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Combat[]
Ships have both a shield value and a hull value, and become disabled if their hull reaches 40%-10%, depending on the size of the ship. You can purchase shield and hull regenerators which will repair those when you take damage. Regenerators will take energy and produce heat to function. There is no way to increase the amount of shields or hull a ship has.
You can purchase weapons which will do damage against other ships. Firing weapons uses energy and produces heat. Different weapons have different values for how much shield or hull damage they will deal. Some weapons also have special damage types, many of which can only be found on alien ships. The damage types are:
- Ion: decreases the energy generation of the targeted ship and is a good way to disable ships.
- Heat: raises the heat of the targeted ship. It's also good for disabling ships.
- Shield Piercing: deals a percentage of shield damage to the hull of the target.
- Shield Disruption: penetrates shields and decreases the shield generation of the target.
- Weapons with blast radius deal damage to all ships in range of the blast.
- Fuel: an unused attribute that can only be used through modding. It increases or decreases the fuel of the targeted ship.
There are three basic different types of weapons in Endless Sky: guns (fires from the front of the ship in a straight trajectory), turrets (they require more outfit space than guns, but have a 360° aiming radius) and secondary weapons (can fire at greater range but use ammunition to fire)
Boarding[]
Once a ship has been disabled, you can board it by targeting it and pressing the board key (B by default). Disabled ships will show up as grey on the minimap regardless of their faction.
Boarding a friendly ship will repair it and gives a small reputation boost with that government (other friendly ships do this automatically, but not to your flagship), while boarding a hostile ship will allow you to plunder and potentially capture it. Stealing outfits or cargo presents no risk (except for Marauder pirates, which sometimes self-destruct when boarded) and you can freely take as much as your cargo space allows. On the other hand, capturing a ship can be risky, but the reward is obviously higher.
When attempting capture, you will be able to see the crew count, and attack and defense values of both ships, as well as capture odds and expected casualties for both attacking and defending. When in boarding combat, both sides choose whether to attack or defend. If both sides defend, you are allowed to disengage. Defending and attacking use the defense and attack values respectively, and they are compared against each other for the actual combat. You can raise these values by bringing more crew or by installing hand to hand weapons. Your crew can each only use one weapon and will automatically choose the best one for the situation.
The player can attempt to take advantage of friendly disabled ships by shooting them once to turn them hostile, then boarding then plundering or capturing them. Note that attacking a friendly disabled ship will cause all ships of that government in the system to turn temporarily hostile and gives you a reputation penalty. However, they will stop being hostile after a day passes if your reputation remains positive.
If your ship gets disabled, you can also get boarded. If you are boarded by a hostile ship, it will plunder a part, or all, of your cargo. You can also ask for help from a friendly ship by hailing it and pressing the "Ask for help" button. The ship will try to dock to your ship and will repair it up to the disabled threshold.
Mining[]
Numerous asteroids can be found careening about solar systems the player visits. Some of these are designated as mineable, meaning that they can be shot at and destroyed, leaving behind chunks of debris that can be collected by flying over them. Mineable asteroids are visually distinct from other rocks; for example, iron-rich asteroids tend to be reddish and slightly larger than unmineable asteroids.
Mined materials are listed in your ship's cargo (hotkey I to bring up your ship list, view individual ships to see their cargo. In port, all cargo can be seen in your flagship's info screen.) Minerals can be sold via the trade screen's sell all button, which will sell any and all commodities and 'harvested materials' in one click, leaving plundered outfits alone. Minerals can also be sold manually in the outfitter screen, where they will be listed under the 'Special' category, alongside local maps.
The map tracks mineral deposits you have discovered and mined. They are treated as outfits: when selected the map shows where you've found them, similar to the way other outfits show where they are sold.
Players can also retrieve cargo from destroyed ships in a similar manner to mining. Merchant ships will sometimes jettison cargo when threatened, which can be collected by any bystanders without impairing relations.
Trading[]
Endless Sky has a slightly dynamic economy where the price will fluctuate up and down by about 100 credits. The player can also influence prices if they trade too much of a particular commodity to a planet. If you have a large trading fleet running the same route over and over again, the trade prices will start to change and it will be less profitable for you to run that route.
Holding down Shift, Control, or Alt/Option allows you to buy 5, 20, or 500 tons at a time. These keys can also be combined, and holding down all three at the same time allows you to buy 50,000 tons at a time.
Respawn/Saves[]
Each pilot has a number of associated 'snapshots' that can be selected from the load screen. By default, the game autosaves every time you take off from a planet or station, ensuring that unlucky pirate raids (or accidental acts of piracy) are not excessively punishing. You may also create new (uniquely named) snapshots manually at any time, in case, for example, you aren't sure about what story branch you would like to select and want to be able to return to the decision point. You may re-load your save at any time, to your most recent save or a previous snapshot of your choice.
The most recent 3 autosaves can be loaded by selecting snapshots "~previous-1" -2 and -3, in case you've landed after a mistake and wish to return to a slightly earlier state.
Some story missions will also create additional snapshots, titled 'autosave,' before important missions, particularly long distance, time limited escort missions where it is possible to land on several planets en route and render the mission un-completable from existing autosaves.
Note: since the many of the game's fleet spawns rely on chance, resetting to to an earlier snapshot does not guarantee the same events to occur.
Combat Rating[]
Main page- Combat Rating
A pilot's combat rating is based on the credit value of ships that have been disabled by you or your fleet. The combat rating increases logarithmically, which means that for each level of increase, you must disable exponentially more ships than you have disabled in the entire game. Combat rating can influence what missions you can take, for example bounty hunting and escort jobs are both locked behind combat rating. You also need a relatively high combat rating to be able to dominate planets.
Reputation[]
Your reputation with a certain government determines how you will be treated by that government. If your reputation is negative, they will be hostile and if it is positive, they will be friendly. Some planets also require a high enough reputation to be able to land. You lose reputation if you disable ships from that government with the amount lost depending on the crew of that ship. You can gain reputation from some missions, repairing ships of that government, and also by disabling ships hostile to them. You can also bribe a government, which makes all their ships temporarily friendly, with the effect ending when you land or leave the system.
Piracy Threat[]
Your piracy threat determines how likely you are to be attacked by a pirate raid fleet. This mechanic is used to balance snowballing freighter fleets. It is calculated by taking your cargo space and total damage per second of all your weapons. You can decrease your piracy threat by decreasing your cargo space, installing more weapons, or buying more combat ships. You can check your piracy threat by looking at your player info screen.
Tribute[]
After reaching a certain amount of combat rating, you will be able to demand tribute from planets and space stations. To do this, hail the planet and select the "demand tribute" option. The planet will send out a defense fleet, and will pay tribute (100-10,000 credits/day, depending on the planet/station) if the fleet is defeated.
Demanding tribute will also turn all planets of the same faction* hostile towards your fleet permanently*. Only human, Remnant, and Unfettered Hai space can currently be dominated, with the exception of Harmony and New Tibet. The easiest planets to dominate become available at between 7 and 8 combat rating.
- Dominating a neutral planet will make the Free Worlds hostile (and probably the Navy and maybe even the Syndicate too)
- If planets you previously dominated change their faction, or due to the story become friendly, you'll get tribute from them while not being attacked by their ships.