Cambat in RipSpace is about attack drones and mines hitting and destroying a target. It is usually a slow death, so the target can counterattack, decoying attacks with mimic drones, blocking incoming missiles with mines, generating antibody swarms to reduce damage, and running into scrambler zones to effect repairs.
The gravity wells can be used by ships - effecting the move rate of incoming drones and ships. All combat is done by drones, small devices manufactured by your ships and sent out in the solar system to bring the conflict to your enemies. Ships have no direct fire weapons, the nature of the tide would distort all such ancient devices.
This is a game of small fleet battles. Some races will attempt to build empires, and will strive to guard them. No matter how powerful the empire the battles will remain small fleet conflicts as the nature of RipSpace places restrictions on how many ships can be in a system at any given time. See system restrictions for more.
These empire builders will found colonies and space constructs to generate wealth and so build more ships.
Some races will focus on fights for enlivened Epic Blooms, leaving colonisation to others. These races can also act as pirates, stealing goods from enemy trade gates, at which point battle will no doubt be joined.
Attack drones can only be fired at scanned ships, and once fired they will try to remain locked on until they get to the target. The way they home will indicate the position of unseen ships (i.e. if the ship moves out of a scanned region, and does no visible activity).
Ships can drop mimic drones off, which attempt to decoy incoming attack drones. The ship trying to evade must then run silently as far from the mimic as it can. Attack drones can have targetting increased to reduce the chance of mimics working.
Attack drones are targetted at ships.
Mines, EMP, scramblers, beholders and gravstars are targetted at locations (hexes).
Colonisation drones are targetted at planets.
Most Drones are always visible on the map. The only exception are mines and scramblers, which can only be seen by the owner while they are moving. When they deploy they will be visible to all if illuminated by beholders, otherwise only the player will see them. All ships also see mines within 3 of them, even if there is no beholder illuminating the region.
All other drone types are visible at all times.
A ship targetted by attack drones can deploy a mimic next to itself. The mimic can decoy ALL incoming attack drones providing that the ship remains stealthy (doesn't fire noisy drone, doesn't use spindizzy). If decoyed then the attack drone will implode harmlessly.
The chance of decoy is drone power + distance moved away by the target vessel*3.
Ships are designed by players, each component is referred to as a ship unit. For example, 9 engines placed on the ship are 9 units.
Once an attack drone hits the target it moves onto a unit. The next turn it destroys that unit and if there is power remaining it will combat antibody nano on the unit. Any remaining attack or antibody nano will then migrate to another ship unit. Note that the number of impacts from an attack drone is dictated by the number of warheads on the attack drone or mine.
An attack drone that delivers a power 9 payload will destroy 9 units over 9 turns. This can only be reduced using antibody nano.
Antibody nano can be prepared, spreading it over your ship in an effort to reduce damage when it is eventually hit. However, since it is not very stable, it reduces by 1 every turn - so placing 4 on a unit will reduce to 3 next turn, 2 the one after etc.
A single warhead attack drone randomly hits a unit on the outside of the ship. The owner of the ship will receive his turn report showing the impact, at this point, if the ship has combat mass, spare engines and undamaged swarm generators, the ship can generate antibody nano and place it on the ship unit. The next turn the ship unit is destroyed, and then any antibody nano on the unit fights the remaining offensive nano. The winner moves to a nearby healthy unit. eg power 3 hits, player allocated 5 antibody nano, the next turn the unit is destroyed, reducing attack nano by 1, leaving 2. The 5 antibody then combat it, removing the attack nano and leaving 3 antibady which migrate to a nearby healthy ship unit.
No more than 9 attack nano can exist on a single ship unit.
Superstructure is a good thing! It not only ensures parts of your ship are not cut off by damage (see control below), but also uses up 2 attack nano if destroyed, rather than 1 unit of attack nano which is the norm. Design your ship with superstructure acting as bulk heads and armour plating.
Damage from nano is not the only threat. Different systems on your ship have a risk of exploding when they are consumed by attack nano. This is very high for engines which are always active, and far lower for other systems. Explosions will destroy some or all of the surrounding units - each adjacent healthy unit will have to test to see if they are destroyed. The ship class can dramatically reduce the chance of explosions.
The table below shows the risk that each of the 8 surrounding units will explode. i.e. each of those units tests individually to see if the explosion destroys them as well. However, each unit of the same type adjacent and undamaged will reduce this risk of explosion by 10%. For example, an engine, adjacent to 3 others is hit. Basic chance is 50%, but this is reduced by 30% because of 3 adjacent engines. 30% of 50 is 15, so the chance of explosion is now 35%. Think of it as an efficency of design by co-locating volatile systems.
| Riskof destroying each adjacent unit | 10% reduction per undamaged unit of same type adjacent. | |
| Engines | 50% | 5% |
| Spindizzy | 50% | 5% |
| Drone Racks | 40% | 4% |
| Swarm Generators | 30% | 3% |
| Factories | 20% | 2% |
| Mass Scoops | 10% | 1% |
As you can see, it is vital that you design the layout of your ship to try and minimise the damage to systems from explosion. As mentioned above, ship class can reduce this explosion chance.
The layout of your ship MUST allow a route from any unit to a habitat. This route can only be by moving North, South, East or West. It must not require transition through a unit that is dead - with one exception. Superstructure on your ship will allow transition even if it is destroyed..
This means that unlucky explosions which cut off part of your ship from the nearest habitat disable all the units on that part of the ship that is cut off! Again, ship design must try to reduce this risk.
Any drone can be hit by a mine during movement. Mine drones are only active when they reach their destination. They then attack any drone or ship that comes within 1 hex. If attacking a ship they act like an attack drone.
If attacking a drone they must destroy the armour on the drone - and if the armour is reduced below 0 then the drone is destroyed.
For example, a power 3 mine detects a passing drone with armour 2. The mine attacks and destroys the drone, but is reduced to power 1 (ie 3 power - 2 armour).
EMP bursts from EMP drones can also destroy drones which are moving or deployed, providing the burst power is greater than the drones armour.
Gravstars, mines, scramblers and beholders cannot be destroyed by mines once they have reached their target hex. However, EMP drones which detonate within the pulse radius can kill deployed drones. If the EMP has power greater than the drones armour then the drone is destroyed. If the armour is greater then the EMP drone will have no effect - it will not reduce the armour.
These drones do not cause permanent damage. But if a ship is within the pulse radius then it will have systems knocked out. The number of systems disabled is equal to the power of the EMP drone. Knocked out system cannot be used until they recover - there is a 50% chance per turn that the system recovers, or you can place anti-body nano which will force the unit to recover.
There is a problem with these very poswerful weapons, the firer of an EMP suffers an EMP attack on the turn that the drone is fired - this is equal to the power of the drone being fired and will disable units on the firing ship in the same way as on the target. Be careful when you use EMP because it could leave your ship vulnerable, while the target moves out of the pulse region you targetted and so doesn't get effected at all.
EMP drones can also kill other drones - the power of the burst must be greater than the drones armour.
A ship can repair itself if it has combat mass in the holds and factories available.
Ships that leave a system are placed on the galactic map and will be automatically repaired, one unit per galactic turn by Nova shuttles from the homeworld.
Additionally, if you win a victory, driving all enemies from the system then your ships that remain are all repaired by Nova shuttles from a grateful homeworld.
You can also jump a damaged ship into an empty system, and it will fully repair instantly.
A ship dies when all habitat on the ship is destroyed. So it's worth having lots of well protected habitat.