Weapons

Weapons is an incredibly broad category that encompasses all the pieces of equipment your ship and your crew use to damage the enemy ships. For the utility equipment of your ship see Utility.

Weapons
In Fractured Space, each ship is designed with a unique weapon system. Within each system are several variants, with each variant being a slight modification of the standard version. All the weapon variants are balanced to each other, so the weapon you select is based on a player's personal preference and playstyle. The variant weapon of your ship can be selected in the Loadout menu of the Hanger tab, before you enter a match, and will be saved. Once you enter a game, and have selected a ship, you can change your weapon loadout to better suit the enemy team.

Each weapon have both shared and unique statistics. Some weapons lack range, while others have unique characteristics. Weapons systems can be grouped into a number of given archetypes, with similar performance characteristics and quirks for each archetype.
 * Maximum Range: The absolute maximum range the weapon will deal damage. Beyond this point, the projectile will simply vanish. Projectiles which strike outside the optimal range but within the maximum range will deal exponentially reduced damage.
 * Optimal Range: The furthest distance a projectile can strike an enemy and still deal the maximum amount of damage to its target.
 * Projectile Speed: The speed at which the projectile fired from the weapon will travel in a second.
 * Volley: The maximum number of projectiles that may be fired from a single shot of a weapon.
 * PPD (per projectile damage): The maximum amount of damage a single projectile can inflict, before modifiers such as Mark Target, broken armor, or range.
 * Maximum Turrets: The maximum number of turrets that may fire. Some ships are unable to bring the maximum number of turrets to bear in a given direction, and thus will reduce the total number of shots fired in a given volley.

Titan Defence Systems
Titan weapons serve as the bleeding edge of technological development, with homing cannons, extremely powerful Gauss weapons, and devastating energy beam weapons, all serving to sunder and break the enemy where it hurts the most. As a result, however, TDS weapons tend to deal less damage as their counterparts. TDS weapons are usually energy or Gauss-based, with very, very few exceptions.

Smart Gun
Smart Gun systems fire homing projectiles that home in towards the current locked-on target. Although not guaranteed to hit, these weapons are useful for vessels that need to focus on many things at once, juggling utility systems with their damage output.

The Protector's SmartGun is the original version of this weapon system, firing a spread of purple projectiles that home in on enemies.

The Equalizer's Syphon SmartGun fires Smart projectiles that restore a portion of the Equalizer's health with each projectile hit.

The Paladin's Syphon SmartGun, functionally identical to the Equalizer's.

The Raven's Raven Cannon, firing homing shells that drain energy from their target and return it to the Raven.

The Sentinel's Sentinel SmartGun, the most powerful of the bunch, and the only one mounted to a Medium vessel.

Rapid-Fire Cannon
Powerful, rapid-fire cannon system that fires a large number of weak projectiles extremely rapidly at the target. Good suppression weapon. Usually has a "Flamer" and a "Sequential" option that adds burst fire options or single-shot potential, respectively.

The Reaper's Reaper Cannon, a series of rapid-fire cannons, fired in volleys of up to four rounds.

The Leviathan's Tempest Cannon, a network of powerful cannons that require a spool-up time before they can be fired.

The Interceptor's Rotary Cannon, a rapid-fire cannon with a heat mechanic that can overheat if trigger discipline is not observed.

Gauss Cannon
Powerful, single-shot weapons that devastate targets, provided they hit. After impact, targets take additional damage over time.

The Interceptor's Gauss Driver, a devastatingly powerful weapon that requires the Interceptor fully stop to use.

The Executioner's Gauss Cannon, a slow-firing, yet powerful weapon that has considerable difficulty targeting smaller vessels.

The Persecutor's Rail Repeater, a magazine-fed, shotgun-like weapon suited for close range.

Energy Beam
Devastating energy weapon in the form of a projected beam. The beam deals damage over time as long as it is held on the target, in a series of "pulses" over a duration.

The Reaper's Scythe Beam, a devastating sweeping beam equally adept at dealing damage and shaving off armor, depending on the enemy's range.

The Leviathan's Fusion Beam, the finger of God - the destroyer, the annihilator, the eradicator.

The Raven's Overcharge Beam, a powerful energy beam that lasts longer the more energy the Raven has stored.

Rail Rockets
Unique weapons system found only on the Sentinel

The Sentinel's Rail Rockets, a unique weapons system that fires rockets accelerated with Gauss technology.

Plasma Cannon
Unique weapons system found only on the Basilisk

The Basilisk's Plasma Cannon, a unique weapons system that does no direct damage, but instead deals high damage over time.

United Space Research
USR weapons are a mixture of the high-tech and well-worn, but are more than a match for both TDS's high technology and Zarek's tried and true. A combination of versatility and fast fire rates makes these generalist weapons capable at a wide range span, but with certain drawbacks unique to each weapon system. Typical of USR weapons are precise, accurate railguns, missiles and rockets, and nukes.

Flak Cannon/Photonic Charges
High-explosive rounds rapid-fired in a direction, allowing for high damage over time in a large area of effect. The damage output, however, is lacking, at best.

The Colossus's Flak Cannon, a deterrent weapon that deals little actual damage but can destroy incoming missiles, strike craft, and smaller vessels with devastating efficiency.

The Destroyer's Explosive Charges, a sort of "depth charge" projected from the Destroyer that explodes a fixed distance away.

The Pioneer's Void Charges, a powerful burst-fire explosive lobber that deals high impact damage and low area of effect damage.

Charge Cannon
High-powered weapons that build up a charge before they can be fired. The higher the charge, the more damage the weapon will do.

The Ranger's Longbow Cannon, a quick-charging, quick-firing cannon that can charge to deal up to 16.5x its standard damage.

The Watchman's LR Cannon, a long-range, chargable sniper cannon.

The Guardian's Guardian Cannon, functionally identical to the Watchman's LR Cannon.

Railgun
Long-range, high-damage, slow-firing magnetic driver able to deal large amounts of damage with pinpoint accuracy.

The Watchman's Railgun, where it all began. The bane of Colossi everywhere.

The Displacer's Linear Cannon, a rapid-fire variant of the Railgun that deals more damage the further away the target is from the Displacer.

Artillery Cannon/Charges
Powerful, burst-fired slug cannons that deal gruesome damage to armor and structure alike. A fast rate of fire offsets their mediocre accuracy.

The Destroyer's Artillery Cannon, a powerful long-range suppression weapon and a capable close-range brawling weapon, only effective when fired broadside.

The Brawler's Thumper, a rapid-firing, close-range ground pounder that wrecks anything within breathing room, but tickles everything else.

Rockets
Rocket launchers that fire a salvo of rockets at their target. Accuracy is poor at longer ranges, as rockets tend to spread out with distance.

The Ghost's Rockets, the original ROFLSTOMP. Fires a salvo of rockets in sequence, with a corresponding long reload time.

The Black Widow's Dual Rockets, an evolution of the Ghost's rockets that fires two rockets at a time from a 12-shot magazine, instead of the whole thing at once.

Plasma Cannon/Blaster
Energy weapon. Fires condensed energy particles at its target.

The Disruptor's Blaster, a weak, but efficient support weapon, perfect for a support vessel as a last-resort.

The Ghost's Plasma Caster, a devastatingly powerful energy weapon that deals additional damage over time, provided the user can land all the projectiles within the duration of Ambush.

Gravity Nuke
Nukes. Big boom boom make enemy go boom boom zoom zoom.

The Pioneer's Gravity Nuke deals a large amount of straight-up damage, slows affect targets, and displaces them away.

The Guardian's Nuke Rocket deals far less damage, but has longer range and a stronger displace effect.

Zarek Industrial
Zarek weapons are tough and hard-hitting, dealing large amounts of damage at relatively slow rates, with an emphasis on either close range combat or pilot accuracy. Excellent at exploiting holes in enemy armor, Zarek weapons are the pinnacle of the damage-dealer mindset - get in, overheat everything, deal as much damage as you can, and get out with an inch of life left. Zarek weapons are overwhelmingly ballistic in nature, forgoing the space magic that is energy weaponry and instead going with the tried and true.

Artillery Cannon
Powerful ballistic cannon with a moderate range. Stronger at close range, weak at long range.

The Gladiator's Gladius Cannon, a powerful broadside-mounted weapons system famous for having the highest damage output of anything, as long as the Gladiator is Entrenched and the enemy is close.

The Hunter's Hunter Cannon, a volley-fired close-range ship-shredding machine, as long as the captain is a good shot.

Escalate Weapon System
A dedicated close-combat weapon that fires a massive spread of weak projectiles, with damage increasing for every projectile landed in that volley.

The Enforcer's Escalate, the origina- BRRRRRRRT

Energy Beam
A deviation from Zarek's otherwise ballistic loadout, the Energy Beam provides a precise, accurate weapon for tearing up exposed armor, or in the case of the Overseer, tearing up ships.

The Raider's Scalpel Beam ravages exposed armor, akin to a scalpel on a surgical patient.

The Venturer's Mining Beam is designed to work in tandem with its Stone Cracker, grinding away the structural components revealed by the Cracker.

The Overseer's Flux Cannon was originally designed to mine planets. Now, it rips holes in your opponent's ships. Unfortunately, the sheer girth of the weapon requires that the entire ship orient itself towards its target, restricting both its overall mobility and its close-range capability.

Rapid-Fire Cannon
Smaller artillery cannon that fires a quick spray of high-caliber bullets at its target, not caring about accuracy.

The Superlifter's Ripple Cannon is a series of high-damage autocannons that requires careful aim to work properly.

The Paragon's Minicannon fires what is essentially point defense bullets, effective against fighters, bombers, and drones.

The Infiltrator's Slug Thrower rapidly and effectively fires chunks of metal to finish off what it's Ion Blast couldn't.

Stone Cracker
Unique weapons system found on the Venturer.

The Venturer's Stone Cracker was made to break space rocks. In Zarek Industries, rock breaker breaks you!

General Usage
General-purpose weapons mounted on most ships. Includes the highly diverse missile systems found on most ships, their standard fighter and bomber systems, and the utility drones that provide in-space benefits to the team.

Missiles
Missile weapons fire a volley of homing missiles towards the currently selected target. Although usually used for supplementary DPS, missiles provide the necessary edge that vessel need when engaging enemies at long range, and behind cover. Some ships, like the Black Widow, depend on their missile weapons for their main damage output.

Missiles home in at a higher rate than Smart Gun weapons - even if the player isn't facing the target, if there is a clear line of sight between the launcher and the target the missile will almost always hit.

The only things that can defend against missile attack, besides cover, are ships' internal point defense systems and area-of-effect flak weapons.

Mines
Mines have always been a staple naval weapon for ages, and even in the space age mines still serve the same purpose - area denial. In Fractured Space, mines are fired in large volleys of anywhere from 8-10, with each mine arming as they are launched into position. Mines launched in this manner can detonate almost immediately, adding large amounts of damage at close range provided that they are triggered.

Mines are initially cloaked, but can be detected by detect abilities. Weapons fire can destroy revealed and unrevealed mines if they hit.

Torpedoes
A single, large missile that is more resistant to point defense that standard missile systems. Torpedoes travel significantly slower than missiles, but deal a large amount of damage if they hit. A single torpedo is usually equivalent to a volley of similar missiles. Some torpedoes also have beneficial effects that can be applied to allies.

Squadrons
Some ships are accompanied by squadrons of smaller craft, like Fighters, Bombers and Drones. These can be sent out to attack enemies or defend allies or yourself. See the main article for more information.