The TurnEngine Blog

With the Alpha approaching, I have nailed down the core concepts and will give you a preview of everyone’s favourite … Combat!

Space Combat

The most common type of combat is Space Combat. This occurs any time two fleets from opposing sides end a turn at the same location. Unlike Dark Galaxy, combat has been scaled down for the casual version, with only three combat-capable ships.

Fighter

The fighter is the cheapest and most numerous ship. It is very fast, but does little damage with its dual lasers. Its primary roll is to intercept and destroy opposing Bombers and Fighters. It can be used to attack larger ships, but will only be effective at destroying them in sufficiently large numbers.

Bomber

The Bomber is the most important of the combat ships. Its purpose is to destroy large ships. Although similar in size and speed to a fighter, bombers are equipped with nuclear torpedoes capable of destroying even the largest ships. They are however significantly more expensive than fighters, so should be protected with fighters of their own.

Battleship

The Battleship is a very large and expensive ship. Heavily armoured, the battleship is armed with an array of flack cannons. These weapons are particularly important as they not only fire at incoming fighters and bombers, but can target and destroy the nuclear torpedoes launched from the bombers. A fleet with one or more battleships is very well protected, and any opponent should think carefully before attacking it.

Defence Platform

The orbital Defence Platform is not a ship, as it can not move from its home planet, however it is a critical addition to space combat. Those wishing to protect their planets more effectively can build defence platforms. Like battleships, the platforms are armed with flack cannons, making them an important part of any planetary defence.

Invasion

Once a planet has lost all its orbital defences, it can be invaded. To add an interesting twist to invasion over the version in Dark Galaxy, more effective defences can now be constructed on a planets surface.

Soldiers

The Soldier is a powerful, biologically enhanced, technolgically advanced war machine. Although they are the only units that can be used to invade a planet, they can also defend planets them too. They are slightly more effective at defence than attack.

Defence Tower

The Defence Tower provides a more powerful defence against invasion, however it can not move from the planet on which it is built. It is very heavily armoured and draws power for its laser cannons directly from the colony fusion grid.

Overkill

Already mentioned previous, overkill is being introduced in Shadow Wars. With the addition of more effective defences, comes the ability to completely overwhelm them, dramatically reducing their effectiveness. Although it needs careful balancing, overkill will allow a fleet or invading/defending force that outnumbers the opposition by a significant factor to gain a bonus in combat.

Well I’d better get back to it. Progress has been slow recently due to a few technical hitches, however things are still moving forwards at a respectable pace.

Cheers,

Zedd