Combat

Main Page: Starpoint Gemini

Every weapon turret has an individual firing arc, which is its effective radius.
Turrets stop rotating when they reach their limit. This is important because the
player has to maneuver his ship to fully utilize its potential. Firing arc is a fixed
property and cannot be modified in-game.

An additional weapon attribute is Range and it differs from weapon to weapon.
Some weapons are primarily built for long-range strikes while others may prefer
close range encounters. It comes down to the situation and player preferences.
Hull and shield damage

Every weapon has a basic damage value (minimum and maximum). Shield
damage is handled separately allowing some weapons to have a more
damaging effect on shields, while others damage Hull more intensely.

### Rate of fire

Rate of fire is a standard property of every weapon. This shows how fast the
weapon fires. The lower the property, the faster the weapon can shoot. Beam
accelerators provide the fastest rate of fire. In their case rate of fire is handled incode as a value of 0.2, or every 0.2 seconds.

### Weapon batteries and battery power

Weapons are grouped into weapon batteries (front, rear, left and right). Every
battery has individual battery power which is spent by firing weapons on that
battery. Energy is self-replenished over time, but energy usage and refill can be
modified with Enhancements, Skills, Officers and outside influences (area effects
and nebulas).

If a battery’s power is completely drained, a bit of time must pass before that
battery can start recharging again. This is called cooldown.

### Critical hit

Every shot has a chance to deal extra damage. This hit is called Critical hit.
Critical hit chance depends on the weapon and can be influenced with Skills,
Officers, Enhancements and outside influences (area effects and nebulas).
Critical hits can in some cases cause additional status effects like critical system
failure or killing off some Troopers.

### Critical failure

When ship systems get damaged, there is a chance they might go into critical
failure. When that happens, statistics affected by the system get penalties, until
the critical failure is repaired. Chance for Critical failure to occur increases with
damage received by the ship system. Reducing the chance of getting a critical
system failure is possible through Enhancements, Skills, Officers and outside
influences (area effects and nebulas).

## Damage types and Resistances

Damage can come in different forms or types. Weapons usually deal a single
type of damage, but special (rare or unique) weapons can deal additional
secondary type of damage. Certain weapon Enhancements can also “add”
special weapon damage types to every hit.

Resistance to every type of damage is handled separately. Resistances are
inherent properties of ship’s energy shields and only have an effect if incoming
weapon shots are hitting a shield. Resistance reduces the amount of damage
received by a damage type and can be modified by Items, Skills, Officers, Perks
and outside influences (area effects and nebulas).

### Soak

General resistance to any type and form of damage is called Soak. Any and all
damage is reduced by the Soak amount before it’s dealt to the target. As Soak
is an inherent property of a ship’s Hull, Soak only comes into effect after the
energy shields have been breached and weapon shots start hitting the Hull
directly.

### Repairing

Repairing ship systems can be done both “on-thy-fly” in space and on stations
and planets (paid for in Credits). Hull damage on the other hand can usually
only be repaired on stations and planets (also paid for in Credits). Hull can also
be repaired in space, but special equipment (Repair nanobots item) or skill must
be used for that.

### Energy shielding

Every ship and station has four individual shields (front, left, right and rear). Every
shield covers one fourth of a sphere surrounding the ship/station (top and
bottom included).

All four shields are charged by a single Shield generator (ship system) and when
that system is knocked out, all four shields go offline. Energy shield strength and
shield regeneration depend on the Shield generator.
When a shield goes offline it takes some time before it comes back online. This
property is called Reboot.

### Sub-targeting

To maximize efficiency of attacks, players can target individual systems on the target. That sets the chosen sub-target as main target and will increase damage received by that ship system. Sub-targeting is also used for assigning a specific system as the target of some skills (Hack for example) and as the specific target for player’s Troopers when boarding the target, thus increasing the chance of that particular ship system to be sabotaged.

### Boarding & capturing ships

To capture ships, you need Troopers. You can send these Troopers on away
missions, to attempt to capture enemy ships (they are sent using the context
menu when an object that can be captured is targeted). Capturing ships is
difficult and it is highly advised to first reduce target Trooper number as much as
possible, before attempting capture.
When you capture a ship, it will “float dead” in space. You can then use the
context menu again to choose what to do:

* Demolish - Immediately destroy the ship.
* Loot - This opens up the Loot panel where you can choose what Equipment, Commodities and Ship systems to take or leave on the captured ship.

* Grapple - Use this option to grapple the ship with your grappling beam. You can then drag the ship to a nearby station or planet and then choose what to do with it. You

can either transfer your command to it or sell it for profit (any cargo, equipment or ship systems are sold with the ship, so looting it first is advised).

## Fire at will command

Fire at will is a special command that can be issued by the player to his own crew.
When issued, crew takes control of all weapon batteries and fires on all
available hostile targets. The important thing is they fire for as long as they have
energy in their batteries.

This command is very useful when trying to outrun pursuers or when facing
multiple opponents. Firing on them while getting away will force them to
change their direction to preserve their energy shielding, thus making them lose
their grip on you. Or in case of multiple opponents, firing at them can force
them to take defensive maneuvers, reducing their aggression. But “Fire at will”
command also comes with a penalty on accuracy and should not be used
lightly.

## Energy redistribution

Hover the mouse cursor over your ship’s schematic to switch this panel to display
the Energy transfer panel. This screen enables you to quickly redistribute energy
between different ship sections (Shields, Propulsion, Weapons) and boost them
significantly.