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Defensive Systems

Being attacked is at best very annoying. If your vessel is scanned, you can normally expect imminent attack and a yellow alert is triggered. If a missile launch is detected, a red alert is triggered. A yellow alert will also occur if armour has been penetrated. The alerts do nothing in themselves but act as a warning.

Press the Red Alert/Cancel Alert control (default A) to turn off an alert, or to turn on the red alert if no alert is currently active.

There are many ways to evade an attack.

Armour

Sometimes a thin sheet on metal is all that lies between you and a radiation filled vacuum. Armour surrounds your vessel and is eaten away by weapon attacks. Different hull designs have different armour levels and proportions but generally, the rear armour is the thinnest. You can choose to buy additional armour plating for your ship and there are many easy to use plate-it-yourself kits available. Most of these fit on the inside of your ship so you can avoid expensive and dangerous extra vehicular activity. Armour is automatically repaired when you dock at a price of $1 per unit damaged, but not if you have decided to fit additional armour.

A cluster of wedges in the bottom right corner of the H.U.D. indicates your armour status. Each wedge corresponds to a side of your vessel. Wedges are transparent grey if armour is good, yellow if armour is depleted by more than fifty percent, and red if armour is totally destroyed.

Shields

Thermomagnonic chromanantic shields are interdimensional bubbles that absorb damage from weapons and impacts. Shields are depleted by damage and will recharge over time, draining energy from the ship as necessary. Strong shields will glow brightly when hit. Shields are available in various sizes and price ranges from many retail outlets.

A glowing sphere appears over the armour display in the bottom right corner of the H.U.D. to indicate sheild strength. The indicator is bright if shields are high and fades to transparent as shields are depleted.

Missile Counter Measures

There are many types of missile, and many types of anti-missile system too. Missiles have a galactic standard technology level number which acts as a rough guide with regards to the sophistication of the missile and its vulnerability to jamming. A missile can usually avoid jamming if the rating is higher than the counter measure.

Press the E.C.M. control (default E) to activate any counter measures installed.

Flares are an ancient form of anti-missile system. A flare launcher is mounted over the thruster port of a spacecraft so ideally the missile to jam should be behind your vessel when flares are deployed. If the missile is fooled, it will stop heading for your ship and head for the flare. Note though that a missile will be destroyed when it hits a flare even if it was not fooled. Some very skilled pilots use flares in this way to shoot down high level missiles but that kind of behaviour is very dangerous. Flares are limited in quantity and require restocking every so often, so remember to bring a few spare boxes if you think you'll need them.

Electromagnetic pulse devices (E.M.P. devices) send out a powerful pulse of energy that will destroy every missile within a certain radius. These devices are heavy and powerful and cause a large energy drain as well as potential damage to ship systems, however there is no limit to their power. Larger units include micro generators and so will drain less energy from your ship.

Remote reprogrammers are sophisticated black (and silver) boxes made exclusively by one manufacturer, Xox. A reprogrammer will hack into the electronic brain of a missile in pursuit and convince it to kill something else, usually your primary target. There is something deeply satisfying in destroying a ship with its own missile. If both ships have reprogrammers, you may care to engage in rocket tennis but this extreme sport is not endorsed by Xox.

There are many other ways to avoid missiles, including simple evasive action.