Combat

Combat in Dual Universe is more about tactics than reflexes, because construct and player combat functions on a tab-targeting system, rather than an action (aim and shoot) mechanic.

## PvP Rules

Dual Universe is a single shard game where "Player versus Player" combat is extremely important and prevalent. Player combat can happen everywhere in the game universe except in the safe zone or bubble surrounding the planets of Alioth, Thades and Madis or within the atmospheric bubble of planetary bodies. In the future these safe zones will/may be removed or reduced. Sanctuary Moon will never have PvP content. One of the best PvP primers is Tobi-wan Kenobi DU PvP Info guid.

## Basic Combat Mechanics

In order to optimize technical resources, combat will operate on the standard tab-targeting approach found in most MMOs, with damage and hit chance being determined by stats, rather than aim.  However, some weapons may have the lock and fire mechanism integrated into the operation of the weapon, with the locking tied to automatically initiate on whatever is in the centre of the aiming reticule. Since Dual Universe is played in first person, this will give the impression of aiming.

## Construct vs. Construct Combat

Construct combat requires that players man weapons elements on constructs. Players are able to lock and fire at targets by orienting the ship to face the target, or by rotating an individual turret.

The damage inflicted to the target will be automatically calculated, and voxels will receive damage in relation to their proximity to the point of impact.  A “damage sphere” will be calculated from the point of impact, and a variety of factors will affect how that damage is applied, such as the stats of the weapons, the type of damage, the presence of shields or armour, the type of material the construct is made of, and so on. Once voxels or elements receive a certain amount of damage, they will be removed from the construct, and will thus cease to function. Construct damage can also be applied to avatars, allowing for Construct vs. Avatar combat.

*See also Repairing*

## Combat Timer

Both firing and receiving weapons fire will trigger or restart the 10 minute combat timer on a construct. When a combat timer is active a player cannot enter build mode, engage a warp drive and shields will not regenerate.

## Victory Conditions

There are two victory conditions where either the core of the players construct is destroyed by weapon fire or the players Core Combat Stress (CCS) pool depletes to an extent that causes core destruction.

## Core Combat Stress

From the official Devblog on CCS ".. core *combat stress represents a core's ability to keep functioning under prolonged weapons fire. A core unit that takes too much stress will be destroyed and will be considered a PvP destruction.."*

A constructs CCS is a pool that is increased by adding voxels of varying HP and depleted by HP of weapons fire. The additional HP of adding voxels is a linear increase to a capped limit, the depletion of the CCS is against the pool, not against the voxels that the weapon hits.

see page on Core Combat Stress

## Weapons

Dual universe will feature a wide variety of weapons, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. There are four different types of weapons: Cannons, Missiles, Lasers and Railguns.

* Cannons: Mid to Close range weapons which have a moderate firing angle, high rate of fire and a low capacity.
* Missiles: Close range burst weapons that have a very high firing angle, high damage, fairly high capacity and a very high reload time.
* Lasers: Medium range weapons that are the most forgiving out of the four weapon types. They have a medium capacity, medium firing angle and medium damage.
* Railguns: Long range sniping weapons. They have high damage, a low firing angle, high magazine volume and the highest capacity out of all of the weapons.
* Stasis: Reduces targets speed by 50% for 5 sec

See page on Weapon Systems and Weapon Attributes

## Complexity

Larger ships are more powerful than smaller ships, and will be able to mount larger weapons. However, larger weapons will be balanced so as to be less effective at hitting smaller, fast-moving targets. Overall, larger ships will not necessarily be superior to smaller ships.

## References

1. ↑ NQ-Nyzaltar, Official Dual Universe Forums, "Ask Us Anything" Event (Q&A 6)", https://board.dualthegame.com/index.php/topic/841-ask-us-anything-event/#entry8072. 07/06/2016.
2. ↑ TheXPGamers YouTube Channel, "DUAL Universe: Developer Interview (Sci-Fi single-shard Sandbox game)", https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1WMwIDWFKI. 06/22/2016.
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1949863330/dual-universe-civilization-building-sci-fi-mmorpg/posts/1702763
4. ↑ https://dualuniverse.game/news/devblog-inside-ares-part-one