Radar, Armor, Shields, and Engines

From Beyond Protocol

Radar	While not as essential as engines, these components are important. The number of different prices equals the number of different variations of radar. When buying radar, keep in mind the jamming effect -the radar is more pricey than normal types. The same goes for the resolution style radar, simply due to the work involved in manufacturing a good one. In the end, radar is usually worth the price paid, but you should bargain hunt before making a final decision.
Armor	Armor is useful and is a moneymaker for the wholesaler. Armor is in high demand, just like engines, however it can be produced very quickly and in large quantities if necessary. When looking for good armor to buy look at the details carefully – again, there may be a reason it is so cheap or in such a large quantity. When a unit or structure fails, it’s usually the armor that’s the first to go. SP wholesalers (and scavengers alike in some cases) love to sell in bulk. Keep in mind, just because it has high resistances or hit points, does not mean it is a good piece of armor. The techies or crafters are good traders to look for when shopping for armor, but you may be shocked by the prices at times.
Shields	If you are able to find shields, they are usually worth the price. Remember, shields are very difficult to make and so usually very pricey - even for something that seems small. This only becomes truer as you search for increasing projection sizes. “Buyer Beware”, as cheap shields may be cheap for a reason. It could possibly go back to the noise that certain components produce so keep this in mind when buying or selling. It may seem like a good deal because of the shield attributes, but when you view the power consumption and hull usage, you may want to think twice. The techie or crafter may be sought out in the end, but if you need quick shields, the scavenger is your best friend at times. The wholesaler can be as well but be cautious when buying from them.
Engines	Engines are used by everything in the universe - whether a structure or unit. Engine size can range from a light Fighter all the way up to the biggest colony power planet. Thus, values are set depending on which style you find. When looking for an engine you must keep in mind what you want to do with it and how many you may need. This is true for all components of course, however, with engines the quantities are slightly more life and death. The traders will know this and so price will be an issue here. As you would expect, the more awesome the engine is, then the higher the price. “Awesome” to most players would be 50,000 power generators, especially if you can find them in bulk. Taking this mentality a step further, an engine that costs 10 billion and is only for a fighter may seem like crap to some, but awesome to others. Since power engines are more coveted, they will tend to be higher priced than vehicle engines. As the size of the unit increases, this generalization will vary.

Moving on to the material breakdown and sections of a missile. The first is the body; this material is majority section of the missile. For the best results you will need a material that is low in density, high in hardness and malleable. The nose section, which will house the warhead, requires a material that is easily compressed but very hard. Next the flaps, this material is important since the flaps help control the maneuver of the missile. A material that dense and not effected by heat is recommended.

A good fuel material is essential since it helps determine the range of the missile. You will find that a material that is dense, highly chemically reactive and with a high boiling point are encouraged. Finally the payload, this material is what your warhead will be made of. The best choice of material is dependent on what type of missile you are making. Chemical warheads require materials that are very chemically reactive. However, explosive warheads require materials that are highly combustive.

This next area is top secret but you have been cleared to take a look around. This is the shield section of our research facility and you will get the full tour while you are here. Shields are meant to be a supplement to defense not the primary method of it. Shields have two configurations which you will most likely use a lot and which one you use will depend on the size of ship it is for. Shields depend heavily on the special research you have available. W will look at basic configuration and look into some of the basic design principles.

Shields have five fields that you can manipulate and they are the hit points, the recharge rate, the recharge interval, the hull size, and at the bottom it has the shield color. The hit points determine how much damage the shield can soak up. The recharge rate and recharge interval go hand in hand. Recharge rate determines how many hit points you can recharge for every recharge tic. The recharge interval determines how long it takes between each recharge tic. Essentially if you put the two numbers together you can come up with a recharge per second by dividing the rate by the interval. So three hundred rate and one second interval means you can counter three hundred damage per second before you ever have to worry about the total hit points on your shield dropping. Finally we have the hull size of the shield which determines how large a ship it can cover. A three thousand hull shield can be used on any ship that has a size lower than three thousand but can not be used on any ship above three thousand. Also the max hit points allowed before you start taking large penalties on your design is twenty percent of the hull size, anything over that and the design nears impossible. Once you have picked out your initial numbers you can move on to the three mineral slots which are the Coil, Accelerator and Casing slots. Finally you have the shield color with seven colors to choose from: Teal, white, yellow, orange, blue, red and purple. Every time the shield takes damage a hollow sphere will surround your ship in the color you chose.

The first thing we will talk about is maximizing the recharge per second. This is heavily dependant on the size of the shield and the research available. Dividing your hull size by four hundred gives you the optimal number for research time versus power consumption so you will not always use this but it is a nice thing to know. That number is not as important for smaller shields but the larger you get the closer to that number you will have to be. You are able to maximize the fighter hull right off the bat so you can follow the steps below to make one as an example. This is a good general shield to have in the beginning because it gives you an edge over any unshielded ship of comparable firepower. You will be able to improve this design concept later as you unlock more research. You can never have a rate that exceeds the maximum hit points so always keep that in mind. The whole point is to have your interval as low as you can get it then raise your rate as high as you can before the design becomes flawed. Once numbers start jumping into the impossible range you know you have gone too far. At this point you will match your hit points to the rate and you have the best numbers for that recharge per second. So for the fighter set your projection size to three hundred, your rate and hit points to 60 and your interval at eight seconds.

Welcome to the engine room, Commander. Engines are the driving force behind everything in this game. You are here to learn the basics of engine design and the uses the engines have. First of all, the engine designer has four properties that can be manipulated and they are Power Generation, Thrust Generation, Maximum Speed, and Maneuverability. Power determines the overall power of your engine. Thrust generation determines the amount of used hull your engine can move. Maximum speed determines the top speed of your engine and Maneuverability determines how fast you can achieve your maximum speed. Next we have the six material slots required to build our engine: The Structural Body, Frame, and Meld as well as the Drive Body, Frame, and Meld. Finally we have the engine color which will be talked about a little further down. Our first stop is the power generator room where we make all the power generating engines. Everything that is built in the colony is going to require power which you will get from your power generating engines. The beginning power generator uses the beginning power engine which produces two-thousand units of power. Straight power engines are the only ones that can be placed on buildings. Engines with thrust, speed, and maneuverability can not be placed on buildings as those properties are meant for units. One of the first things you will want to do is to build a five-thousand power generation engine. This will help in the building of your colonies and can be placed in any building you create. All you need to do is set the Desired Power Generation to five thousand and leave the other three properties at zero. Now you need to put in the best minerals you have for each of the material slots. The engine color has no meaning for buildings so do not worry about that. You are now ready to make your first power engine.

Engines designed for units are a science all their own. There are many different unit concepts that require different types of engines. For a fast moving unit you will have very low power generation but can achieve a much higher speed and maneuverability than ships that require a lot of power. Thrust generation is the largest determining factor in how much hull consumption your engine will have. Let me show you to the fighter engine room where our scientists are going to show you a basic fighter engine. First set your thrust to two hundred and the speed and maneuverability as high as you are technologically able to so in the very beginning that should be thirty for both properties. We can fit four guns on the heavy fighters so let us assume we are going to be using light cannons which take eight units of power and the beginning radar which takes nineteen units of power. Put fifty-one in for power generation and hit design. The most important material in designing engines meant for units is the structural body material because it is the one that affects your hull consumption. The smaller the hull consumption of an engine meant for units the better. The property we did not talk about earlier now comes into play and that is Engine Color. When your flying units are moving the flames that come out of them can be colored as you please. The current selections are light blue, blue, dark blue, bright green, dark green, orange, purple, yellow and red. Just between you and me, I use different engine colors to help me determine the difference between units of the same hull that have completely different components.

These are the very basic and general uses for the engine. There are some more advanced concepts out there but these are here to get you started in the right direction. You can make the engines to fit whatever you want. Relatively speaking, the faster your ship the lower its firepower. It is possible to have some fast fighters that can dish out twenty thousand damage each shot but that is only because they shoot once every seventeen minutes. So really you are only getting nineteen damage per second. If that fighter does not kill whatever it is shooting at in its first shot then it has to rely on its speed to get away. Speed is very important for travel times but when it comes to fighting then maneuverability plays a huge role. If your ships can turn on a dime while the enemy ships take a bit longer, you can be going in the opposite direction and leave them in the dust. You can effectively lead them around while you change directions all over the place to destroy their base or units.

The large ships require a lot more thrust and therefore are a lot bigger. Usually an engine will take up twenty to twenty-five percent of the thrust. The guns you will be putting on the larger ships will most likely take a lot of power which will make the ships slow because the higher your power generation the lower your maneuverability and speed. There are two ways you can go with large power hungry units. You can have high speed with very low maneuverability or you can have mid to low speed and maintain a little better maneuverability. Either way it will take a long time for your biggest ships to get to the fight but when they do you can expect some major damage output depending on what you have. If your guns are not on the all-arc then it would probably be best to cut back on the speed to increase your maneuverability otherwise it will not be able to use its full potential in battle because a faster ship can always stick to the rear and try to avoid your main guns.

Cargo and carrier ship engines require enough thrust to carry the hull used by the ship itself as well as any cargo it might end up carrying. Let us say you have a ship that only uses up three thousand hull by itself so you made an engine with only three thousand thrust. Now that same ship also has twenty-seven thousand hull reserved for a cargo bay or hangar. While empty there would not be a problem but soon as you start filling that space you will start to notice your ship going slower and slower until it becomes so overloaded it can not move. It is important to put enough thrust to cover the maximum hull of the ship so that it can move without impairment whether it is empty or not.

Repair

Units can be repaired, however you should use discretion deciding which ones, and when this is cost effective for you and when it is better to dismantle the unit and salvage the parts.

In general, a green unit will probably cost more to repair than to rebuild, as they are the basic starter units. Engines can be repaired at no cost to you so you should consider this when possible. Elite units that you have spent time and money researching and building could be worth repairing back to full strength.

You can repair all the armor arcs and any missing components or broken doors on your units but you cannot repair facilities. Repairing armor arcs requires the plates to be available in your colony and costs many credits. Repairing the structural integrity takes some of the same mineral that was required to make the hull as well as credits. Repairing any components requires that component to be in your colony somewhere.

For big battleships, it is advised to make a small hangar onboard. Here you can store a space engineer just in case you need one to come out and repair an engine after a battle. If you have cargo ships loaded with replacement components and minerals hidden away in a far off system where you are fighting, you could send that same engineer down to a planet, pop up a little base, repair your units or build new ones, and continue with your fighting.