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i feel like i should know this but i can't remember. what do the different color rings around a ship mean. i just started a game, explorer has a sphere/circle around it that is blue, then a bit further out there is a ring that is red and has some thickness to it. playing ackdarians if that matters. i assume one is weapons but not sure which one

Outer circle is maximum weapons range and the inner blue one is maximum range of point defences.

[@Jorgen_CAB: Sorry for double-post: you posted while I was writing my post]

I'm not sure the meaning of those circles and colors are explained anywhere in the galactopedia or the manual. But they represent the ship's weapons range, each color representing the range of a certain type of weapon.

In-game, if you put your mouse pointer in the selection panel while the ship is selected, over the "WEAPONS" line (where it says "Strength: xxx AVG DPS: XXX Range: XXXX" (see screenshot below), you'll get an info panel showing color coded weapons info for the ship. These colors match the circles.

So in the screenshot below, the red circle represent the ship's "Standard" weapons range, while the blue-green inner circle represent the "Point Defense" weapon's range (the inner circle is blue-green instead of blue because of the transparency and the background).

i thought that could be the case but then i looked and my ships don't have any PD. too early in the game.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... 2848739626

I've checked in my current game, and I've seen something similar. I've left the fuel tanker design on automatic, and the AI have put epsilon torpedo on them. That's the only weapon they have. But when I select one, there is a blue inner circle, and a red circle around it.

I'm not entirely sure what it means. A possibility might be that even though there aren't any point defense component per say in the design, the torpedo does have some stats in relation to fighters (Intercept Fighters), and that might be considered point defense by the game...

Jorgen_CAB might know more precisely what's going on though. From what I've seen, he's pretty knowledgeable when it comes to weapons...

Pretty much ALL weapons can fire in PD mode so will produce the blue value on the ship. Only a very few select weapons mounts (usually large ones) don't have any PD capacity at all.

So even if you put a torpedo on there you still have some PD capability even if it is a week one.

Usually medium mount regular weapons have the best PD ability of all weapons in each category roughly four times better than the same small weapon. But still much less then a dedicated PD weapon.

Hello everybody,
Reading you made me ask myself some questions about this subject and I got more confused.

I always suspected that even PD weapons at close range can fire at enemy ships as well (I suspect, it is hard to check in game when you are micro-managing your empire), but never thought that a normal weapon could do PD-role (it makes sense, if you blast a small bomber o missile with the DEATH STAR LASER pretty sure it will kill it but you had to be completely drunk not to be able to avoid it (if you were the pilot of that small bomber)

Anyway, In the next picture i am gonna show you the comparison of a L-weapon size vs PD-weapon. Honestly, no idea which stat tells you "see, this makes it clearly a PD-weapon", what are the "Intercept Fighter" and "Intercept Seeking" stats? I thought with PD weapon will be higher ?

This just mean the larger gun can be used as PD, but it is not as good as the smaller one. The smaller one fire further in PD mode and it has +45% targeting bonus in PD mode and less fall of damage. Most fighters will be able to easily dodge the large weapon as an example.

But it does mean most weapons can be used as PD in a secondary role. Another important factor is their targeting priority. A PD weapons will prioritise fighters and seekers (missiles, torpedoes etc..), regular weapons will always shoot at ships if they are in range and not missiles or fighters.

Thanks. That helps and makes sense

Jorgen_CAB wrote: Sun Aug 14, 2022 1:56 am Outer circle is maximum weapons range and the inner blue one is maximum range of point defences.

I've just noticed that there are 3 circles around another empire mining station. If the inner one is PD, the outer one is max range, any idea what the middle one is? Is it the rail gun's range?

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Edit: added ranges:
PD: 950
Rail gun: 880
Concussion missile: 1800

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I would guess it should be the railgun range... but the distances seem odd. I have seen more circles lately as well, not sure when this was added or if it has been there all the time.

In general it is quite straight forward as each ring is a weapon type... Ion, Tractor beam etc... bit in this case I have no clue.

Bombardment Range is orange.

It just hit me... this is a mining station in an asteroid field so the brown one is the mining range of the asteroids...

For asteroid fields I always just place the mine in the middle as it will eventually cover the whole field.