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FRONTIER HELP - COMBAT


1. Operating Pulse Lasers, Beam Lasers and Plasma Accelerators
2. Using Missiles and Mines
3. Using other Combat Equipment
4. Your Combat (ELITE) Rating


Pulse Lasers And Beam Lasers

One laser (or other gun) can be mounted at the front of your ship and, for ships with a rear mounting, one at the rear. Some larger ships are fitted with turret, which can each take a single weapon. There is a wide range to choose from, though the full range will only be available at the biggest shipyards.

A Pulse Laser fires a single high energy pulse about once every 5/8 of a second, while a Beam Laser fires a continuous beam, so is far more devastating. Even small lasers are reasonably effective up to 8km range, but their effectiveness decreases with distance, as the beam spreads slightly. It is recommended that you get your shots in at as short a range as possible, for maximum efficiency.

Operating Pulse or Beam Lasers

Lasers are fired by pressing both mouse buttons together, the Spacebar on the keyboard or the fire button on the joystick. The front mounted laser will fire if you are in Front View mode F1, the rear laser if in Rear View mode, and the appropriate turret laser if in a Turret View mode. If you are in External View, then the front laser will be used irrespective of any other lasers fitted.

It is quite common for lasers to overheat, particularly with more excitable pilots and with the higher power beam lasers. It is unlikely you will do your laser any damage by this as it is protected by an automatic cut out to prevent it burning out, but it may stop working for a few seconds.

Laser Cooling Booster

This reduces the problem of lasers overheating at that vital moment. It supplements the built in cooling system of your currently selected laser, causing it to cool more rapidly.


Using Missiles and Mines

Missiles

If you want a quiet life, be careful who or what you use as target practice. When the time comes to use one of these devices, proceed as follows:

Arm the missile of your choice by clicking on one of the missile icons. The console will show the type of missile or mine you have armed. You can arm only one missile at a time so if you click again on a different missile, you will be arming that one and disarming the previous one. Note that to arm a missile you must first have a valid target selected - to do this, click on the enemy ship while in View mode. You may find it helpful to activate the nametags (F10) or pause the game while you find your target.

A Fire icon also appears. Clicking on this or pressing the M key on the keyboard fire the armed missile at your target. Disarming is simply achieved by clicking on the missile in question or clicking on an another weapon.

All types of missile will home in on their selected target as rapidly as their incredible 65g acceleration ZX34 Short Burn engine will allow. Nevertheless they have limited fuel (enough for about one minute of flight) so pilots do sometimes evade them. It is best to fire the missile from as close to the target as you dare. Ideally while facing it. If the target is behind, the missile will turn around, but this will waste precious flight time, and give the target ship more time to use ECM if it has it.

The missile will detonate on hitting any solid object (including the ship that fired it) but will attempt to avoid such non target objects if possible. It does not need to hit the target in order to detonate - it may detonate in close proximity and do almost as much damage. Due to an international treaty it will also detonate when it runs out of fuel. A small village was once destroyed by a missile which had been flying through space for months, following the battle in which it was fired.

Mines

Mines operate just like missiles, but without drive systems. They need to have an assigned target since they also will detonate in the proximity of that target without necessarily hitting it. Mines are also susceptible to detonation by ECM. Dummy Mines are a relatively recent innovation, and still contain machinery internally in order to fool radar scans, hence their weight. They are also visually indistinguishable from normal mines so, although they are safe to scoop back up again, beware of accidentally scooping a live mine instead, as the scoop mechanism will cause it to detonate.


Other Combat Equipment

Energy Bomb

Generally only of use against smaller ships. This causes the main reactor of all small ships' drive systems (within a range of about 100km) to resonate and overload. it is linked to the drive of the ship using it, so will not cause that to detonate. Operated with the Energy Bomb icon on the Weapon Control Panel, or from the keyboard with the B key.

ECM System / Naval ECM System

This destroys all active Mines and Homing Missiles in the vicinity (within about 100km, or 200km for the Naval ECM) It is operated with the ECM icon from the Weapon Control Panel, or with the E key from the keyboard. Do not be alarmed if it causes interference on your main display. If both Naval ECM and standard ECM are fitted, only the Naval ECM will be used.

Automatic Hull Sealing

All hulls have an automatic sealing system, fitted as standard, thanks to Faulcon Hermeseal. It is comprised of two separate layers of resin under high pressure in the hull. When the layers are breached the substances expand and mix to form a very durable foam likepatch. This prevents the whole hull being explosively decompressed from a single shot.

Hull Automatic Repair System

This gradually completely reverses hull damage, but it is so big that only larger ships can have one fitted.

Shield Generator

This will protect against energetic weapons like lasers and missiles. It is not much good with collisions. If a ship that has a Shield Generator is hit by a weapon, the field will glow in a colour depending on the strength of the shield. At full charge, the field will glow a bluish white but will progress through to yellow, orange and finally red as it is discharged. While the shield is active, no damage will get through to the hull. If your ship has shields, they work automatically and the percentage of the charge remaining if not 100 per cent, will be indicated on the top left of the screen. More than one Shield Generator may be fitted to a ship at once, and their shielding effect is additive.

Shield generators are generally used by larger ships, but smaller ships should have them too, as a glancing hit that would have been stopped by a Shield Generator can often knock out a vital system, for example the Autopilot.

Energy Booster Unit

This large unit increases the rate that all Shield Generators currently fitted to your ship recharge. Only recommended for larger ships with a large number of Shield Generators because of its size.


ELITE Combat Rating

You are given a rating by the Elite Federation of Pilots which is calculated from the number and type of kills recorded by the on board computer. For example, shooting up a heavily armed ship will a mass a large number of points. Many have disapproved of using kills in order to calculate this rating as it can lead to illegality. In older times much store was set by this as you had to be able to fight to survive, so shooting down others was seen as a mark of skill and bravery. Great respect is still held for the rating in the outer systems, where the way of life still reflects that of the past of the inner, now more civilised, systems. For historical reasons therefore, the method of rating has been preserved. The categories are as follows, in order of merit:


Rank Kills
Harmless 0
Mostly Harmless 4
Poor 8
Below Average 16
Average 32
Above Average 64
Competent 128
Dangerous 1,000
Deadly 3,000
ELITE 6,000



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