The combat system

How a battle unfolds

A battle is played in turns, 50 at most. There are no positions on a battlefield: every unit present can fire and be hit. At the start of each turn, the engine recomputes the bonuses of every unit (auras, group effects, research), then has everyone fire once.

The firing order is set by range, which acts as initiative. Units fire by decreasing range, both sides interleaved: a War Vessel with range 5 fires before a Robotic Sentinel with range 1, whether it attacks or defends. Long-range units therefore weaken the enemy before close-combat units fire.

At equal range, every unit fires with the strength it had at the start of that range tier. Two groups of the same range that wipe each other out fired at the same time: there is no first-shot advantage. A defending AI Mobile Turret gains +2 range and therefore fires earlier.

How a battle ends

• One side has no unit left able to fight: the other wins.
• The attacker runs out of ammunition while the defender can still fire: it pulls back under fire. The share of survivors who escape depends on the ratio between the attacker's and the defender's remaining HP.
• Neither side has ammunition left: clean withdrawal, with no further losses.
• In a raid, a force pulls back on its own once it has lost 50 % of its HP (with the same pursuit).
• The 50 turns are over.

Attack, defence and ammunition

Each unit has two combat values. ATK is its striking power when it attacks; DEF is its riposte power when it defends. DEF is never subtracted from incoming damage: it is not armour. What protects a unit is its HP, its armour against the enemy damage type, evasion, shields and damage reductions.

Direct consequence: an attacking army and a garrison are not built the same way. A Heavy Tank, strong in riposte, defends very well; a Heavy Assault Tank, whose ATK far exceeds its DEF, is made to attack.

Every armed unit uses one round of ammunition per shot. Without ammunition, it does not fire. The attacker carries a reserve chosen at departure; the defender draws from the stock of the ship it defends. Support units with no ATK (Armored Transport, Reconnaissance Drone, Shield Vessel, Colonial Vessel) never strike, but riposte with their DEF when they defend.

Calculating a shot, step by step

A stack of identical units fires a single volley. Here is, in the exact order of the engine, how the damage of that volley is computed:

1. Power: the ATK (when attacking) or the DEF (when defending) of the unit, after all its bonuses for the turn.
2. Bonuses against certain targets: the Mechanical Colossus trample (+80 per unit against light armour) and anti-air fire (Interceptor ×2.5, AI Fighter ×2 against aerial units).
3. × size of the stack.
4. × damage type against armour of the target (table below). A mixed damage keeps its best component.
5. × area of the unit: ×1, ×1.5, ×2.25 or ×2.5.
6. × 50 % if the target is not one of the unit's preferred targets.
7. Split: the volley is shared among all targeted units, in proportion to their remaining HP.
8. Defender reductions (attacker volleys only): a VM's network shield, the reduction against aerial units, and for buildings, damage reduction and HP bonus.
9. Evasion: against an aerial target, the hit may be dodged entirely.
10. Shield: the shield pool of the side being hit absorbs what it can.
11. Reactive armour: the first hit actually suffered by certain units is reduced.
12. HP lost: the remaining damage is taken from the HP of the stack. The number of units left is the HP divided by the HP of one unit, rounded up: a damaged unit stays alive until its last hit point, and partial damage builds up from one shot to the next.

The defender's ripostes follow the same steps, without the defender's own reductions; it is the attacker's shield pool (its Shield Vessels) that absorbs them.

Worked example

Ten Heavy Tanks and ten Soldiers each fire one volley at a garrison of AI Armored, with no research and no aura. The Heavy Tank targets vehicles: it is within its speciality, and its explosive shells have an area of 2. The Soldier targets infantry and light vehicles: against an armoured vehicle it fires outside its speciality, with bullets that do little against that armour.

The gap is huge: at equal numbers, the Heavy Tank deals more than 14 times the Soldier's damage. On top of that, the AI Armored absorbs 50 % of the first hit it suffers thanks to its reactive armour: one volley is needed to « wear out » that armour before the next ones land in full.

Damage types, armour and targets

Each unit deals a damage type (ballistic, piercing, explosive, or a mix) and wears an armour (light, armored, evasive). Buildings and towers have a « structure » armour. The multiplier applies to every shot, in attack as in riposte:

Piercing is the versatile type: it loses nothing against armoured or aerial units. Ballistic is weak against armoured units and buildings. Explosive is the king of sieges, but loses a little against aerial units that dodge it.

Preferred targets

Each unit has a list of preferred targets among five categories: infantry, light vehicles, vehicles, aerial units and structures. A unit first fires at all enemy units of its categories at once. When none are left, it fires at whatever remains, at 50 % of its efficiency.

A unit's category follows a simple rule. Infantry groups humans and humanoids: the Barracks units, and the AI infantry. The others are sorted by armour: evasive → aerial, armored → vehicles, light → light vehicles. The match is exact: a unit that targets « vehicles » does not treat light vehicles as a preferred target.

Only units whose targets include structures damage buildings. Their volley is then shared between troops and buildings, still in proportion to HP. A unit with no ATK never strikes, whatever its list.

Area damage

Some heavy units have an area above 1. In the engine, the area is a multiplier of the power of each volley, not a number of extra targets: every volley is already spread over all targeted units, in proportion to their HP. An area of 2 multiplies damage by 1.5, an area of 3 by 2.25, an area of 4 by 2.5.

The area also applies against buildings, which makes bombers and assault tanks humanity's best siege weapons. It applies in riposte too: a garrisoned Mechanical Colossus hits hard even when defending.

Evasion

Units with evasive armour (aerial units) have a chance to avoid every hit they receive entirely: 10 % as a rule, 20 % for the most agile fighters. A dodged hit deals nothing, uses no shield and does not wear reactive armour.

The AI Fighter's lock-on cancels evasion: on the first turn, its shots always hit. Anti-air fire (Interceptor, AI Fighter) does not remove evasion, it hits harder.

Auras and group effects

An aura acts on every allied unit in the battle, regardless of distance, as long as the unit carrying it is alive. It never applies to the unit itself. Two auras of the same kind do not stack; two different auras add up.

• Admiral Vessel: +25 % ATK and +20 % DEF to every allied unit. A force that takes it along also travels 30 % faster.
• Cybernetic Commander: +15 % ATK and +10 % DEF. It stacks with the Admiral.
• Capital Ship (AI): +25 % ATK and +15 % DEF to every AI unit in the battle. It is the priority target of any late assault.
• Formation (AI): from 10 Robotic Sentinels in the battle, each gains +10 % DEF.
• Swarm (AI): each Combat Drone gains +0.2 % ATK per allied combat drone, up to +50 % (reached around 250 drones). The AI research Pack Tactics raises these values to +0.3 % per drone and +70 % at most, and gives +20 % ATK to Interceptors when there are at least two.
• Terror (AI): as long as a Mechanical Colossus is alive, every unit facing it deals 20 % less damage, in attack as in riposte (25 % with the AI research War Machines). Several Colossi do not stack. The terror lifts as soon as the Colossus falls.
• Anchor (AI): a defending Heavy Sentinel gains +50 % DEF.
• Deployment (AI): a defending Mobile Turret has its DEF multiplied by 2 and its range increased by 2.
• Fortress aura (Defense 9 research): when the AI attacks a mothership of your alliance within 8 tiles of yours, its units lose 15 % ATK. Several fortresses do not stack: the best one applies.

First-turn effects

Several abilities only play at the start of the battle. They matter a lot in short assaults and raids.

• Charge (Assault Robot): ATK ×1.5 on the first turn.
• Dive (AI Bomber): ATK ×2 for 1 turn, 2 with the AI research Air Supremacy. It only concerns its strikes, not its riposte.
• Lock-on (AI Fighter): on the first turn, its shots ignore evasion.
• Reactive armour (AI Armored): the first hit actually suffered loses 50 % of its damage (60 % with the AI research Advanced Reactive Armor, which also gives 30 % to the other tracked AI vehicles). A hit that is dodged or absorbed by a shield does not wear it.
• EMP shells (AI research Specialized Arsenal): each hit landed by an ammunition-using AI unit has a 5 % chance to stun the stack hit, which then skips its next volley.

Research in combat

For a given unit, all percentage bonuses of its side add up into a single multiplier: research, cooperation bonuses, auras, formation, swarm. Multiplicative effects come next (charge, dive, deployment), then the penalties: the attacker weakened by a fortress, the Colossus terror, and the DEF reduction of a VM infected by the digital virus (20 %).

HP bonuses increase the HP of each unit, and so the number of survivors. When several players attack the same target in the same siege, the attacking side uses, for each bonus, the best value among the participants' research: an ally far ahead in Military benefits everyone.

Humanity's research

The AI's research

The AI researches its technologies VM by VM. A combat VM only applies its own: two neighbouring VMs can therefore have very different garrisons. Espionage reveals what a VM has unlocked.

Shields

A shield is a pool of points that absorbs damage before it reaches troops or buildings. It comes after evasion and before reactive armour. Once empty, it no longer protects until it recharges.

• Energy shield (Defense 6 research): 1,500 points per mothership, recharged for free in 12 h, or instantly for 3 energy per point. Defense 9 raises its capacity by 30 %. It only protects its own ship and is never lent.
• Shield Vessel: each vessel brings 5,000 points (2 vessels at most per mothership), recharging 200 points per hour and per vessel. The shield follows the vessels: in defence, in attack (it then absorbs ripostes) and on assistance at an ally's. Your other motherships within 5 tiles lend theirs; so do your allies' if the defended ship has the Defense 7 research.
• AI shields: VMs have shield generators. VMs within 5 tiles of the attacked VM pool their reserves. With the Network Shield research, the attacked VM also cuts the damage it receives by 20 %; Adaptive Shield raises that pool by 30 %. The Siege Ram ignores 50 % of the shield when it strikes buildings.

Buildings and sieges

A base — AI VM or mothership — falls when its core is destroyed (a ship's Command Center, a VM's core). The core can only be targeted once every other building is down. Damage aimed at buildings is spread at random among those left: an assault may raze two or scratch several. The Military 9 research lets you pick a building type to target first.

A building's HP grows by 26 % per level (the core starts at 600 HP at level 1). A single battle can only remove 20 % of the base's reference HP, plus 5 % per extra attacker able to strike buildings. Several waves are therefore needed, and the defender repairs in between: keep them coming.

A building at zero HP goes out of service: it no longer produces or launches anything until it climbs back to 25 % of its HP. Repairing it costs at most 30 % of the cost of its level.

A ship's defense towers join the siege as defensive units, with their own DEF (20 at level 1, +15 % per level). Neither auras nor military research apply to them, but the Colossus terror does. In one siege, a raid removes no more than 50 % of a tower's HP, an assault no more than 20 % (plus 5 % per extra attacker). A defender set on a defensive tile ripostes with +30 % DEF.

Some units are made for sieges: the Siege Ram strikes buildings ×4, the AI Bomber ×3, and the AI piercing shells (Specialized Arsenal) add 25 % against structures. A victorious AI attack plunders your ship: from 5 % of the stock of each resource if the warehouse is 20 % full or less, up to 30 % when it is full.

Raid, assault, assistance and coordination

When launching an attack, you choose the mode. In a raid, the force pulls back at 50 % losses and never damages buildings: it is the tool to wear down a garrison without taking too much risk. In an assault, it fights to the end, buildings included.

An assistance stations your troops at an ally's: they defend with the ammunition of the assisted base, whose owner pays their upkeep. Several players can attack the same target: their forces join the same siege. With at least two players, the attack gains +15 % ATK (Military 7), and +25 % more if two of them belong to the same alliance (Military 10). On the AI side, Coordinated Assault gives +10 % ATK per attacking VM beyond the first, up to +40 %.

After the battle, a force with at least one survivor brings back its remaining ammunition; a wiped-out force leaves it to the defender. Survivors return at their own speed and are only available on arrival. Every battle produces a turn-by-turn report in the mailbox: where your damage went, which shields absorbed what, losses and loot.