Ship Type

Different ships do different types of damage. Some are particular to certain races, others are shared by them all. A ship's damage is applied to the target's armor, determining the amount of ships that are affected. The effect is determined by the type of damage.

Normal

Kill ships, or normal ships, do normal damage to other ships. Almost all races have normal ships, but Terran is the only race with exclusively this type of ship. Normal ships have been in the game every round since round 1.

Cloak

Cloaked ships are invisible on galaxy status and unit scans, but during combat, act identically to normal ships.

The number of cloaked ships present in a fleet can be determined via an incoming scan, but the ship name breakdown remains undetectable. Cloaked ships do show up on advance unit scans.

History

From round 6 to 9.5 and then again from round 19 onwards, Xandathrii ships have been cloaked. Since their introduction in round 20, Eitraides have always had some cloaked ships as well.

EMP

EMP ships generally have low initiative and hold enemy ships for a tick of combat without killing them. EMP'ed ships are not able to fire that tick, but can be killed if normal ships fire on them later in combat.

Unlike all other ship types, EMP is not counteracted by armor but by EMP resistance or E/R.

History

Before the introduction of races, in round 5, everyone had access to some EMP ships and additionally, some were reserved for an exclusive technology branch called Science. Its counterpart, War, gave access to powerful kill ships.

From round 5, up until round 19, only Cathaar ships had the EMP ability. In round 20, with the introduction of Eitraides, that monopoly ended.

Steal

These are ships that can steal ships permanently, at the expense of the stealing ships, which have to be abandoned.

History

Until round 20, only Zikonian ships had this technology, with the exception of round 14, in which each race had at least one steal ship. Since round 20, because of the introduction of Eitraides, Zikonians are no longer the only race that can steal ships.

Additionally, between round 13 and 20, stealing was lossless, meaning that ships that stole did not die in combat. This allowed for very large value gains in fleetcatches and turned Ziks into fortresses later in the round.

For rounds 11 and 12, steal ships were replaced by subversion ships.

Subversion

Subversion ships were introduced in round 11 to replace steal ships. It can be seen as a mix of EMP and stealing technology.

A ship that did subversion damage borrowed enemy ships for the remainder of the tick. The ship was borrowed from the beginning of the next stage of initiative (or at the end of this stage). Ships that were previously held were freed up and control is transferred. Subverted ships were immune to further damage (normal or otherwise) while being controlled.

This feature was removed after Round 12, because it could be abused by sending red defence.

Astropod

Arguably the most important ship type of the game, astropods capture enemy asteroids after combat. They are also known as pods. For more information on capturing asteroids, refer to Combat.

History

In the early days of Planetarion, the Astropod was a single ship, not a type of ship. It is from this ship that all others derive their name.

During some rounds, races have had 3 different pods. Currently, every race has 2 pods in different classes.

Structure Killers

A Structure killer is a ship that targets structures. Structures have 500 armor each and only 10% of structures can be destroyed each tick. Structure killers are also known as SKs.

Structure killers traditionally have very low armor, sometimes only half of the armor of ships in similar classes.

Regardless of the ship class they're in, in order to build SKs, the player needs to complete the Siege weapons research.