Ships

Ships are the avatars of characters in the game to include the player. Ships can best be thought of not as vehicles, but as armor and weapons would be in a fantasy game. Ships can be modified; ships have parts that can be changed out adjusting appearance and base stats, and different ships fit different situations and play styles e.g. there is no best ship all around.

Like armor, the player can have many ships and ship parts called ‘sections’. These can be acquired through manufacturing, event reward, capture or purchase and assembled in a freeform manner, restricted only by the nature of the part in question i.e. a ship section has a category range such as Corvette to Destroyer and cannot be used on a ship outside that range. A ship's category is limited to the intersection of its sections ranges; where this includes more than 1 category the player may choose which it is identified as. Categories adjust weapon fitting size and number, concentration costs and base stat ranges as well as general maneuverability aspects e.g. a base Corvette is always faster and more agile than a base Frigate even if made of the same sections, but has fewer and weaker weapons and a higher concentration need.

Shipyard
The shipyard is a application of the Terran OS and allows the player to design and build custom ships in game. The tool is still early in development but will include the ability to attach any number of parts in any way the player likes. The resulting ship stats are calculated by passing the features of each part through particular formula based on the desired category of the ship e.g. Corvette get bonuses to speed while Battleships back more punch.



Categories
Ship categories define general bonuses applied to the ships and also limit the weapons, mods and sections that can be used in the construction of the ship.

Categories include:

Light or fast simple categories: these typically use smaller weapon systems with some mid weapon capability.

 * Corvette: With a bonus to speed and maneuverability and a penalty to weapon mounts and concentration, the corvette makes for an ideal scout but suffers in heavy fighting. That said, they are generally smaller and cheaper and large numbers could prove useful in some situations. These are the smallest ships available to Terran pilots and are fairly rare in faction operations, though are commonly used by raiders and smugglers as few other vessels can keep pace with them.
 * Frigate: A bonus to concentration makes them highly flexible and able to back fill roles of more substantial ships, but limits in weapon mounts hinders their practicality in large scale operations.
 * Destroyer: A specialized frigate that sacrifices concentration bonuses in favor of more advanced mounting options, these are gun boats built for purpose only ... the denial of scout operations.

Mid or moderate complexity and mobility ships: these typically use mid weapons with fair small weapon capability and some large weapon capability

 * Cruiser: Bonuses to structure and shielding as well as a slight bonus to concentration makes the cruiser a solid member of any flotilla. The cruiser, however, does suffer from limited mounting options like most other small categories.
 * Battle Cruiser: Effectively a light battleship, these ships lack flexibility but pack a punch well over their weight class and still enjoy the cruisers bonuses to armor or shields depending on configuration.

Complex or heavy: these are particularly unique RE weapons and abilities

 * Battleship: The mainstay of any fleet, this category has hefty bonuses to armor or shields with special bonuses to weapon mounts and related modifications, but suffers a penalty to maneuverability.
 * Dreadnought: A supper battleship with bonuses to armor and shield as well as the battleships bonuses with regards to weapons, but a further penalty to base concentration and maneuverability. These ships are hard hitters on the battlefield but vulnerable to specialized ships.
 * Carrier: A specialized ship with large bonuses to shielding and drones but an equally high penalty to weapons and maneuverability, though they do enjoy a slight bonus to speed and concentration allowing them to keep up with and support smaller categories.
 * Fortress: The final word in area denial, these massive ships suffer greatly from speed and maneuverability penalties but have huge bonuses to shield and armor as well as weapons.
 * Gar: A rare sight on the battlefield, these ships are basically massive cannons, effectively moving space stations. They are slow and cumbersome but have huge defense and can easily support smaller ships even cruisers and some battleships. Gar are the only ships capable of equipping the largest category of weapons in the game. They are a special use, this is the only category that can use Gar weapons effectively the whole of the ship is dedicated to the gar weapon mount typically used in combat as artillery but also in civil uses as a mobile station. Gar are very large and not very mobile.
 * Interdictor: Special use category; these ships come in a range of sizes and are, in truth, standard category ships with special modifications which grossly augment a specific attribute at major cost to other factors. The category is called out in their own classification as pilots cannot consider these ships in the same way they would common configurations.

Special interdictor spaceships:
 * Scout: Optimized for mobility and stealth specialized interdiction tools are available to this category which also suffers from a high/strong limitation in defence and offence and like all interdictors is very specific to its role.


 * Skirmisher: Optimized for ‘dog fighting’ the Skirmisher and offensive specialist category; again it is an interdictor so is very specific to this role with regards to the available interdiction parts.
 * Vanguard: Optimized for defence, the vanguard is able to weather heavy assault than other categories and has access to specialized interdictor parts and abilities for its role.

Ship Stats
Ships are defined by their size and stats. The following factors define what a ship can and cannot do and how it is considered by targeting processes:
 * Type: This is the category of the ship e.g. Frigate and applies a set of base modifiers across all other stats
 * Holding capacity: e.g. the ships cargo space and determines how many drones and how much salvage or loot the ship can bring back from an event.
 * Operations capacity: This effects how many drones, weapons and modifications can be used at once by the ship. You can think of this stat a bit like manna would be in a fantasy game in that ops is consumed on use and freed on completion of the action for use by other processes as needed.
 * Shield, Armor and Structure: This is your ships health and each layer responds differently to various types of attacks. Shields and armor can easily be recovered during missions but structure can't typically be repaired in the field. Shielding recovers the quickest and is the first line of defense but is particularly vulnerable to various status effects as well as common energy based weapons; it is, however, completely resistant to penetration factors. Armor, conversely, is highly resistant to force or kinetic energy as well as many status effects, but is vulnerable to penetration factors. Structure your last line of defense is highly resistant to most all factors but is also thin and slow to recover if it can be recovered at all.
 * Concentration: This is, in truth, a factor of the pilot but the ship and modifications to it can augment concentration. Concentration is spent to equip weapons and modifications, as well as operate sections and drones.

Sections
Ships are comprised of ship sections. These are self contained 'parts' that can be assembled in nearly any way by the pilot to form a unique ship. Each section has a set of 'factors' which help define the completed ships base stats. Sections have an applicable category range but otherwise can be used in any way the pilot sees fit; it is even possible to build a ship with just 1 section.

Section layouts can be saved as designs and can be exported and shared with fellow pilots; e.g. output to file and shared with friends.

As development continues, we will highlight the sections available and eventually have full details of each available here or linked to here.