At some point, even for the most peaceful and enlightened faction, armed conflict becomes inevitable. And, of course, if your faction is neither peaceful nor enlightened — if you actually like going out and beating up on the enemy — then armed conflict is not just inevitable, but essential.
Combat occurs when a unit tries to enter a square containing an enemy base or unit. (Probe Teams are the exception here — their options are much more subtle.)
Combat is decided by totaling the attacker's strength and the defender's strength. The probability of either side doing damage is equal to that side's portion of their combined strengths. (For example, if the attacker has an attack strength of 10 and the defender a defense strength of 20, the attacker only damages the defender once, on average, for every two times the defender damages the attacker.) This process of assessing damage repeats until either the attacker or defender is destroyed (the exceptions are artillery, and disengage). It is entirely possible for the winner of a battle to come out severely damaged.
Stacked defenders[]
If a unit attacks a square containing multiple defending units, the unit with the highest defense acts as the defender (unless you have designated another unit in the stack as the defender). If the defender is defeated, and the square is not a base or bunker square, the rest of the combat units in that square take collateral damage (that is, they each take a certain amount of damage, determined by the reactor of the attacking unit).
Non-combat units in a stack are destroyed along with the last combat unit in the square.
Bombardment[]
Naval units, and land units with the Heavy Artillery ability may conduct Bombardment by selecting the Long Range Fire option from the Action menu.
Bombardment has the advantage of potentially damaging every enemy unit in a particular square and the disadvantage that land units can never be reduced below 50% damage by bombardment.
If bombardment is attempted against a square containing an enemy naval or artillery unit, the bombardment is cancelled and an Artillery Duel is initiated, with the attacking and defending artillery (or naval) units fighting attack-vs-attack strength. Armor values are ignored for Artillery Duels.
Disengagement[]
Fast units, such as Speeders and Hovertanks, can sometimes disengage when surprised by slower enemy units. A unit disengages when the following conditions are met:
- Unit incurs 50% damage, relative to what it started the combat with.
- Unit is faster than its attacker, taking damage into account.
- Unit is alone in its square.
- Unit did not attack on its last turn.
- Unit is a combat unit (non-combat units may never disengage).
- Neither attacker nor defender is an air unit.
- Attacker does not have the Comm Jammer ability.
- Unit does not have the HOLD order, and is not in a bunker or airbase.
- A valid retreat square is available, which is not a fungus square (unless The Pholus Mutagen) and is not adjacent to an enemy unit.
See also[]
- Combat in other games