Combat

Combat in Fractured Space focuses on capital ship warfare. The ship you pilot into battle is nothing less than gargantuan, requiring a different mindset and approach to tactics than in most space simulators.

Game Modes
There is currently only one permanent game mode: The /CO-OP multi-sector Conquest game mode, where players need to capture the enemy base, while maintaining control over mines and the mighty Gamma buff and

Additionally, new temporary game modes will be added through events on occasion, however, these are only available for about one month. The most recent ones were:
 * April to September 2018: The CO-OP-only Last Stand game mode, where players battled endless waves of AI enemies.
 * June 2018: The Conquest: Discovery game mode, which was similar to regular Conquest, except that the enemy base had to be destroyed instead of just captured and taking Gamma would hurt the enemies turrets.
 * July 2018: The single-sector Rift game mode, where players had to salvage resources from wracks to repair their own Flagship and destroy the enemy Flagship.
 * August 2018: The single-sector Catalyst game mode, where players had to push a Payload into the enemy base, while maintaining control of mines.
 * September to October 2018: The Conquest-like Awakening game mode, where players needed to deal damage to a Boss, instead of capturing the Gamma Station, to obtain the Gamma buff.

Matchmaking
After hitting the big orange Battle button at the upper edge of the screen, players can decide how much contact to other players they prefer. Additionally, certain game modes are limited to specific matchmaking modes and the availability of missions and ships differs.

SOLO
In SOLO mode the player is guaranteed to only encounter AI enemies and no real players. Furthermore, all ships will be unlocked, regardless whether the players owns them or not. However, missions cannot be completed in this mode and no rank up experience, nor Credits will be earned. The available game modes are:
 * Conquest: A standard game of conquest, but with all other 9 captains controlled by AI.
 * Last Stand: By definition, this is always versus AI.
 * Any game mode purchased as Legacy Episode.
 * Tutorial: A short introduction where the most basic game play elements are explained. After doing this, players should also read up on Armor, Jumping and Point Defense, because these concepts are not explained in the tutorial!
 * Firing Range: A single in which players can test ships versus a static enemy. Both, the players and the enemy ship, may be exchanged while the game is running. The enemy can be respawned by hitting 0 and the player will instantly respawn at their initial position if the manage to die, for example by ramming the enemy. The spawn controls are explained in detail ingame in a box on the right hand side.

CO-OP
In CO-OP mode the player will play together other real players versus AI enemies only. The players team will consist of two to four real players and three to one AI captain, depending on server load. AI captains will pretend to be real players: they have random names, avatars (however, always Fractured Space themed ones) and will take a moment to pick and lock-in their ship selection. AI captains always pick last and will pick to created a balanced team. Ie. if you are the fourth player and no-one picked a healer yet, do not fret, the fifth captain is and AI captain and will take a Superlifter. Do note, that AI captains will only lock-in their choice once all real players did - so always lock-in when ready, to shorten waiting times for everyone. Aside from their avatars and picking behavior, a sure way to tell how many AI captains are in a game is to hit TAB during battle and check for a small speech bubble labeled "Aa" right next to the stats of each allied player. Only other real players will have that, but neither yourself, nor AI captains.

The skill level of the enemy AI captains will be randomly chosen, with very weak and very strong AI being more unlikely. Therefore, two consecutive matches my differ a lot in difficulty. However, the average skill level of the AI will increase when winning in CO-OP mode, and decrease when loosing.

All missions, campaigns and events may be completed in CO-OP and players will get rank up experience as well as Credits, however, medals cannot be earned. Also, the ship selection is limited to owned ships and the Free Rotation. The available game modes are:
 * The current event game mode, at the moment Awakening.
 * Conquest: A standard game of conquest, obeying the matchmaking rules described above.

PvP
PvP splits in two categories:
 * Casual: Matches versus real players in Conquest or the current Episode game mode. Medals and MMR may only be earned here.
 * Custom Match: Players can set up 5vs5 teams consisting of real players and AI captains in 10 different difficulties and play Conquest or the current event game mode. However, there must be at least two real players and, like in SOLO mode, no medals, Credits and rank up experience will be earned and neither missions nor campaigns will progress.

Objectives
''This section is about gameplay elements common to multiple game modes. For specific information on each game mode, see their respective article.''

Capturing


To capture a location, simply maneuver your ship into the zone of control at a given location. This zone is indicated by particles that diffusely fly around a sphere centered on the location.

On the top of your screen below the game mode specific HUD, you will see the capture progress indicator of the nearest location to you. As you begin to capture that area, the progress indicator will begin to fill. Once the indicator has been filled, the location will turn blue to indicate that it is now friendly and in your team's control. Once in your control, your team will begin to receive the benefits of controlling that location. Neutral areas are marked gray, enemy controlled areas are marked red.

Each ship has the same base capture rate, however, certain implants and the captain of your crew can increase that number. The capture rate also massively increases with level and while the Gamma buff is active. The gain per level in capture rate is 44% for heavy ships and support-oriented vessels (Centurion, Colossus, Destroyer, Disruptor, Equalizer, Gladiator, Leviathan, Paladin, Paragon, Protector, Raider, Ranger, Raven and Superlifter), but only 33% for attack-oriented ships (Basilisk, Black Widow, Brawler, Displacer, Enforcer, Executioner, Ghost, Guardian, Hunter, Infiltrator, Interceptor, Overseer, Persecutor, Pioneer, Reaper, Sentinel, Venturer, Watchman).

To stop an enemy from capturing, or to reset the capture indicator to zero, move you ship into the zone of control. Once you have entered the zone, the game will compare the total capture rate of all defenders to the total capture rate of all attackers. If the capture rate of the defenders is equal or greater than the attacker's, capture progress will be halted. If the capture rate of the attackers is greater than the defender's, the capture rate becomes the total capture rate of all attackers minus the capture rate of all defenders. If there is at least one defender and no attackers, the capture progress is reset to zero.

Mining Stations


Mining Stations will grant 2 minerals per second directly and an additional 3 minerals per second through freighters. The latter spawn every 20 seconds and only grant their minerals after completing their 60 second "milkrun" around the station. After this, they give 60 minerals at once, unless they were intercepted and destroyed by the enemy team, in which case they grant their 60 minerals to them, regardless of how long they traveled.

Mining Stations are the easiest location in the game to capture; late-game the stations take roughly the same time to capture as to fly through, making control of the lane critical to maintaining control of stations. As your team reaches certain resource thresholds, you gain the ability to upgrade your ship to the next level.

Forward Stations


Forward stations allow friendly ships to upgrade and repair while uncontested, and inhibit the enemy team's ability to Jump to and from certain locations. They are equipped with large, solid shields which provide cover to defending ships. Allied Forward Stations additionally spot any enemy within 15km.

Bases


You may upgrade and repair at a friendly Base in the same manner as a Forward Station. While inside the zone of control of an enemy Base, Base turrets will fire on you. This damage does not scale with your health or level, so lower level and health ships will take a disproportionately large percentage of their health in comparison to higher-leveled or higher-health ships. While in the enemy home base sector, the ship will be permanently spotted and therefore targetable by the enemy.

Sectors
Sectors are large, separate regions in space. Each sector contains some kind of objective for players to fight over. Some only contain a single Forward Station, like in Last Stand, while others contain all objectives of the game mode at once, like in The Rift or Catalyst. While most sectors feature fixed environments, for some, like Alpha and Beta in Conquest, the environment is randomly chosen at the beginning of the match. Sectors are very far away from one-another, so that they can only be reached via the Jump Drive or Jump Home abilities.

Score
The score screen (opened per default by pressing TAB while in battle) keeps track of how each player faired in that round:
 * T (Takedowns): The game does not distinguish between kills and assists. A takedown is award if you dealt at least 20% of the targets max hull damage before it is killed or did the final instance of damage that killed the target, regardless of how much damage you dealt before.
 * D (Deaths): Numbers of times you died.
 * SP (Support Points): Awarded if an enemy is killed and you healed or otherwise buffed the killer (including yourself!), in the moment they got the kill or if the enemy was in any way debuffed by your utilities while dying. Note that shields like the Reaper's Shroud count as a buff, so a Reaper killing someone with Shroud active, would get a takedown and a support point, even if he was all alone.
 * C (Captures): Tracks during how many capture operations you were within capture range of the objective while it finished, regardless of the progress you added. Objectives are mines, forward stations, the Gamma station and the enemy home base.

Advanced combat articles
Community members have created a number of guides to help new players learn how to control the various ships. These guides can be found on the Fractured Space forums.

Watchman

Enhanced Guide to the Sniper by Serafine

Flagship (Colossus)

The Flagship by Big Mac

Disruptor

Ghost

Assassin: How to Play by Tabbykatze

Hunter

Guide to the Hunter by RainBohDah

Enforcer

The guide to Enforcer by Comandos

The Enforcer: A Guide to Kicking A## by Barfbag

Brawler

Equalizer

How to Play: Equalizer by Serafine

Superlifter

Reddit comment/guide by vonBoomslang