Guide Contents
Guns
Genral Info about Guns:
- Range: All Guns have the same range: 1.0u.
- Mortok Railguns: do half damage, but have double the fire rate. (My favourite)
- Thul Lasers and Octo Blasters: do double damage, but have half the fire rate.
- Arrack Spore Blasters and Human Lasers: take the middle ground for both damage and firerate
- Raptor Ion Cannon have double damage, at regular firerate, but deal no damage to the hull (They compensate that with Swarm Missiles).
- On LV.10 the DPS is pretty much identical, for all types of weapons, except for the Raptor Ion Cannon.
But some types of guns are superior on the Techlevel they were first introduced.
Wing Mounted or Turret
Every Species has their guns in a fixed-forward Version, which the Darkstar mounts on a Weapon Slot on the Wings.
And as Turrets, which the Darkstar mounts on its Weapon Slots on the Hull.
Wing mounted weapons have higher dps, and always focus fire on your Cursor.
Note that wing mounted can still swivel independent of the movement of the ship.
Always following the cursor.
You get a Wing-Slot for the first Upgrade you put into Wings, and every 2 Wing Upgrades afterwards.
Having more front facing guns means that you can almost delete individual fighters, and the higher DPS is apreaciated against larger targets, like Cruisers.
Turrets can rotate 360° and have an Azimuth of 180°.
Turrets fire automatically at an enemy in range.
As Turrets are more comfortable to use, they have reduced dps.
They are more expensive to purchase and sell.
You get a Hull Weapon slot for Turrets every 2 Upgrades for the Hull.
The odd numberd turrets will be on the top of your ship, even numbered turrets will be on the bottom side.
In Dogfights, having multiple Turrets will oftentimes mean that an enemy will often times have already lost their Shield and good ammount of Hull Points, too. Finishing them of with the front facing guns. With Turrets you can use the Sine-Wave Trick.
The Sine Wave Trick
This Trick allows you to defeat an infinite ammount of hostile Fighters.
The only requierment is a Turret.
- Use Afterburners (default W) to put distance between you and the enemies. 1.1u is already ennough. Keep flying away from the enemies.
- Set your Radar to 5.0u. always watch the Radar for enemies coming from the front. If someone comes, fly at an angle , so that both groups are behind you.
- Slightly pull up, to turn your Turret towards the pursuers.
- Manage the distance between yourself and the pursuers. Regularly press E, to select the closeset enemy. Reduce the distance by reversing thrust, slightly (S by default). Use Afterburner to increase the distance again. Try to keep them at 0.9u to 0.8u. Boost away, if you take damage.
- Keep pulling upward to keep the enemy in the firing field of the turret.
- Every time an enemy gets destroyed it is usually a good time, to change direction. Stop pulling up. Set the distance.
If you have a second Turret, simply pull down, the same way you pulled up before.
If you only have one turret, while going straight, make a half roll (Y or C by default, but thats for my German Keyboard. For you the C is most likely Z). Pull up again, the same way you are used to.
- Rinse and repeat.
Do not forget to regularly check the Radar. A group of enemies coming from an unexpected angle will kill you instantly.
The enemies get drawn out, in a long line. If you fly a Looping, instead of a Sine, the enemies further back in the line will only need to pull up to come right at you.
If enemies come from the front, try to take a course that takes you away from both groups, use Afterburners to reset the distance.
Missiles
Missiles:
Have higher range, than the 1.0u of guns. Missiles need to be individually purchased. They are quiet expensive. They requiere a Missle Launcher, which takes a Weapon Slot on the Wing.
You can only have a single Missile Launcher installed. Missile Launchers are Downwards compatible with Missiles from lower Techlevels, but the missiles will be even more underpowered.
I usualy dont mount the Missile Launcher. If I have to fight against Cruisers, and don’t have confidence in my main guns, I pause the game and install the Missile Launcher. I only purchase Big-Bang Torpedos.
Types of Missiles:
Swarm: Fires a Salvo of unguided Missiles, mediocre damage, hard to get a hit, dont use this,
Raptors make them work, because the AI can spam them.
Hellfire: Guided Anti-Fighter Missile, range 1.5u. Needs time to be locked on. Because of the time needed of the Lock-on not very useful in a Dogfight, damage to low, do not expect a kill against an enemy with full hull/shields
Pirate Bosses sometimes use those against you. Remember to use Energy-Transfer and Shield-Transfer to top of your aft shields.
Big-Bang: Heavy Torpedo, designed to take down Cruisers. Range (dont remeber but loger than Hellfire, propably 1.7u) longer lock on time than hellfire. Deals splash Damage, that can also damage the Darkstar.
Huge help in the early midgame against Cruisers. The only missile type I use. Later guns will be enough.
Will hit unsuspecting fighters, but they may still survive the hit.
Dog Fighting
Combat Against Fighters
At the beginning of the avarage fight, the enemies will fly straight towards you. Once in firing range, the Mortok will leave formation, the enemies with forward facing weapons will open fire.
If you have strong forward facing guns, you can use this time to take out individual enemies.
The Thread priority is in general: Raptor>Human>Octo and Thul>Arrack>Mortok
But if you are in a Dog Fight, it is better to either select the closest hostile (R by default) or a Hostile that is in your field of fire (E to select the enemy under the Cursor)
Roll your ship (Y and C by default, may want to switch the C for a Y on Qwerty) to keep the enemy in the firing field of the turrets.
Match the opponents speed (pressing M) to not overtake them.
The Different Specieces
Human: The front facing weapons deal high DPS.
They sometimes stop moving, and hover in place this allows them to aim their guns better.
If they do that, only fire on them if you are certain that you can get the kill before they open fire. (There is a small window, before they finish rotating towards you)
It is better to fly past them, to avoid damage. Once you flew past them, they will either have to rotate 180° or they start flying again and you can get behind them.
Mortok: Are the only Race to use turrets on their standard fighters. Their Turrets can engage targets 360° arround them. They have low DPS, that can still overwhelm you, if multiple Mortok are present.
They typically fly in an erratic pattern, instead of heading straight for you. They can reverse thrust to trying to get you to fly past them. Either switch targets or reverse thrust yourself (S by default),
Raptor: Highest DPS of all the races, if they get trough your shields, the first time you use the Repairbot, the second time you hope for the best, and the third time you die.
They will drop mines, if you are on their six. Do not persue to closely and try to shoot the mines (they will explode after a single hit.).
Octo: Front facing high DPS. The drones slightly add DPS. They manouvere a bit different at times than the other races with fixed forward weaponry.
Arrack: Front facing, high DPS. They have a Teleport abillity, but with practice it becomes easy to follow were they went, as they leave bright trail when teleporting.
Rember that the teleport ussually also rotates them in such a way that they can immedeatly fire at their target.
Thul: Front facing high DPS. The Cloacking field is less of a proplem than it at appears to be. While you loose the target selection, with practice they are still visible.
When cloacked they cannot fire their weapons.
Ship Classes
Every race has the following ship types:
The Darkstar is the only ship that can reach speeds faster than 100% (150% with Afterburner and 200% with Graviton Boost)
(Standard) Fighter: The standard ship, that you will most likely see the most. They usually escort Freighters or wait at the station for new frighters to escort. Pirates also use this type. Speed: 100%
Police: A smaller craft than the standard fighter, used for inner system patrols. They will periodically scann you for contraband. If you have nothing illegal on board, you comply with the scan. They will open fire if you flee.
Military: Small fighters that are deployed from the Launchbay of Cruisers.
Bomber: Variant of the Military, equipped with missile Launchers. They apear in some missions, where you have to protect Cruisers from them. Focus immedeatly.
Freighter: Carry goods between stations, usually escorted by Fighters. They will drop their cargo if damaged. But the Escorts will still gun for you. Only reach a speed of 80%.
Light Cruiser: Capital ships, their Turrets still only have a range of 1.0u. If you have trouble with them, use Big-Bang Torpedos. If you drop their shields, you can destroy their individual turrets, if you aim well. Speed 60%
Heavy Cruiser: Bigger, with more turrets and hitpoints, but funtionally the same as the Light Cruiser Speed 60%.
This is the only class that is exclusive to single race:
Drones: Swarms of small crafts. Each swarm consists of 10 Drones.
Make sure to kill a swarm completly, before moving on to the next, Even an idividual Drone can still take over a station.
If you have to defend a station against them, it is your goal to prevent them from reaching the landing bay.
They will cue up like regular ships, and the landing bay will open for them, unless you destroy them. Speed 100%
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