Ship Type

Different ships do different kinds 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. Traditionally Terran and Xandathrii have only normal ships. Generally, Cathaar and Zikonian normal ships have been weaker than their Terran and Xandathrii counterparts, but that isn't always the case.

Astropod

Arguably the most important ship type of the game, astropods capture enemy asteroids. They are also known as Astro Pods or simply Pods. In Round 13 there are 8 types of pod, or two for each Race (refer to the Round 13:Ship Stats for more information).

For more information on capturing asteroids, refer to Combat.

In previous rounds, there have been different types and number of pods. For example, the earliest rounds of Planetarion had just one type: the Astropod.

Structure Killers

A Structure Killer is a ship that targets structures.

EMP

EMP ships generally have low initiative and hold enemy ships for a tick of combat rather than kill them. Held ships are not able to fire that tick, but can be killed if normal ships fire on them later in combat. After round 5 only Cathaar ships have had the EMP ability. Previously everyone could build some EMP ships, and some were reserved for an exclusive technology branch called Science. (Its counterpart, War, gave access to powerful kill ships.)

Subversion

A ship that does subversion damage borrows enemy ships for the remainder of the tick. The ship is borrowed from the beginning of the next stage of initiative (or at the end of this stage). Ships that have previously been held are freed up and control is transfered. Subverted ships are immune to further damage (normal or otherwise) while being controlled. This feature was last used in Round 12.

Steal

During some previous rounds there were ships that could steal ships permanently; this feature has been put back in the game for Round 13. In Round 13 stealing ships fire after astropods, and steal every ship they would normally kill. In round 13, only Ziks had steal ships, 6 of them- enabling Ziks to steal ships of any class. For Round 14 all races had at least one steal ship.

Cloak

From round 6 to round 9.5 and then again from round 19 onwards Xandathrii ships were cloaked. This means that only their pod numbers are visible on overview or galaxy status. The number of cloaked ships present in each fleet can be determined via an Incoming Scan.