this module will activate on those 3 Pandora V, and blow up their own ships. There are a few tricks to help this happen.

Side Note: The first trick is to put Anti-Air weapons before reflective plating. This helps ensure that the lower level weapons are shot down before they hit reflective plating. This also works great for Quick Reaction Armour. Another trick is to put a few Nano Armour on a ship. This can usually burn some of the lower levels of weapons that hit armour instead of the Reflective plating. Since the module activates the first time a weapon hits the durability of the ship.

Energetic Armour: Very, very important on tanks. This module absorbs damage, and also increases ship stability. The only downside is the supply cost. It takes a lot of supplies to activate. Another advantage to this module is that it lowers enemy chance to land critical. The theory at this point is that this module reduces enemy crit by 1% for each one on your ship that activates since it does not say in the tooltip or the xml files. Because it’s not in the XML files, this effect could be broken all together.

Daedalus Damage Control System: Absolutely necessary on all hulls with over 5,000 durability, and all tanks. This single module takes 2 installation slots, but in return it reduces all damage taken by 20% (when both shields and armour have failed. AKA whenever your hull is hit), and increases the ships stability by 200%. The supply cost for this module is 5, which is very low.

Reinforced Chrome Armour: Good starting armour, it reduces damage taken by Ballistic weapons.

Energy Diffusion Armour: The same as Chrome Armour, but it reduces damage taken by Laser weapons.

Anti-explosive Armour: The same as the other two, but reduces damage taken by missiles.

Quick Reaction Armour: This module reduces the damage of the first level of one weapon that strikes it. Putting Anti-Air before this module help increase the change of the level 5 weapons to hit this, and increase damage. This, and reflective plating should both before Daedalus damage Control System to maximize their effectiveness.

Armour Fixed Robot: The same as the Hull Repairer but this is for Armour. Again, it’s almost entirely useless.

Nano Armour: This module increases the armour of the warship by 400, which is more than Chrome, Diffusion, and Explosive. It also helps absorb damage done by all weapons, not just one. This is a very good addition to any non-glass warship for seaborne protection. It increases the ships health by a lot more then shield and durability modules, but also prevents Pandora from doing 180% damage to it since it is Armour, and not Durability.

Energy Shield Booster: A must-have module for any ship that will have shields. This module increases the raw shields of the warship, and also increases the effectiveness of the other shield modules. Then again, shields aren’t very useful right now.

Neutralized Particle Shield: This module increases the shields of a warship, and also absorbs damage done by lasers.

Heat Diffusion Shield: This is the same as the Neutralized Particle shield, but for Ballistics.

Time-Space magnetic Shield: It’s the same as Heat Diffusion and Neutralized Particle, just for missiles, and has a cooler name.

Shield Regenerator: This is super useless. It’s so useless it makes Hull Repairer look like a good idea. And yes, the tooltip is wrong. It doesn’t restore the armour of the warship, it restores the shields.

EoS Phase Shift Shield: Semi-Useful. You can use a few of these to absorb damage done by decoys, and lasers, but not much else. Shields have unusually low raw HP, so Seaborne goes through them like nothing. Siva and Ares both ignore shields also.

Dispersed Anti-Aircraft Cannon: This is the first anti-air module you get access too, and it’s not worth its module volume. At a mere 30% intercept rate for both missiles and seaborne, you’d be lucky to hit anything with it.

Missile Interception System: This module “could” be useful at 65% chance to intercept missiles, but with Rocket-Boosted Launchers, and Siva Dual Nuclear Bombs both have very low chance to be shot down, even it was 100%, it still wouldn’t be worth the 1 module space it takes to put it on your warship.

Ship-Based Air Interception System: This is the same as the missile version, but its 65% chance to shoot down incoming seaborne weapons. This on the other hand is a very useful mod for tanks, and people trying to maximize the chance people hitting QRA and Reflective plating. Seaborne, unlike missiles, have a very high chance to be shot down by anti-air defences. So there is a good chance these will be useful for the module space. Plus, they’re a great way to deal with those pesky Quick Reaction Lurker-A1s.

Powered Pulse Cannon: This module works to shoot down both missiles, and seaborne. The rate is lowered however, at 50%, but is higher than the Dispersed Anti-Aircraft Cannon. Many, many tanks will have a mix of Powered Pulse Cannon’s and Ship Based Air Interception Systems. This allows a primary focus on anti-seaborne to be maintained, while providing good protection against small stacks of missiles, and the odd person who doesn’t know Hydrogen Bombs are useless.

Ultimate Counter Attack System: A very controversial module. You can only have 1 on a ship, and the module only deals 50 damage. It also requires 18 supplies, and 2 module spaces. But, this module is not intended to do great amounts of damage to ships. It’s intended to clear out decoys, and sweepers that fire at it, and to clear out the small decoy grids in attack fleets.

Electronics, and Misc Modules.

ECM – White Noise Generator: This module Increases dodge. It should be on every tank made, by any player. It has limited uses on other warships, however.

Reinforced Tracking Disruptor: This is the same as the White Noise Generator, but it’s cheaper, and increases the dodge bonus by more. Since both of these modules stack, and dodge is usually the most important feature of a tank, both White Noise and Tracking Disruptor should be on a ship.

ECCM – Radar: The same as the White Noise Generator, but it increases the Hit bonus of a warship, not the dodge bonus. The problem with this module that it increases by 10%, but costs a tremendous amount of population (1,150) so most players will usually skip this module unless they’re building a tank killer (Brilliance/Warlord/Skywolf with very high hit %)

Auto Targeting System: The advanced version of Radar. Its more commonly used in place of radar because its a lot cheaper, and less construction time. Many players won’t put radar on their ships after this is unlocked.

Reversed Cloaking Device: A must have module on all tanks, and expensive hulls that aren’t self-cloaked. The ability to surprise your enemy, and hide your warship numbers during battle is worth a great deal more than this module. It also increases dodge of a ship by 2%, and that is very important on Tanks.

Fuel Booster and Other Engines: All engines except for the misty engine only increase movement by one. The key difference is that as the cost and time it takes to produce a module goes up, the reduction in transmission time (how long it takes to travel from 1 system to another) goes down.

Super Transmission Engine: This engine, however, increases the dodge of a warship by 1%, and on most tanks, you will usually find more engines then the 10 movement limit so they can maximize dodge.

Misty Team Engine: The only engine in the game that increases both movement, and dodge, by 2%. A must have on every warship, especially on Tanks for the dodge.

Station Warehouse: This module doesn’t really add up to anything special. It reduces hit and dodge by 10% making ships with it equipped useless, but more importantly is the time needed to build it. Most of the time, you can produce a 2nd warship faster with empty slots and not these, then you could with these equipped, and in the end have more ships, that hold more at the end of the day. The only time I’ve found these useful were on fast transport fleets, because they usually have so many engines the supply cost for moving would be too much if you produced a lot of warships, instead of a few expensive ones.

Colonization Cabin: Want to colonize a planet? This module is a must. The downfall is -999% chance to hit, so be careful what you put it on. I truthfully cannot find an advantage to the higher level Cabins. They say more resources are usable, but it doesn’t hold enough to make it useful. At level 5, I believe it increases storage by 800, which is less than a Station Warehouse.

Weapon Evolution System-Ray: The only module in the game that increases a weapon’s range. This module is amazing. It’s also the only module that doesn’t require an installation slot. So you can put it on any hull, for no drawbacks. It’s cheap, and builds relatively fast, and it also increases the hit % of a warship by 10. Only 1 can be equipped (thank gods).

Chapter 4: Other ships for the fleet that help my main warship.

It all really depends on the ship that you’ve made. If you selected missiles but a hull with low storage you may really wish to consider putting depots in the fleet. The same goes for seaborne. Ballistics and Lasers however can usually fair really well without extra supply ships. Even if it’s a 2nd generation ship, and has 0 base storage, a Nano Station Warehouse is usually enough. How many rounds your ship needs to last is based on your packing rounds and what kind of battle you’re going in to also. When you modify a fleet and read the game’s description of How Many Rounds The Fleet Will Last it doesn’t take in to consideration that not all defences, and not all weapons will be firing every single round. So you have to factor in defences as well. The game assumes that all defences will be activated once, and all weapons will fire once every round. This usually isn’t the case. Many times only half the weapons will fire since you hit a decoy or two, and none of the defences or some of the defences go off. Or if it’s a tank, it doesn’t have weapons to fire, but it will get hit 20 or 30 times in the same round.

Generally you want glass ships with seaborne or missiles to be able to last 2, or 3 shots. If the battle isn’t intense, or your faction is winning, you may wish the ships to last 4 or 5 shots. On seaborne with 5 packing rounds, they fire once every 6 rounds. So if the game says it will fire 5 times, your seaborne will have supplies for over 30 rounds of combat.
Ares and Lasers can almost always last a most of combat under their own supplies, and they can always last long enough do to more than their fair share of killing.
It’s also important to figure out how many supplies will be taken while traveling to and from the battle. Many, many times players will arrive at the battle with not enough supplies to engage in combat, or they’ll have no supplies after combat to escape. For these, I used transports I design to have a transmission time around that of the fleet, but the rest of the slots are used for a Nano Station Warehouse, and minor defences. K6 do this job really well. Helmis is even better then K6 at it. It’s also a good use for Fast Transports, those with very low transmission time, and great cargo capacity.

Another good style of ship to have in your fleet, is small groups of sweepers in front of your main combat ships. These will get killed before your main combat ships, and they’re often cheaper to lose than the others. They also provide good firepower against the enemy fleet’s sweepers. Just make sure they’re fast enough to keep the transmission time of your fleet low, and the movement speed of the fleet high. No one likes an Anchor.

Tanks within the fleet can also be effective. They provide good defence for your main warships, and transports. I personally tend to refrain from doing this, as I don’t have commanders with mixed Acc, and Dodge, and they can’t make good use of the tanks. Often the tanks usually end up becoming shoot downs for enemy glass, and tank killers.

Chapter 5: Target Settings for your Fleet.

Sweepers should always be put on Min Durability.

Decoys should always be put on Min Range.

For tanks, it varies from battleground from battleground, but Min Range, or Max Attack are the best.

For Offensive fleets, when defending a system early on you should be on Max Attack, but when you’re reinforcing system that has been in combat for awhile, Min Range is often preferred.

The same goes for when defending a system. Max attack early on in the battle, and when reinforcing switch to min range.

Tank Killers should be set on Max Durability.

Planet Attack Fleets should be set on Planet Fortress. It works like Min Range, but for planets.


Chapter 6: How to use your warships.

If you’ve built a decoy for your warship, its best to position these around wormholes in the system you’re defending. There really is no better place than a decoy, except around a wormhole.

If you built a Sweeper, you will want these behind the decoys, but in front of the main combat fleets. They should always be in their own range, so they can hit their target. If they have to move to hit their target, that is ok, but as long as they can hit it.

If you decided to make a “Glass Cannon”, Hybrid, or Tank Killer for your warship, when defending these should always be positioned as far away from the wormhole as their own range permits. If a ship can fire 5 spaces, and move 5 spaces, the wormhole should be 10 spaces away from your fleet.

When defending a system Tanks should be positioned behind the decoys, at about the same range as the sweepers are. This will help ensure that its not targeted by min range ships before all the decoys are dead. After which, it will still be closer then main attack ships, and it will be targeted. If the tank has weapons in the fleet, make sure they’re close range. No sense in the tank running away.

When attacking:

You should calculate out when all your ships arrive in a system, and send them so they arrive in this order.

Tank – Should arrive first.
Sweepers – In case the tank dies early, these are next up to be killed.
Attack Warships – Always arrive last, better chance they survive.