Ships

This is a game of space warfare, ships and drones are the units that fight the war. The war is for DarkLight growth and settlement of colonies.

Capital ships are designed by the player - and this design is important in terms of performance and also in terms of layout. Attack nano will always eat a ship from the outside in. Designing a ship is a compromise - good luck.

Preset ship designs

The ship design screen has presets which are selectable. These are released with the game, and are stored in a sub-directory under the game install. You can overwrite or add to these presets with your own designs, allowing you to simply select ship designs that you like.

Ship Cost

A ship simply costs depending on the ship class this is 1 for Fighters, up to 21 for Maulers.

Ship cost is relevant because you start with 1 prebuilt ship, and a fleet support limit of 40. You can order 1 additional ship per turn until your fleet support limit is reached. You only earn more by settling colonies (see economy). Ship costs also effect how many ships you can jump into a system.

DarkLight

New ships start with a DarkLight level of 2. Paying players can increase this level by defeating enemies, free players may increase it, but only by a maximum of 2.

It is filled by sitting in a gravity well. At a rate of 1 per turn per gravity field - ie in field of 3 it increased by 3 each turn.

It is spent at player discretion when drones are generated, or movement plotted. It can be used to increase the points available for a drone by up to double.

Movement

Max move depends upon your ship size, and upon darklight and gravity well, and the move modifier by ship class. There is an alternative form of movement from the Spindizzy drives,more on that later.

Max ship speed is 20 - (size /4). A unit of engine is needed to achieve a move of 1 (or more for smaller ship classes)- i.e. you do not automatically move at full speed. And moving in gravity wells costs 1 more power per unit of gravity. Also, DarkLight can be allocated to increase the move by up to double the current power allocation.

For example, a ship is size 46, which means it has a maximum move of 20 - (46/4) = 20 - 12(round up) = 8 hexes. However, due to power demands for combat it is only allocated 3 power, and can only move 3. The captain needs to move faster and allocated max DarkLight, which is another 3, giving a total move of 6 for the turn. 2 of these hexes are in a gravity field of strength 1, which means the ship can actually move 2 hexes in open space and then 2 in the gravity well.

The speed equation gives a maximum size for any ship: 20*4 = 80. However, speeds of less than 4 hexes are really not recommended, which means the largest ships should be 20-4=16*4 = 64 units in size.

Movement on the Galactic

This is up to 20 hexes at a time. If your ship is undamaged then the server will process it immediately. If it is damaged then it must wait for the next scheduled galactic turn (every 6 hours).

Ship Maximum Size

Note that no ship can be larger than 76 units in size - i.e. every ship must be able to move 1 in real space. Above this size their drives would not break the fiction barrier on the galactic plane, leaving them forever trapped, stranded and alone.

Spindizzy movement

First a thank-you to James Blish for the cities in flight novels which I read a long time ago, he invented the Spindizzy.

You can add Spindizzies to your ship. These charge at a rate of 1 Spindizzy per turn per ship. You can then activate them to provide a max move of 6*number of charged and active Spindizzies. You may not extend this move with DarkLight. Spindizzies allow your large vessels to move long distances to join combat, but then require a recharge period.

Design and Layout

All ships start as a grid. The player then places units on the grid. This becomes the ship. Incoming hits are randomly assigned to an edge hex and march inwards randomly until they hit something. This means that your design can effect how much damage it can take, how easy it is to destroy all the habitats and so on.

Also, different systems have a chance at exploding when destroyed, and when they explode they will randomly destroy adjacent units, which means these types of systems should be placed away from other crucial systems. Grouping systems of the same type together reduces the chance of explosion by 10% per adjacent unit of the same type.

During design every unit on the ship must be adjacent to another - i.e. connected on one side and not just diagonally.

Command and Control

All units must have an uninterupted path to a habitat - only travelling North, South, East or West, not diagonally. This path must not contain any damaged units (except superstructure). Units which cannot trace such a path are disabled, and cannot be used. It is vital to remember this, as explosions could easily cut parts off your ship off if it is not designed correctly!

Superstructure will preserve lines of control even if it is destroyed.

Summary

RipSpace is a game of small fleet battles. It is about balancing the design of your ships for scooping mass into the hold, using gravity wells to increase DarkLight and balance offence with repair. Each battle will be unique, and retreat is always easy - ships should not die unless you are very unlucky (all habitat is destroyed in 1 turn).