Healing

Healing is a gameplay mechanic of Team Mode where players can switch between "offensive" and "healing" laser modes while in a depot. If a team loses all of its depots, its players are locked to their current laser modes. Rumble used to have healing but currently does not.

Intuitively, this gameplay mechanic allows players to heal their teammates' shields. However, healers cannot directly damage opponents by shooting lasers at them. Instead, healers can ram or use secondaries (missiles, rockets, mines, attack pods) to damage enemies.

(put an image of someone healing an opponent, caption: Healing enemies is ineffective.)

## Gameplay Mechanics

Currently, the healing ratio is 50%, which means that healing lasers can recover 50% of the damage that would be dealt if they had been attacking lasers. A laser with 100 damage will heal 50 points of a teammate's shield in healing mode, and it will deal 100 damage to an opponent in attack mode.

The best healer ships are those that have a balance between high energy regen or DPS, general survivability, and agility/speed of that ship. The latter factors are important too, as players usually prioritize healers before other targets.

This healing ratio variable can be changed in custom/modded games, which require an ECP to host/make.

## Example Vanilla Shiptree Paths

Below are 3 suggested "healing paths" a player can take, for versatility, mining and attacking (or a more "dedicated healer") throughout the match, respectively. The ship paths can be used in anyway other than healing, obviously, being very frequently found in a normal match in team mode.

### Odyssey

Considered the strongest tier 7 ship in team mode, the Odyssey has the second-highest energy regen in the game, lower than only that of the Aries (but the Aries pulse delay makes that DPS go to useless secondary lasers). It has various advantages over the other T7s in the endgame. Firstly, this path has is very versatile, so switching to attacking if needed is no problem, and mining is also possible if there is no need for a healer in the end. In any case, you are left with one of the best ships for the endgame. Also, they Odyssey's recoil makes it easier to retreat.

Depending on the game or personal preference, one can follow these paths:

1. Fly → Delta-Fighter → Pulse-Fighter → Mercury → FuryStar → Scorpion → Odyssey
2. Fly → Delta-Fighter → Pulse-Fighter → Vanguard → U-Sniper → Advanced-Fighter/Scorpion → Odyssey

Both paths have good ships for attacking, and the Scorpion is a very decent miner. In a game where one can skip the Vanguard, it could be good to go directly to the U-Sniper, as it offers both a higher DPS than the FuryStar (which would usually be attacking in this case), but it can also help to attack if needed. One example of what a player do in a match is, attacking as a Pulse-Fighter, mostly mining as a Mercury, attacking as FuryStar, mine and defend as a Scorpion then determine whether a healing ship is needed. A player should not always stay a healer if there is no need for one.

Compared to the Scorpion, the Advanced-Fighter is better for attacking and DPS yet worse for mining and survivability, but it is another option that upgrades to the Odyssey.

### Rock-Tower and Bastion

This ship path is very good for mining and farming secondary weapons, which can be used to switch to offensive mode or help your team while being a healer as well. With 3000 credits after contributing 3000 gems to the base, a tier 6 ship can buy 6 torpedoes to "torp" the enemy base. This can be used to reverse the mining progress of an enemy base by depleting its gems or just helping a team while attacking a base in general.

The following ship path is the one a player would use to go Rock-Tower:

1. Fly → Trident → Y-Defender → Pioneer/Crusader → Howler → Rock-Tower → Bastion

Rock-Towers can withstand a good amount of damage, but they are slow, which can make it harder to keep up with a group of attacking players. However, with the mining potential of this ship path, one usually has a good amount of credits to buy secondaries, mines, and pods, all which can be used to support a team in many scenarios.

### Condor and Bastion

The Condor, although unpopular as an attacking ship, is a very good healer, as it has similar energy regen, equal shield capacity and higher shield regeneration than the Scorpion, while also being more maneuverable than both the Scorpion and Rock-Tower. Also, the whole path has a very decent DPS albeit not necessarily the best miners. Sometimes, one may opt to choose the A-Speedster then Shadow X-3 instead and attack or help by healing while not entirely upgraded yet.

These are some possible paths:

1. Fly → Delta-Fighter → Side-Fighter → X-Warrior → T-Warrior/Aetos → Condor → Bastion
2. Fly → Delta-Fighter → Side-Fighter → X-Warrior → Aetos → A-Speedster → Shadow X-3

For the Condor, a player may benefit by not upgrading Damage. With no damage upgrade and full capacity and energy regen, one can achieve a constant streamline of shots, which can possibly heal multiple ships in the need of just a bit of healing or in the need to switch your healing target fast. Different upgrades to damage can be used as well, mostly based on player preference.

With the higher agility of the Condor, one can switch the healing target with relative ease during an attack, being harder to hit as well as easier to follow the group attacking the enemy at the moment or retreat if needed.

## Tips and Strategies

There are multiple strategies one can use as a healer, as well as some tips to either avoid death or make one a better healer. However, it may currently be frustrating to play against, as the game lacks balance or new mechanics updates. It is possible the way healing works will be changed in the future, making some strategies not worth using anymore. Also, there will be some advice on what not to do or usually not do.

### Healer-Miner Duo

While playing a usual match of team mode, it is somewhat common to see a healer behind a mining ship, like a Barracuda. Although it is good to always have the max shield cap, the shield does not directly interfere with mining itself.

While a healer could help a Barracuda with enough gems to survive breaking rocks while having no shield, they could also be mining by themselves, which contributes with the overall mining on the team or could help upgrade the ship the healer is healing at the moment. For example, if a Scorpion has just upgraded while it mines until it "bleeds gems", the healing ship could also mine as well and help that same Scorpion to upgrade faster, while also ending up healing them anyway (press "V" to give gems).

Therefore, it may be good to be around a group of players mining to keep sure they are at full shield capacity as well as someone who has no gems to help further mine without the shield being recharged, but healing them while not mining may waste some mining potential of the team. It is not necessarily expected that the miner will give gems back to the healer, and it could be potentially annoying for them to have someone always asking for gems.

Because the miner can still mine after giving the gems to the healer, it is usually more efficient to have the healer carry and donate those gems to the base while the miner still mines, as they will donate those gems as well eventually, then, the healer will mine while they are donating gems to the base and cycle continues, supposing the miner mines faster than the healing ship.

Mathematically, calculate the total amount of time it takes to fill the base if the miner and healer ships mine independently, and the time it would take if they apply a strategy involving healing, as the miner can mine faster than the healer. If the latter is shorter, it is a better strategy.

### Helping Teammates who Just Upgraded

Sometimes, the healer could be holding on gems just as the base upgrades, since healing does not necessarily require the best upgrades other than energy regen and capacity in many situations. It could be worthwhile to give those gems to a ship that just upgraded instead of upgrading oneself.

For example, an attacker that just upgraded will benefit to be able to attack again to full capacity, and in some cases the healing ship could regain those gems easily by following attacks, by having the offensive ship attack and collect gems for them, or just mining back again.

It could also be good to just give them some gems to hold and let them mine themselves, an example could be a Barracuda, if given enough gems and in a situation where there is no danger, by giving gems they could mine without worrying about the shield, while also leaving the healer to do something else like mine or help other teammates. In general, it is always good to keep a gem reserve in case of an attack, as it becomes extra health for the ship. By looking around for players that just upgraded, it could be beneficial to give them enough gems to survive and mine.

### When to upgrade

In some cases, it could be better to stay a tier behind. A good example is not upgrading from X-Warrior to Aetos. Not only does it have higher DPS but it also mines very fast, which can help other teammates upgrade, as well as mining the base for mining pods later. However, it is also very situational.

If the current ship has better upgrades and the team is currently being attacked, then it would be a mistake to upgrade, as the unupgraded ship would become very vulnerable to attacks and have no gems. Also, it's not always needed to have all upgrades maxed if any; if mostly healing, the most important upgrade is probably energy regen and speed in most situations.

Usually, (energy regen, speed, energy capacity, damage) are the most important upgrades in descending order.