The Vodyani/Ships

The Vodyani worship the Virtual Endless, and scour the galaxy seeking ancient temples while devouring lesser beings.

About
Gameplay
Traits
**Ships**
Strategy

This page lists all of the ships available to this faction, and lists what sort of equipment they're able to equip.

Each ship in the game has a set of slots it can equip armaments on; these are limited to only allow certain kinds of things in certain slots. This is indicated with a series of icons. If a slot includes more than one icon, then it can hold either kind of equipment.

 = **Attack**: slugs, missiles, lasers, beams, et al. Notably does *not* include fighters/bombers.

 = **Defense**: shields and armor.

 = **Utility**: engines, damage enhancers, targeting modifiers. Some items like probes are limited to explorer vessels, and some other modules can only be equipped on support ships.

 = **Squadron**: i.e. fighters/bombers.

 = **Heavy Weapons**: A weapon slot with doubled stats, which also can mount certain exotic weapons like Blast Effect Batteries, or on Carrier-class ships, can even mount Core Crackers.

Each ship comes with several  neutral slots, which are available immediately once the ship is available. Most ships have a second upgrade that can be researched which unlock a set of additional slots, but to equip an item in these slots, you have to pay a single unit of a strategic resource, such as  or .

Every kind of hull has a name to it, but every particular player-designed equipment loadout does as well. We list the default name the game gives for the equipment loadout in quotes after the hull class name.

Ships have a  size modifier which multiplies the cost of a piece of equipment, and the power of it. Ships also have a  command-points modifier which lists how many 'slots' a ship takes in a fleet. Neither of these vary from faction to faction.

To make the information easy to read, we tally up the number of different slot types available to a ship under the heading **"Available Slots"**. Quite a few slots are hybrid slots, so this number varies depending on what you commit the slot to being, since using a slot for one purpose means you're now *short* one slot for whatever the other option was. Because of this, these numbers are usually a "range" rather than a single value.

One thing noteworthy for the Vodyani is that they have a faction trait called "Fast Travelers I" that directly benefits ships under their command with +1  Movements Points.

Due to the unique "Ark" and "Essence" mechanics for the Vodyani, there are no Colonizer ships. Instead two additional ships, the Ark, and the () Leecher, are added to their roster.

## Ark

  Slots

**Available Slots:**

Base:= 1,  = 2 ~ 3,  = 3 ~ 4

Holy Defense Doctrine:= 0 ~ 1,  = 0 ~ 1, = 0 ~ 1,  = 0 ~ 1,  = 2

Sanctified Ark: = 1,  = 1,  = 1,  = 1,  = 1,  = 3

**Strategic Implications (non-combat)**

Arks house the entire Vodyani population in a system as well as all improvements you may have built (bar a few unique improvements, esp. wonders, that say so in the tooltip). They are ships, so they've got a unique vulnerability to being attacked as such (which can be avoided with the Anchoring Module, which forces enemy attackers to only engage the Ark via a "ground invasion" rather than ship-to-ship combat, as long as the Ark is docked), but they've also got the unique strategic opportunity to almost instantly relocate to high-yield nodes which most factions would take a large amount of time/effort to colonize.

Their massive amount of utility slots, especially with later upgrades, makes them extremely versatile. Equipping them with engines in all utility slots allows them to zip across the galaxy, where they can then dock and immediately upgrade to more useful utility slot layouts. Arks boast a special type of module that can greatly enhance system performance with regards to , or even generate some flat  every round, should you run out of opponents to stick your leechers on. Dedicated sieging arks can also be very effective. You should not hesitate to switch out modules according to your current needs; the resource/yield-type quests are trivial with this ability, for example.

**Strategic Implications (combat)**

Arks are reasonably powerful combat ships, although this tends to fall off by the mid/early game. Generally speaking, due to risk/reward, you want to avoid fighting with Arks, but it's not defenseless, and in the early game it can definitely hold its own against small 2-3 cp fleets.

As for offensive use of Arks, besides the substantial risk of losing your Ark, the other downside is the missed opportunity cost of not having your Ark docked to a system, and thus, setting all resource/ generation to zero (which is particularly brutal if this is your only Ark). However, a dedicated combat Ark backed up by a fleet, can be a very powerful force in the early-game before medium and large ships take the field. The Ark's weapon and defensive module multipliers are determined by its system development level, so you should always upgrade an Ark's system development level at least once before taking it into combat.

**Strategic Implications (Ark Destruction):**

If an Ark is destroyed in combat, rather than being "deleted" (as is the case for most ships), it will leave a "destroyed Ark" object on the node where it was beaten. If you are a "Ship-Bound" affinity faction (i.e. one that uses Arks), any "destroyed Ark" can be rebuilt at a cost of , as long as you're able to move a fleet onto that node (it becomes available as a fleet action). For non-Ship-Bound factions, wrecked Arks provide a small  bonus if the system in question is settled, but are otherwise non-interactive.

Note that of course, each Ark represents an entire system of yours, and if you lose your one Ark at the start of the game, *you're done*. That's a game-over condition.

**Strategic Implications (combat, early-rushing):**

There are a number of early-game strategies that have been bandied about in online guides, involving a very early rush against a nearby opponent. This uses the combined power of your hero, and the Ark (being used as a combat ship), to bully a neighbor, and (using the fact that the Vodyani  affiliation allows immediate invasion/hostility without the  cost of formally declaring war) to immediately attack them and potentially wipe them out.

This used to be a relatively reliable (and somewhat overpowered) play, but Arks have had their combat power nerfed by quite a bit. This is now a somewhat risky play and is mostly down to start location (which in turn is partly down to game settings, with this being hard to pull off if enemies are spread out evenly) - if an opponent spawns immediately nearby, it may be viable, but if they're far enough away that they have time to start mustering a formal military fleet, you probably want to scrap this play.

## Leecher

  Slots

**Available Slots:**

= 0 ~ 1,  = 0 ~ 1,  = 2 ~ 4

**Strategic Implications**

The leecher is a versatile utility ship. Because it has both an attack/defense slot, and still has two utility slots, the leecher can be a decent early combat vessel, and by having a grand total of 4 utility slots, it can service a few early game jobs besides merely leeching.

Contrary perhaps to expectations, the "signature module" associated with it - the Leeching Module, can be equipped on any of your ships. You don't have to put it on a "leecher" ship. The leecher ship, however, is quite cheap - half the cost of an attacker ship, and quite flexible, with 4 utility slots, so it's a pretty decent way to do it. The leeching module sucks the life-force out of an inhabited system's population, and turns it into . Specifically, each module will reduce the  growth on a planet by 5, and give 13 , per turn. If this pushes their  growth into the negative, that's their problem, not yours.

The leechers are relatively weak in combat (in part because they share the scout/colonizer behavior of *not* focusing their fire, and instead just shooting at random targets in combat). Still - they are merely half the cost of tier-1 combat ships, and are a bit versatile because they can be refitted from a utility/leeching role towards combat for a small outlay of , once built. One of the main attractions of kitting at least a single gun onto them is that it turns "chasing away" leechers from a trifle that even a 1 CP enemy explorer can manage, into something that requires a dedicated 2-4 CP fleet of actual combat ships.

One utility role Leechers can fill is to equip 4 engines and use it to rapidly plot out the nearby nodes. It cannot equip probes, so it can't fully replace your formal "explorer" ships, but your explorers can only equip 2 engines at most, and that's a bit silly because your explorer would have to omit probes entirely to manage 2 engines, so a pure engine leecher will be 4 times as fast as a one-engine explorer. Essentially you can "split" the job of exploration into curiosity-probing and lane-plotting as separate tasks.

The Leecher can also be turned into a cheap and effective sieging craft by installing several  slugs.

**Note:** Leeching ships can't leech pirate lairs, since they don't produce or use Food. They also can't leech Riftborn Outposts or Riftborn systems without a Minor Faction POP on them, due to that same lack of Food production.

## Explorer

  Slots

**Available Slots:**

= 2,  = 0 ~ 1,  = 1 ~ 2

**Strategic Implications**

This ship has the exact same module slots as the exploration ships of the Cravers, the same things apply.

Ironically this is considerably worse at exploration than your Leechers, since you have only two utility slots (sadly, though, the Leecher can't equip probes). You will never be very fast compared to other faction's scout ships, and you'll be even slower if you equip any probes.

However, this has two attack modules, and 1 potential defense slot, so it's a fairly decent fighter. Not quite as good as the United Empire explorer, but good.

## Attacker

  Slots

**Available Slots:**

= 3,  = 3 ~ 4,  = 2 ~ 3

**Strategic Implications**

This is a fairly well-rounded ship; it leans a little towards the defensive side. Has 3 potential engine slots, one of which requires the upgrade.

It is also one of the Attacker ships to have a total potential of 9 module slots which is more than the slots of 8 of most other factions, on par with Sophons and Lumeris.

## Protector

  Slots

**Available Slots:**

= 1,  = 3 ~ 5,  = 3 ~ 5

**Strategic Implications**

This is almost exactly like the United Empire Protector, but better - it's got one additional utility slot compared to the UE ship.

This ship can equip a ton of defense modules, and only one weapon. All the protector ships in a flotilla have to die before enemy attacker ships will start shooting at your attackers, so these guys can actually take advantage of that mechanic by genuinely being tanky. 4 potential engine slots, 2 of which require the upgrade, but unlike the UE, the Vodyani attackers can actually (mostly) keep up with their protector escorts.

Similarly to the attacker class, it is also one of the Protector ships to have a total potential of 9 module slots which is more than the slots of 8 of most other factions, on par with Sophons and Lumeris.

## Coordinator

  Slots

**Available Slots:**

 = 1,  = 0 ~ 4,  = 0 ~ 4,  = 3 ~ 4,  = 3 ~ 4

**Strategic Implications**

This ship almost ought to be called a carrier; it has 4 squadron slots, which is way above average, and means it can literally hold more squadrons than some faction's 'proper' Carrier ships (such as the Sophons). Granted, medium ships only hold half the count of fighters/bombers compared with large ships (you'll get two bombers to a slot on a large ship, but only one to a slot on a medium ship), but 4 bombers on one of these in the midgame is no joke (even 3, which is what you can have without the upgrade, is very strong).

It's also noteworthy that this ship has 12 module slots in it's fullest potential, on par with Lumeris, Cravers and Riftborn which is higher than the module slots of 11 of most other factions.

Other that that, this is relatively unremarkable. It's got a somewhat low count of defense modules, so this is actually a bit bad in the 'tank' role it will be thrust into by dint of being flagged as a "coordinator" ship; enemy attacker ships **will** shoot at this before shooting at most of your other ships. You may want to use various tools to divert fire away from this ship, be it "jammer" modules, or manually placing these in a flotilla that will be at a very bad range for your opponent.

## Hunter

  Slots

**Available Slots:**

 = 1, = 3 ~ 4,  = 5 ~ 6,  = 1 ~ 3

**Strategic Implications**

Until you get the upgrade, this ship leans significantly towards defense. With the upgrade, it becomes a respectably powerful attack ship. You've got a potential 3 engines on this ship, but one of them has contention with a weapon slot.

## Carrier

  Slots
  Slots

**Available Slots:**

 = 2, = 0 ~ 5, = 0 ~ 5,  = 3 ~ 8,  = 3 ~ 7

**Strategic Implications**

This ship has an unusually high number of potential defense modules (a grand total of 8 if you sacrifice quite a few multi-purpose slots for it). There are a total of 5 squadron slots, which is relatively high for a carrier (2 are locked behind the upgrade). There are, potentially 7 engine slots, with only two of them locked behind the upgrade, so this ship could be extremely fast.

Carriers are also the only ship able to carry a Core Cracker. Vodyani get a special tech module (Holy Vestment) that shortens the weapon's lengthy firing cycle and grants additional essence per planet destroyed, making this a potentially rewarding strategic choice.