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|ASCENDANCY|
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SHIP & PLANET BALLISTICS/GIZMO TESTING - Ver 1.0, 05/22/05
Written by Nathan Williams
Copyright 1996-2005 Nathan Williams (
[email protected])
This may be not be reproduced under any circumstances except for personal,
private use. It may not be placed on any web site or otherwise distributed
publicly without advance written permission. Use of this guide on any other web
site or as a part of any public display is strictly prohibited, and a violation
of copyright, so there!
This guide should give you almost everything you ever wanted to know about
weapons, both ship and planetary, in Ascendancy. I also go over some of the
gizmos and the planetary shields. It should probably be broken up into a
couple different guides, which I am looking to do eventually. I created this
back in 1996 and is finally seeing public eyes now.
WEAPONS CHART
What it is:
This is more simple than it looks. You will see the following are all
represented; the 10 weapons & 1 gizmo used for ship-to-ship combat in the game,
the 4 different hull types and the 5 different power units. (The Disintegrator
is a gizmo that really is a ship-to-ship weapon, but since it obliterates any
ship, I thought listing its damage as 100% every time would be redundant. Not
to worry, Disintegrator power testing can be found within the GIZMO CHART.)
Columns defined:
Weapon - What weapon was used in the test. The ATTACKING ship hull
size has NO EFFECT on weapon power. The Myrdmonic Carbonizer is included on
this list, even though it is a gizmo. It acts very similar to a weapon, and
thought it was close enough to add to this list.
Enemy Hull - What size hull the weapon was fired against.
Power unit - What type of power was on board the attacking ship.
The unit in this column was the ONLY type of power onboard the ship to produce
accurate results.
Amnt power used - The fraction of power consumed by ONE of the
types of Power Unit when firing the Weapon ONCE. For example, here is one
ABBREVIATED row taken directly from the chart:
Weapon Power unit Amnt
power
used
Ubrlsr Quark Exp 1/2
To interpret Amount of power used per unit, one shot from the Ueberlaser
uses the power of 1/2 of ONE QurkExprss. Thus, ONE QurkExprss could
fire 2 Ueberlaser shots (1/2 + 1/2 = 1), TWO Quarks could fire 4 shots, and
so on.
NOTE: If you see a *(3/8) in this column, the power used does not have a
perfect fraction. Instead, the game employs something along the lines of
3P-1=S, where P is the TOTAL number of power units used and S is the TOTAL
number of shots you can take with the weapon. For example, if you used 3 units
of power for a certain weapon with a *(3/8) you could fire the weapon in that
same row (((3*3)-1)=9-1=8) 8 times. For all intents and purposes, use the
fraction 3/8, keeping in mind you will not completely drain your power should
you use this fraction, but it will be VERY close to drained.
Hull Dmge units - The amount of damage done to the Enemy Hull
type. All ships were tested without shields. Here is a breakdown of the
strength of each type of ship:
Ship Number of
Hull Damage Units
Small 10
Medium 20
Large 30
Enormous 40
A ship's hull strength is represented by the small little blue globes in a
ship's status window ... you see 9 of them, but the system uses units as listed
above ... plus it makes the math A LOT easier! Thus, if the damage caused is 1
and you are firing on a Small Hull, you would need to fire the same weapon 9
more times to destroy the ship as 1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1=10. If you see the word
"Dstry" listed in this column, then one shot from the given weapon will destroy
the given Enemy Hull.
Hull %Dmge - An exact or very close approximation of the
damage done to the Enemy hull. Helpful if you are using more than one type of
weapon to attack with or the concept of the Hull Dmge column makes your
head hurt.
#uses per day - How many times ONE weapon unit may be used
in ONE given day, provided you have enough power to fire it.
Range - At the "bottom" of each system, you have the option of
displaying a blue grid. The range is the maximum distance, or number of blue
grid squares, you can fire the weapon at another ship (or planet, but we'll get
to that later). NOTE: For these numbers to be accurate, you MUST be zoomed all
the way OUT while viewing the system screen. In other words, zoom all the way
OUT, make the grid lines nice and straight, make sure the height above or below
the grid lines is about equal for the two ships and count on the grid the number
of squares one ship is away from another ship along the same axis.
Range w/ Accu - The Accutron doubles the effective range of any
weapon (NOT GIZMOS!) for the attacking ship during that day. This column is for
easy reference or for those who, again, don't like doing math.
Practical application:
Two Medium, hostile ships have left an enemy world and you think
they are coming for you. You only have time to build one ship, but want to
make sure it can handle both hostiles quickly. You have researched weapons up
to the Plasmatron and power units up to the QurkExprss. How many
Plasmatrons, how many power units in Quarks and what type of ship is needed to
destroy BOTH hostile Med ships in one day?
1. Weapons - We are going against Med hulls, so focus on the
Enemy Hull column and look for Med. For the Plasmatron against a Med
hull, it can do 4 out of 20 units of damage per shot, as Med ships can take
20 units of damage. Thus, we need 5 Plasmatron shots per Med ship; with 2
Med ships, we need a total of 10 Plasmatrons.
2. Power - We need to fire 10 Plasmatron shots in one day. We
are using Quarks, so look up Quarks under Power unit used. For a Quark firing
a Plasmatron, one Quark uses 1/3 of its power to fire one shot. If we need 10
shots, we need (10 * 1/3) Quarks. The fraction comes out to 10/3, or 3 1/3
Quarks. Since we cannot build 1/3 of a Quark, we must round up and build 4
Quarks.
3. Ship type - We need 10 Plasmatrons and 4 Quarks. We will
need at least 1 engine (I should hope), so we need (10+4+1=15) 15 possible
squares inside the ship to build on. We now know we need a Lrg hull at 15
units or an Enormous hull at 25 units to accommodate these requirements. (You
can pseudo-cheat if you like, building a full Lrg ship with 10 Plasmas and 4
Quarks and 1 shield of some type ... yes, it will leave orbit and Plasmas have
the best range in the game, but don't expect to be doing any other moving any
time soon.)
Weapon Enemy Power Amnt Hull Hull #uses Range Range
Hull unit power Dmge %Dmge per w/
used units day Accu
MssBrgeGn Sml Nanotwrlr 1/11 1 10% 1 5 10
FourMssls Sml Nanotwrlr 1/11 2 20% 1 8 16
QntmSgLchr Sml Nanotwrlr 2/11 4 40% 1 5 10
MoleclrDis Sml Nanotwrlr 2/11 4 40% 1 10 20
EM Pulser Sml Nanotwrlr 1/11 1 10% 5 10 20
Plasmatron Sml Nanotwrlr 2/11 4 40% 1 20 40
Ueberlaser Sml Nanotwrlr 3/11 6 60% 2 10 20
FergtzLens Sml Nanotwrlr 0 4 40% 2 7 14
HyperDrvr Sml Nanotwrlr 6/11 Dstry 100% 2 15 30
Nanomanplr Sml Nanotwrlr 6/11 Dstry 100% 3 10 20
MyrmdCbnzr Sml Nanotwrlr *(3/8)Dstry 100% 1 8 8(Gizmo)
MssBrgeGn Med VanCrgHyp 1/8 1 5% 1 5 10
FourMssls Med VanCrgHyp 1/8 2 10% 1 8 16
QntmSgLchr Med VanCrgHyp 1/4 4 20% 1 5 10
MoleclrDis Med VanCrgHyp 1/4 4 20% 1 10 20
EM Pulser Med VanCrgHyp 1/8 1 5% 5 10 20
Plasmatron Med VanCrgHyp 1/4 4 20% 1 20 40
Ueberlaser Med VanCrgHyp *(3/8)6 30% 2 10 20
FergtzLens Med VanCrgHyp 0 4 20% 2 7 14
HyperDrvr Med VanCrgHyp 11/16 10 50% 2 15 30
Nanomanplr Med VanCrgHyp 11/16 12 60% 3 10 20
MyrmdCbnzr Med VanCrgHyp 1/2 Dstry 100% 1 8 8(Gizmo)
MssBrgeGn Lrg QurkExprss 1/6 1 3.33% 1 5 10
FourMssls Lrg QurkExprss 1/6 2 6.67% 1 8 16
QntmSgLchr Lrg QurkExprss 1/3 4 12.5% 1 5 10
MoleclrDis Lrg QurkExprss 1/3 4 12.5% 1 10 20
EM Pulser Lrg QurkExprss 1/6 1 6.67% 5 10 20
Plasmatron Lrg QurkExprss 1/3 4 12.5% 1 20 40
Ueberlaser Lrg QurkExprss 1/2 6 20% 2 10 20
FergtzLens Lrg QurkExprss 0 4 12.5% 2 7 14
HyperDrvr Lrg QurkExprss 1 10 33.3% 2 15 30
Nanomanplr Lrg QurkExprss 1 12 40% 3 10 20
MyrmdCbnzr Lrg QurkExprss 2/3 20 66.7% 1 8 8(Gizmo)
MssBrgeGn Enrms SbatmScoop 1/4 1 2.5% 1 5 10
FourMssls Enrms SbatmScoop 1/4 2 5% 1 8 16
QntmSgLchr Enrms SbatmScoop 1/2 4 10% 1 5 10
MoleclrDis Enrms SbatmScoop 1/2 4 10% 1 10 20
EM Pulser Enrms SbatmScoop 1/4 1 5% 5 10 20
Plasmatron Enrms SbatmScoop 1/2 4 10% 1 20 40
Ueberlaser Enrms SbatmScoop 3/4 6 15% 2 10 20
FergtzLens Enrms SbatmScoop 0 4 10% 2 7 14
HyperDrvr Enrms SbatmScoop 1 1/2 10 25% 2 15 30
Nanomanplr Enrms SbatmScoop 1 1/2 12 30% 3 10 20
MyrmdCbnzr Enrms SbatmScoop 1 20 50% 1 8 8(Gizmo)
MssBrgeGn Med PrtnShvr 1/2 1 5% 1 5 10
FourMssls Med PrtnShvr 1/2 2 10% 1 8 16
QntmSgLchr Med PrtnShvr 1 4 20% 1 5 10
MoleclrDis Med PrtnShvr 1 4 20% 1 10 20
EM Pulser Med PrtnShvr 1/2 1 5% 5 10 20
Plasmatron Med PrtnShvr 1 4 20% 2 20 40
Ueberlaser Med PrtnShvr 1 1/2 6 30% 1 10 20
FergtzLens Med PrtnShvr 0 4 20% 2 7 14
HyperDrvr Med PrtnShvr 3 10 50% 2 15 30
Nanomanplr Med PrtnShvr 3 12 60% 3 10 20
MyrmdCbnzr Med PrtnShvr 2 Dstry 100% 1 8 8(Gizmo)
GIZMO CHART
In all honesty, I am not much of a gizmo user, but I provided this chart
anyway. I'll go crazy on it one day. Until then, enjoy! If #uses per day
says "Only1" I mean it, you only get one use ... ever ... period. The gizmo
is destroyed in the process of use. If number of uses says "Infte" yep, go
nuts buddy cause this is one record you can't wear out. (Records, also called
LPs or vinyls, are what your parents used to listen to music. They had these
things called "Record Players." Using these "Record Players" a small needle
would skim across the surface of a record against tiny grooves, vibrating the
needle. These vibrations effected tiny magnets located at the other end of the
needle, which in turn produces a current. This current carried the original
music, was amplified and listened to in beanbag chairs across the globe.)
NOTES: I would draw your attention to three gizmos in particular.
Accutron: If you are a hardcore weapons user, throw this on a ship or
three. It doubles the range of ALL weapons on a single ship for one day,
becoming an equalizer for the Long Range Orbital Mega Whopper, as described in
the PLANETARY TESTING below. This will NOT double the range of gizmos, which
is a shame as ...
Myrmidonic Carbonizer: The second most powerful SHIP-TO-SHIP weapon in
the game. Reusable from day to day and consuming a little more power than an
Ueberlaser, this can destroy Sml and Med ships in just one shot, a Lrg or
Enormous type ship taking two shots, again, all ships tested were unshielded.
It has a short range compared to more advanced weapons, so it could have
benefited from the Accutron, but alas, it does not. I find it ironic as the
Accutron and Myrmidonic Carbonizer are discovered within the same research
item, Energy Focusing. Oh well, guess one half the lab was using Mac and the
other Microsoft. (Yes, yes, they are getting more interchangeable now, I know
.. just take a joke for once in your life.) Please be aware the Myrmidonic
Carbonizer DOES NOT WORK ON PLANET STRUCTURES! Yes, you can shoot a planet
with one and yes, it does look pretty, but it is "full of sound and fury
signifying nothing." (Shakespeare's MacBeth ... read a book people!)
Disintegrator: The most powerful SHIP-TO-SHIP weapon in the game.
Shields? Whatever! Hull type? Whatever! The Disintegrator lives up to its
name and will obliterate any ship on contact. That would be the reason why it
comes so late in the game and requires the longest amount of research time in
the entire game. I was curious about this weapon and created an Enormous ship,
outfitted with 19 Nanoshells (the most powerful ship shield in the game,
assuming one space is left for an engine) and 5 Nanotwrlrs to power said
Nanoshells for one turn. The Disintegrator won and destroyed the highest
possible shielded ship in one swift blow. It has the worst range in the game,
unenhanced by the Accutron. It requires over 2 Nanotwrlrs just to fire one, so
you must have plenty of power on board. The Disintegrator will be destroyed in
the process, so use it wisely (or refit often). If you, for some reason, have
a fleet of enemy ships breathing down your neck, create a ship with a few of
these, TONS of power, some shields and a lot of Star Lane Hypers and you've got
yourself a one ship demolition crew. When the irresistible force
(Disintegrator) meets an immovable object (a ship with an Invulnerabilizer
enabled), the Disintegrator looses and the Invulnerablizer wins, FYI. Also,
this weapon will NOT effect any planetary devices.
FINAL NOTE: Amnt power used for Gizmos in this chart is slightly
inaccurate. Most of these numbers came from when I thought the game used
sevenths in everything. I was wrong back in 1996, but since I don't use
gizmos often, I didn't waste my time redoing this column. The only true and
accurate measurements are anything involving the Disintegrator.
Gizmo Target Power unit Amnt Effect #uses Range
power or per
used Damage day
Accutron Enmy Shp Nanotwrlr 5/7 Range2X 1 N/A
Backfirer Enmy Shp Nanotwrlr 4/7 1 10
Brunswick Dsptr Enmy Shp Nanotwrlr 1 4/7 1 10
Cannibalizer In Ship Nanotwrlr ??? 1 N/A
Contnmnt Device Enmy Shp PrtnShvr 2 4/7 1 10
Disarmer Enmy Shp Nanotwrlr 4/7 1 12
Disintegrator Sml Nanotwrlr 2 3/11 Dstry Only1 5
Disintegrator Med VanCrgHyp 2 7/8 Dstry Only1 5
Disintegrator Lrg QurkExprss 3 5/6 Dstry Only1 5
Disintegrator Enrms SbatmScoop 5 3/4 Dstry Only1 5
Disintegrator Med PrtnShvr 11 1/2 Dstry Only1 5
Fleet Disperser All Ships Nanotwrlr 4/7 1 24
Gizmogrifier Enmy Shp Nanotwrlr 4/7 1 12
Grvmtrc Cndnsr Sys. Star Nanotwrlr 4/7 1 N/A
Gravity Dstrter All Ships Nanotwrlr 3/7 1 N/A
Gravomtrc Ctplt Star PrtnShvr 1 4/7 1 N/A
Gyro Inductor Planet Nanotwrlr 0 Infte Orbit
Hyperfuel In Ship Nanotwrlr Only1 N/A
Hyperswapper Any Ship Nanotwrlr 3/7 1 24
Intllct Scrmblr Enmy Shp Nanotwrlr 6/7 1 10
Invulnerablizer In Ship Nanotwrlr 2 Only1 N/A
Lane Blocker Star Lane Nanotwrlr 2/7 Only1 8
Lane Destblzer Star Lane Nanotwrlr 4/7 Only1 5
Lane Endoscope Star Lane Nanotwrlr 1 Infte 9
Lane Magnetron Star Lane Nanotwrlr 1 Only1 9
Mass Condenser All Ships Nanotwrlr 1 1 24
Molclar Tie Dwn Enmy Shp Nanotwrlr 6/7 1 10
Moving Part Exp Enmy Shp Nanotwrlr 1 1 10
MyrmdCbnzr Sml VanCrgHyp 1/2 Dstry 1 8
MyrmdCbnzr Med VanCrgHyp 1/2 Dstry 1 8
MyrmdCbnzr Lrg VanCrgHyp 1/2 20 1 8
MyrmdCbnzr Enrms VanCrgHyp 1/2 20 1 8
Phase Bomb Planet Nanotwrlr 2/7 Only1 5
Plasma Coupler Ally Ship Nanotwrlr 4/7 1 14
Positron Buncr Any Ship PrtnShvr 1 1 12
Recaller In Ship Nanotwrlr 5/7 Infte N/A
RemoteRprFclty In Ship Nanotwrlr 3 Infte N/A
Replenisher In Ship Nanotwrlr 1 1 N/A
Sacrificial Orb Ally Ship Nanotwrlr 3/7 Infte 14
Self Dstrcttrn In Ship Nanotwrlr 0 BlowUp Only1 N/A
Shield Blaster Enmy Shp Nanotwrlr 6/7 1 10
Smart Bomb EnmyShps Nanotwrlr 6/7 Only1
Spclty Blstr Enmy Shp Nanotwrlr 4/7 1 12
Torrdial Blstr In Ship Nanotwrlr 0 Energy 1 N/A
Trctr Beam-Ship Any Ship Nanotwrlr 3/7 1 24
Trctr Beam-Plnt Any Ship N/A N/A 2 Infte
PLANETARY TESTING - SHIELDS & WEAPONS
PLANETARY SHEILDS
What this is:
This chart lists the number of times you must fire a certain type
of weapon in order to destroy a single shield, be it Orbital or Orbital Mega.
Columns defined:
Weapon used - What ship weapon was used against the shield.
Shield Type - Which type of shield you are up against. Here is a
breakdown of the strength of each type of planetary shield:
Shield Type Number of
damage units
Orbital Shield 15
Orbital Mega Shield 35
# of shots dstry - If you fire the given weapon this number of
times at ONE type of shield, you will destroy the shield.
Shld Dmge - Amount of damage done, in damage units, to ONE of the
types of shield.
Shld %Dmge - An exact or very close approximation of the damage
done to the shield. Helpful if you are using more than one type of weapon to
attack with or the concept of the Damage caused column makes your head hurt.
Range of weapon - Will help in talking about the next chart, but
same as before, representing the maximum range a weapon will be effective
within when firing at a planet from the ship.
Range w/ Accutron - Will help in talking about the next chart, but
same as before, representing the maximum range a weapon will be effective
within when firing at a planet when an Accutron as been activated on the ship
that day.
Ship Weapons vs. Planetary Shields
Weapon Shield Type # of Shld Shld Range Range w/
shots Dmge %Dmge weapon Accutron
dstry
MssBrgeGn Orbtl Shield 35 1 6.67% 5 10
FourMssls Orbtl Shield 15 2 13.3% 8 16
QntmSgLchr Orbtl Shield 4 4 26.6% 5 10
MoleclrDis Orbtl Shield 4 4 26.6% 10 20
EM Pulser Orbtl Shield 35 1 6.67% 10 20
Plasmatron Orbtl Shield 4 4 26.6% 20 40
Ueberlaser Orbtl Shield 3 6 40.0% 10 20
FergtzLens Orbtl Shield 4 4 26.6% 7 14
HyperDrvr Orbtl Shield 2 10 66.7% 15 30
Nanomanplr Orbtl Shield 2 13 86.7% 10 20
MssBrgeGn Orbtl Meg Shld 35 1 2.86% 5 10
FourMssls Orbtl Meg Shld 18 2 5.71% 8 16
QntmSgLchr Orbtl Meg Shld 9 4 11.4% 5 10
MoleclrDis Orbtl Meg Shld 9 4 11.4% 10 20
EM Pulser Orbtl Meg Shld 35 1 2.86% 10 20
Plasmatron Orbtl Meg Shld 9 4 11.4% 20 40
Ueberlaser Orbtl Meg Shld 6 6 17.1% 10 20
FergtzLens Orbtl Meg Shld 9 4 11.4% 7 14
HyperDrvr Orbtl Meg Shld 4 10 28.6% 15 30
Nanomanplr Orbtl Meg Shld 3 13 37.1% 10 20
Shields DO NOT recharge from day to day. Should a shield be
damaged due to attack, it will not automatically recharge "overnight".
PLANETARY WEAPONS
What this is:
This chart shows the strength and range of all planetary weapons.
The chart above will help as you can easily see at what distance your ship can
fire its weapons safely at an enemy planet, without fear of getting nailed by
their defenses.
Columns defined:
Orbital Weapon - The type of weapon orbiting a planet.
Hull - The type of hull the Orbital Weapon was fired at.
Damage in units - The amount of damage incurred on the ship. As a
refresher, Small ships have 10 damage units, Medium ships have 20, Large ships
have 30 and Enormous ships have 40.
# of uses per day - The number of times a planet may fire a given
weapon in one day.
Range - The range of the Orbital Weapon, measured in the same way
described in the WEAPON CHART.
Orbital Weapons vs. Ships
Orbital Weapon Hull Damage # of uses Range
in units per day
Orbital Missle Base Sml 7 1 8
Orbital Missle Base Med 7 1 8
Orbital Missle Base Lrg 7 1 8
Orbital Missle Base Enrms 7 1 8
Shrt Rng Orbtl Whpr Sml 7 3 8
Shrt Rng Orbtl Whpr Med 7 3 8
Shrt Rng Orbtl Whpr Lrg 7 3 8
Shrt Rng Orbtl Whpr Enrms 7 3 8
Long Rng Orbtl Whpr Sml 8 3 18
Long Rng Orbtl Whpr Med 8 3 18
Long Rng Orbtl Whpr Lrg 8 3 18
Long Rng Orbtl Whpr Enrms 8 3 18
Obviously, Long Range Orbital Mega Whoppers are valued not for their
slightly enhanced damage strength, but their range. Firing 3 times per day
and longer in range than all weapons except the Plasmatron, a couple of these
should be added once you have a few orbital shields, mega or non-mega. If a
ship has an Accutron, all the rules change and the number of possible ship
weapons that can sit outside your Long Whoppers goes from 1 to 6! If you
encounter a planet with Long Whoppers, you really should use an Accutron to
make your destroying go easily. As far as which weapon of the possible 6 to
use, HyperDrvrs are a fine alternative to the Nanomanplr if the Nano is
unavailable. Both consume the same amount of power and yes, the Hypersphere
can only fire twice a day compared to the Nano's 3, but you don't have to
worry about playing the distance game having an extra 10 spaces of cushion,
assuming of course your ship comes equipped with an Accutron. Of course, a
planet with a Tractor Beam installed negates the Accutron with the ability
to pull the ship closer!
Additions/Modifications to be made one day:
Ship shield testing
Enhanced Gizmo testing and exact power consumption
Future Ascendancy guides:
Research - "The Tree", times of research completion, what items are
found where & recommended path
Planet building - Best way to start building planets & lengths of time
to build structures.
Ship building - Recommended ship configurations & lengths of time to
build items on ships.
Comments? Questions? Concerns? Giving away free money?
[email protected]
