IDIOT'S GUIDE TO FED2
SHIP FIGHTING
READY, AIM, FIRE!
Where to Fight
Having armed yourself to the teeth (or equivalent) you will no doubt be keen to rush out and murder somebody in cold blood. But hold on there… the Galactic Administration is keen to protect innocent players who are going about their trading business from being ambushed by a homicidal maniac. Fighting should be for people who have agreed to fight – the equivalent of a duel – not to wreak havoc on anyone and everyone.
Fighting is therefore only allowed in space locations which have been designated by the planet owner as fighting zones. Interstellar links and planetary orbits will always be safe locations; any other space location can be set to allow weapons to be fired. You can tell if you are in a fighting zone because the location title will say it is not patrolled.
In Sol, there is a large area called Arena Space which is designed for ship fighting duels. You will find it if you head for the most north-easterly point of Sol space, then keep going towards the utter east.
Setting Your Target
Assuming you find someone else to have a fight with, you need to designate them as your target. Your ship will then direct its missiles and lasers at that person – you can’t just fire them off willy-nilly and hope they hit somebody or something. Neither can you have more than one target at a time, so there will be no all-out melee fighting, just one-on-one duels.
The command is ‘TARGET playername’. ‘TARGET’ on its own reminds you who your current target is, and tells you if anyone else is targeting you; ‘CLEAR TARGET’ removes the target. You can set up your target in advance of the fight, even if the player isn’t in the game.
Attack!
You start a fight using the ‘ATTACK’ command. This will only work if you are in a fighting zone, and your opponent is also in the location.
When you attack, your ship will fire one missile at your opponent. After that, you fire further missiles with ‘LAUNCH MISSILE’. Whether your missile hits the opposing ship depends on your sensors, your opponent’s jammers and defensive lasers, and a little bit of luck.
Should it hit, it will inflict damage to the hull, and may also damage other bits of the ship. If you are the victim, you will see the damage on your ship’s status display.
If you are the recipient of a missile attack you can start launching missiles right away – you don’t have to use the ‘ATTACK’ command first.
You cannot use your lasers unless you move into close range…
Open and Close Range
If you want to bring your lasers to bear during a fight you will have to move your ship closer to your opponent’s vessel. You can only move into close range if you are already involved in a fight – either you have launched an attack or you have been the subject of an attack.
The two ships engaged in a fight move closer together in three stages, which means there are four levels of proximity:
- Open range – that’s the normal range at which you can use missiles
- Intermediate range 1 – you can still use missiles
- Intermediate range 2 – you can’t use missiles or lasers
- Close range – you can use lasers
You move into a closer range using the command ‘CLOSE RANGE’. This moves you through those levels of proximity, so type it three times and then you can use your lasers. Back out using ‘OPEN RANGE’ in the same way to move through the levels by typing it three times.
Of course, while you are moving in or out of range, your opponent may also be doing the same thing. If you type ‘CLOSE RANGE’ twice and your opponent types it once, then you will be in laser range. Or, if you type it once and your opponent types ‘OPEN RANGE’, you’ll be back to square one.
Firing Lasers
Once you are in close range you can fire your lasers at your opponent, with ‘FIRE weapon’ where ‘weapon’ is either ‘laser’, ‘tl’ or ‘ql’. The game will utilise the least damaged of the specified laser – a damaged laser won’t be as accurate as one with no damage.
When you fire a laser the usual calculations will be made to determine whether you hit your target, taking into account any sensors you have which will improve your targeting (jammers have no effect on laser fire). If you do hit then the laser will inflict damage on your opponent’s ship – generally lasers do half as much damage as a hit by a missile, twin lasers the same amount and quad lasers twice as much.
However, the damage can be mitigated by shields. Each point of shielding will reduce any incoming laser strike by two percent, which means that the standard 10 points will reduce the potential damage by 20%.
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