Combat

General Combat Info

Battle Tab

Are you a weakling or an overlord? Will you be a diplomat or a conqueror? As you explore the galaxy you will encounter others that are trying to expand their empires. In this area you can build your reputation for combat.

Things to know and consider for battling.

Ship Strength

Ship Strength

Combat Reputation

Combat Reputation

PvP

These encounters are between players.

Choosing a Target

Check rank, race, and profession. Take into account Weapon, Defense probes. Compare to your ship and see what you have.

Combat Badges

Combat Badges are special items gained during player-vs-player, player-vs-base , or player-vs-NPC encounters.

Badges can be spent on buying special artifacts, ship modules, planet structures, and ship allies. They can also be used to further upgrade existing modules, structures or ship allies that you already own.

PvE

At random, you will encounter computer-controlled enemies while exploring deep space. These enemies are commonly referred to as non-player characters or NPCs. Some are common and are worth some experience. Others will give you a chance to improve your ship or planets via special modules, artifacts, and sometimes research points. Some may only be encountered at certain times of the year during special events, whilst others are only available whilst certain missions are in progress.

NPC Slots

By default, you begin with 2 slots for NPCs. This means you can "see" up to two NPCs at any one time. This list can be permanently expanded later to a total of 8 slots by using special artifacts from the Zolazin, Lazuli, and Sha'din mission chains to unlock them.

Note: a rare glitch means you can sometimes have more NPC slots than you're supposed to. This is a temporary glitch and will fix itself once you have either defeated one of the NPCs on your screen, or their timer expires.

Artifact Name	Artifact Description	Location	Total Available
Stryll Tracker Core	An advanced system used to track down elusive targets. Grants you 1 additional non-player enemy slot in your battle slot.	Loot from Stryll Deep Tracker NPC, spawned by completing The Glaviz Vendetta mission, part of the Zolazin story arc.	2
Tevrazon Tracer	Tracks the movements of ships carrying Tevrazon Gas. Grants you 1 additional non-player enemy slot in your Battle list.	Tracing the Shipments, part of the Lazuli story arc.	2
Tachyonic Renderer	An advanced data rendering system used by the Sha'din. Grants you 1 additional non-player enemy slot in your Battle list.	Renderer Recall, part of the Sha'din story arc.	2

There is also an ability from the Exotic Chain that permits you to refresh the list. This ability may be used once every 8 hours.

Artifact Name	Artifact Description	Location	Total Available
Exotic Tactical Algorithm	Ship Ability: Unlocks the 'Tactical Re-Modulation' ability for your ship. When installed the ability will be available via your ship's tab. Tactical Re-Modulation removes all NPCs from your battle tab slots, EXCEPT ones you have already shared with your legion. (You do not gain any XP from ships removed this way.) 8hr cool-down.	Exotic Algorithms, the final mission in the Exotic Chain.	1

For more detail visit NPC Slots.

By Encounter

By Faction

Holiday Special NPCs

The Q-Pedds (St. Valentine's Day 2011 & 2012)
The Lepus Drones (Easter 2011 & 2012)
The Hallows Bane (Halloween 2010, 2011 & 2012)
T.O. Harvesters (Thanksgiving 2010 & 2011 & 2012)
The Scruuge (Christmas 2010 & 2011)

Mission NPCs

The above is only a small sample. There are many more NPCs (far too many to list here) which spawn either on completion of certain missions, or randomly during them. For more detailed information check the Missions page or the Category: Mission NPCs

Strategy

PvP Strategies

If you want to ease in to PvP look for players who are "Balanced" or "Weak" when you click their ship and look on the stats page you can see exactly how many people they have disabled and how many have disabled them.
If your first target has a low number of kills, and a high number of disables, he's likely a pushover (at least for the time being).
Try combat against them first, so you can learn to tweak your ship's kit to be a better PvP, as you do, you should move to more balanced players approaching even kills and disables, and then move on to players who have more and more kills than disables.
However as you do this you should change to a legion which is more PvP centric, a PvP player may be seen as a troublemaker within a legion that is not very PvP as it will become a target more often for an aggressive player's legion.
Certain legions such as The Darkside and Project Anarchy prefer only to attack larger more aggressive targets than themselves. This is a true PvP friendly environment. There are many of these legions at many levels in the game, look around and you will find them.

PvP Etiquette

There are no official rules to PvP, so you can keep or ignore any of these depending on your Legion's feelings on their need for them. However a lot of players have developed sorts of sets of moral 'codes' they abide by; preferring, for instance, to concentrate on much larger players than them who have bullied them often when they were still NewBs on GL.
Normally a single Disable, Raid, and Hack is considered 'nothing' at all to a true PvP player unless they have a grudge against the player, or his legion.
When alerted for badging, it's often considered a poor move on the part of the player who did the alerting.

PvE Strategies

Three main reasons of PvEing or NPCing:

To get the best possible Ratio of Energy Spent to Experience Earned. To Wit: Fastest Possible Leveling.
To Gain special artifacts only available through NPCs often it is better than any item obtainable at the player's level, many times some of the best items in the game come from Boss and Elite NPCs.
To help your legion mates clear their battle tabs of Elite and Boss NPCs.

Elite NPC

Elite NPCs have either 3 or 4 slots for Legion mates to do damage, the top 3 or 4 players will all be awarded one of the Elite's Artifact drops at random, and a set amount of XP usually in the range from 100 to 200, so long as the NPC is actually killed. if time runs out, no one will get a prize.
Elite NPCs usually are shared immediately by players once they get their own LOCK on the NPC.
Players can receive awards without gaining a lock on an Elite NPC, however players who do the minimum damage on an Elite NPC to block others from getting a prize, and leave the NPC to be finished up by the other members can expect a lot of resentment from the player who shared the NPC, and if they do this consistently the legion may expel them for harming it's more dedicated players.
Players who share elites want you to kill them ASAP, normally Elites are an item that can be killed within minutes to an hour, and when you are NPCing they are holding a spot which could be used to get a new NPC in it's place. (This is especially important to players over Level 350, when Crimson FlameHawk first begin to appear)

Boss NPC

Boss NPCs have been seen to have between 8 and 15 slots; The # of slots seen is usually 8, 10, 12, or 15. 10 and 12 appear to occur most commonly. The top N players, (Where N is the Number of Lockable Slots on the NPC) will all be awarded one of the Boss's Artifact drops at random, and a set amount of XP usually in the range from 150 to 250, so long as the NPC is actually killed. If time runs out, no one will get a prize.
Boss NPCs are usually shared immediately by players before they get their own LOCK on the NPC.
Players can receive awards without gaining a lock on an Boss NPC, however, because a Boss sticks around for several hours to a couple of days, and more players can get a prize, this is often allowed at first as players may have mis-judged their energy, gone to sleep, and will come back to finish up their due amount of damage when they next get on the game. Doing so consistently will cause other legion members to look down on you, and consider you a "Weak Link" should they need to make space. However because Bosses do not have the urgency for removal that Elites have some players can slide by doing this for a period of time before they are reprimanded.
Players who share Bosses want you to kill them ASAP, however this means in the space of several hours or a day or so. When you are NPCing they are holding a spot which could be used to get a new NPC in it's place. (This is especially frustrating to players over Level 350, when Crimson FlameHawk first begin to appear, because Bosses take a much longer period for enough players to do enough damage to kill them.)