Ship

Types

A multitude of ships exist in Darkspace. They are divided up into 9 distinct hull types:

• Combat

Scout

Frigate

Destroyer

Cruiser

Dreadnought

Station

• Utility

Supply

Transport

Engineer

Characteristics

Any ship in DarkSpace has the following basic characteristics :-

Role

Each Ship in Darkspace has one or more roles that it performs in or out of battle. Certain roles have talents that add or remove gadgets from a ship to optimize it for its intended purpose. The roles a ship can have in DarkSpace are:

• Cannon: Cannon role ships are equipped with medium range, high accuracy cannons that are optimized for attacking targets one size smaller than the attacking ship. Cannons ships do not have a talent.
• Torpedo: Torpedo ships are equipped with short range, high damage explosive weapons that are optimized for attacking targets one size larger than the attacking ship. Torpedo ships return any lost armor if combined with a role with an armor penalty.
• Beam: Beam ships are equipped with very short range, very high damage, perfect accuracy beam weapons that are optimized for attacking targets the same size as the attacking ship. Beam ships have an extra plate of armor on the fore arc and is never combined with the EWAR role.
• Missile: Missile ships are equipped with very long ranged, high damage missiles that track and home in on their target. Missile ships lose an armor plate on the aft arc. The Missile role is only found on ships of Frigate size or larger.
• Carrier: Carrier ships are equipped with long range autonomous Fighters that can be used to attack other ships, defend allies from attack, provide Electronic Warfare (EWAR) support, or bomb planets. Carrier ships sometimes have more Point Defense or EWAR gadgets than normal. The Carrier role is only found on ships of Cruiser size or larger.
• Mine: Minelayer ships are equipped with explosive Mines that they can deploy on the battlefield. Minelayer ships lose an armor plate on the fore arc.
• EWAR: Electronic Warfare ships are equipped with extensive ECCM/ECM and Scanner suites that are used to hide allies or uncover enemy ships. EWAR Scout ships also have Beacons. The EWAR role is never combined with the Beam role.
• Bomber: Bomber ships are equipped with Bombs for attacking Planets and Planetary Structures. Bomber ships lose an armor plate on the aft arc.
• Escort: Escort ships are equipped with Point Defense beams to defend themselves and teammates from Fighter, Mine, and Missile attack. All Escort ships have a Scanner and expanded EWAR suite to help detect incoming attacks.
• Command: Command ships are equipped with Command Auras and Wormhole devices. Command ships of Dreadnought level and higher also carry Build Drones.

Tiers

Ships in DarkSpace are divided into Tiers that define how many roles that ship carries. There are 3 tiers of ships, and there are 6 ships in each tier for each hull size (6 Tier 1 Frigates, 6 Tier 2 Cruisers, etc. per faction) except for Tier 3, where there in only one ship per hull size per faction. Utility ships only one have one ship per tier.

• Tier 1 ships are single role, and specialize in that role. All Tier 1 ships also have an extra full arc armor plate.
• Tier 2 ships are dual role, but have less ability in any one role than a Tier 1 ship would.
• Tier 3 ships have 3 roles, but have even less ability in any one role than a Tier 2 ship would.

As ships increase in Tier, they gain increased versatility, but lose specialization.

Mass

Every ship has a Mass that dictates how fast it can turn and how fast the ship can accelerate/decelerate. The base Mass for each hull size goes as follows:

• Scout: 5
• Frigate: 9
• Destroyer: 12
• Cruiser: 16
• Dread: 42
• Station: 80

Armor gadgets contribute to the mass of a ship, but Shields do not. The formula for mass added is:

<Current hp>/125000=Mass added (One arc of UGTO standard armor on a dread adds about .95 mass)  

The total mass of a ship is calculated as follows :-

Base mass + Mass of armor +/- Special mass effects (Aura effects, etc.)

Thrust

Now that we have our mass numbers, let’s talk about thrust. Thrust defines how fast a ship can accelerate or decelerate in speed. Thrust is set by hull type + gadgets that add thrust so here are the numbers:

• Scout: .5
• Frigate: .65
• Destroyer: 4
• Cruiser: .5
• Dread: .5
• Station: .5

Only Impulse Drives add thrust(note: If damaged, they do add less thrust) and the numbers are:

AFE and AME: 6.84 + (level() * 0.28) IE and PIE: 6.00 + (level() * 0.25) PFE: 5.26 + (level() * 0.22)

Station AFE and AME: 48.2 Station IE and PIE: 42.5 Station PFE: 37.3

Right, so let’s get some dummy numbers up for our formula. Let’s take the UGTO EAD which has the following numbers:

Base Mass: 31 Mass added from Armor: .95 per armor, 9 armor total so 8.55 mass added Total Mass: 39.55

Base Thrust: .5 Thrust added from engines: 7.75 per engine, 4 engines total so 31 thrust added Total Thrust: 31.5

Acceleration is calculated by thrust divided by mass or 31.5 / 39.55 = .796 ish. That means the EAD will accelerate at about .8 gu/s

Ship turning is calculated by the ships base yaw divided by mass and then adding a tenth of max acceleration. An Assault Dread’s base turning is 3.14 so we get:

Turning speed = (3.14 / 39.55) + (.8 / 10) = .15 radians per second or about 8.5 degrees per second

After all these calculations, modifiers from ship enhancements are added

Velocity is calculated separately and is a combination of the base velocity of the ship hull + the velocity of the engines. There’s no need to show these numbers because basic math from looking at ships in game will tell you them.

Energy’s only relation to velocity/mass/thrust is that engines produce less energy linearly at higher speed (meaning if your engines are operating at 50% max speed they only produce 50% as much energy)