Ships, like Bases and Astros in AE have stats. These stats show you what is good and bad about the ship and what special abilities it might have. Examples of these would be there attack power, armour, shields, speed, etc. This article explores these stats and what they mean.
Drive[]
Drive is the type of engines your ship uses. This does not make a huge difference to its speed but does define which research bonus is added to your ships speed. There are three types of drives,
- Inter
- Stellar
- Warp
Inter is the most restrictive drive type and cannot move between planets, even in the same solar system. You will find this drive on Fighters and the different classes of Bombers. Stellar drive ships are restricted to only being able to move inside the galaxy and not between galaxies. That said stellar ships can use a Jumpgate to move between galaxies. Stellar drive ships get a 5% increase to their speed per level of Stellar research.
Warp has no restrictions and gets a 5% increase in speed per Warp research.
Weapon[]
The weapon the ship uses is similar to the Drive as it doesn't affect you very much. All it is telling you is which technology will give you a 5% bonus per level. For example if you have a ship with a Disruptor weapon Disruptor technology will give that ship an extra 5% power per level.
You cannot change weapon type or add other weapons for any ship type, Fighters use lasers - period.
Power[]
Power is effectively attack power. It is the power your ship hits the enemy ship with. Power is the amount of armour taken off the enemy ship when your ships fires. This is of course assuming there are no shields (view shields section below for details). So if you had a ship with 5 Power and an enemy with 5 armour you would destroy it. If his armour is higher he will survive, less he will be destroyed and the rest of the power will be channelled into the other ships in the battle.
Things get a little more complex when shields and multiple ships are thrown into the mix, but in its simplest form this is how AE's combat works.
Now power is not set. The weapon used by the ship can be improved by research which improves their power. For example if the ship used Laser tech researched to lvl10 there would be a 50% increase to the ships base power, 5 becomes 7.5. This keeps tech important, even when all units and structures have been researched.
Attack bonuses can also come from other sources. The most common of these would be Command Centers which offer a 5% increase to your ships power per level, but only when they are in orbit of the planet with the Command Centers. This allows you to improve your bases defensive fleets massively.
Finally Leviathans and Death Stars offer a 5% and 10% increase to power for fleets they are present in respectively. These bonuses do not stack, only one applies.
Armour[]
Armour is effectively the hit points for your ship. Whatever power passes through the shields gets taken off the armour. When the armour reaches zero the ship is destroyed. Armour for ships smaller than Heavy cruisers automatically returns to full when the battle is over (assuming the ship survived) while larger ships need to be repaired.
Armour is raised by Armour tech, each level of this technology will raise all your ships and defences armour by 5% of the base rate. Defence Commanders can be added to a base which increase the armour of your ships in orbit by 1% per level. Leviathans and Death Stars also give a 5% and 10% increase to the armour of ships in the same fleet as they are respectively.
Shields[]
Shields protect ships from attack soaking up the power from enemy ships. They work quite simply. The power of the attacking ship has the defending ships shields taken away from the power. Whatever power is left hits the ship and is taken away from the armour. So if you had a ship with 4 power attack a ship with 2 shields only half of the power will make it through to damage the armour. This means that some types of ships are almost entirely ineffective against others. If a ship has less power than the shields only 1% of the power makes it through.
This allows players to employ the tactic which has been lovingly called Shield-raping in which a player attacks with a ship or ships with such high shields that most of the defenders power cannot harm it.
Shields across all your ships is increased by 5% per level of shielding technology. There are no ships, commanders or buildings which increase shields.
Hangar[]
Hangar is the number of Inter drive ships (i.e., Fighters and Bombers) a ship can carry along with it. All ships larger than Frigates can carry some inter ships along with them. There are also specific ships which specialise in carrying Inter ships (Carriers and Fleet Carriers). Inter ships can take up 1 or 2 hangar spaces depending on the size of the ship. There is no way to increase Hangar space.
Speed[]
A ships speed is controlled by two things. First the ships base speed and second the drive type. The ships base speed will lower as the ship becomes more expensive, each ship has its own speed. The drive will affect the speed as research in the ships drive type will increase the base speed by 5% per level. Ships will stellar drives will be improved by stellar research.
The Jumpgate can also be used to increase a ships speed. A ship leaving from a base with a Jumpgate will have its speed increased by 100% per level of the gate. Deathstars cannot use Jumpgates.