I don't think that there is any numarical value in the game that tells you what the energy of the ship is. I think you can find out in the ini files. Basicly this is an experiance thing, If your wepons are draining too much energy then try to find some more effecient wepons or stop sooting so much.

If I had a nickel for every time someone told me that my idea for melting down coins to make a giant robotic parrot was a bad idea, I would have one kicka$$ giant robotic parrot.

Yeah, they are in the .ini files but not the game. There is a mod that allows you to upgrade your power plant.

It used to really piss me off that it didnt just give you a straight figure - imagine you bought a bunch of batteries :

You : 'How much power is in these batteries?'
Battery guy : 'Well they'll just about power an electric shower but i would recommend using them on electric heaters.'
You : 'Eh? Whats the voltage? How many ampere/hours?'
Battery guy : 'Like i said around about the electric heater mark.'
You : 'Hmm maybe i'll use them to tazer you. Last time i buy stuff from this shop...'

O.k. its a crappy analogy but you get the idea. At one point i considered working out the drain of all my weapons, sitting in space and timing how long it took to run out of juice. Then timing how long to recharge and deducing the size of the plant. But in the end it is fairly easy to get a 'feel' for it and equip accordingly. Usually 50% max class and 50% recommended class is about the top limit for a ship. I usually start with all recommended class then just keep adding bigger guns till i feel i'm losing power too fast.

there's a line in the ship stats that says what weapon level are optimum for your ship..
follow it!

Dependson your fighting style.

If you hit things with short bursts and you prefer to knock things out in one shot, I strongly recommend OVERLOADING your fighter.

If you mount missiles on your bird, you can usually get away with a weapon or two that is over-rated, and still maintain a steady stream.

If you have a penchant for being a plasma-hose, (like me) I suggest getting 2 BIG rapid fires, two minimums, and the other spaces should be under-rated. This gives you a good stream, and once you get good, you can build up the under-rated ones.


My setup on a hammerhead: 4 skyblasts and 2 sunblasts (?) I cant remember the name, but they're the ones that are purchaseable in NAHA gas-miner. the lev.8 and 9 rapidfiring ones. I turn off 2 of the lev. 9's when I wander the colonies, and turn on ALL guns when cruising the border worlds. It gets me by.


Only the dead have seen the end of war.

hehe
I actually worked out that a Eagle has a power recharge rate of 1400 gerbils/second.
(given that we dont know the actual power units)

So to do the math you look at your guns, multiply power usage by number of shots per second to get the gerbils/second usage.
Then multiply that out for your gun loadout.
If the gerbils/second is 1400 or less, your energy wont go down when u shoot.

Generally ive found that maxxing out the weapons leads too too much power drain... so you cannot shoot for long. if the power rating is say 5/7 its best equipping all level 5 or 6 weapons. (especially if you have trouble hitting things)

There is a power rating as someone said it is the recomended load out of your ship. If you tend to spray and pray you should not load out a class 4/6 ship with all class 6 weapons as you will run out of power and be toast in combat.

I would probably load out with some missles and then a class 6 then a couple of class 5's. It is more important to get a good refire rate and match the mps and range of your weapons as you will miss a lot if one is fireing at 750 mps and 700 M range and another is at 600 mps and 600 M range. If you miss match these you will miss a lot as the targeting computer uses the slowest firing weapon to help you lead the target that shows on the reticule.

Also try using short controlled burts you will regen at a higher rate if you don't let it go all the way down not unlike your sheilds when you use your batts don't wait for them to hit the bottom as it takes more sheild batts to bring them back up.

Finally try looking outside to the pirates and riff raff in the game as they actually have some great weapons that hit hard and use less energy than the main stream weapon groups. Their only downfall may be range or refire rates.

Just some thoughts from the edge of space.

Fire discretion is your friend...shoot your target, not empty space, and power should never become a problem even for the biggest baddest energy hog.

Just be glad this isn't Starsiege or MechWarrior, where your systems shut down if you use too much power.

Reaper: $200,000,000.
Rockets: $100,000
The look on that pilot's face when you launch a full pod of screamers up his tailpipe: priceless

Yea but even in Mech Warrior you had an emergency cool down you could hit to bring you weapons back on line albiet a temporary fix for a larger problem like you must not be hitting crap. Played Mec3 for a long time and it is hard when you are dancing with the big boys and trying not to get killed to keep your cool.

Weapon load out is the answer even for that game as always missles do tons of damage and require no energy to fire but they run out and cost money. Precision, Patience and Perseverance and you will live to fight another day.

Just some thoughts from the edge of space!