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Systems are equipment that provides your ship with capabilities; they need reactor power to function. Each system occupies one room. Subsystems are the same as systems, except they do not use power.

All player ships start with piloting, engines, oxygen, and weapons control. Only one ship starts without doors (Rock B), and only one starts without a medical system (Slug B).

Additional systems and subsystems can only be purchased at a store. All player ships have eight slots for systems, and four slots for subsystems. This means all four subsystems can be installed, but there is not enough space to install all systems. Clone bays and medbays are mutually exclusive: buying one replaces the other (upgrade levels are preserved).

Some systems and subsystems can be manned by a crew member, providing a bonus to their operation. While operating a system, crew can gain skill and eventually increase their manning bonus. Crew do not gain skills for manning doors or sensors; instead, manning these subsystems increases their level by one.

Main systems[]

System Maximum
upgrade level
Manning
bonus
Purchase
cost
ShieldsSymbol Shields 8 Yes 125 Ftlgame-scrap
EnginesSymbol Engines 8 Yes -
MedbaySymbol Medbay 3 No 50 Ftlgame-scrap
CloneBaySymbol Clone Bay [1] 3 No 50 Ftlgame-scrap
OxygenSymbol Oxygen 3 No -
CrewTeleporterSymbol Crew Teleporter 3 No 90 Ftlgame-scrap
CloakingSymbol Cloaking 3 No 150 Ftlgame-scrap
MindControlSymbol Mind Control [1] 3 No 75 Ftlgame-scrap
ArtilleryBeamSymbol Artillery Beam 4 No -
ArtilleryBeamSymbol Flak Artillery [1] 4 No -
HackingSymbol Hacking [1] 3 No 80 Ftlgame-scrap
WeaponControlSymbol Weapon Control 8 Yes -
DroneControlSymbol Drone Control 8 No 75/85 Ftlgame-scrap
  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Advanced Edition Content.

ShieldsCircle Shields[]

FTL Shields

Powers your shields. Each additional barrier can block one shot.

  • Sustains up to 4 damage-absorbing barriers around your ship.
    • Some enemies can have level 9 or 10 shields (up to 5 shield layers).
  • Each barrier blocks one shot regardless of the shot's damage. Lasers, flak, and asteroids will remove one layer of shields or damage the ship if shields are down.
  • Beams cannot reduce shield layers by hitting them, but can damage ships through shields if they are strong enough.
    • For example, the Glaive Beam does three damage to each room it hits, or two damage per room through one shield layer, or one damage per room though two shield layers.
  • Missiles, bombs, and the Artillery Beam bypass all shields.
  • Crew Teleporters, hacking and boarding drones ignore shields entirely.
  • Crystal weapons and Heavy Pierce Laser bypass 1 layer of shields.
  • Ion weapons apply full ion damage to shield system, and can stack; hence, ions can remove multiple barriers.
  • Having shields up reduces number of fires and hull/system damage due to solar flares.
  • Upgrading will increase your maximum barrier count by 1 for every 2 system levels.
  • Shields system must be powered to support shields barriers.
  • Shields base regeneration rate: 1 and 2 layers restore in 2 seconds, 3rd layer - in 1.72, 4th - in 1.5, 5th - in 1.33 seconds.
  • Recharge time is the inverse of recharge rate.
    • Manning increases shield recharge rate (10->20->30%, depending on the crew member's level of experience). Fully trained shields crew multiplies the recharge time by (1 / 1.3).
    • Shield Charge Booster augmentation improves recharge rate by 15% each, and can stack additively - so three of them improve recharge by 45%. Three Shield Charge Boosters multiply the recharge time by (1 / 1.45).
    • Shields crew skill and Shield Charge Boosters bonuses are calculated separately and then multiplied together. The maximum bonus is (1 / (1.3 * 1.45)) = 0.531 multiplier. (the 1st/2nd shield layer takes just over 1 second to recharge) (Shield layer recharge time calculator)

EnginesCircle Engines[]

Engines

Powers the FTL drive and allows the ship to dodge. Upgrading improves dodge chance and the rate that your FTL drive charges.

  • Evasion granted by engines requires the Piloting system to be operational with a crew inside the piloting room (manning the console is not required).
    • However, upgraded Piloting system provides the auto-pilot functionality, which provides a portion of evasion (50% of available evasion for Piloting-2, or 80% of available evasion for Piloting-3) granted by Engines and engines crew manning bonus. (Note: the FTL Drive will not charge if there is no crewmember in the piloting room)
  • Manning the Engines increases evasion (by +5/+7/+10 %) and the FTL Drive charge rate, depending on the manning crewmember's engines skill level.
    • FTL Recharge Booster augmentation multiplies charge time by 80%, two of them by 67%, and three of them by 57%.
    • Manning the Piloting system adds up to the overall ship evasion (Piloting crew skill bonus also applies), but does not affect the FTL Drive charge rate.
  • Upgrading Engines improves evasion and the FTL Drive charge rate.
  • Upgraded Engines can be used as a blue option in some events.
  • Can be upgraded (as a reward) in Confused Mantis event.

MedbayCircle Medbay[]

Medbay

Heals all crew-members within the Medbay room. Upgrading increases healing speed.

  • Heals friendly crewmembers standing inside or moving through the room.
    • Any amount of crew can be healed through over-filling the Medbay by ordering additional crew to walk back and forth across the room. (exceptions: Stealth Cruiser Layout B can fit only 2 standing crew or 4 crew by over-filling; Rock Cruiser Layout C Clone Bay room can fit only 1 standing crew)
    • Player ships can have 2 or 3 standing spots in a Medbay. Enemy ships can have up to 4 standing spots in a Medbay.
    • Your mind-controlled crew won't be healed, but a mind-controlled enemy can get healed.
  • Engi Med-bot Dispersal augmentation allows healing outside of the Medbay at 25% speed rate of level 1 Medbay. This requires the Medbay to be powered and the healing effect is limited to your ship's interior.
  • Lv 1 Medbay healing speed is equal to suffocation rate.
  • Upgraded Medbay:
    • Increases healing speed, thus allowing replenishing health in the airless Medbay room.
    • Won't increase Engi Med-bot Dispersal augmentation healing effect.
    • Can be used as a blue option in some events.
  • Medbay and Hacking:
    • Level-2 hack on a Medbay damages crew for 90 HP. Level-3 hack on a Medbay can kill crew of any race, except for full-health Rockmen.
    • The crew damaging effect of an actively hacked Medbay persists even if the Medbay system gets destroyed during the hacking pulse duration.
    • Trapped enemies will immediately try to escape the actively hacked Medbay.
  • With Advanced Edition Content enabled, the Clone Bay is an alternative medical system. Buying a medical system replaces your existing one, but you keep any upgrades.

CloneBayCircle Clone Bay[]

CloneBay
AE Content Enabled (clear corners) This section describes content that
only appears in Advanced Edition.


Automatically clones dead crew with skill penalty. Taking advantage of micro-cloning, crew heals partially every jump. Jump heal is passive and requires no power.

  • Revives dead crewmembers after several seconds with a 20% skill penalty (but only 1 point of combat experience is lost).
    • The cloning starts immediately after the crew dying animation is over. (animation duration: 2 seconds for Rock, Crystal, and Engi; 1.8 seconds for Humans, Slugs, and Lanius; 1.7 seconds for Mantis; 1.5 seconds for Zoltans)
    • Multiple dead crewmembers can be queued for revival, one-by-one: whatever crew dies earlier is the first one to be in the beginning of the cloning queue. The crew order in the cloning queue cannot be altered.
    • Portraits of the crew in the cloning queue are shown above the system icon. Up to 3 portraits are shown; if the crew quantity in the cloning queue exceeds 3, then only 2 portraits will be shown as the 3rd portrait is substituted by the "+number" of other crew in the queue. The crew whose portrait is closest to the Clone Bay system icon will be revived first.
  • Clone Bay won't revive crew (i.e. a dead crewmember will be permanently lost), if:
    • The Clone Bay is offline for 3 seconds, unless Backup DNA Bank augmentation (available for player only) is installed. The warning sound will notify you if the Clone Bay is offline and the crew clones are being erased. The crew clone loss progression is preserved between jumps. The crew clone, who entered the Clone Bay last (i.e. positioned farthest from the Clone Bay system icon), will be lost first.
    • Clone Bay will not revive your crew left on the enemy ship, whether you or the enemy jumps away. (but your crew aboard the destroyed Flagship in phase 1 and 2 will be revived)
  • Clone Bay does not need to be powered to activate the jump heal, but won't heal crew if it is fully ionized or destroyed. Waiting at a beacon applies the jump heal effect.
  • Full-HP healing options for heavily damaged crew:
    • Suffocate non-Lanius crew.
    • Destroy the enemy ship while your crew is aboard it.
    • Let the enemy crew kill your Lanius while it is moving.
    • Bomb and fire-damage Lanius crew on your ship. (increase the oxygen supply to boost the fires spreading, preferably in a 4-tile room, or to prevent/postpone the O2 loss (fires start to die at less than 10% oxygen in a room))
    • Fire-damage your Lanius aboard enemy ship engulfed with fires (oxygen supply is not shut off on enemy ships after a fight is over).
    • Kill your Lanius with enemy Zoltans explosions (also works after the enemy surrenders, moreso the suffocating enemy crew will not move out of the room; enemy Clone Bay guarantees the desired result).
    • Use Healing Burst. (requires 1 missile ammunition)
    • Use Reconstructive Teleport augmentation. (the heal is applied for the teleporting crew only)
  • Clone Bay in random events:
    • Revives crew in some events. (the revival works even if the system is completely destroyed)
    • Can be used as a blue option in some events.
    • Cannot prevent loss of crewmembers in some events.
  • If the enemy ship's crew is dead, the battle will continue until their Clone Bay is destroyed.
    • If the Clone Bay is destroyed while at least one enemy crew is alive, the crew dying animation must complete for the fight to be over. The fight will be over despite the enemy having an operational System Repair Drone being able to potentially repair the Clone Bay in time. (i.e. the enemy cloning queue is purged instantly when there are no live crew left and the Clone Bay is destroyed, contrary to a 3-second crew loss process applied to player's crew)
    • If the Clone Bay is destroyed when there is no live enemy crew, the fight ends immediately.
  • Upgrading the system reduces the cloning time and increases the jump heal.
  • You can have either a Clone Bay or a Medbay installed, not both. But it is possible to switch between them at a store; switching will inherit the upgrade level of the other system.
  • On playable ships: a 4-tile Clone Bay room can accommodate 3 crew, while a 2-tile Clone Bay room can only accommodate 1 crew (Medbay can accommodate no less than 2 crew).

OxygenCircle Oxygen[]

O2

Refills the oxygen in the ship. Upgrading increases the rate of refill.

  • Functioning system replenishes ship's oxygen supply.
  • The color of the room indicates its oxygen level: white indicates maximum oxygen, red/pink indicates lower oxygen, and red lines across the room indicate suffocation danger at 5% oxygen or lower.
    • The "O2 LOW!" warning appears when the total oxygen percentage on the ship drops below 25%.
    • A room's oxygen level decreases when: the room contains a breach, fires, or Lanius; an airlock or doors to another room with lower oxygen are open; the Oxygen system is unpowered or hacked.
    • If the O2 system is unpowered, the ship's oxygen levels will drop by 1.2% every second. Level 1 O2 system replenishes oxygen at the same rate.
  • Suffocating crew members take 6.4 damage per second. A functioning level 1 Medbay will protect crew from suffocation in the airless Medbay.
    • Boarders and your mind-controlled crew will attempt to move out of oxygen-deprived rooms to reach rooms with oxygen.
    • Emergency Respirators augmentation halves suffocation damage of your crew, even when boarding enemy ships.
    • The Crystal race takes half of suffocation damage. With Emergency Respirators they take only 25% of suffocation damage.
    • The Lanius race doesn't need oxygen, nor suffers from suffocation - they drain oxygen instead (at the rate of a breach).
  • Fires begin to die out when a room has less than 10% oxygen. (see details)
  • If a room is totally vented, opening a nearby un-vented room will speed up oxygen recovery.
  • During an FTL Jump:
    • The oxygen level is not affected by the O2 system status (i.e. whether it is on or off) and the O2 level is not equalized between rooms (in terms of refilling).
    • Opened airlocks, breaches, Lanius, and fires drain oxygen during an FTL jump. The ship oxygen level, if affected by any of these factors, will be updated upon un-pausing the game after the jump.
    • Fires can die out due to low oxygen level in a room (but can also spread naturally).
  • Upgrading increases oxygen refill rate.
    • Level 2 can counteract O2 loss from a breach (or one Lanius crew) if you open the room's doors to enough surrounding rooms.
    • Level 2 refills oxygen fast enough to counteract O2 drain from level 3 hacking. Fires cannot die out due to oxygen consumption (0.96% per second for each fire).
    • Level 3 oxygen refill rate exceeds the loss from a breach (or from one Lanius) without requiring the room's doors being opened (although it might take a while to refill a fully-vented room).
  • Upgraded Oxygen system can be used as a blue option in some events.
  • Can be upgraded in Federation terraforming team C12 and Specialty work on your ship events.
  • The refill multipliers for level-2 and level-3 oxygen in the upgrade menu are incorrect: level-2 refills oxygen 4x faster than level-1, and level-3 refills 7x faster.

CrewTeleporterCircle Crew Teleporter[]

Teleporter

Allows you to send your crew-members to board enemy vessels.

  • Teleporting basics:
    • Can send as much crew as teleport pads are available.
    • At least one crewmember must be standing on a teleport pad; other crew just need to be inside the room, but must be ordered to move to an unoccupied teleport pad. (crew that move through the room but were not assigned a position to a teleport pad won't be teleported)
    • Can retrieve up to 4 crewmen (have your crew, who don't fit the room, walk through it at the moment of teleportation).
    • Retrieved crew that cannot fit in the teleporter room will be placed in adjacent room(s).
    • Crew drones and boarding drones cannot be teleported.
  • Boarders on your ship from a previous fight can be sent to another hostile ship, either by the enemy themselves, or by your hacking their teleporter.
    • Boarding events crew, when low on health, is not teleported back by the enemy (to heal or stay on the ship), unless this crew happens to be in a room with regular enemy boarders being teleported back by the enemy. (however, hacking disruption of the enemy teleporter sends all hostile crew away)
  • You can teleport mind controlled crew from a hostile ship to yours (but enemies cannot do this to you!).
    • Enemy cannot teleport their mind-controlled crew from your ship.
    • Player cannot teleport own mind-controlled crew from enemy ship.
  • Zoltan Shield blocks teleportation, unless you have the Zoltan Shield Bypass augmentation.
  • Cloaking prevents hostile crew from teleporting onto or from a hostile ship (e.g. player's crew cannot teleport onto or from a cloaked enemy ship, enemy crew cannot teleport onto or from a cloaked player ship).
  • If your crew is left on an enemy ship when making an FTL Jump, they will be permanently lost regardless of having Clone Bay. (a special warning appears if the player attempts an FTL Jump)
  • Crew Teleporter can be used as a blue option in many events. Most notable are:
    • Legendary thief KazaaakplethKilik: Mantis Cruiser unlock (also requires upgraded Medbay/Clonebay).
    • Friendly slaver: chance to receive a crewmember before the ship fight in addition to potentially gaining another crewmember as usual in the same fight. (requires upgraded Crew Teleporter)
  • There are only three playable ships with four-person teleporters: Mantis B, Mantis C, Crystal B.
  • Enemy ships can have only two-person teleporters.

CloakingCircle Cloaking[]

Cloaking

Cloaks the ship, adding 60 to your evasion and preventing the enemy ship from locking on with their weapons.

  • During an active cloak:
    • Evasion of the ship is increased by 60%. Destroyed Piloting or Engines systems don't affect this increase. The total evasion - due to functioning Piloting, Engines - can reach or exceed 100%.
    • Weapons and artillery systems stop charging and cannot target a cloaked ship (unless a friendly or mind-controlled enemy crew is onboard). Targeting with weapons in advance can help circumvent this limitation (setting a beam trajectory prior to the cloak will make the beam weapon fire if the weapons charge time is <=20 seconds, e.g. Glaive Beam with fully trained crew, Artillery Beam at system level 4).
    • Friendly crew cannot be teleported to or from an enemy ship.
    • Hacking and Boarding drones hold their position in space. They will continue their move when the cloak is over.
    • External combat drones move around the ship, attempting to attack but don't actually fire.
    • When an enemy ship is cloaked, you lose vision of its interior unless you have friendly or mind-controlled enemy crew onboard (upgraded Sensors, Slug telepathy, Lifeform Scanner augmentation, and Hacking don't provide any vision functionality in this case). Hence, without vision, you cannot use mind control; however, this does not apply to enemies, who can use mind-control against your ship even while you are cloaked (because they don't need vision).
  • Each system level of Cloaking provides 5 seconds of cloak time, up to a maximum of 15 seconds at level 3.
  • When the cloak ends, the system takes 4 ion damage, so it cannot be used again for 20 seconds.
  • Firing weapons disrupts cloak, except for beam weapons and artillery systems (both player's and the enemy's). Each non-beam weapon (and non-player artillery systems) fired during cloaking reduces the cloak time by 20% of the full amount. For example, firing a 5-shot Burst Lasers III will remove 2 seconds from a 10-second cloak (the de-cloaking effect is applied immediately upon firing the first projectile).
    • However, Ion Charger and Charger Laser I will remove 20% of the cloak time with each shot. Laser Charger II reduces the cloak time only by 20% irregardless of the number of shots (the de-cloaking effect takes places after the final shot of the volley, e.g. after the 4th shot).
    • Stealth Weapons augmentation removes this penalty.
  • Cloaking duration can be increased or decreased by adding or removing Zoltan power to the system. (the maximum cloak duration cannot exceed the maximum system level duration, but the minimum duration can be as short as a fraction of a second)
  • Can be used as a blue option in some events.

MindControlCircle Mind Control[]

MindControl
AE Content Enabled (clear corners) This section describes content that
only appears in Advanced Edition.


Temporarily turn enemies into allies.

  • Turns one enemy crewmember into ally (whether on your ship or an enemy ship).
    • Slugs cannot be mind controlled.
    • Like with drones, you can't give them orders, rather they are under the AI control. But they can do anything your crew can: fight, man systems, repair, etc.
    • Mind-controlled crew can freely pass through blast doors, including those of a hacked system room.
    • Enemy Medbays will not heal them and Medbay hack will not hurt them.
    • Mind-controlled crew, your own or enemy, can be healed with Healing Burst.
    • Mind-controlled enemy crew can heal in your Medbay; your mind-controlled crew can heal in the enemy Medbay.
    • They will be treated as an intruder by the enemy crew. Anti-Personnel drones and crew will attack them as the AI sees fit.
  • Mind control requires view of enemy crew (Slug telepathy and Lifeform Scanners count).
    • Vision can also be granted by manning Sensors, teleporting a bomb that doesn't miss a targeted room, hacking a system room.
    • Enemies do not require vision to use Mind Control, and can use it even when you are cloaked.
  • Mind control duration depends on the system power level: 14 seconds for Lv1, 20 seconds for Lv2, and 28 seconds for Lv3.
    • Mind control duration can be manipulated by decreasing or removing power from the system with Zoltans.
    • Mind-controlled crew can be healed with Lv 2-3 Mind Control by moving a Zoltan (or Zoltans) out of the room and back in.
    • Combat damage bonus and health boost are removed if the system level is decreased.
    • Mind Control's cooldown is immediately reset by an FTL jump.
    • If all system levels of Mind Control get ionized, the system enters the maximum cooldown - 25 seconds.
  • Mind Control and crew teleporting:
    • Mind-controlled enemies can be teleported to your ship (but enemies can't do this to you!).
    • A player cannot teleport own mind-controlled crew from the enemy ship, and the enemy cannot teleport their mind-controlled crew from the player's ship.
  • Your crewmembers can be freed from enemy mind control (but enemies cannot cancel your mind control): level 1 is enough to cancel even a level 3 mind control.
  • Player's mind control chooses a random target in the room: it can accidentally control an enemy boarder instead of removing the mind-control from player's crew.
  • Mind control is blocked by Zoltan Shields, unless you have Zoltan Shield Bypass augmentation.
  • Upgrades increase the mind-control duration, health and combat damage of the affected crew.
  • Can be used as a blue option in some events.

ArtilleryBeamCircle Artillery Beam[]

ArtilleryBeam

Powers a slow, high-powered beam that pierces all shields and does one damage per room hit. More power means faster cooldown.

  • Pre-installed system for Federation A and Federation B only.
  • Automatically fires a beam that pierces regular shields and does one damage per room it hits. The beam swipe cannot be controlled.
    • The beam has a low (10%) chance to start a fire in each tile it passes over.
    • The beam deals 1 damage to Zoltan Shield per each of the 2 ticks.
  • Powering off drains charge quickly.
  • The system cannot be manned.
  • Weapon Pre-igniter does not charge it.
  • Automated Re-loaders work.
  • Firing the Artillery Beam does not disrupt cloaking.
  • If the Weapons system is manned and the Artillery system fires, the crew member manning the Weapons system will gain 1 experience as if a normal weapon had been fired.
  • Upgrading means faster charge rate.

ArtilleryBeamCircle Flak Artillery[]

FlakArtillery
AE Content Enabled (clear corners) This section describes content that
only appears in Advanced Edition.


Powers a slow, high-powered flak gun that fires seven projectiles. More power means faster cooldown.

  • Pre-installed system for Federation C only.
  • Automatically fires a 7-flak burst when charge is complete. Each shot is targeted at a random room in a small area - about halfway between Swarm Missiles and Advanced Flak in size - and does one damage to room that it hits.
  • Powering off drains charge quickly.
  • The system cannot be manned.
  • Weapon Pre-igniter does not charge it.
  • Automated Re-loaders work.
  • Firing the Flak Artillery does not disrupt cloaking.
  • If the Weapons system is manned and the Artillery system fires, the crew member manning the Weapons system will gain 1 experience as if a normal weapon had been fired.
  • Upgrading means faster charge rate.

HackingCircle Hacking[]

Hacking
AE Content Enabled (clear corners) This section describes content that
only appears in Advanced Edition.


Targets a single system, locking its doors and granting the ability to temporarily disable or disrupt it. Requires drone part to launch.

  • Launches a hacking drone that attaches to the enemy ship.
    • Drone can be shot down in transit but can only be removed if destroyed by the hacking system being hacked (so you can't move it either, choose wisely).
    • Drones hit by an ion shot are stunned for 5 seconds for each ion damage. Each second of stun after the first, it has a 15% chance to be destroyed.
    • Hacking drone cannot be launched at a ship with Zoltan Super Shields, even with the Zoltan Shield Bypass augmentation.
  • Passive effects on a system with attached hacking drone:
    • Room vision and max-level Sensors information on the system.
    • Doors are locked for hostile crew, but friendly crew can pass through freely.
    • System cannot be manned, but automated ships still get their manning bonuses.
    • Hacked doors are equivalent to level 3 blast doors, after being broken down they will "heal" and close automatically in 7 seconds. You cannot directly control these doors, but you can "open" them by removing all power from your hacking system.
      • Crystal Lockdown completely restores the doors health and protects it while the coating is present. However, if a room is locked down before a hacking drone attaches to the system, then the room's doors take only 4 hits to be broken after the coating disappears (instead of regular 10 hits, on Hard mode), but another lockdown will reset the doors health appropriately.
    • Repair speed of the system is halved.
    • Fires spread through a hacked system doors at the fastest pace (equivalent to the opened doors or no doors system).
  • Hacking pulse:
    • Hacking pulse lasts either 4, 7, or 10 seconds, depending on the amount of power in your hacking system.
    • When the pulse finishes, the hacking system enters 20 seconds cooldown before activating the next pulse.
      • Due to a bug, ionising an active hacking system will reset the system cooldown to the amount of ion damage applied, instead of 20 seconds.
    • Hacking a system, which is a on cooldown, does not affect its cooldown. For example, hacking the cloaking system while it's on cooldown will not change the remaining cooldown time.
    • Higher system level power for the hacking pulse increases chances to destroy drones (when disrupting Drone Control system) or an attached hacking drone (when disrupting Hacking system).
      • The chance to destroy a drone is 39%, 62%, 77% with level 1, 2, 3 hacking (after a one-second delay, there's a 15% chance to destroy the drone every second).
    • A destroyed system cannot be actively hacked, but a hacking pulse started prior to the system destruction will not be interrupted.
  • Active effects during hacking pulse vary by system:
    • Weapon Control: drains the charge of all weapons on the ship and prevents them from being fired; a near frame-perfect hack can split a burst laser volley (e.g. Burst Laser I will shoot only 1 laser on the hack start and another one - after the hack, upon charge completion).
      • Draining speed is the same as speed as the base-level charging speed -- i.e. hacking "reverse charges" weapons.
      • On multiple charge weapons, only the current charge will be drained (stored charges aren't affected).
      • Chain weapons do not lose their warm-up progress.
      • Ion Bomb, Breach Missiles, and Flak II can be prevented from firing before the 2nd hacking pulse start. (doesn't work vs Auto-ships with non-damaged weapons system - it retains manning bonus)
    • Artillery Beam / Flak Artillery / Rebel Flagship weapons: drains charge (same effect as on weapons).
    • Shields: discharges shields, requiring 2 seconds to remove 1 shield layer.
      • Level 1 hacking lasts exactly 4 seconds, and will randomly remove 1 or 2 shield layers.
      • If your frame rate is locked to 30 frames per second, level 1 hacking will always remove 2 shield layers.
    • Hacking: ends an active hack, with a chance to destroy the hacking drone (higher chance with higher-level hacking).
    • Backup Battery: disables bonus power, putting the system on cooldown if active, and temporarily removes two regular power bars from reactor.
    • Drone Control: disables drones, with a chance to destroy them (higher chance with higher-level hacking).
    • Door System: locks all doors, converting them into temporary enemy level 3 blast doors.
    • Crew Teleporter: forcibly recalls hostile boarders, putting the system on cooldown if anyone was successfully recalled.
      • Does not retrieve crew from a cloaked ship.
      • If one of your crew is mind-controlled, hacking the enemy teleporter will not send them to the enemy ship!
      • Enemies will also not be recalled in this case, unless they enter the same room as your mind-controlled crew.
      • The reverse is not true: when your teleporter is hacked, it will abduct enemy crew that you have mind-controlled.
    • Piloting/Engines: reduces evasion to 0 and stops the FTL drive charging.
    • Oxygen: drains O2 levels of ship at 6% per second.
    • Mind Control: temporarily turns one random enemy into an ally, and removes enemy mind control from allies.
      • Fails completely when used by automated ships.
    • Medbay: drains the health of hostile crew in the medbay at 13 health per second. Friendly crew are unaffected.
    • Cloaking: ends an active cloak, and prevents the enemy from entering cloak.
    • Clone Bay: disables the clone bay.
    • Sensors: disable sensors.
  • Hacking specifics for enemy ships:
    • Enemy hacking choice of a system is completely random each time they launch a hacking drone.
    • Most enemy ships have a maximum of level 2 hacking. Enemy ships with level 3 hacking: Lanius Scouts, Engi Hackers, and the Flagship in phase 1.
  • Hacking system can be used as a blue option in many events.

WeaponControlCircle Weapon Control[]

FTL Weapons

Powers all of the ship's weapons. Upgrading lets you power more weapons.

  • Weapons are activated and begin charging by a left mouse click on a weapon slot or (default) keyboard keys 1 -- 4.
    • Clicking and/or pressing again changes the cursor to a targeting mode. Then a target room is confirmed by a left mouse click. Targeting is cancelled by a right mouse button.
  • Auto-fire can be enabled/disabled for all weapons or individually.
    • Keyboard keys combo Ctrl + (1 -- 4) or Ctrl + left mouse click on a weapon slot reverses the setting for a specific weapon slot. (e.g. if auto-fire is disabled for all weapons, then Ctrl switching will enable it for a specific weapon slot)
  • Weapons are depowered by a right mouse click or (default) keyboard keys combo Shift + (1 -- 4).
  • Upgrading the system allows to allocate more power into weapons.
  • Weapons order can be changed by dragging and dropping a selected weapon.
  • When damaged or ionized, weapons go offline from the rightmost slot to the left.
    • Therefore, it is a good idea to put charge and chain weapons in weapon slot 1, so you are less likely to lose their charge bonus.
  • When ionized or actively hacked, weapons cannot be powered or depowered manually.
    • A single ion damage is enough to force reactor power from any weapon. (e.g. a 4-power Glaive Beam will go offline if the system is hit by a single ion projectile with 1 ion damage)
  • Zoltans provide power for ionized weapons from the leftmost slot to the right.
    • Shuffling a weapon with less power requirement to the leftmost slot(s), when a Zoltan is in the room, will force reactor power from the system and depower the weapon which was in slot 1 prior to the shuffle. (e.g. in a room with 1 Zoltan, swapping out Vulcan in the leftmost slot with Small Bomb from the right slot will disable Vulcan and power only Small Bomb)
  • A weapon charge can be stored if a weapon is fully charged and then put into a cargo slot.
  • Manning the system reduces weapons' charge time by 10%/15%/20% for crewmember's skill level 0/1/2.
  • Weapon charge time can be improved by Automated Re-loader augmentation(s).
  • Weapons can get a full charge with Weapon Pre-Igniter augmentation, when player's ship arrives at the next beacon.
  • Upgraded Weapon Control system can be used as a blue option in some events.

DroneControlCircle Drone Control[]

Drone

Powers all of the ship's drones. Drones are automated robots that perform tasks like attacking enemy ships or repairing systems.

  • Powers all of the ship's drones.
  • Drones are automated robots that each perform a different task.
  • Activating a drone is done in a similar way as activating weapons, by clicking on or pressing the key (5-7).
    • Activating a drone will power it and, if the drone is not already deployed, will spend one drone part to deploy the drone.
    • The drone will stay active until it is destroyed, its system is too damaged to power it, or you deactivate it.
    • External and boarding drones are lost when jumping to a new system and have to be redeployed at each new location or encounter, though a Drone Recovery Arm lets you recover the drone parts of external drones.
    • Crew drones stay on the ship and only need to be redeployed when destroyed.
  • Upgrading lets you power more drones simultaneously (although you can have multiple deployed and only have one powered at a time, switching power as necessary).
  • Most playable ships have 2 slots for Drone Schematics. All Engi ships and Stealth C have 3 slots. Enemies can have up to 4 active drones (Rebel Rigger, Rebel Disruptor, the Flagship, and Engi ships).
  • Drones that fly around a ship can be shot down by enemy fire if they are in direct line of fire, or can be destroyed by colliding with asteroids. Your weapons cannot hit your own drones and your defense drones cannot shot down each other with their weapons.
  • Crew and boarding drones can be damaged and destroyed by hostile crew; however, they take halved damage from any weapons, asteroids, or Zoltan explosion.
  • If a drone is destroyed, there is a 10 second delay before it can be deployed again (costing another part).
  • Drone Control system can be used as a blue option in the Pirate salesman event.
  • Installed drones can be used as a blue option in some events.
  • External drones hit by an ion shot are stunned for 5 seconds for each ion damage. Each second of stun after the first, they have a 15% chance to be destroyed.


Subsystems[]

These systems are always powered and don't take power from the reactor, but can be disabled which makes them temporarily inactive until you repair them.

Subsystem Maximum
upgrade level
Manning
bonus
Maximum
system level
Purchase
cost
PilotingSymbol Piloting 3 Yes 3 -
SensorsSymbol Sensors 3 Yes 4 40 Ftlgame-scrap
DoorSystemSymbol Door System 3 Yes 4 60 Ftlgame-scrap
BackupBatterySymbol Backup Battery [1] 2 No 2 35 Ftlgame-scrap
  1. Advanced Edition Content.

PilotingCircle Piloting[]

Piloting

Allows the ship to make FTL jumps and dodge when piloted. Upgrading adds auto-pilot that allows some evasion even without a pilot.

  • Crew presence in the Piloting room and powered Engines are required for the system to be fully functional: enabling ship evasion, charging the FTL Drive and making an FTL Jump.
  • Evasion is gained from powered Engines, engines manning bonus (determined by the crewmember's engines skill), piloting manning bonus (determined by the crewmember's piloting skill).
  • The FTL Drive charge rate depends on the Engines system level and the engines skill level of the engines-manning crewmember.
    • FTL Recharge Booster augmentation multiplies charge time by 80%, two of them by 67%, and three of them by 57%.
    • The FTL Drive will not charge if there is no crew in the piloting room (i.e. while your ship is on auto-pilot).
  • Upgraded Piloting system provides auto-pilot functionality, which provides a portion of evasion granted by Engines and engines crew manning bonus (50% evasion for Piloting-2, 80% evasion for Piloting-3).
  • Upgraded Piloting can be used as a blue option in some events.
  • Can be upgraded in Specialty work on your ship event.

SensorsCircle Sensors[]

Sensors

Reveals the interior of your ship and gives information about enemy ships.

  • Sensors level 1 reveal the interior of your ship.
  • Sensors level 2 additionally reveal the interior of the enemy ship.
  • Sensors level 3 additionally display enemy weapons charge bars.
  • Sensors level 4 additionally provide the information on enemy systems level, power usage, ion damage/cooldown, repair/sabotage progress.
    • Level 4 Sensors 'limitation': they do not show the remaining duration time of active Hacking, Cloaking, Mind Control, or Clone Bay progress and crew quantity in the cloning queue.
  • Manning the Sensors console makes the system work 1 level above its current upgrade level.
    • The maximum, 4th, system level can be achieved only by manning the system.
  • Functioning Level 2+ Sensors allow player to see the enemy crew name and HP value (in the tooltip text box), even when the enemy ship is cloaked. (also works while the game is paused) (see image)
  • Sensors are temporarily disabled in nebulas and in the Human boarders jammed sensors event.
  • Enemy ships do not have Sensors subsystem, but have all the information about your ship and crew.
  • Upgraded Sensors can be used as a blue option in some events.
  • The Rebel Flagship limits the Sensors functionality to level 2.
  • Can be upgraded in Specialty work on your ship event.

DoorSystemCircle Door System[]

Doors

Allows remote opening and closing of doors. Upgrades to Blast Doors that impede fire spread and intruder movement.

  • Functioning Door System allows remote operation (opening and closing) of doors. This has many uses:
    • Venting oxygen from a room to suffocate fires.
    • Equalizing oxygen levels between rooms.
    • Assisting in dealing with boarders. Boarders can be separated, stalled, or manipulated to change their direction and effectively suffocated. (requires blast doors)
  • Blast doors (level 2+ doors system) impede intruders movement.
  • Closed doors with available Door System slow down fires spreading between rooms. (see data and data 2)
    • Blast doors significantly slow down the fires spreading to other rooms.
  • Hacked doors are equivalent to opened doors (or lack of the Doors System).
    • Boarders move freely through hacked doors.
    • Fires spread at the fastest pace from such rooms to other rooms.
  • Doors can be opened in specific patterns to slow down the oxygen loss in a room and preserve as much overall oxygen on the ship as possible in case of a (single) breach, while having only level 1 O2 system: open only a single door in a breached room and make the longest route of opened rooms with oxygen to the breached room via the opened door.
    • By opening doors in such patterns, multiple breaches can be countered with level 2 O2 system.
  • To vent a specific room on a ship in the fastest possible way, open all available airlocks or rooms with breaches (or Lanius) that lead to the room that needs venting. Turn off the O2 system to quicken the process.
  • Manning the Door System console makes the system work 1 level above its current upgrade level.
    • The maximum (4th) system level can be achieved only by manning the system.
  • Disabled, broken or lack of the Door System - indicated by the doors having a red-orange color - prevents remote operation (manual or on-demand, via special "open/close all doors on the ship" function) of all doors, but still allows crew and boarders movement through them.
    • Ionizing effect completely disables remote operation of the Door System, regardless of the system level and the ion damage amount.
    • If the system is disabled in the event, doors can be momentarily operated if the game was manually paused before the flavor-text screen disappears.
  • Door strength depends on the Door System level and the game difficulty. (see the door strength table)
  • Upgraded Door System can be used as a blue option in some events.
  • Can be upgraded in Specialty work on your ship event.

BackupBatteryCircle Backup Battery[]

Battery
AE Content Enabled (clear corners) This section describes content that
only appears in Advanced Edition.


Provides a 30 second power boost to your Reactor. Upgrading increases the boost amount.

  • When activated, Backup Battery provides 2 additional power bars for 30 seconds. Upgrading the subsystem provides 4 additional power bars in total upon activation.
    • Bonus power is indicated by power bars with orange borders.
    • Battery power bars are allocated after distributing all regular power bars.
  • Once the Backup Battery work cycle is over, the system enters a 20 seconds cooldown before it can be used again. Battery Charger augmentation reduces the cooldown to 10 seconds. No reactor energy is required to recharge the battery.
  • Additional power acts as normal power bars, and when Backup Battery enters its cooldown, the additional power bars are removed from reactor. This can cause activated systems such as Cloaking or Mind Control to deactivate or reduce their effect duration and begin their cooldown prematurely, for good or ill.
  • Backup Battery can be effectively used for powering temporary systems such as Cloaking, Mind Control or additional levels of these or other systems: once these systems enter their cooldown, the reactor power is locked for the whole duration of the cooldown; additional power bars can be removed from those systems during their cooldown without repercussions when Backup Battery enters its cooldown.
  • Additional power bars interact with Zoltan power just like regular power bars.
  • Backup Battery's additional power bars are not affected by ion storms (which temporarily half the maximum reactor power).
  • Backup Battery's cooldown is immediately reset by an FTL jump. However, Waiting (e.g. for Flagship or in out-fuel events) will not reset the cooldown.
  • If all system levels of the Backup Battery get ionized, the system enters the maximum cooldown - 25 seconds. If a pulsar ionizes it, it will be shutdown and enter its maximum cooldown.
  • If you are not in danger (that prevents accessing ship info screen, e.g. during combat or while being boarded; at solar flare, pulsar, asteroid field beacons; during hostile ASB presence) and Backup Battery runs out, it doesn't enter its cooldown - it becomes instantly available again (similar to Cloaking).
  • Backup Battery allows to exceed the maximum (25 power bars) reactor level.
  • Hacking a Backup Battery will cause it to shut down and drain two regular power bars from the reactor. (only playable ships can have Backup Battery)
  • Can be used to complete the Zoltan Cruiser Givin' her all she's got, Captain! achievement and is required (as one of the elements) to receive the Lanius Cruiser Advanced Mastery achievement.
  • Pre-installed and fully upgraded on Zoltan C.

Powering and upgrading[]

To power a main system, left click on it in the system bar. To unpower it, right click. You can also use the middle row of the keyboard (A, S, D, F, etc) which correspond to the systems in the order they are present. Pressing the key powers one bar of the system and Shift-<key> unpowers one bar. This can be done at any time. Subsystems are automatically powered.

Each system can be upgraded to support more power. This is done in the "Upgrades" tab in the "Ship" menu, at the top of the screen. Powering a system additional levels will make it more powerful.

Systems cooldown[]

Once a certain system has been activated and its effect worn off, the system self-ionizes and enters a cooldown, which usually last 20 seconds. The cooldown for Crew Teleporter depends on the system power level: 20 seconds for level 1, 15 seconds for level 2, and 10 seconds for level 3. Backup Battery's cooldown can be halved with Battery Charger augmentation: the cooldown duration is reduced from 20 seconds down to 10.

The maximum cooldown duration is 25 seconds. This can happen to self-ionizing systems by applying enough ion damage to force all power from them during their active state (or by applying additional ion damage after the start of their cooldown). However, ionizing the Hacking system during its active hacking pulse will set its cooldown to the ion damage it receives from any source (e.g. a Stun Bomb can reduce the cooldown down to 5 seconds) (this is, most likely, a bug).

Ion damage - from weapons, enemy ion intruders, pulsars - persists between FTL jumps (and is not reduced during an FTL jump), but is instantly reset at a safe beacon, except for the Clone Bay which continues to be ionized (and disabled) for the full duration. Self-ionizing systems reset their cooldown during an FTL jump, however, Crew Teleporter and Cloaking do not get a reset when the jump is made from a beacon in a danger state (at certain hazard beacons, during a ship fight or enemy boarding). Waiting at a beacon (when out of fuel, or in the last sector) doesn't reset the cooldown of the systems.

Damaged and destroyed systems[]

A system can take damage from weapons, offensive drones, fires, boarders, asteroids, and solar flare impacts.

Weapons, drones, asteroids, and solar flare impacts (when they specifically cause damage) instantly damage systems and the hull when they hit. For instance, if a weapon deals 2 damage to a system, the maximum power of this system is lowered by 2, until the system is repaired. A system with all its levels damaged is considered destroyed, i.e. completely unfunctional (till repaired).

Boarders and fires can damage and destroy systems. However, a system cannot be damaged or destroyed instantly, and this type of damage is called sabotage damage. It has progress bar, shared with the system level bar, that gets steadily filled (similarly to the repair progress, but colored red), if not interrupted - by putting out fires and/or distracting or defeating boarders. Both types of sabotage damage fill in the same progress bar, thus, speeding up the damage occurrence. Interestingly, the repair progress, if not cancelled, is not affected by the sabotage. Nevertheless, when a system gets destroyed due to sabotage, the ship's hull will receive 1 damage. However, such damage can also be prevented by bombing a system with a Small Bomb or even a Breach Bomb.

When a system is being sabotaged by boarders, it will have Sabotage icon icon above it (noises of enemy hits to a system can be heard as well). When a system is affected by fires, it will have Fire icon icon above it (a fire can be heard and also be noticed by the drop of the oxygen level, especially when a ship initially had 100% O2). These icons are shown even if the ship does not have sensors or they are disabled by environment or other causes.

If a system is affected by a breach (air loss sound can be heard), specifically when the system isn't damaged (e.g. in Plasma storm incapacitated ships event) or was fixed with Repair Burst, it cannot be manned - despite the icon displaying such possibility - and there is no special icon above a system for indicating a breach. And though every room has a built-in hazard emergency indicator, which highlights the room with recurring red light in case of a fire or a breach, that requires the room vision.

Systems can be 'damaged' (ionized) by ion weapons and pulsars. That doesn't cause hull damage (crew isn't damaged either, but can be stunned with some weapons or by ion pulse of Ion Intruder Drone), but disables the system - partially or completely - by removing power and locking the system (the system will be Ion Lock icon "Locked by Ion"). The ion damage of 1 removes 1 power and locks the system for 5 seconds. Systems can be powered down or forced to enter cooldown, if enough ion damage is applied. Nevertheless, the ship systems can be protected by Reverse Ion Field augmentation (especially, when 2 augmentations are stacked) or ion-proofed by Zoltans (which can protect and power systems, but not the subsystems).

System repair progress is instantly lost, if all friendly crew (including drones) leave the room or die. However, the sabotage progress continues during crew's dying animation or teleportation from a ship, if no hostile crew is present in the room (e.g. on Auto-ships).

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