Ship hardpoints and combat

The exact effect and damage values of ship hardpoints are never stated in the game or its manual. The following effects have been calculated by reading the game code and testing.

See also missiles damage and effects.

1. Ship combat
2. Ion Cannon
3. Disruptor
4. Napalm Orb
5. Chaos Bomb
6. Vortex Mine
7. Laser
8. Photon Cannon
9. Plasma Cannon
10. Static Inducer
11. Warp Generator
12. Deflector
13. Shield x10, x20, x30, x40, x50
14. Alien hardpoint B
15. Alien hardpoint C
16. Alien hardpoint D
17. Alien hardpoint E
18. Alien hardpoint F

Ship combat

Each individual ship has a cooldown which determines when its weapons fire. Each game tick, the cooldown reduces by one, and the ship can fire when it reaches zero. It decreases to -7, whereupon it resets to 16.

Ships fire all their hardpoints at the same time, but each hardpoint has a separate chance to trigger successfully, which varies on the hardpoint. Targets are selected at random.

Ship damage is repaired only when there is a Repair Facility at the colony, and only if the ship is landed in a hangar.

Ion Cannon

Has a 50% chance to shoot. Hits a random square for 5 damage.

Disruptor

Has a 20% chance to shoot. Hits a 2x2 area for 5 damage. The same area as the Explosive missile, but half the damage.

Napalm Orb

Has a 20% chance to shoot. Despite the large fire produced, it appears to only damage a single square. That square takes the same damage as a Napalm missile, which is to say 5 initial damage, followed by a fire that deals 1 damage for 9 times, for a total of 14 damage.

Swixarans are weak to this, taking 8 base damage and 2 per tick, for a total of 26 damage. The increased damage also applies if you’re hit by a Napalm Orb by a Swixaran ship, although only a single class of Swixaran ship has it.

Chaos Bomb

Has a 20% chance to shoot. Same as the Napalm Orb, except that it strikes a 2x2 area, the same area as the Explosive missile.

Vortex Mine

Has a 20% chance to shoot. Creates a Vortex storm which wanders the asteroid. Like the Vortex missile, these vortex storms act randomly each game tick:

Vortex deals 5 damage instead of 2 against Rigellians.

When alien ships use Vortex Mine, it has a 10% chance to shoot instead of 20%. It is otherwise identical.

Laser

Has a 30% chance to hit. Deals 2 damage.

Photon Cannon

Has a 30% chance to hit. Deals 8 damage.

Plasma Cannon

Has a 30% chance to hit. Deals 5 damage.

Despite costing twice as much, the Plasma Cannon deals less damage than the Photon Cannon (9,000 vs 4,500 credits). This appears to be a bug (see Photon vs Plasma). Photon being more powerful than Plasma is consistent with the equivalent turrets.

Alien cannon hardpoints deal different damage:

Ship hardpoints deal the same damage as the equivalent turrets in all cases. However, Turret Optimizer does not increase ship weapon damage.

Static Inducer

Has a 10% chance to hit. Stops the target from firing by setting its weapon cooldown to 100 ticks.

Warp Generator

Switches on for three ticks, then off for two, meaning the ship is under the effect 60% of the time.

While the Warp Generator is on, all damage the ship takes is reduced to one point. Even weapons which normally deal no damage, i.e. the Static Inducer, will deal 1 damage.

Due to a bug, the Warp Generator has no effect when used by aliens. The code which would check for it is missing. The sparkle effect still occurs, but they do not take reduced damage.

Deflector

If the ship has at least one deflector, all damage it takes is halved, rounded down. Deflector is applied before Warp Generator. There is no benefit to multiple Deflectors on one ship. Deflector is only viable on large ships.

Shield x10, x20, x30, x40, x50

Simply raises the ship’s maximum Armour (i.e. hit points).

Due to a bug with Repair Facility, ships whose shields are depleted will only repair to the ship’s base maximum Armour, while ships with shields intact can actually increase above their maximum. See bugs and Repair Facility.

Alien ships don’t use shields, but only have the standard Armour value of their ship class. There are entries for the five shields in the alien hardpoint list, but they are unused.

Alien hardpoint B

Causes the ship to change a certain unknown property, then patrol the asteroid.

Only used by the Kll-Kp-Qua and only on the smallest ship, which has a photon cannon and this. The game code gives this ship internally as having only one hardpoint, which would exclude Hardpoint B.

My guess is that its purpose is to cause a ship to travel back and forth between colonies to give the impression that it’s ferrying colonists or something.

Alien hardpoint C

Has a 10% chance to fire. A unique golden Vortex Mine, used exclusively by Tylarans. One is used on their Terminator-class ship, and two on its Battleship. It deals 4 damage on a hit instead of 2.

Alien hardpoint D

A power drain weapon used exclusively by Rigellians on their Terminator-class ship. It causes the target colony’s power production to decrease by 50%. It triggers on every fourth day, and lasts 4 days.

Alien hardpoint E

A Swixaran bioweapon. Has a 10% chance to shoot. Reduces the population of the target colony by 5. Used on three Swixaran ships, including the battleship.

Alien hardpoint F

Swixaran self-destruct used exclusively on their large Transporter-class ship.

Once triggered, a hidden countdown decreases by one each time. When it reaches 50, it gives the message: “WARNING! THE LARGE ALIEN SHIP IS SUPERHEATING ITS ENGINES!” At 20, it warns: “DANGER!! DANGER!! THE ALIEN ENGINES ARE TURNING CRITICAL!!” At zero, it destroys the asteroid as if struck by a Mega missile.