Space combat

Wherever you go in the Universe, there is likely to be conflict. Various factions are aligned against each other and over time, you will make choices that change your alignment towards these factions.

## The short combat guide

* Before you can attack a ship, you must **arm your turrets ( press the [F] key)**. You will see two slider bars at the bottom center of your screen for setting thrust and shield energy levels. Before entering combat when first starting out, it's recommended that you set your shields to maximum power and your trust to 1/3. Your settings are saved for you, though you may need to adjust them during a fight.
* Before entering combat, always press the **[G] key to engage your combat shields** and let them charge to 100%. Without your combat shields up, your basic ship shields will take damage and then your armor. It's always best to enter combat with your combat shields ready and fully charged. If you forget to turn your shields on before combat, they will turn on automatically, however, they take time to fully charge so your ship may be damaged as they charge to full capacity.
* You should also set your **directional shields forward when first entering combat (by pressing the [Q] and [E] keys)**. You always want your directional shields facing the majority of incoming fire so you will be using them a lot. You can also rotate your directional shields to quick-charge depleted shields. Directional (bright yellow) shields charge at a faster rate than your other shields (blue).
* Now approach your enemy - you can use micro-warp or **afterburners [SPACE]**.
* Selecting a ship will display an attack reticle. Select the icon and all of your turrets will start firing. A target window will be displayed in the upper right corner of the screen and you can scan the targeted ship for additional information to get a sense of the equipment and turrets that ship has. You can **toggle between ships in combat using the [TAB] key**.
* Keep an eye on your capacitor. If it is below 1/4, you may have an energy problem. Adjust your thrust down first and see if that balances your capacitor so it is stable. If that does not work, reduce your shield energy slider. If neither of those is working, your ship has an energy deficit. You can see this on the Ship Information HUD [K] as a bright, rainbow-colored information bar. If your ship is equipped in a way where it is underpowered, you will need to buy new **equipment** or a more powerful Warp Drive to power your ship. You may have exceptional turrets and a powerful shield, however, if you do not have enough power to keep them running, you are as good as dead. Your starter ship is well balanced.
* Chaff is one of the most important defenses against incoming missiles. Chaff can confuse incoming missile homing systems. Just **press the [T] key to launch a chaff** module. You will occasionally see a missile go haywire as it loses its homing signal. Chaff can reduce the amount of damage you take considerably and give you the edge you need to survive! Chaff can be purchased at ship equipment vendors.
* If you are having trouble or just need to get a tactical view of the situation, just press the **[P] key to pause combat**. You can scan, manage turrets, target enemies, review your inventory and status.

## Advanced shield management

A combat shield is a sphere split into 4 quadrants - front, right back and left. Regardless of the direction you are hit from, the shield protects your ship. Making sure your combat shields are deployed and fully charged is critical to the first moment or two of combat when you will be taking a lot of direct fire from your enemy(s). Your combat shield ring is a flat representation of the 4 quadrants of the shield.

Your shields are directional. This means you can adjust power to a specific shield to give it additional power to recharge. Keeping your directional shields facing the majority of incoming fire is critical to success. If you are even in a situation where you need to **adjust your shields, you can do this any time by pressing the [Q] and [E] keys**. You can also pause the game to adjust your shields.

Your shields are powered by your ships power plant. At the bottom center of the screen, you can divert energy to your shields. Sliding the bar to the far left diverts power away from your shields which will give your capacitor additional charge. Sliding the bar to the far right diverts power from your capacitor to your shields, giving you a higher charge rate for your shields and your directional shield.

You can also manage your directional shields by selecting your shields on the shield HUD. Clicking the center of the shield display resets your directional shields diverting the full charge to all shields equally.

Before entering combat, always have your shields up, fully charged and your directional shields facing forward.

## Advanced targeting

As long as an enemy is engaged in combat with you, and the left target menu for that ship is displayed, the micro menu and upper right ship target menu will display red targeting reticles.
Clicking on the enemy target menus for any ship displayed will target all turrets to that enemy.

Selecting targeting mode for turrets by pressing keys 1-6 or left clicking on the turret ( you can select turrets 1 and 2 for example) and clicking either the left enemy ship HUD, the upper right menu reticle or the red micro-menu reticle will target only the selected turrets (the ones that have a pulsing red crosshair in them) to that ship.

You can enable and disable targeting mode for any turret by left clicking the turret a second time. If a turret is in "targeting" mode, that turret has a pulsing red reticle in the middle of it.

You can turn a turret off completely by right clicking that turret or by pressing and holding the corresponding turret number (1-6). However, if you click a ship info HUD or by using the micro-menu reticle or the red reticle in the upper left HUD, that turret will be turned on again automatically.

You can tell which turrets are targeted to which ships by rolling over that turret. You will see a green highlight around the portrait of the targeted ship.

## Incursions

You may occasionally get a message in a Star System to accept space combat missions - "Incursions". Some enemies are a bit more difficult than others and are marked with a skull icon.

Incursion missions are given randomly while flying in space. You can decline or accept. Once you accept, enemy ships are spawned in the system. You can attack them for a cash reward (about 15,000 - 20,000 Credits per ship) and of course loot and faction (+7 to +20 per ship towards the controlling power of the system and -7 to -20 per ship towards the attacking faction) . Landing or docking at a station will clear the incursion. So, if the incursion is too difficult for you, just dock or land. Next time you are in space, another incursion will eventually be generated.

You can adjust the difficulty of space combat in the options menu.

You can adjust the frequency of incursions in the options menu.

Incursion ships have a unique orange icon so they can be easily identified.

Incursions are one of the best ways to earn cash early in the game. The rewards really start to add up and selling **ship equipment** found in cargo crates to vendors can give you the money you need to buy your first FTL drive and equip your crew with higher quality gear.

## Boarding

Instead of destroying a ship you can also choose to board it. To board a ship, the enemy's combat shields (the four quadrants seen around the ship in the main screen) and regular shields (the blue bar in the target panel in the upper right corner) have to be down. Then there is a new button on the left center of the screen, next to the combat participants overview. This button allows you to target subsystems (engines, weapons and systems). When subsystems are targeted, your explosive ship weapons (missiles and plasma) are automatically deactivated, because they don't do damage against subsystems, but would damage and ultimately destroy the ship's hull. Ion weapons are best for boarding, because these do not inflict damage to the hull, but high damage against shields and subsystems. When all three subsystems are downed, a board button appears to the left. However, deactivated ships can only be boarded, if there is no other active enemy in the fight. The ship's crew will start to repair the subsystems as soon as the first subsystem is deactivated, so there is limited time to deactivate all subsystems and board the ship.

When boarding is started, this is a ground mission with one area. You have to fulfill several objectives to successfully board the ship:

* swipe the ship's crew
* repair or salvage all subsystems (these can be identified by holding the tab key and there is some electrical discharge/sparks animation at them)
* place a beacon in the cockpit

When all objectives are completed, there is a button "Initialize beacon", which will trigger a conversation with Arkus. Arkus buys boarded ships from you for some credits. The amount of credits depends on the ship's hull condition and if the subsystems were repaired or salvaged. Always remember to have a beacon when boarding. Otherwise, you're not able to sell the ship to Arkus.

During boarding there is always one crate, which contains **ship equipment**.

## Additional tips and information

You start with basic equipment, a heavy turret, two light turrets and a missile launcher. Your ship is fairly weak, but strong enough to take on most ships in the starting Star System.

* You can find ship and ship equipment merchants on most stations.
* You can attack any ship - however, you may want to keep your faction alignment with neutrals or better where they are - up to you. There are plenty of ships and incursions against generally hostile (red) targets to keep you busy. If you have been fighting in the facility, you will notice your faction with the Halamis faction may be higher than the rest of the factions.
* Before engaging enemies, scan them, or immediately pause combat and scan your enemies. You will be able to see what weapons an enemy has by scrolling down in the scan data HUD. If a ship has 4 heavy turrets and you only have 2, it's likely combat won't end well for you. You can always give it a try and if your are being pummeled, power down your turrets (never power down your combat shields) and micro-warp away from the encounter by pressing [R] - micro-warp.
* Once you are in combat with an enemy ship, a small information HUD will be displayed on the left side of the ship. If your turrets are active ( the [F] key toggles them on and off ), just click the information HUD to target all of your turrets on the enemy ship. If you are in combat with multiple enemy ships, clicking the information HUD's lets you switch targets. For more about targeting, targeting multiple ships and turret management, read the ADVANCED TARGETING section below.
* Your starter ship is fairly well kitted out for combat - however, you might want to look at upgrading as soon as possible. Some incursions just cannot be defeated in your starter ship with basic equipment. Upgrades for your ship can be found on trade stations. Upgrades are expensive. Defeated ships drop cargo containers and some of those containers may have weapon and equipment upgrades you can use. You can mine asteroids or take incursion missions to earn money for upgrades.
* Attacking a ship gives you a faction hit. Destroying a ship gives you a higher faction adjustment with both aligned and unaligned factions.
* Ships drop equipment and ore that can be sold for a nice profit.
* Combat is all about energy, range and shield alignment. You should work towards getting the best warp engine you can - it will power higher quality turrets and help keep your shields up.
* You can use afterburners in combat to move in and out of range of enemy ships.
* You can escape combat at any time - You must power down your turrets (you can leave your shields up) and then micro-warp [R-KEY] away from combat. Enemy ships will go back to their previous task once you are a certain distance away. The target HUDs on the left of the screen will disappear.
* You can pause combat at any time by pressing the "P" key. While paused you can scan ships for information, re-target ships, adjust energy settings and power turrets on and off.
* You can deploy chaff by pressing the "T" key. You can rebind this key. Chaff is useful for confusing incoming missiles.