Squadrons

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**Squadrons** are a type of unit in *Crying Suns*. They are, as their name suggests, a military unit of smaller battleships, deployed by the main Battleship to engage in close combat and provide maneuverable and polyvalent openings on the battlefield. They can be used to attack enemy squadrons as well as battleship systems, or in some cases, battlefield structures such as Turrets. Squadrons can be purchased at Shipyards or Army Depots, given as a reward after combat or Events or found when out on Expeditions.

## Mechanics

There are three melee squadron types: **Drones**, **Fighters**, and **Frigates**, and one ranged type: **Cruisers**.

* **Drones** have a damage bonus against Frigates. They are the fastest squadrons, have a decent maximum health and average DPS.
* **Fighters** have a damage bonus against Drones. They have average speed, the highest overall DPS, but have the lowest maximum health.
* **Frigates** have a damage bonus against Fighters. They are among the slowest squadrons, have the highest maximum health and the lowest DPS; this is compensated by the fact that their targets of choice, Fighters, have low HP.
* **Cruisers** don't have damage bonuses of any kind, but deal massive ranged damage - they have the highest DPS of all squadrons. However, they are the slowest units in the game, have low HP and take more melee damage, on top of being unable to retaliate at short range. Therefore, they are best used with an escort to prevent melee engagements. The Dark Matter Cannon, large asteroids or neutral battlefield structures may also be used to provide cover.

Battleships have a limit to the total number of Squadrons they can have in the **hangar**, which varies per Battleship. If a new Squadron is acquired when the hangar is full, the player will have to pick one unit to abandon, or sell if the current location has a shop.

Squadrons are deployed on the battlefield using **Docks**, so only 1 to 4 units can be deployed at a time. The number of Docks available is determined by the **Additional Squadron Docks** system upgrade. Certain effects like Krafted Drones or the Battlefield Auto-Krafter Officer ability, can create extra units on the field which do not count towards this limit.

When a squadron is destroyed during battle:

* Their **Dock** is overloaded, requiring **cooldown** before it can be used to deploy another squadron again. This cooldown can be reduced by purchasing **Squadron Dock Recovery** upgrades.
* It is not lost, and instead becomes **Patched**, which means its maximum health will be capped at 50% until repaired at a Shipyard using **Scrap**. Destroyed patched squadrons aren't lost either and merely remain patched.
* Whether it was Patched or not, it will take time to **repair** and will be unavailable for deployment until repairs are at least half-way complete. Repairs are done automatically at no cost, and take 60 seconds to go from 0 to 100% HP (30 seconds if using the Excelsior Class battleship, which is the first available battleship).
* When the battle ends, all Squadrons are repaired up to their current max HP.

Squadrons have four quality **tiers**, and their **max health**, **DPS**, **speed** or in some cases their **ability** may be improved with each tier. In most cases only 2 stats are improved per tier. A Squadron may be improved at an Omniforge in exchange for Neo-N: improving a Mk I Squadron costs 1 Neo-N, a Mk II costs 2 Neo-N, and a Mk III costs 4 Neo-N.