****** * * ****** ******* ******* ******* ******* ******* **** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ****** ******* ****** * * ******* ******* ******* * * * * * * * * * * ** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ****** * * * * * * ******* * * ******* **** * * ****** ******* * ******* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * **** ******* * ******* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ****** * * ******* * * * * * - MASSIVE ONLINE WARFARE COMMERCIALIZED VERSION - => Unit Stats FAQ 14.0 <= By Alfonse "NiteBlaze Alfonse" On GameFAQs As "Crystania" Email: alfonse22@hotmail.com AND leylia305@hotmail.com NOTE: If you want to send information, praises, complaints or comments, please send it to leylia305@hotmail.com, as the above mail account is clogged full of spam mail which I need quite some time to clear it up. So, send it to leylia305@hotmail.com, my 2nd spare mail account. If you are lost in the myriad of text in this FAQ, use Ctrl+F in Wordpad to find the keyword and most likely you can find what you want. If you REALLY can't find anything, then email me, or go to the folks on GalaxyNet #Shatteredgalaxy. To view this file, open it up in Wordpad with Word Wrap set to "Wrap to Window". Go to View -> Options and select the Text tab, and on the three Word Warp options, set to Warp To Window. If you don't, the paragraphs will appear like lines of text, as I typed it all out without using the Enter key. "What is love, that binds all life on earth? Does it unite a couple through life and death?" - A sentence from a chinese love poem. DISCLAIMER ----------- Copyright: ¸ Copyright 2002 Alfonse "Midnight Blaze Alfonse" See. This FAQ and everything included within this file cannot be reproduced in any way, shape or form (physical, electronical, or otherwise) aside from being placed on a freely-accessible, non-commercial web page in it's original, unedited and unaltered format. This FAQ cannot be used for profitable purposes (even if no money would be made from selling it) or promotional purposes. It cannot be used in any sort of commercial transaction. It cannot be given away as some sort of bonus, gift, etc., with a purchase as this creates incentive to buy and is therefore prohibited. Furthermore, this FAQ cannot be used by the publishers, editors, employees or associates, etc. of any company, group, business, or association, etc., nor can it be used by game sites and the like. It cannot be used in magazines, guides, books, etc. or in any other form of printed or electronic media (including mediums not specifically mentioned) in ANY way, shape, or form (including reprinting, reference or inclusion), without the express written permission of the author, myself. This FAQ was created and is owned by me, Alfonse See. All copyrights and trademarks are acknowledged and respected that are not specifically mentioned in this FAQ. This FAQ was written for GameFAQs (www.gamefaqs.com) only. I don't want it to be put up on any other web site and am not above explaining this to your ad banner guys or whoever else I can get ahold of if you decide to violate this disclaimer. To continue, this FAQ and everything included herein is protected by the Berne Copyright Convention of 1976, not to mention International Copyright Law. Remember that plagiarism is a crime, and that this is a copyrighted work--stealing from this guide is putting yourself at risk, plain and simple, because the law is on my side. If you would like to contribute to this FAQ (you will be credited,) please e-mail me, as well as any questions, comments, or corrections, to the address above. (Thanks to Brett "Nemesis" Franklin for this LOONNGGG disclaimer on his Chrono Cross FAQ.) The bottom line is, DO NOT DO ANYTHING to this FAQ WITHOUT MY ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OR PERMISSION, PERIOD. You can be sued for plagiarism. I have a contact with a lawyer and I CAN sue you for the right price. So, EMAIL me first for my permission before doing anything profitable with this FAQ. If you see this FAQ on any other sites other than these: www.gamefaqs.com www.planetsg.net Email me ASAP using the address above. This site should not appear anywhere else without my permission. www.megagames.com will NEVER be allowed to have this FAQ on this site, permission or not, for being big scammers and FAQ-rippers. ª_ª VERSION HISTORY ---------------- Version 14.0 (June 10 Completed) Another update on many sections. Removed Cloaked Infiltrator strategy from Imp unit. Major update on serious mistakes on many units. (E.g. Leviathans, Ghasts, Orbus..) A small update on the credits section. Version 13.5 (May 17 Completed) Very small update on various sections. Version 13.0 (May 4 Completed) FAQ Update for the Version 1.03 patch. Added new unit: Volte Added "SG Versions" section. Did major corrections here and there. Added a bit more info. Version 12.5 (Mar 23 Completed) Added in each unit description on how is the unit best used for. Version 12.0 (Mar 12 Completed) Added ASCII Art. Cool, huh? =] Added a bit of info here and there. Newbie guide can be considered completed. It'll be improved on soon enough. - Lists will not be complete FOR NOW, they'll be soon enough. Due to the fact Nexon never sticks to one particular list, they change it constantly for some variety in gameplay. =| Version 11.5 (Mar 8 Completed) Added Disclaimer. Expanded Newbie Guide. Added a few more Skills And Techniques. Made a note in the Insignia section. Check it out. Version 11.0 (Feb 4 2002 Completed) Added The Very Basics Of Shattered Galaxy newbie guide to the Beginners section. Expanded a few sections and added some more info. Updated guide to the new Version 1.02 SG patch. Added new units, Mantlet, Triage and Virus. Added Section 4.5, Leveling Up -> Lists will be done when I find the time to do it, sorry :). Version 10.0 (Jan 1 2002 Completed) Expanded Miscellaneous Skills. Added partial Unit Stats List. Version 9.0 (Unreleased) Added For Beginners Section. Added Contents. Expanded Credits section. Removed Slient Sniper strategy from Apparition; it doesn't work. Version 8.0 (Dec 11 Completed) Added Misc Skills section. Added Leviathan Mystery section. Version 7.0 (Unreleased) Added statistics section. Insignia section tidied up, it's pretty messy at the last version. Added the rest of the unit training sections. (Aviation and Organic) Added How Aliens Evolve Section. Added Q & A section. Version 6.0 (Nov 21 Completed) Clarified info on Slanths and Ubik's 3rd weapon. See Section 3. It's 140 not 120. Added chassis names. Added rank insignias. Added mobile unit training sections. Version 5.0 (Nov 14 Completed) See Section 3 on clarified Info about Slanth and Ubik family's weapons. Added Infantry's unit training section. Version 4.0 (Nov 10 2001 Completed) Did some tidying up on the infantry strategies. Added influence needed. Version 3.0 (Nov 8 2001 Completed) Completed strategies on every unit. Version 2.0 (Nov 7 2001 Completed) Added some Mobile strategies and descriptions. Version 1.0 (Unreleased) Only has Infantry and Organic strategies and descriptions. More to come. CONTENTS 1. Introduction 2. Unit List -Infantry - Geo-Frame > Imp (a.k.a. Skirmisher) > Deava (a.k.a. Javeliner) > Mephit - Gaia-Frame > Ghast > Revenant (a.k.a. Brutes) - Aero-Frame > Shade > Banshee (a.k.a. Vednette) > Phantom - Ghost-Frame > Spirit > Apparition - Cyclo-Frame > Wraith (a.k.a Footman) > Spectre > Liche - Sci-Frame > Sapper > Medic > Virus -Mobile - Sci-Rig > Triage > Mantlet > Volte - Aero-Rig > Pegasus > Gryphon - Geo-Rig > Behemoth > Leviathan - Cyclo-Rig > Manticore > Chimera (a.k.a Gryphon (!)) > Hydra - Gyro-Rig > Gear Doc > Red Eye > Orbus - Flak-Rig > Arbalest > Ballista > Trebuchet -Aviation - Geo-Raptor > Pelican > Vulture > War Pigeon (a.k.a. Pigs) - Cyclo-Raptor > Hawk > Falcon > Owl - Gaia-Raptor > Eagle > Condor (a.k.a. Condoms) - Gyro-Raptor > Roc > Albatross -Organic - Xeno-Ventus > Ubik, Tyr, Haltyr - Xeno-Humus > Slanth, Crudgin, Rouke - Xeno-Motus > Poda, Kritisk, Mlortha - Xeno-Ignus > Oizy, Boreas, Eris, Lyssa - Xeno-Frignus > Manta, Onnir - Xeno-Frame > Abomination 3. Ubik And Slanth Weaponary 4. Rank Insignias 4.5 Leveling Up 5. Statstics and what they mean 6. Questions And Answers 7. How Aliens Evolve And How Your Stats Can Affect Aliens 8. Miscellaneous Skills And Techniques 9. Leviathan Mystery 10. For Beginners - The Very Basics Of Shattered Galaxy 11. Unit Base Stats 12. Equipment Stats 13. Unit Abilities 14. SG Versions 15. Credits 1. Introduction ----------------- You've probably seen a thousand of strategy games out there. But this is the best IMHO. The graphics are incredible (even with non-3D accelerated!), and the gameplay is superb. This is Shattered Galaxy, Massive Online Warfare. INTENSE BATTLES. PERPETUAL WAR. This are the two words to describe this great one-of-a-kind strategy game. This FAQ gives a unit list and good descriptions for each of them, and some strategies. If you want to find me on Shattered Galaxy, look for Alfonse on faction "Talis". (After merge 17/5/02, I'm on faction "Mu". Yes, a faction named Mu.) DO NOTE THAT, Despite what this strategy guide says, the real way to find your favorite strategies on SG is to play the game itself and be creative. Following a guide far too long ain't good. Some of this info may be obsolete when a new patch comes up. Therefore, remember to collect updated versions from gamefaqs.com frequently. Most of these info is collected from fellow players, my personal experience, and the in-game manual themselves. (The equipment stats and unit stats. ^_^) ABBREVATIONS: AA - Anti-Air OR Air-To-Air GA - Ground-To-Air AG - Air To Ground GG - Ground To Ground CD - Cooldown AP - Armor Piercing 2. Unit List -------------- (All stats are on a scale of 1 to 7, and sometimes may differ from unit to unit.) WHAT STATS MEAN Weapons - Types of weapons that this unit can equip Firepower - Average attack power of weapon Speed - How fast unit can move Armor - How much damage can this unit withstand and defend against Manverability - How easy is it to control this unit, in terms of speed, size and bulk Range - Average range of weapon Overall - Averaged value on how good is this particular unit Best For - How is the unit best used at. NOTE: At the best for section, I'LL RARELY or NOT put the most stupid "best for" a unit can get -- POC Defense, it's the dumbest thing ever -- any unit can defend a POC. =========== Infantry =========== - GEO-FRAME - IMP (Influence: 1) ---- Weapons: Machine Gun or Flamethrower Firepower: *** (Gun) or ***** (Flame) Speed: *** Armor: **** Manuverability: ***** Range: **** (Gun and Flame) Overall: **** Best For: Ground To Ground Firepower (Flamethrower highly recommended) Description: An all-around unit. Does powerful fire damage that can singe multiple targets at a time. Do not overlook this advantage. It also has the ability to disguise as enemies. Get into squads of flame imps and you can turn the battlefield into a baptism ceremony. Note that flamethrowing is what Imps are for - don't ever give them a machine gun - let them deal some carnage among tight groups of enemy ground with the flamethrower. Favorite Strategies - POC Guard: Have your Imps surround (yes, SURROUND) a POC. Make sure they are equipped with flamethrowers. Imps has very short range, but relatively useful at clearing "poc rushers", which is to mass-place units on a particular POC. Flamethrowers will spread the same damage to every unit attempting to poc (minus their armor, of course! =P). Provided that your Imp is strong enough, you can suffer minimal casualties while burning the poccers to ashes. Infiltrator Trick: This needs the coordination of three rocs, one which can be phasic. Ok, this infil trick has tricked many people before, causing severe losses. To do it, you must have infiltrator imps (preferably armored, anti-gravity harnessed and phasic), and rocs to carry them. This trick requires some teamwork if your tactics isn't that high (6 imps and 3 rocs need 60 tactics). First find a POC which is not guarded well. Then, carry two imps onto two Rocs, and move the two transporter rocs and the phasic roc over to the poc. Drop your Imps and turn on Disguise immediately. It will start POCing. One by one, phase the rest of the infiltrator imps over to the POC, and turn on Disguise too. Then, your Rocs MUST COVER the infiltrator Imps. Yes, you got me -- COVER. This way, unless the enemy has a detector, it's near impossible to click on your infils to target them, unless of course they have AA to blast your rocs down. In that case, have an escort of anti-air just in case. If earthquakers come, turn on anti-gravity for 5 of your 6 imps. Once he starts earthquaking, watch your life bars carefully. Once the non-harnessed imp is dying, turn off the anti-gravity of another Imp. Then repeat till the POC is captured. You might want to flame the revenants/aboms, but it would need more work than expected. (Note: This can be done without 60 tactics, but teamwork and knowledge in this trick is needed to pull it off.) Unit Training: - This unit is mainly for the purpose of rushing into enemy lines, and supported with an infiltrator device, this makes it much harder to target you. - Always equip your squad of Imps a flamethrower, even if a machine gun happens to do more damage. The flamethrower flames multiple targets, spreading damage among large groups instead of just targeting a single individual. - Some newbies prefer to put machine guns because "because my imps can hit air units and scare them off instead of being free food to air units", for the sole purpose of destroying air units, it ain't worth to put machine guns. Honestly. Always put a flamethrower, and have air support you in case of aerial mobs. - Infiltrated Imps CAN POC! This increases the usefulness of this great little infantry unit. Enemies will sometimes leave the poc for a while because they thought it's defended by their imps when they see yellow dots on the minimap - well, if they hover over those infil imps and discover it isn't theirs (infiltrators will not have their status bars show up to enemies), they would discover, but the main purpose is that they are tricked, and infiltrators have to be manually targeted unless detected. - If you can sneak up on enemy lines and kill their strategic units, even better. Flame their arbs, spectres and so on so fourth. Make sure to check corners, behind trees for any strategic unit hiding. Also have a Red Eye scan for any strategic unit. - Imps are natural poc-clearers, especially when at defending pocs. Their weapons can make sure carnage will be left when enemy poccers have been flamed to death by their flames. The flamethrower can burn all enemies on poc, enhancing the damage that is spread. - Infil Imps CAN'T TARGET enemies on their own, you need to manually select the target for them to flame. - The Imp IS AT IT'S BEST AGAINST tight, bunched up groups of enemies. Abuse it's flame weapon and you'll literally own the enemy ground units. - The weakness of the Imp is their weapon's limited range. Otherwise, in other aspects, the Imp is great for damage. DEAVA (Influence: 34) ------ Weapons: Laser Gun or Slienced Rifle Firepower: **** (Laser) or *** 1/2 (Rifle) Speed: **** Armor: **** Manuverability: ***** Overall: ***** Best For: Ground To Ground Firepower Description: An elite infantry unit. Only one or two of the Deava's weaponary can target air, so the Deava is best suited for ground-to-ground firepower. Can lob Grenades or EMP Grenades to do some damage or to disable mechanical units (using EMP Grenades). This balanced infantry unit can do damage using both the laser gun or rifle. Rush in and deal some damage! If you want slient hits, use the rifle, or if you want ranged firepower, use the laser gun. Okay, so you noticed how pathetic is the damage on the Deava guns. For one fact -- THEY have low cooldown! Also, their long range allows them to pick on other low-range threats (e.g. Imps) without much trouble. Favorite Strategies - Ghost Gunner: Equip (at minimum) a Mutated Biodrive/Terminus Biodrive or a Personal/Compact Cloak. Then give the Deava a slienced rifle. What's best about this is that the almost invisible Deava has invisible bullet flares and impacts! Works very well. Grenade Spam: Works better if you concentrate on tactics. Equip all your javs with grenades. Now place a finger on your grenade button. When you see an enemy, press G and target the ground enemy and repeat fast. Your Deavas will start pouring out tons of grenades - dealing extreme damage! Extremely useful! Remember that grenades are armor-piercing and they do spread damage around a certain radius. Laser Trooper: Give a long-ranged laser gun. Then start blasting opponents from a distance. It's far by the best way to use Deavas. Unit Training: - Mostly like the Imp. If Cloaked, training can be much easier. Go with allies to the front line and deal some damage. This is a powerful unit. - If possible, can also sneak to the back lines of the enemy, and backstab units. Works even better with a cloaking device. - Even at defending, the Deava is a versatile unit at doing so. Guard around the poc and shoot any enemies that comes near it. - Grenades can be thrown over walls! This can be a good advantage to you, especially when against Behemoths - you can't target them through a wall, neither can they, but you can throw grenades up the walls and hit them. - A good advantage of the Deava is that it's high damage low cooldown weapons can apply damage to adversaries very quickly. Another advantage is it's long range to allow it to pick off enemies from a distance. - Deavas have a new usefulness during the V 1.02 patch -- give them explosive grenades and use them to kill Mantlets! Abuse the armor-piercing damage of the grenade! Whooo! =) - Abuse the Deava's range. In fact you can literally own enemy imps by shooting them, waiting for them to walk towards you, run away, and shoot again, and repeat. You can totally be an annoying player just by being a expert in hit-and-run. (Rather, being a great big coward. :P) MEPHIT (Influence: 55) ------- Weapons: Missile Gun Firepower: ***** 3/4 (Missile Gun) Speed: ** 1/2 Armor: ***** Manuverabiltity: *** 1/4 Overall: **** 2/5 Best For: Ground To Ground Firepower, Poccing Description: Mephits have the almost same speed as a Wraith, and has long-range missiles that decimate enemies from afar. Not to be underestimated at all costs. However, it's slow speed enables fast and very ranged units to strike it and run away and repeat without much fear of it shooting back. Beware of it's deadly rocket launcher's range! Mephits are good frontline units, if you can find a faster way of transporting these slowpokes. Unit Training: - Best for POC Defending, as it's slow speed make it bad for movement. Also his missile gun can allow you to blast adversaries to pieces from a great range. - Phasic Mephits are best for poccing, due to their heavy armour. - This may sound stupid, but ALWAYS give Mephits good AA protection! They are totally defenseless against air units! - GAIA-FRAME - GHAST (Influence: 3) ------ Weapons: Laser Sword Firepower: ***** 1/2 Speed: ***** Armor: *** Manuverability: ****** Range: * (Sword) Overall: ***** Best For: Ground To Ground Firepower (That's all it can do =p) Description: Fast-walking infantry wielding laser swords that heavily damages anything that gets sliced by it's metal shearing blades. Very deadly, although it's low armor can cause it's death in most gang-bang situations. Cloaked Ghasts (Min Requirement: Tech 40 Mutated Biodrive) can prove to be extremely deadly. (Fast, stealthy ninjas, what do you expect?) It also as a device for Sensor Evade. (Rare item) Note that unless you have high MA (and if possible, Clout), don't expect to put both good armor and a good blade. I recommend that you have a balance between a good blade and armor. Favorite Strategies - Spirit Samurai: Equip a Mutated Biodrive or anything that allows you to cloak your Ghasts and try to give a good blade. The speed of the ghast makes it difficult to target, along with it's small size, and enemies can't attack you easily, or worse, can't even click on you! Meanwhile, you can slash enemies to death while keeping almost out of sight. However, if you are Detected, this strategy can be foiled. Unit Training: - With proper ally support, Ghasts can be a good anti-behemoth unit, as it's blades have 1-2 second cooldown, making it deal faster damage compared to Behemoths' 3-4 second cooldown. However, the Ghast, if not properly armored, can succumb to Behemoth cannons. If so, do as much damage as possible. - Spirit Samurais are far by the best way to use the Ghast. Trust me, it works so well that your Ghasts will level extremely easily. - The Ghast is a perfect unit to cleave fleeing or dying units, as it's speed overruns almost any ground unit (but not all). Also looks cool with it's lightsabers =D. - Charge into the front lines of the enemy and deal damage. Seriously, this unit isn't quite a good unit for defending pocs. (Alone anyways, you could try defending with behemoths or imps.) - Don't walk into hot spots (e.g. arbalest fire) with uncloaked Ghasts. You will regret it. However, please do if you think you can outrun their artillery fire and/or their artillery fire is weak, and go cut up their arbalests. - Be advised, if you use the Spirit Samurai strategy, the energy drain can be VERY large. Most likely, you'll use a battery or cell (Unrechargeable Battery) instead of a methane reactor for fast recharges of energy instead of getting your methane reactor drained out and it takes ages for it to recharge itself. - There are three types of ghast blades: Balanced Blade, High-Damage Blade and Low-Cooldown Blade. Balanced blades has medium cooldown, medium damage and usually a lower energy drain. High-Damage blades do more damage, but has higher cooldown and energy drain. Low Cooldown blades do lower damage, but has a much lower cooldown, usually below the 1.2 second average of the other two types. - There's a strange bug about the Ghasts' Tech Level 111 lightsabre, the H-C-Plasma Edge (Heavy-Charged Plasma Edge), the most powerful ghast blade amongest all. Apprantly it seemed to be armor piercing, as my ghasts (personally) murdered three 650 armor mantlets with the weapon, despite for the fact it only does 523 damage. Use this AP bug to your advantage, while you still can, and while Nexon can't sniff it out yet. - The same bug also resides in the H-C-Plasma-Edge's weaker brothers, the Plasma Edge, H-Plasma Edge, and the C-Plasma Edge. (Tech Level 90, 91 and 110 respectively.) Oh well.. just humiliate them by saying "weak mantlet" on public =P. REVENANT (Influence: 48) --------- Weapons: Metal Fist Firepower: ***** Speed: *** 3/4 Armor: ***** Manuverability: ***** Range: * (Fist) Overall: **** Best For: Ground To Ground Firepower (Revenants AREN'T Abominations..), Earthquaker Description: Revenants are slower, but heavier melee firepower. It uses it's powerful fists to punch anything to pieces. Has the ability to camouflage, enabling total cloak, nothing can target it nor see it, nor even hover and get its stats! However, it still can be detected by radar. Also can do an Earthquake, a shockwave-attack that damages any ground units in the radius of the blast. Note that camouflaged units, when targeted before camouflaged, can still be shot by the predator, also, camouflaged units are NOT immune against Self-Destructs, Nukes, splash damage (caused by allies getting hit by artillery shells and the blast happens to hit your camouflaged revs) and area-affecting weapons (e.g. if an ally stands on the right side of your camoed revs, and enemy imps come from the other side and flames your ally, your camoed revs can still get flamed.) Also, camouflaged revs can be detected by detector units, and when camouflaged, it cannot move. Favorite Strategies - Camouflage Barricade: The most useful defensive strategy. First move your revs onto a POC or a ramp leading to a poc, and stuff it to its brim, and turn camouflage on. That way, nobody can get through unless they somehow destroy your revs. Tact Whore Quake: This is dangerous if a tactic whore can get 12 revs with earthquake. Just stick the revs together and quake. It would cause massive blast damage. Do understand that the quake does hurt each other. (Ouch!) Shadow Fist: Camouflage a poc, and if enemies try to poc it, uncamo, and watch your revs all hit them at the same time! It's powerful fists can render almost any light unit dead. Ultimate Quake: Spread your revs out far enough, and let them Earthquake! They would not hurt each other provided they stay out of radius of each other's blast. And you can quake a whole area into a instant wreckage junkyard. Works even better if cloaked. Floating Quakers: Use Revenants with Anti-Gravity. Then have them Earthquake. They can quake close together now without fear of friendly fire. =] Unit Training: - If Defending, you might want to have camouflaged Revenants. Camouflage a whole poc or the entrances leading to the poc with Revenants. To do so, just move your Revenants to the ramps and put 2 or so Revenants on the ramp, make sure nothing can get through, and turn on camouflage. That way, they can't target your revs, they're invisible, and the enemies can't get through at all. - Revenants move slow, so if properly armored, revs can hit the slow units, like Leviathans and Behemoths. Or if cloaked, can move to the back lines and punch their strategic units! - Earthquake Revenants are a nightmare to almost any ground unit. It's earthquake deals almost enough damage at a small radius to make sure at least 2-4 ground units gets killed. However, dying, non-antigrav allies caught in the blast may also get killed, so make sure you are earthquaking at the right place! - A very evil strategy is to walk right into the enemy portal and start EARTHQUAKING with your Revenants!! It's cheap, but however, extremely useful and weakens the enemy's forces. Be prepared to be spammed, though. - In V 1.02, the Anti-Gravity ability can be used to avoid the damage the Earthquake ability does to them. This is perfect for those who abuse the Earthquake ability too much. Revenants themselves, can, too, have anti-gravity, and they can Earthquake close together without taking damage from each other. - Earthquakes only damage any non-flying, non-antigrav units that the Revenant can see. Sensor range solely decides how large will the affected area be. In other words, a very good sensor allows your Earthquake radius to be expanded much further. - AERO-FRAME - SHADE (Influence: 3) ------ Weapons: Twin Machine Guns, Firebolt Gun Firepower: *** or *** 1/2 Speed: ****** Armor: *** Manverability: ***** Range: **** (Both) Overall: ***** 6/8 Best For: Versatile Firepower Description: Extremely versatile infantry with fast firing twin machine guns that is able to attack air and ground units. Fast, too, and in groups these can even kill the more powerful unit types. Its weakness is that its armor is low, and the machine guns ain't strong. The firebolt gun has higher cooldown, but considerably more powerful and has better range. Unit Training: - This unit is meant to do one thing - charge into enemy lines and wreck havoc! - Also quite a good unit at defending pocs, but not alone of course. With some ally support, Shades can be great units. - It's weapons are Versatile! It can also shoot air while it's shooting ground, and can assist your ally aircraft at shooting down enemy air. - One nitpick about Shade weapons is that some actually PIERCES right through a Leviathan's Ballistic Shield armor!! This can be a perfect Levi-killer. (Provided that the shade can survive the Leviathan's deadly double barrel rocket cannons!) - Another nitpick is that, some Shade weapons (Firebolt types) look like Liche energy missiles, and enemies may not fly to you when they see those bolts fly at their air. (Works even better if your Shade is cloaked) BANSHEE (Influence: 25) -------- Weapons: Twin Machine Guns, Fire Gun Firepower: **** or **** 1/2 Speed: ****** Armor: ** Manuverability: ****** Range: **** (Both) Overall: ****** Best For: Ground-To-Ground Firepower Description: Funny looking, but dangerous units. Delivers fast and furious damage with it's low cooldown twin machine guns, and moves faster than the Shade. Although lesser armor, it's speed and weapons make up for it. This can be described as a evolved Shade. Has the ability to release scout flares, which are visible to anybody (Yes, enemy or ally can see the flare and whatever it has revealed). Unit Training: - This is a pumped up shade that moves faster, and even better if it has cloak. At the frontlines, the Banshee has outstanding performance. - Also good at defending pocs, backstabbing strategic units (if cloaked), and doing hit-and-run attacks. Also can scout an area using scout flares, although it can be spotted by enemies. - It's weakness is that it's low armor can cause its death if you go straight on without thinking twice. Also, air units usually clear banshees easily. - You might want to give it anti-air weapons, which the banshee has in abundance. Even lower cooldown than the wraith's anti air guns, banshees can make perfect hit-and-run anti-air if in the right hands. PHANTOM (Influence: 45) -------- Weapons: Shockbullet Gun Firepower: *** Speed: **** Armor: **** Manuverability: **** Range: *** Overall: *** 1/3 Best For: Armor-Piercing, Ground-To-Ground Firepower Description: Nobody will ever use this pathetic unit. The only strong point of this unit is that its Shock Bullet Gun pierces through armor and does full damage, and all of it's weapons are Versatile. Unless you're fooling around, try not to use this unit, it's too pathetic. It's best weapon, the H-Terminus Rampage, does 205 damage. You probably won't invest in this unit at all. And considering it needs quite a bit of influence, you are better off with the Banshee. Unit Training: - I've used this once and I won't again. However, to train this unit.. - Use it to hit heavy armoured adversaries. It's armor piercing weapons, and provided it's well armored (to survive the wrath of the armored adversary's guns) and you have 6 of them, the Phantom can destroy the most armored units. - All of its weapons are VERSATILE, and it can be a good counter to armored aircraft, and low armored aircraft can be shot down even easier by the Phantom's guns. - Another advantage is that it's weapons have low cooldown. This increases net damage, at least pulling the Phantom out of the Lame Unit trash heap. - Since the new patch, the Phantom has became more useful than it really is. It's the only ground unit asides Banshees that are perfect bunker-killers. Overall however, the War Pigeon rules in bunker-killing. - GHOST-FRAME - SPIRIT (Influence: 10) ------- Weapons: Long-ranged Specialist Rifle Firepower: **** Speed: **** 1/2 Armor: ** Manuverability: ****** Range: ***** 1/2 Overall: ***** Best For: Ground-To-Ground Firepower (Anti-Air firepower if the spirit GA gun is strong enough) Description: The specialists' unit. The base weapons of the Spirit may be weak, and the later tech level weapons aren't ultimately strong, but the range is incredible. Best for hit-and-run attacks. Also has the ability to do the Sensor Evasion (Enemy radar scans won't show you on screen, and enemy will have shorter range when targeting the sensor evaded-spirit), Short Circuit (Disables mechanical units) and Mind Warp (Confuses Biological units). NOTES: The spirit is auto-phasic. Favorite Strategies - Invisible Backstabber: Equip the Spirit with a cloaking device and a long range ground weapon. Now you can hit enemies without them knowing exactly what hit them. Chaos Squadron: Split your spirits into one squad with mindwarpers and other squad into short-circuiters. (It does not mean buy two sets of Spirits, though) Now you can short circuit enemy mobile/aviation and totally mindwarp away the enemy infantry and organic, causing a major crisis. Unit Training: - Hit-and-run. The spirit's long range and with a good weapon, the most armored units can be slowly shot down by the spirit's guns. - Ground guns are far by the best way to use Spirits, but sometimes, Spirits with Ground-To-Air guns can prove to be effective against squads of enemy air, seriously. It's really up to you, really - long-range GA firepower or ground-to-ground hit and run firepower? Well, my recommendation is ground guns. - Give Spirits radar evasion and cloak if possible. It is far by the best way to backstab enemy strategic units while still lurking in the shadows, since they can't detect you using radar, they need their units to spot you, and without a proper knowledge of where you are, your spirits can slowly mow them down while keeping unscathed. - Spirits with Short Circuit and Mind Warp grenades are best suited for the advanced player, since they know when to use it and when not. However, a breakdown: Short Circuit disables all Mobile and Aviation unit for a short time. Mind Warp CONFUSES Infantry and Organic units. How far can you throw them depends on your weapon's range. What you can see, what you can shoot at is what you can throw at. Note that IT IS possible to fling grenades over walls. - Spirits, in my humble opinion, is far by one of the cheapest units to even step on Morganian soil. Their range, abilities and not to mention the overall usefulness and power of their weapons make them near untouchable, and to top it all off.. IT WALKS FAST!! The only weakness of the spirit is their weak armor, but can you chase after a spirit and literally lop its head off fast enough? APPARITION (Influence: 10) ----------- Weapons: Sniper Rifle Firepower: ***** Speed: **** 1/2 Armor: ** Manuverabilty: ***** Range: ******* Overall: ***** Best For: Ground-To-Ground Long-ranged Firepower Description: The slient unit. Appraition has great range Sniper Rifles that can shoot enemy units from afar with great damage. When deployed, it points a laser sight that snipes any enemy that walks through it. The laser sight is only visible by allies and the user. Also has the great ability to CAMOUFLAGE! NOTES: The App is auto-phasic. Favorite Strategies - Snipe-And-Hide: Camouflage when not moving. Then, aim at somewhere where the enemy is present, uncamo and press N to snipe. Undeploy, press C to camouflage, then immediately uncamo and deploy sniping position, and repeat. This is like shooting-and-switching using an arctic sniper rifle in Half-Life: Counterstrike. POC Block: You may not want to try POC block with Apparitions. Their low armor can render it easier destroyed than the Revenant (if discovered, that is). But in some cases, it works quite well. Block ramps too if you want. Unit Training: - Stay in a invisible place and try to be undiscovered. Then aim at a nearby POC or a path. Then watch them snipe as enemy ground rushes through the laser sight. - Give them camouflage! It's a good way to conceal your snipers' location, since it's almost impossible to target you directly. Scarificing firepower/armor for camouflaged apps is HIGHLY useful, TRUST me. - If spotted, run to allies immediately - or turn on camouflage. Apps are weakest when overwhelmed with fast infantry units. - Apparitions are the spirit's strategic brother. However, they aren't as cheap as the Spirit. For one thing, Apparitions can't snipe anything invisible (Cloaked, Disguised.. e.g.) unlike the Spirit. Again, thin armor is the weakness of the Ghost-Frames. - If you have at least 20 tactics, consider having 6 apparitions and 1 Manta/Onnir. That way, you can use the Manta's detect function to sniff out cloaks (and even Disguise/Camoflage to if your Manta/Onnir's level is high enough), allowing your snipers to pick them off. - If your Tech Level for your Apparitions is high enough, you might consider giving them a gamma energy array, a sniper rifle, and camouflage. Provided that the gamma array has a decent energy storage (by solar/gamma means) and regeneration rate, your apps will be more useful than it has ever been. (Seriously) - CYCLO-FRAME - WRAITH (Influence: 2) ------- Weapons: Laser Blaster, Machine Gun Firepower: **** 1/2 (Both) Speed: ** 3/4 Armor: ***** Manuverabiltiy: *** Range: **** 1/2 Overall: ***** 1/2 Best For: Poccing, Ground-To-Air Firepower. Description: The heavy machine gunner, but most of it's weapons are strictly anti-air, so it's main purpose is to provide anti-air firepower, but it doesn't mean it can't be a poccer or a actual heavy weapons guy. Unit Training: - How can I put it?.. Well, if you want ground machinegunners, I guess it's a good thing that you pump your Education, because the most powerful V-gun is tech level 111 (or somewhere around it). However, if you can get the H-Tinker Thingamajig gun for your Wraiths, they can be ground machinegunners. - Otherwise, they are far more better as aerial defense. Their large variety of GA guns with low cooldown can make sure almost no aircraft can survive the wrath of it's guns. - If possible, equip a Phasic Biodrive or a Phase Faciliator, and give it any good armor that provides a lot of protection. That way, you can have near invincible poccers. - This unit has another purpose of draining energy from units! It increases it's usefulness as it's weapons can't do much damage to ground. Equip the EMP Blaster to enable it's special ability, EMP Attack! Anything hit by the EMP Attack will lose some of their energy reserves. Note that EMP Attack on organic units won't do anything, as their energy is virtually infinite. SPECTRE (Influence: 36) -------- Weapons: Twin Missiles Firepower: **** Speed: ** Armor: **** Manuverability: *** Range: ***** Overall: ****** Best For: Ground-To-Air Firepower and/or Launching IRBMs Description: The main purpose of the spectre it's not because of it's missile weapons, it's because it can launch IRBMs, Infrared Ballistic Missiles, or better known as "Nukes". Takes 5 minutes to charge, but when it is launched, it can guarantee major destruction at anything that get's hit by the blast. Only the strongest units can resist a IRBM explosion. (Even the weakest nuke is bound to kill something) A siren warns of a pending IRBM blast. Spectres are far by the most useful strategic unit around, provided that he or she (the player) knows when to launch the 'bolts of death' and when not. Too early and enemies may have chance to regroup, too late and enemies may have already gone somewhere else. Unit Training: - At low levels which you can't equip a good IRBM yet (at this point of time in the game, low level nukes are considered worthless), give it a good missile weapon, either a Versatile one, a GA or an GG weapon. Spectres look cool when they launch their missiles (especially at ground units =D). - They have a large collection of air missiles, so you may consider converting low level Spectres into a cheapskate squad of Liches, and watch them wreck havoc among enemy air. - There are four types of IRBM nukes: Stinger, Claw, Fang and Talon. All of the IRBM nukes have H-versions, increasing variety. - Once you get access to a Claw (for now, don't bother equipping a Stinger nuke), it is worth scarificing armor or weapons to allow space and weight for it. Then now concentrate on getting better Nukes, especially H-Claw, and H-Fangs. It's really worth the trouble. - Nukes damage anything caught in the explosion. To move out of the way your units need to be at least 5-finger spacing away from the impact site. When multiple nukes are launched at the same time on the same point, you'll only see one missile and one explosion, but the damage is of the number of nukes launched. - Tact Whores can make full use of Sceptres, provided with a balanced Education or Mech Apt. They may not be able to give a nuke past H-Fang or Claw, but tact whores have the advantage of numbers. You can split your nukers into two seperate squads due to the advantage in numbers, and if the enemy hunts down a group, you still have another group of nukers as backup. And imagine 10 or more nukes landing on seperate spots around the impact site. >:) - Uses For Spectres: Clearing Enemy POCcers -> This is the most important way to use the missiles of doom. (My term for Immediate Range Ballistic Missiles/Nukes) When enemies have mass phased units on POC, launch the IRBMs. Watch the units explode to flames. w00t. Killing mass-strategic units -> When you spot a massive ground of arbs which is hindering your faction attempts for winning, stick a few nukes up straight up their candy ass! :P However, nuke strategic units if only you need them to be killed immediately (especially during last minute poccing ^_^). If you have allies with strategic unit-hunters, save your nukes. LICHE (Influence: 50) ------ Weapons: Long-range Anti-Air Energy Missiles Firepower: ***** Speed: ** 1/2 Armor: **** Manuverabiltity: *** Range: ***** Overall: ***** Best For: Ground-To-Air Firepower (duh) Description: The ultimate infantry in air defense. No aircraft can survive the wrath of it's energy missiles, which are concentrated energy condensed into missiles that causes great damage on impact. Even aircraft who escaped from the Liches missiles will get severe wounds, left for other air units to finish it off. Unit Training: - Liches are good no matter what their weapons are. Even the lowest tech weapons do decent damage to even the most high level aircraft, and it's range is to be feared, as it as far as the Manticore's. (Or even further. :/) - Against bombing raids by War Pigeons, spread out, that way, they have to bomb one Liche at a time, and they can't spread their damage well compared to when Liches are bunched up together. Then, you can shoot them more safely. However, it does not stop them from bunching up and bombing one Liche at a time. - Considering their speed, they are best for defense purposes. Liches are far too slow to walk into enemy lines to destroy enemy air. - Liches has the more valuable ability of IRBM Defense, or in other words, an anti-nuke shield that deflects nukes away when it touches it! Although it drains tons of energy and even more when a nuke comes in contact with it, the results are valuable, especially when your allies can't run away from a nuke. - SCI-FRAME - SAPPER (Influence: 2) ------- Weapons: Explosive Mines, Electromagnetic Pulse Mines, Self-Destruct Firepower: **** (Explosive Mines), N/A (EMP mines), ****** (Self-Destruct) Speed: **** Armor: ** Manuverability: ***** Range: N/A Overall: **** Best For: Planting Explosive Mines Description: This unit plants mines that detonate when any enemy unit steps on them. The blast is very strong. Good for guarding pocs against enemy units attempting to poc (capture) it. Also, the Sapper can plant EMP mines that disable mechanical units if they step on them, but biological units are unscathed by EMP mines. In desperate situations, the Sapper can also SELF-DESTRUCT in a giant explosion that deals extreme damage to units whitin the proximity of the blast. Unit Training: - Really easy. Always give mines to low level sappers and fill a POC with as many mines as possible. - If they can afford to equip Self-Destruct, even better. Send some sappers among a large crowd of enemies and order them to Self-Destruct, although it would take 5 seconds, and they can do a lot of things whitin 5 seconds. - In actual fact, very few people would want to own Sappers, but for those who like desperado attacks, this unit will serve you well with it's self-destruct detonator equipped. - UPDATE V 1.03: Mines do armor-piercing damage and explosive splash, and do understand that mines are EXTREMELY powerful now compared to the sappers in the past. MEDIC (Influence: 7) ------ Weapons: Medkit, Repair Kit, Biodrive Scrambler (Mind Warp) Firepower: N/A Speed: *** Armor: ** Manuverability: ***** Range: N/A Overall: ***** Best For: Healing Injured Infantry/Organic Units (Repair Kits take longer to repair mobile/aviation, but it's up to you) Description: The combat medic designed to heal and repair both biological and mechnical units to make them fresh and ready to fight again. Also can equip the Biodrive Scrambler to confuse enemy biological units, like the Spirit's mind warp. The flaw is that it's range is almost melee. I recommend not to use the Mind Warp AT ALL. This is a medic! Favorite Strategies: Medics + Infantry Squadron: This is especially good especially if you have medics with powerful medkits that heal a lot of HP. The medics will automatically heal your infantry when you're in a firefight, and that will increase their lifespan when fighting. Unit Training: - Just stay at a safe place and let your allies come to your team of medics whenever they need a heal or repair. - I recommend that, if you have a team of medics, have equal amounts of healers and mechanics, or for better understanding - 3 with medkits for healing and another 3 with repair, just in case your allies need both heal and repair. It's always possible. - If you have at least 20 tactics, you might want to include one medic with a squad of 6 infantry, allowing immediate healing. It's better if it can cloak, the medic can get a low tech level but effective cloak. (Note: at 20 tactics, you can bring 7 units to battle.) VIRUS (Influence: 32) ------ Weapons: V-Virus Attack Grenade, D-Virus Kill Attack Firepower: ******* (D-Virus Kill Attack), *** (V-Virus Attack Grenade) Speed: **** Armor: *** Manuverability: ***** Range: **** Overall: ****** Best For: D-Virus Kill Instant Death Firepower Description: A new unit, seemingly used to throw poison grenades that slowly drain any enemy slowly when thrown. However, do note that, although this may be a great ability, attack grenades drain a lot of energy, in fact, you need to recharge as soon as you throw one or two attack grenades. Thankfully, the special energy generators recharge extremely fast. The D-Virus kill is great, but you need to wait for about three minutes before you can attempt using it to kill any unit. Any unit hit by the D-Virus Kill will Self-Destruct. But you must know that it drains MUCH MORE ENERGY than the V-Virus Attack. Unit Training: - Argh. Pathetic unit. If you ever want to train it, give a methane surge generator, not a battery generator, as methane geysers are much more abdundant than battery pads. - Always give THE BEST ENERGY GENERATOR possible, even if you were to sacrifice a good grenade. However, do not sacrifice a D-Virus Kill or a V-Virus attack for a energy generator. Always have both a D-Virus Kill and a V-Virus Attack. - If running out of energy, run over a methane geyser/battery pad twice or thrice to recover full energy almost instantly. It's energy source are special "Surge" types that have an insane recharge rate and a large storage. Well, the drawback to the energy generator is that the D-Virus Kill/V-Virus Attack grenades drain LOTS of energy. =( - To make it seemingly an overkill, both the V-Virus and D-virus abilties can be used on ANYTHING, i mean, anything, from infantry to organic. - If you ever consider using viruses, you must have a very high Education. Low Eduers won't benefit much from Viruses, trust me. -> SPECIAL UPDATE: If you are very patient during battles instead of charging into enemy lines first, throw away your V Virus Attack (poison grenade), just give a good generator and the D-Virus Kill. When it's charged, throw it at an enemy, recharge your energy, and repeat. If you can wait 1-3 minutes for it to be charged, that is. - However, if you ever want to use D-Virus Kill, please understand to USE ONLY ONE VIRUSKILL ON ONE UNIT!! You only need one to destroy a unit instantly. KA-BOOM. - Viruses are most vulnerable when overwhelmed by other attacking units. - SPECIAL UPDATE 2: Virus virus-attack grenades will do damage only if the unit has been struck by the grenade (duh) and when he moves about. It would slowly drain it's life if it moves too much. In other words, Move as little as possible to reach a safe spot and wait till the V-Virus Attack effects go off. ======= Mobile ======= - SCI-RIG - TRIAGE (Influence: 12) ------- Weapons: Heal-And-Repair Pad, Teleporter Firepower: N/A Speed: *** 1/2 Armor: *** Manuverability: **** Range: N/A Overall: ****** Best For: Mass Healing, Mobile Hospital-ServiceDepot (All units can repair/heal on the pad, no matter what division it is) Description: Another new unit. The Triage is a mobile heal pad that will recover the HP of any unit that stands on it, provided that the healpad is deployed. One advantage of the Triage is that it repairs/heals multiple units in a row instead of one-by-one. Very useful in a lot of situations. Favorite Strategies: (Near) Invincible Infantry: Sit 5 or so infantry units on a powerful Triage with a very good heal pad. Now, provided that the enemy doesn't shoot the heal pad, your infantry will never die as they fight, because the damage is always healed right back ^_^. However, unless the person is a retard, they may shoot the heal pad instead of your infantry, so this strategy might not work very well. This can be done with mobile/aviation units too, but another weakness is that the Triage heals very slowly. Unit Training: - Make one square your makeshift hospital by deploying a Triage on it, and letting your allies retreat to you when they're injured, and sent them back to the frontlines fresh. That's about it. - If enemy units hunt you down, UNDEPLOY AND RUNN!! Run to help if possible, and if not, retreat. If you die, well, with an effort of trying to retreat, I guess it's forgivable. :) - Triages can PHASE units, provided they have a phaser device. This opens up the way to even more strategies for the Triage! You can have, like, phasic wraiths and when fighting, and one of them is crippled, phase them to the Triage's deploy heal pad! It's a great strategy :). MANTLET (Influence: 50) -------- Weapons: Varies (Read on) Firepower: Varies Speed: *** Armor: ******* Manuverability: *** 1/2 Range: Varies Overall: ****** 1/2 Best For: POC Defense Description: A small little thick armored vehicle that deploys into a bunker whom 4 infantry units can hide inside and fire from the inside, protected by the bunker's extremely thick armor. Also a great POC defender, due to it's size when it's deployed. Bascially your walking shelter. An intresting fact is that deployed Mantlets (called bunkers), if infantry is inside them and the bunker is killed, the infantry will always survive and come out of the destroyed bunker. One weakness is that bunkers have low HP despite the thick armor, and armor-piercing attacks (nukes, pig bombs, falcon thunderguns, phantom shockbullets, etc, etc.) can render it's thick armor useless and it can be destroyed easily. Favorite Strategies: Ultimate POC Defender: Place a few anti-air units into a bunker that is deployed on a POC, this way, you need not worry much about pigs bothering you too much, and it's sheer size blocks the POC totally, disallowing any attempt of capturing the POC. But do note that this way, bunkers are not invincible - they are just given some antiair firepower against anti-air armor piercers. Ultimate POC Capturer: Drive a Mantlet to a enemy POC and poc it. Unless they have AP units, they shouldn't do too much damage to the mantlet. Otherwise, this strategy may be foiled. Unit Training: - Deploy on a POC and defend it. Don't run, if AP units come, try to get help. - You might want to deploy a bunker in a path and place some units in it, and they'll be perfect pathblockers with weapons equipped, and they can block their progress or even soften them, allowing your allies to finish them off! - Mantlets are not INVINCIBLE towards all non APing weapons - mantlets that lack high armor can be destroyed by weapons that do more damage than what their armor can protect from from. VOLTE (Influence: 25) ------ Weapons: Refueling Station Firepower: N/A Speed: **** 1/2 Armor: **** Manuverability: **** Range: N/A Overall: ****** Best For: Mobile Recharge Station Description: This is the triage's brother. Voltes are mantlet-lookalike vehicles that deploy into power stations that refuel the energy of any unit standing beside or flying above it. It's just a triage that refuels instead of healing units. Unfortunately, the energy that is used for refueling is the energy reserves of the Volte itself. =P. It's common sense, somehow. Also, the Volte moves fast unlike it's two brothers, the Triage and the Mantlet. Unit Training: - Just deploy somewhere a bit away from your frontline and let drained allies come to you for a refuel just in case they can't find a recharge pad in time. - Like the Triage, if you're spotted, undeploy and run for your life. - AERO-RIG - PEGASUS (Influence: 1) -------- Weapons: Twin Missiles, Laser Cannon and Machine Gun Firepower: **** 1/2 (All) Speed: ***** 3/4 Armor: *** Manuverability: ***** Range: ****** (Twin Missiles), ***** (Laser Cannon), *** (Machine Gun) Overall: ******* Best For: Ground-To-Ground Firepower, Frontline Firepower Assistance and Backstabbing. (However, Anti-Air weapons are a trend for most peg-users.) Description: This lightly armored trike is one of the best assault and backstab units available, especially with a good sensor and a long ranged laser. Also has the GRREEAATT ability to cloak! This enables a whole lot of oppounities! Cloaked pegs are a nightmare for arbs, spectres and most strategic units that can't attack directly, or even for units that are too slow to get near and shoot them! Unit Training: - Don't rush to the front lines. Try an alternate route and backstab their units and strategic units. - Always give a good sensor for pegs. This will make their weapons range increase and make this unit EVEN more useful than it actually is. - V-weapons may look great, but they really ain't. Always use either GG or GA weapons, whichever you prefer. (GroundToGround or GroundToAir) However, if you have a powerful V-weapon, equip it then. (145 damage at minimum) - ALWAYS equip cloaking devices. This is the sole purpose you want a Pegasus at the first place. Pegasuses without cloaks are free kills, and as the opponent can just get near and fire at you instead of madly clicking all over the place to target your pegs which are cloaked. - Remember that a weapon with great range added with a very good sensor can make a peg very fearsome as very few units can get near enough to the peg to shoot it. Use this to your advantage. - Missiles are your best weapon with pegs, as they have a longest range of all. - Pegasuses can double up as an EXTREMELY mobile air defense! Keep moving around an air unit and use your GA weapons to shoot him down!! Pegasuses has plenty of powerful air weapons around, if you think that the Manticore is too slow and too pathetic to chase after air. However, in terms of overall damage, the Manticore gains the upper hand. - Pegasus, like Gryphons, can damage enemy units severely despite it's low armor. However, don't face enemy units face to face, you might not survive. GRYPHON (Influence: 35) -------- Weapons: Single-barrel gatling gun, Multi-shot missiles Firepower: **** (Gatling Gun), ****** (Multi-shot Missiles) Speed: ******* Armor: ** 1/2 Manuverability: ****** Range: *** (Gatling Gun), ****** (Multishot Missiles) Overall: ******* Best For: Ground-To-Ground Firepower, Backstabbing, Frontline Firepower Assistance Description: This is a Pegasus without cloak, but with more powerful weapons and more speed. It is suited for hit-and-run strikes, especially with missiles. Their armor is too weak for them to take on heavier units face-to-face. Also can backstab strategic units like pegasuses, but note that they can be detected easier than cloaked pegs. It's range is incredible, outranging most units. Add on it's high damage and low cooldown, the Gryphon is a cowardly, yet strategic unit to use in most situations. Unit Training: - Always give any weapon that has the longest range that you can currently equip. If possible, also give the Gryphon Hover Device. Well, you can always equip it, there is no excuse that you can't. - Turn on Anti-Grav! This can prevent Gryphons from leaving tracks that can let the pursuiting unit charge after it. - Gryphons are always meant to hit and run. Do not face units close up, you will not survive easily. (Ranged units, anyway) - Their small size enables them to sneak up the back lines of enemies and take out the strategic units easily. Their speed can make the rescuers too late to save their strategic units from being destroyed. - Their weapons are seriously OVERPOWERED. Gryphons can tear up a squad of mk6 Wraiths with thick armor and high HP and live to tell about it! That's what happened to my unfortunate Wraiths! Agghh! - Gryphons have a new purpose - KILLING EARTHQUAKING Revenants/Abominations. Their natural anti-grav protects them from EQ, and they're generally safe from their fists because of their range and speed. PEGASUS AND GRYPHON USERS: These two fast and furious trike units can outrange almost anything -- use this to your advantage, especially against enemy Imps or Ghasts. Shoot for a while, and if they get too near, run back and attack. Repeat till it dies. - GEO-RIG - BEHEMOTH (Influence: 2) --------- Weapons: Ballistic Cannon, Laser Cannon Firepower: ***** (Ballistic Cannon), ******* (Laser Cannon) Speed: ** Armor: ***** Manuverability: *** Range: ***** (All) Overall: ****** Best For: Ground-To-Ground Firepower, Poccing Description: This heavy tank is best for actually defending pocs, but with phasic or provided it's fast enough (with Booster or a high Mark Behemoth), this tank can rush into enemy lines and leave major destruction in it's wake. The Behemoth is a unit to be feared. Also has V-Cannons, but very weak, don't ever use them. It's high armor can allow it to withstand a lot of damage before yielding. Favorite Strategies - POC Block: Stuff a POC full of Behemoths. It would enable the enemy unable to even stand on the POC unless they somehow destroy the moths. The downside is that if a nuke is launched, the moth is too slow to move away unless with booster or it's phased away (provided it's phasic). Behemoths need the thickest armor to enable it to survive a nuke. Unit Training: - Rush into the frontlines if you think you are fast enough. If not, use the POC block to stuff a poc full of Behemoths, and try to make sure there isn't space for enemies to capture that particular POC. - The Behemoth's heavy armor can withstand tons of punishment while delivering painful cannon shots to enemy units. - Don't try running away unless you have Phasic moths and somebody that can phase you away from danger - they are too slow, and most units can chase after them easily. Your best bet is to just deal as much damage as possible. - The nightmare of Behemoths are: Aircraft. Yes, aircraft or flying units. They're totally defenseless against air units, and air units usually wipe the battlefield clean of Behemoths. Always have anti-air back up Behemoths. LEVIATHAN (Influence: 40) ---------- Weapons: Twin Bazooka Cannons Firepower: ****** Speed: **** Armor: ******* (SEE DESCRIPTION) Manuverability: **** Range: ***** Overall: ***** 1/2 Best For: Ground To Ground Firepower, Total Immunity Description: Leviathans are bigger and looked cooler than it's younger brother, the Behemoth, yet much faster and powerful. Not to mention better range. Do note that, to compensate for all these, the Leviathan is not allowed any armor (0 space), and instead, the Leviathan has to equip specialized shield platings that block damage from a certain type of weapon, rendering total invincbility towards that type of weapon. Also able to turn on "Neutron Shield", rendering totally invinciblilty. Note that Neutron Shielded leviathans will get lots of energy drained, and they can't poc (invincible poccers? nooooooo), just to be fair. They also can't shoot. By the way, the Leviathan tank looks like the Apocalypse tank from RA2, with twin cannons, missile launchers beside the cannon barrels, and look bigger. :p NOTE: When you equip a Leviathan shield plating, you are automatically granted invincibility towards that type of weapon WITHOUT the need of turning Neutron Shield on! Neutron Shield is the ability granted by the specialized shield plating that GRANTS INVINCBILITY towards EVERYTHING! Take note of this, I found that my friends have serious difficulty understanding this shield plating thing about leviathans. For example: You give your Leviathans a "Hafnium Flame Shield". Now those Leviathans with that shield equipped is totally invincible towards any fire-based weaponary. You don't even need to turn on Neutron Shield to enable that invincibility. Neutron is just an ability granted by ALL specialized shield platings for total protection towards everything. (But it may not protect against the D-Virus Kill.) Favorite Strategies - Newbie Scare: Newbies will run the moment they see this big momma, because it is fearsome. Well, rush some Leviathans to some lightly armored units and watch the carnage. And turn on Neutron Shield and newbies will sue you for cheating ("Hey that tank is invincible!"). And sometimes, if Neutron Shield isn't on, and they shoot you with a weapon that you have the armor plate to defend against, they will most likely accuse you (again). ("You ****ing *****! How the hell did you get those tanks to be invincible?") Imp Slaying: Leviathans are generally faster than Imps. Give Leviathans a flame armor plating and rush into a crowd of imps and attack them. Their fire weapons can't even scratch you, so just kill them. DO note that if you rush into machine gun Imps, you are still gonna get hurt unless you have the Ballistic plating, but if you meet flame Imps.... Unit Training - - ALWAYS, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, give a armor plating, and most likely, the Ballistic Armor Plating. This blocks damage from all ballistic weapons (machine guns, behemoth cannon blasts, artillery shells, etc.), enabling you to rush into a poc without much fear of being shelled to death. However, do have assistance, as you never know. - Armor Platings, no matter what rumours the players spread, WILL NOT wear away or get destroyed during battle! They stay equipped and is infinitely durable. - ALWAYS give Leviathans a good power supply, possibly methane, a very powerful battery or a very good Gamma Array or Solar Cell that recharges fast and provides a lot of energy. - Charge into the frontlines and deal some carnage. Most likely, some of their troops cannot do any damage to you. - If your Leviathans has ballistic armor equipped, and there are only machine-gun wielders, moth cannons and arbalests defending a poc, use your Leviathans to poc that poc -- you'll not get any damage, since they're all ballistic weapons =D. - Leviathans drain their energy like a leaking tap. Always retreat into a methane geyser if you are down to your last 1/5 of your energy - if you continue fighting, you may be left there, out of energy, and a sitting duck waiting to be killed. (That's a good thing, but the real scare is that enemies may leave you to rot.) - CYCLO-RIG - MANTICORE (Influence: 3) --------- Weapons: Anti-Air Missiles Firepower: ***** 1/2 Speed: ** 1/2 Armor: **** Manuverabiltity: ***** Range: **** Overall: ***** 1/2 Best For: Ground-To-Air Firepower Description: This little missile launching vehicle is equipped with powerful Anti-Air missiles to decimate air squadrons. Note that they have no defense capability against ground units. This is the prefered weapon against air mobs, especially with it's great range and damage of this little vehicle. Unit Training: - Always have allies back you up against ground units. Meanwhile, you can shoot down enemy air units pestering your ally ground. - The Manticore is suitable for defending a POC against air units. - Do not underestimate the Manticore's prowess against air units! In air mobs, you will find this little missile vehicle invulable. CHIMERA (Influence: 25) -------- Weapons: Twin Autocannons, Laser Cannon, Missile Cannon Firepower: ***** (Twin Autocannon and Laser Cannon), ****** (Missile Cannon) Speed: **** Armor: ***** Manuverability: ***** Range: **** (A/C and L/C), ***** (M/C) Overall: ****** Best For: Versatile Firepower Description: A balanced, powerful, and fast unit capable of destroying units with it's deadly guns. Do not underestimate this little vehicle, when it does damage, you'll regret it. Seriously. Most or maybe all of it's weapons are versatile, enabling both anti-air and anti-ground capabilties. Against ground units, it's prowess is incredible. Unit Training: - Rush to the frontlines and deal damage. These balanced heavy trikes with good firepower, speed and armor is meant to deal major carnage amongest enemies. - In some cases, the Chimera can prove invulable against enemy air units, using their V-weapons, they're totally safe against enemy ground and air units. - The Chimera also excels in POC Defense, as it has no fear from ground or air since it can shoot both of them down. HYDRA (Influence: 47) ------ Weapons: Anti-Air Torpedoes Firepower: ****** Speed: ***** Armor: ***** Manuverability: ***** Range: *** Overall: ***** Best For: Ground-To-Air Firepower Description: A manticore which is faster, more armored, and equipped with AA torpedoes instead of missiles, enabling more explosives to be built in, and also make it easier to be reloaded, enabling a lower cooldown rate. This Ground To Air unit that can really deal some carnage to unwary aircraft. The drawback is it's high influence and limited range, which is shorter than the manticores. Unit Training: - Bascially like the Manticore. - GYRO-RIG - GEAR DOC (Influence: 22) --------- Weapons: Medkit Arms, Repair Arms Firepower: N/A Speed: *** 1/2 Armor: *** Manuverability: ***** Range: N/A Overall: ****** Best For: Same as Medic. Description: This is a wierd looking hover unit that has two mechanical arms that heal and repair damaged allies faster than the medic itself. Also moves faster than the conventional medic, allowing faster repairs. Also harder to kill than the medic, and can cloak at low levels. Unit Training: - Similar to the Medic. RED EYE (Influence: 1) -------- Weapons: Radar Scanner, Detector, Identification Scanner, Radar Jammer Firepower: N/A Speed: * 1/2 Armor: ** Manuverability: **** Range: N/A Overall: ****** Best For: Recon Purposes, Radar Jamming Description: An extremely useful strategic unit, the Red Eye can scan for enemy units that appear in your radar map as dots, detect cloaked units and infiltrators, display an allies' and an enemies' stats, and also the uncanny Radar Jammer that blacks out the enemy radar, which limits the enemies' viewing range to their own units, until the jammer needs to cool down, run out of sufficent energy or is destroyed. If used properly, it can give your allies a big advantage in battle. Unit Training: - You just need one Red Eye. This great unit can enable you to give intel to your allies about enemy strategic units. - When using the Radar sweep, always remember to keep your eye on the dots that appear on the minimap, as the information only appears for about 3 seconds. Look for dots hiding in one corner or something, and tell your allies you suspect it's an arbalest, spectre or so. You may want to check it out yourself, though. Nothing beats scouting the battlefield for enemy recon. - If you are Radar Jamming, if possible, use Radar Jam on a recharge station (methane geyser or battery pad), or if you have a Solar unit side-by-side with your Red eye, you can tell him to coupler you with energy. But the recharge station works better. Or if you are daring enough, why not have a solar/gamma red eye? ^__^ - When you do the radar sweep, look at the minimap and try to see how fast the units are moving. Those extremely fast dots are most likely aircraft. The stationary dots are most likely spectres or artillery units. A lone dot in front of a portal may be a red eye. A dot on a recharge station may be a jammer. - Note that Sensor Evaded and Cloaked units cannot be detected by a Radar Sweep. ORBUS (Influence: 26) ------ Weapons: Portal Link, Unit Teleport Firepower: N/A Speed: *** Armor: *** Manuverability: **** Range: N/A Overall: ***** Best For: Unit Teleportation (Phasing) Description: Another strategic unit, which favorite use is to phase your units over long distances, provided that the unit phased has the phasic ability equipped or is automatically phasic. Also has Portal Link, but need two or more Orbuses to teleport units from one Orbus to another. Here's a wierd ASCII art to explain what the hell am i talking about. Orbus 1 is here. Orbus 2 Is here. ->OO<- ->OO<- O1 Deploys And Turns on Link Gate O2 Is closed. <0-OO-0> The two portals open. ->OO<- One orbus cant work on it's own, As it needs Orbus 2 to enable units to have a destination to teleport to. So... O1 is open. O2 turns on link gate and clicks on Orbus 1. <0-OO-0> <0-OO-0> Arrows will appear on both orbuses. That means that they are linked, and can phase units from one orbus to another. Example... <0-OO-0> <0-OO-0> ^ Behemoth enters the first orbus portal. || || <0-OO-0> <0-OO-0> ^ Behemoth is here. The behemoth is teleported (or phased) to the other link gate on the other orbus. Unit Training: - If you are teleporting units from one place to another, use two Orbuses and make sure they are guarded well or the area is clear. But this strategy is almost outdated. - Best used with 20 tactics and Slanth family units. Use an Orbus with a Unit Teleport device, (called a 'Phasic Orbus') and move towards where reinforcements are needed and phase your slanths over. This can compensate it from it's pathetic speed. - A phasic Orbus can prove invulable in certain situations, as your phasic allies may need to be phased away from danger. - FLAK-RIG - ARBALEST (Influence: 14) --------- Weapons: Artillery Shells Firepower: ****** Speed: *** Armor: *** Manuverability: ***** Range: ******* Overall: ****** 1/2 Best For: POC Defense, Path Defense, Long-Range Ground-To-Ground Firepower Description: An artillery unit that dumps explosive shells and cause havoc from afar. Very deadly, almost no unit can survive rapid bombardment from it's deadly shells. However, this strategic unit is vulnerable if engaged from close range, and they can't retaliate. Unit Training: - Try to conceal your location from enemy units, because once spotted, arbalests are most likely dead. - Don't Deploy and undeploy too often, as the sound can heard by enemy and ally alike. - Best for defending pocs. Aim your arbs at a POC. Do not rush to the front lines and attempt to arb them from there, it's far too risky. BALLISTA (Influence: 30) --------- Weapons: Flak Shells Firepower: ****** Speed: ** Armor: **** Manverability: *** Range: ******* Overall: ****** 1/2 Best For: Long-ranged Ground-To-Air Firepower, Anti-Air Poc Defense, Aerial Carnage Description: A arbalest-like unit that is a thin, long, moving cannon that is able to launch painful flak shells from great distances, annhilating groups of air mobs. This can be an invaulable unit against enemy air when in desperate situations. Like arbalests, they are vulnerable at close ranges. Unit Training: - Best used with Arbalests for both long-ranged aerial and ground defense. - Train it like an arbalest, but only aim at air units. This can be an invulable defense against aerial mobs, and air splash damage is lethal. TREBUCHET (Influence: 50) ---------- Weapons: Advanced Explosives Firepower: ***** Speed: *** Armor: *** Manuverability: **** Range: ******* Overall: ******* Best For: Arbalest + Ballista. Description: The trebuchet is a blue-coloured arb with advanced explosive shells that can become both flak shells and artillery shells at the same time, allowing the flakking and arbbing of both air and ground in one. Very invaluable in most situations, and beats buying 12 units (6 arbs and 6 ballistas), as you have a 2-in-1 unit. Again, it's vulnerable at close ranges. Unit Training: - Use it like the arb and ballista in one. Try to have 3 trebs to throw flak shells and 3 trebs throw artillery shells. These can be a good strategy. - Refer to Arbalest and Ballista for other training strategies. ========= Aviation ========= - GEO-RAPTOR - PELICAN (Influence: 4) -------- Weapons: Air-To-Ground Missiles Firepower: ***** Speed: **** 1/2 Armor: *** Manuverability: ******* Range: ***** Overall: ***** Best For: Air To Ground Firepower. Description: This not-so-fast aircraft is one of the powerful air strike aircraft available. Low cooldown and powerful missiles make them dreaded adversaries. However, they have absolutely no defense against air units. (Well, one weapon, and i do mean ONE weapon, is versatile, but it only does 93 damage, and it's the H-Genus Manta.) Unit Training: - Since these aircraft had arrived in beta, they have been said as a serious threat. - It's very true. Just give these aircraft a few good missiles and charge to the frontlines and deal some damage. They may be weak against aircraft since they can't attack aerial units, but just do as much damage as you can. - Sometimes, try to sneak behind enemy lines and take out any spectres or defense units that may be lurking there. - Give them an afterburner to compensate for their fragileness in exchange for fast speed. VULTURE (Influence: 55) -------- Weapons: Artillery Cannons Firepower: ****** Speed: ** Armor: *** Manuverability: **** Range: *** Overall: ******* Best For: POC Defense, Short Ranged Artillery Fire Description: This is a VERY slow aircraft, even with afterburners. Nevertheless, this flying artillery unit throws merciless artillery shells at enemy ground units, doing massive damage, and with a low cooldown, this unit is to be feared. Almost no unit can survive the never ending artillery shells the vulture pours down on them. However, they are weak against air units trying to shoot it down. Unit Training: - ALWAYS have AA back you up. These aircraft are far too slow to move to air defense units themselves. With proper protection, you can move it to an area crowded with enemies and pelt them with flak shells. - This is bascially a "flying arbalest". It may be safe against any ground units trying to kill it like an arbalest, but it's still weak against air units. - If used for defensive purposes, aim your shells at a POC and try to get air protection. - Can also be used to seal off paths and make enemies unable to pass it without getting some damage. - The usual weaknesses of the Arbalest apply to the Vulture - Fragile, Limited range of fire, etc. WAR PIGEON (Influence: 16) ---------- Weapons: Bombardment Bombs Firepower: ******* Speed: *** Armor: *** Manuverability: ******* Range: * Overall: ******* Best For: Armor Piercing Air-To-Ground Bombardment Description: The only unit which can drop a endless payload of carpet bombs that ignores enemy armor and does heavy damage on anything that gets hit by it's carpet bombs. At crowded places with no air or anti air defense, the War Pigeon can wreck some major carnage. Again, it's helpless against air units trying to shoot it down. In my opinion, the War Pigeon is the most powerful Air-To-Ground air unit among the aviation. Unit Training: - A suicidal unit. Just rush into enemy forces and let loose your bombs. You don't need to worry about any unit that may be heavy armored, since the bombs explode with such force that the blast pierces through armor and deals damage to it's health. (Even if he has 999 armor, he takes full damage.) - Use it to weaken POC defenses. Even if there is air defense, ignore them, and if there is AA to back you up, even better. - If an enemy is poccing, send your pigs over and BOMBARD the poc! And have your allies attack the poccer, too. - They have a new purpose now -- to clear POCs of irritating Mantlets which are near invincible to even the most powerful guns of most units. - CYCLO-RAPTOR - HAWK (Influence: 2) ----- Weapons: Mounted Machine Gun, Anti-Air Missiles, Anti-Air Lasers Firepower: ******* Speed: ***** Armor: *** Manuverability: ******* Range: ****** (AA Missiles and Lasers), ** (Machine Gun) Overall: ****** Best For: Air-To-Air Firepower (Lasers recommended) Description: This fast air unit, designed for AA defense, and should be equipped with AA missiles or lasers for some major aerial carnage. Don't bother spending money on the machine guns, they're worthless. Anyway, best for hit and run, and it's incredible range enables it to strike air units from afar. AA lasers are the best AA weapons compared to the missiles. Although with a higher energy drain, it's range is great and the cooldown isn't that bad either. Either way, use it well and it would be a very deadly unit. Adjust the weapons according to your playing style -- Do you want it to do medium damage per second or so, or high damage per 3 seconds or higher? It has anti-air weapons for both catagories. Unit Training: - Fast and furious AA craft. With afterburners, these are the nightmare of all slow craft trying to escape. - Give a good sensor and any weapon that has LONG range, preferably AA lasers. - If facing against enemy AA, hit-and-run is your best bet, unless your aircraft has a lot of HP or armor to spare. - Always give afterburners if possible. However, if you can get a better AA hawk weapon for scarificing afterburners, do it, as the Hawk is naturally fast to outrun almost ANYTHING. (Except Falcons?) FALCON (Influence: 60) ------- Weapons: Lightning Gun Firepower: ******* Speed: ******* Armor: * Manuverability: ******* Range: ***** Overall: ****** 1/2 Best For: Armor Piercing Firepower (No matter may it be Anti-Air Or Versatile) Description: This is the fastest air unit available. It's lightning gun drains HP from bascially any unit, and it's armor piercing. The cooldown is 0.2 seconds, so don't be shocked when your falcon weapon states that it can only do 5 damage. In fact, it's endless, allowing it to be multiplied rapidly. Hit and run is best for these units. Also has the ability to CLOAK, and combine it with it's incredible speed and strong weapons, the Falcon is a slient air unit to be feared. Unit Training: - Equip your best weapon, no matter it may be AG, AA or V. The Falcon desprately needs a high damage weapon to zap a enemy dry as fast as possible. And it enables your falcon to level up much faster. - Falcons are not meant to have armor. In fact, falcons are too thin-skinned to have any armor, so always hit-and-run on enemy AA hunting you down. - Always get cloak for falcons, no matter what the situation. Uncloaked falcons stick out like a sore thumb, and the enemy doesn't need to have a good mouse hand to target you. - Consider the Falcon a VERY POWERFUL, yet VERY THIN air unit. (However, you can put armor on falcons if you actually can get a Mk3+ Falcon for sufficent space) - If your falcon's damage is 20 or higher, 10 seconds is all you need to kill virtually any air unit (Maybe with the exception of some organic fliers and some really high level air units), due to it's 0.25 second cooldown, it would do 80 damage per second-per falcon, and multiplied by 6 (Assuming you have 19 tactics or lower), and multipled again by 10, it would be 4800 damage, enough to tear any air unit up. However, have some other AA support you too, as most high level heroes' air units has more than a mere four thousand eight hundred hit points. (In my case, I have 7412++ HP on my owls =P) - I must highly stress on this - if you are fighting enemy air in a AA-vs-AA fight, please, target non-falcons first! Falcons have generally more HP even at lower levels, and sometimes they are more difficult to kill. Unless you are absolutely sure that the Falcons are used by someone with few MA (or if you think the Falcon is just plain too weak or your weapon is far too strong), concentrate on the other AAs (may it be Hawks Or Owls) first instead of the Falcons. - Cloaked falcons can be great recon for your faction, as they are difficult to target and virtually invisible, as they don't fiddle around unlike cloaked ground units. You can explore the map with this too. Wheeee ^___^! OWL (Influence: 30) --- Weapons: Versatile Laser, Anti-air cannon, Anti-air missiles Firepower: *** (Laser), ***** (AA cannon), ****** 1/2 (AA missiles) Speed: *** 3/4 Armor: **** Manuverability: ******* Range: ***** 1/2 (AA cannon and missiles), *** (Laser) Overall: ****** 1/2 Best For: Air-To-Air Firepower (Missiles Recommended) Description: This AA unit has one weapon which is a V-laser, but totally useless. The usefulness of the owl is to equip powerful AA cannons and missiles to decimate whole air squadrons. It's the king of AA, tied with the Hawks. However, the owls sacrifice speed for armor, which is in actual fact a very worthy trade. The range of it's weaponary is lower, but trade in for damage, it is better. Also can Detect cloaked and infiltrators, further adding to the usefulness of the Owl. Unit Training: - Give the best weapon you can, and whatever armor you can stick on Owls. They are meant to be heavy duty AA. - If possible, give Afterburners to Owls to increase it's speed. - The higher tech owl weapons can do up to 438 damage per shot! So train your owls up to size and watch them deal fearsome damage. - Most hawk-users are afraid of owls. Well, try not to chase Hawks around to often, their weapons have better range, although with lower damage. - Have Hawks back you up as AA, and the tag team can really deal some damage. - GAIA-RAPTOR - EAGLE (Influence: 7) ------ Weapons: Laser Cannon, Missile Pod Firepower: ****** (L/C), **** (M/P) Speed: **** Armor: *** 1/2 Manuverability: ******* Range: **** (Laser Cannon), ** (Missile Pod) Overall: ****** Best For: Air-To-Ground Firepower (Missiles recommended, but high-damage lasers are still extremely useful as Versatile firepower) Description: The eagle is designed for air to ground strikes, or in some cases, can strike air units too. The Laser Cannon has higher cooldown but more damage, but the Missile Pod has 1 second cooldown, and despite lower damage, can rain an endless swarm of missiles at adversaries, decimating them severely. Either way, it's up to you. Can equip "Megathrusters" for a better boost of speed compared to Afterburners. Unit Training: - Bascially, this is a pumped up Pelican, slower but more powerful. - ALWAYS give afterburners or megathrusters to Eagles, even if your weapon is going to be a weak weapon. - If you have a good power supply, equip the missiles, as they drain a lot of energy per shot and with 1 sec cooldown, you can deplete your power supply if you're not careful. - If not, give a good laser cannon and deal some damage, and in some cases, the laser cannons can shoot down enemy AA! - All Eagle lasers are Versatile, which means they strike both air and ground. Few missiles can attack air units, as almost all of them are only ground-based. CONDOR (Influence: 35) -------- Weapons: Energy balls, Heat-seeking Missiles, Fusion Storm Beam Cannon Firepower: **** (Energy balls and H/S missiles), ******* (Fusion Storm) Speed: ** Armor: **** 1/2 Manuverability: **** Range: **** (Energy balls and H/S missiles), ***** (FS) Overall: ****** 1/2 Best For: Fusion Storm, Aerial Carnage Description: This large, slow moving fortress exists for one thing and ONE thing only - to use it's Fusion Storm attack. Condors without Fusion storm are generally worthless, as their weapons have very high cooldown, despite being V-weaps. Fusion storm is a thick plasma beam that tears any air unit in it's path apart to bits. However, expert SG players can avoid fusion storms well. If you are lucky enough, air units that got in the way of the fusion storm will become a pile of metal on the ground. If not, well, too bad. It takes 3 minutes to charge any fusion storm up. NOTE: I consider the Fusion Storm Beam Cannon as a weapon for it's use, but it's a Miscellaneous item if you equip it at the Unit Lab. Unit Training: - For goodness sake, at all costs, GIVE it FUSION STORM! Condors without FS are generally worthless. - Don't charge into enemy lines without FS charged. This slow air unit takes forever to destroy ground units with it's 4 second cooldown weapons. - Give Afterburner if possible, but never sacrifice your FS or weapon for it. You need both a good weapon and Fusion Storm. - Have air units support you too. - This is the PREFERED unit against aircraft mobs, provided that Condors can actually survive three minutes to charge up their beam of death. - When aiming with FS, shoot the moment you see aircraft coming! Don't give the opposition any time to spread out and avoid multiple-kill combos. - If you face aircraft that spreads out, FS one-by-one and do it fast. However, if you are caught in this situation, escape if you can, or just plain get killed. (But make sure you use up your Fusion Storms before dying) - Against War Pigeon mobs, if you can get a squadron of Condors to launch their beams of death at the correct time when the pigs are gathered together, you can literally turn the whole mob into a overgrown hill of junk metal. - ANTI CONDOR TACTICS: I feel a bit ashamed outlining this section against the unit I'm giving tips on how to train it. But nonetheless, you can somehow find a solution of this loophole once I outline this anti-condor strategy to you. Ok, don't spread out yet. Just shoot the condors normally in a normal formation. Once you hear the condors opening and gathering energy (which means a pending fusion storm), SPREAD OUT (ALT+Q SCATTER FORMATION) immediately. The condor would have only aimed at one or two air units, and you will minimize your losses while destroying the condors. However, the condor-user may not have used all of his Fusion Storms. Beware. - GYRO-RAPTOR - ROC (Influence: 10) ---- Weapons: Transport Hold, Phasic Generator Firepower: N/A Speed: *** Armor: **** 1/2 Manuverability: ******* Range: N/A Overall: **** (Transport), ******* (Phasic) Best For: Unit Phasing (Phase Generator) Description: The Roc is a flying transport unit that can carry units over battlefields or phase phasic units on something or away from danger. If properly armored, the roc can take punishment and drop it's cargo instead of having the cargo die with it. A very useful unit if used properly. Favorite Strategies: Decoy Roc: Throw away your Roc's sensor and afterburner (damper in Roc terms). Then equip the heaviest armor you can afford (rocs can equip extremely heavy armor). Now give it a name like "I'm-Not-A-Phasic-Roc" and the enemy AA will shoot you because they thought it's a deceisive measure you've taken. Your heavily armored Roc should fly ahead of a real phasic Roc and draw fire from enemy anti-air. But this strategy may be foiled if use too often. Roc with Phasic Poccers: Simple strategy. Bring 5 phasic poccers and a phaser roc (This assumes you have 19 tactics or below), ride over to a poc at full speed, and phase your units over it immediately. If enemy AA is shooting at your Roc, I suggest you phase IMMEDIATELY once you are near the POC, before your Roc dies and you have phased nobody. =/ Unit Training: - This is a favored unit at transporting units across battlefields. - Best used if you have at least 20 tactics. That way, you can have one Phasic roc and 6 phasic units to phase across battlefields. (However, you still need to have the tech level to equip phasic plating and the phase generator =]) - Another way of using Rocs is to have 3 rocs to 3 arbs. Have the rocs carry the arbs around and arb whereever you fancy, preferably an area that ground units can't reach, and start arbbing. Even better if the rocs and arbs can phase. - It may be stupid, but sometimes, 6 rocs as a transport squadron can prove to be a good strategy to use these units. - NOTE: The Roc needs to be at least MK2 BEFORE it can PHASE anything, due to space constrictions! ALBATROSS (Influence: 25) ---------- Weapons: Anti-Ground Fireblast, Alt-charge (or air mines) Firepower: *** (Fireblast), ****** (Altcharge) Speed: **** Armor: *** Manuverability: ******* Range: *** (Fireblast), N/A for alt-charge Overall: ****** Best For: Aerial Mining Description: The Albatross is designed to fill the air with invisible alt charges that explode once enemy air units crash into them. Exploding altcharges damage anything, ally or enemy, in the blast. A good anti-air (not directly) unit that can ram into air units and release alt-charges for a kamikaze attack, but better suited to blanket the battlefield with deadly air mines. Note that excessive air mining can crash the server. Favorite Strategies - Albatross Ram: Gather your albs together and into an enemy aircraft and let loose air mines. They will crash into the enemy craft, causing damage to you and him. Able to spread major carnage among enemy air squadrons. Unit Training: - Never give the fireblast, ever. NEVER, ever. It's far too weak. - Give the best altcharge you can. And a good armor plating, too. - Form a line formation and start air mining. Spread out your mines, don't bunch them together. Layered air mines explode with the damage of one airmine. - As I said, excess altcharges (airmines) can crash the server, so try not to fill 1/2 of the map with airmines, or your comrades and your enemies will be so pissed at getting a loss for your dumb mistake. However, this can be a good thing if your faction is losing =/. - I don't know should I be outlining this, but DON'T STACK EXCESSIVE mines over an ally poc, especially when your faction has powerful AG (like War Pigeons) ready to bomb any enemy POCcers! Because enemy planes can trigger the mines over the POC, and while your allies' War Pigeons is in the thick blanket of mines and it gets triggered, the blast hurts the enemy hawks as well as the pigs themselves! And it's a great tragedy if the pigs die from the mine manipulation without stopping the poccers due to this dumb mistake. So, I strongly critise you spread your mines, not stack them, but if you want to stack mines over a POC, make sure enemies trigger them without ally aircraft caught in the blast. ================================================ Organic (Organic Weapon names are all made up) ================================================ - XENO-VENTUS - UBIK, TYR, HALTYR (Influence: 0, 40 and 80 respectively) ------------------ Weapons: Caustic Spit, Plasma Ball (50 tech level), Greater Plasma Ball (Tech 120) Firepower: *** (Caustic), **** (Plasma Ball), ***** (Greater Plasma Ball) Speed: *** (Ubik), **** (Tyr), **** 1/2 (Haltyr) Armor: *** (Ubik), *** 1/2 (Tyr), **** (Haltyr) Manuverability: ***** Range: **** (All weapons) Overall: ****** Best For: Versatile Firepower Description: A series of fast and deadly units, especially when you upgrade it's weaponary to another level. All weapons are versatile, enabling the Ubik family to be a very good versatile weapon alien. Recommnded that you pump your weaponary to at least the Plasma Ball for better damage and looks =). Hard to level up, however, you need some patience at doing so. Note: See SECTION 3 for true clarification on Ubik weapons. Unit Training: - Charge to the frontlines and start blasting opponents. - This unit is meant for pure firepower. Note that it is best trained when you put a lot of points to your EDUCATION or MECH APT, considering the fact that these two values decide on will your current Ubik/Tyr/Haltyr weapon change to another form. Also, Mech Apt increases your alien's HP and Education increases damage. However, note that the cooldown is still 3.1 seconds. But considering the damage, it's worth it. - At the start, Ubiks may seem useless, as it's 1st weapon (Caustic Spit, better known as 'blue balls' or 'snowballs') looks weak (when it really isn't) and it's small size makes it lame, but when you take the time and effort to train them (as I did), they'll either eventually switch to the plasma ball, or evolve to the meancing Tyr, or both! (In my case ^_^) - Always try to get Ubiks to Tyrs to make it look cooler and somehow, you will find that you will have an easier time training it, due to it's cool looks, damage and speed. Somehow, you will get motivated when you see the kangaroos (Tyrs) leap around and launching balls of plasma. Seriously. o_O Weapon Identification: Caustic Spit - Light blue-white ball. (Also known as "snowballs") Plasma Ball - Big light pink-whitish ball. Greater Plasma Ball - Big bright red ball. Fearsome ^_^. (A.k.a. Blood Ball) Species Identification: Ubik - Small little bug with one red eye. Obvious. Tyr - Black kangaroo-like alien with one red eye. Haltyr - A Tyr with one red eye and stands up. - XENO-HUMUS - SLANTH, CRUDGIN, ROUKE (Influence: 0, 40 and 80 respectively) ----------------------- Weapons: Acid Missile, Hyper Acid Blast (50), Greater Acid Ball (120) Firepower: *** (A/M), **** (HAP), ***** (GAB) Speed: * 1/2 (Slanth), ** (Crudgin), **** (Rouke) Armor: * (Slanth), *** (Crudgin and Rouke) Manuverability: ** (Slanth and Crudgin), **** (Rouke) IF WITH PHASIC ROC OR ORBUS: ***** (Slanth, Crudgin and Rouke) Range: ***** (All) Overall: ***** Best For: Long-ranged Non-restricted artillery firepower Description: These slow-moving aliens are actually alien artillery, launching acid balls over great distances, and it's extremely powerful. Upgrade at least to the Hyper Acid if possible, because it is more powerful and somehow can disgust your opponent out, especially if you are using a Rouke with the Hyper Acid. =P. The Slanth family is automatically phasic, allowing a compansation of it's pathetic speed. NOTE: SEE SECTION 3 FOR TRUE CLARIFICATION ON SLANTH WEAPONS. Unit Training: - Best for POC defense, as their long range acid missiles strike enemy ground from afar and alert you when an enemy is approaching a POC. - Better used if with a phasic unit, preferably an Orbus. - Like Vultures, use it to seal off paths and make sure enemy units cross it while getting blasted by your Slanths / Crudgins / Roukes. - POC Block can also be used with the fat Crudgin, however, note that although with a ton of HP, Crudgins have NO armor. Weapon Identifcation: Acid Missile - Yellow ball of acid. Hyper Acid Blast - A few white and sperm-like balls of acid. Eeewwww. =P Greater Acid Ball - A blue ball of acid. Species Identification: Slanth - Small little bug with two red 'claws'. Bascially a Crudgin that gone on a serious diet for a few months. ^_^ Crudgin - VERY fat pink bug with one red eye and two large claw-like thingies. Rouke - A one-eyed brown bug which has "wings" (it aint actually wings) and shoots its weapons from his butthole. LOL =D - XENO-MOTUS - PODA, KRITISK, MLORTHA (Influence: 0, 40 and 80 respectively) ----------------------- Weapons: Teeth Bite (Poda), Tentacle Whip (Kritsk), Tail Sting (Mlortha) Firepower: *** (TB), **** (TW), ***** (TS) Speed: **** (Poda and Kritisk), ***** (Mlortha) Armor: *** (Poda and Kritisk), **** (Mlortha) Manuverability: ***** (All) Range: * (All, and it's melee) Overall: ***** Best For: Ground-To-Ground Melee Firepower Description: These are the melee fighters of the alien army. These attack in a fearful CD rate, and it's so fast and furious that they can chew down a whole army of light infantry instantly. Also moves very fast. It's weapons are already set, so you can't change them even if you have 120 tech level. However, the damage still increases as your alien's tech level rises. Unit Training: - Rush to the enemy forces and whack whatever unit you fancy. These fearsome aliens attack with a low CD yet with high damage. (Even at low levels o.O) - Upgrade to at least the Kritisk if possible. It's really powerful. - Sneak to the back lines of the enemy and start biting enemy strategic units to bits and pieces. - One advantage of the Poda family aliens is that they have tons and tons of HP to take hits, use this to your advatage. - Use these units to clear mines. It's high HP can take mines and even if it's electropulse mines, organic units would not be affected due to the fact they are "living" and that they're not dependable on a energy generator to continue on fighting. Weapon Identification: Teeth Bite - The Poda opens it's acid mouth and bites. You can see some sort of green thingy. Treat it like a hydralisk's (Starcraft Broodwar) acid spore attack, but it's melee, not ranged. Tentacle Whip - The Kritsk swings its tentacles at it's enemy. Tail Sting - The Mlortha whacks the opponent and stings it with it's tail. It's like doing a blow job =]. Species Identification: Poda - Brown cockroach-like bug. Kritisk - A cockroach-like alien that has two tentacles. Mlortha - Scorpion like alien with one green eye and very tiny footprints. :P - XENO-IGNUS - OIZY, BOREAS, ERIS, LYSSA (Influence: 0, 30, 60 and 90 respectively) -------------------------- Weapons: Flamethrower (All) Firepower: *** (Oizy), **** (Boreas, Eris), ***** (Lyssa) Speed: **** (Oizy, Boreas, Eris), ***** (Lyssa) Armor: ** (Oizy), ** 1/2 (Boreas and Eris), **** (Lyssa) Manuverability: ******* (All, because it flies, allowing free movement =]) Range: ** (All, and because it's almost melee) Overall: **** 3/4 Best For: Flaming Air-To-Ground Firepower Description: A series of flying aliens that burns ground units to bits with it's deadly flames generated through it's tail. Although not that well armored, the flames have low cooldown and deal major damage. This is the only family of aliens to have four stages, and therefore only three evolutions per species. Unit Training: - Rush to the enemy lines and flame any unit you fancy, and try to have AA back you up, or if enemy AA is chasing you, run to any ally GA, if there is any. - Oizy family aliens can also fly to the backlines of enemies and start spewing flames at vulnerable units that can't shoot aerial units. - If your Oizy-family aliens are strong enough, you may even consider killing enemies which are heavily armored and usually can't retaliate back at flying attackers. Weapon Identification: For all of it's species, is a spray of flames from their tails. Species Identification: Oizy - Big red-eyed flying "snake". Boreas - Red-eyed flying bat. Eris - Large-winged, red-eyed flying bat. Lyssa - A bat and some sort of an eagle combined for this red-eyed, bat-winged alien. - XENO-FRIGNUS - MANTA, ONNIR (New aliens in commercialized version) (Influence: 0 and 60 respectively) ---------------------------------------------------- Weapons: Green Acid Blast, White Acid Blast (Tech Level 50), Acidball Swarm (Tech Level 120) Firepower: * (Green Acid Blast), ** (White Acid Blast), ** 3/4 (AcidBall Swarm) Speed: *** (Manta and Onnir) Armor: ***** (Manta and Onnir) Manuverability: ******* (Manta and Onnir) Range: *** (Manta and Onnir) Overall: *** Best For: Air-To-Ground Firepower (weak though), Cloak Detect, Anti-Airminer Description: The only reason that you want this alien is that it's main thing it's supposed to do is a natural "Detect" function that reveals enemy cloakers, infiltrators and camouflaged units. It's too weak to do any attack, but the tech 50 weapon may be powerful enough to at (the very) least, slaughter arbs, ballistas and trebuchets. Also, Mantas/Onnirs have a better purpose of clearing enemy mines, due to their large amount of health. Unit Training: - Best used for it's Detect abilty that detects both Cloak and Infiltrators. Otherwise, it's weapon is very weak, but it should do good against any unit, since to me, they somehow can deal damage to even a squad of Mk5 Imps. - Another good fact is that high level mantas and onnirs can own the HEAL ability to heal any infantry or organic unit!! Wow! Guess what? Due to the nature of organic units (unlimited energy), you can heal forever! - Even at low levels, Mantas are fearsome. At what terms you say? You can abuse their amount of HP to clear enemy airmines! Or when enemy Albatrosses are mining the air, fly your Mantas/Onnirs over and delibrately detonate the airmines! The blast may hurt your manta/onnir badly, but the Albatross will also take the damage, and albatrosses are generally weaker than your aliens. This strategy is called "Using The Enemy's Technique Against Itself." Rather, it can be "Turning the Albatross mines against the miner". It can be done with any aerial unit, but Mantas have large amounts of HP for your abuse than any other aviation. What's more? If your Mantas/Onnirs have the HEAL ability, you can clear mines and make your mantas heal each other (automatically?), then you can clear again with fresh Mantas/Onnirs. w00t. Weapon Identification: Green Acid Blast - Like the Albatrosses' Air to Ground weapon, a green blast, except that it rapid-fires a few green blasts instead, but counts as one hit. White Acid Blast - The Slanth family's 2nd weapon, from the air. Acidball Swarm - A strand of long green balls hitting an opponentt. Species Identification: Manta: Flying stingray-like alien. Onnir: Seems to be a flying alien formed totally out of dried leaves and with a red eye. Looks like a moth (NOT BEHEMOTH). - XENO-FRAME - ABOMINATION (Alien only availble through renewal cards) --------------------------------------------------------- Weapons: Claw Fists Firepower: ***** Speed: *** Armor: **** Manuverability: ***** Range: * (Because of Melee) Overall: ***** Best For: Versatile Melee Firepower, Earthquaker Description: Abominations are mutant Revenants that are much bigger, and extremely scary looks and weapons which deal insane damage, and can also hit air with his fists! (But with a fraction of the ground damage, whew!) All of it's "biodrives", or Abomination Hearts, give them natural anti-grav, making them able to avoid mines. What's more? The Abomination can CAMOUFLAGE and EARTHQUAKE like the Revenant themselves! SCARY! However, the usual drawbacks of the Revenant apply to this - melee weapons that make ranged units strike them without fear of them punching back. Unless it's too slow to avoid the Abomination's deadly claws, the range weapon unit can avoid retaliation, provided he moves out of the way of the Abomination's fists all of the time. Unit Training: - To the front lines the Abomination goes. Also a good unit at POC defense with it's fearsome fist weapons that deal deadly damage. - All of the Abomination's Claw Fists are Versatile, meaning that they strike both air and ground at the same time. However, air damage is significantly lower compared to ground damage. - Abomination's specialized natural Anti-Gravity ability gives them NO PROTECTION against EARTHQUAKEs, due to the fact that players will abuse the fact of the Abomination's anti-grav and start to Earthquake like there's no tomorrow. Whew, that's all. 3. Ubik and Slanth Weaponary ----------------------------- A guy on IRC, called Northy`-, claimed that you need to qualify for a certain amount before you can get the new balls for the Ubik and Slanth's families. If it doesn't work, find him on Galaxynet Channel #shatteredgalaxy and his nick is Northy`-. :P The formula is (Education+MechApt)/2 + Unit Level To get the second ball (Plasma Ball and Hyper Acid), you have to qualify at a value of 80, which means that (Edu+MA)/2 + Unit Level must equal to 80. For the third ball (Greater Plasma Ball and Greater Acid Ball), you have to qualify at a value of 170, which means that (Edu+MA)/2+Unit Level must equal to 140. For example, My Edu is 60, and my MA is 50, and my Tyr is at level 20. (EDU+MA)/2+Unit Level = (60+50)/2+20 = (110/2)+20 = 55+20 = 75 I nearly qualify for the Plasma ball for my Tyr. If my Edu is 120, my MA is 100, and my Tyr is at level 60. (120+100)/2+60 = 110+60 = 170 I qualify for the Greater Plasma Ball. If my Edu is 80, my MA is 70, and my Tyr is at level 50. (80+70)/2+50 = 75+50 = 125 I still didn't qualify for the Greater Plasma Ball, but I get the Plasma Ball. If my Edu is 40, my MA is 30, and my Ubik is at level 16... (40+30)/2+16 = 35+16 = 51 I don't qualify for anything. I need 29 more levels. If my Edu is 60, my MA is 30, and my Ubik is at level 25... (60+30)/2+25 = 90/2 + 25 = 45 + 25 = 65 + 5 = 70 I still need 10 more points qualify for the Plasma Ball. Thanks to Northy`- for clarification! However, it's untested, email me if you think it's wrong. This was revised on November 30. UPDATE: Both the Plasma Ball/Hyper Acid and Greater Plasma Ball/Greater Acid Ball formulas has been personally tested by me and it works as it should. Thanks Northy`- once again. (he is xZerocoolx on SG =D) 4. Rank Insignias ------------------ INFANTRY MOBILE AVIATION ORGANIC 1 Slime Soot Puff Puddle 2 Mud Ash Draft Brook 7 Dirt Cinder Breeze Stream 12 Earth Ember Zephyr River 17 Clay Glow Wind Eddy 21 Slate Scintilla Gust Wave 25 Basalt Spark Simoom Gush 29 Granite Flash Gale Geyser 33 Scoria Flare Squall Alluvion 37 Lava Flame Storm Flood 41 Magma Fire Whirlwind Torrent 45 Obsidian Blaze Tonardo Tsunami 50 Tremor Pyrotechnic Cyclone Whirlpool 54 Landslide Conflagration Tempest Vortex 58 Avalanche Hellfire Typhoon Maelstrom 60 Earthquake* Inferno Hurricane Charybdis * For the honor of the great infRaboy that got levels of 60/60/60/60, Nexon has decided to change the level 60 Earthquake rank to infRaboy. INFANTRY ranks have a relation to EARTH. MOBILE ranks have a relation to FIRE. AVIATION ranks have a relation to WIND. ORGANIC ranks have a relation to WATER. HOW THE INSIGNIAS LOOK LIKE Level 1-12 INFANTRY: A small wedge of earth, layered per level. MOBILE: A small explosion-like spark, more per level. AVIATION: Horn-like blue symbol, layered per level. ORGANIC: A puddle-like symbol, more per level. Level 17-29 INFANTRY: A earthern wheel, more will appear per level. MOBILE: A 7-shaped spark, more will appear per level. AVIATION: A diamond-like blue wind symbol, more will appear per level. ORGANIC: Wierd 8-like dark blue water symbol, more will appear per level. Level 33-45 INFANTRY: A small earthern orb, more will appear per level. MOBILE: Some sort of explosive fire symbol, more will appear per level. AVIATION: Some whirlwind-like symbol, more will appear per level. ORGANIC: A whirlpool-like symbol with some sort of X, more will appear per level. Level 50-60 INFANTRY: A sparkling symbol of a wheel-in-a-rectangle, more appears per level. MOBILE: A swirling fire symbol, more appears per level. AVIATION: A X-shaped symbol with a cyclone in the middle, more appears per level. ORGANIC: A whirlpool-like symbol which is much more realistic, more appears per level. 4.5. Leveling Up ----------------- When a unit levels up, you yourself will also get XP, which is the new level of that particular unit squared. Example: A unit levels from 4-5. The Hero will get 5 squared EXP for that particular division, which means 25 EXP Points. All your units which level will give that amount of XP to that particular division. When your current XP equals or exceeds your "XP TO NEXT LEVEL", you will level up by 1. Note that all divisions have a limit of 60 (so far) and units have a level limit of 60, too. It is even lesser on the newbie planets, so make sure you plan your leveling up well. Because, if you maxed out, at let's say, infantry, and you're level 60, and you have infantry that can still level up, you WILL NOT GAIN THE XP even if your infantry gains any more levels, because it's already the limit. Of course, when you level up, you gain 1 attribute point. :) You have to know that, a double, triple or even a quadra-level up is always possible, provided you can get so many units to actually level up. Anyway, battles are always the sole way of gaining precious experience points (well.. that's what XP means) for yourself and your units. Units get more powerful as they level, so as your hero. At level 49 onwards, you won't get anymore attribute points. Take note of that. It's near impossible to get two stats to 120 unless you reincarnate twice or more. (If you level from 49-50, you STILL GET the stat point, but you won't get any after that.) 5. Statistics And What They Mean ---------------------------------- These are the stats shown when you hit F4. MISCELLANEOUS STATS Prestige - How prestigious you are in your battles. Battles won increase it's value, battles lost decreases it's value. Bascially a "show off" stat. Getting disconnected or purposely disconnecting in the middle of the battle decreases this value too. Honor - For every 100 honor, you get a 1% HP bonus on your units. Going into alien caves decreases your honor by -1. Record ###/### - Shows your number of Won Battles/Lost Battles. Faction - Your faction, of course =p. Title - If you are a council member, you may have a title, which will be displayed over here. Regiment - A sub faction, or a clan, if you belong into one, it's name will be displayed over here. Superior - If you served under a player, his or her name will be displayed over here. Reincarnation - At the time of this writing, reincarnation is not currently available yet. Reincarnation is your hero being reborn into a new hero, leaving their current body and becoming another freshman in the newbie planet. However, they keep their accomplishments and they get extra stats points. Heroes level 50 or higher can reincarnate. The value shown here shows how many times you have reincarnated. Reincarnated heroes keep their record, prestige, honor and medals, but they lose everything else (units, resources, current statistics, faction status and levels). They get points for every division at level 50 or higher. Medals - Every time you get 1000 honor (the maximum), you get a new medal. Being an overlord or a council may also grant you a medal, too. They can be considered symbols of your authority. THE FOUR IMPORTANT STATS (Note: All these stats have a limit of 120) Tactics: How many units you can bring into battle. Every 20 tactics grants you an extra unit to be brought into battle. When pumped to the maximum, you can bring 12 units to battle. Also used to decide who shall be the Battlefield Commander of the battle. Every 10 tactics give you a 5 HP bonus too. Clout: Your political strength. This value decides how fast you can get to the better chassis types and upgrade your units to the higher marks. Clout is calculated into your current "Influence" in the Unit Factory, which is your current level in that division added to half your current clout. When upgrading units, the U.Q. (Upgrade Quotient Or Unit Quality) is decided by your unit's level and half your clout. When pumped to the maximum, you can buy every unit in the factory and even upgrade your units to the maximum marks. (Provided that their level is high enough) Education: How educated your hero is in machinery and new technology. The higher your education, the more advanced technology your units can be equipped with. If pumped to the maximum, you can have access to ALL weapons that is available, provided that your unit's level is high enough. Also used to calculate whether does your alien have the qualification for a better weapon. Mech Apt (Mechanical Aptitude): How good your hero is at installing things and maintaining weapons, power systems and so fourth on your units. Higher Mech Apt increases your unit's weight limit, allowing heavier weapons to be put on units. When in the maximum, your unit's weight limit will double. Also used to calculate whether does your alien have the qualification for a better weapon. RESOURCES Money: Cash. Everything you buy or upgrade requires cash. It's very common, so shortage of money is almost impossible. Ore: Raw metal ore. All metal objects require ore. Rare metals are created from the fusion and fission of the metal molecules. The rarest metals require a lot of ore to be generated, and sometimes, the amount is very small, compared to the amount of ore used to create it, while the more common metals require little ore. Luckily, metal ore is quite common and cheap. Silicon: A type of plastic. All circuitury requires silicon. The more powerful computers and energy supplies require a large amount of silicon. Also not as common as ore. Uranium: Radioactive metal. This metal, with it's nuclear-like nature, generates large amounts of energy when it's split through nuclear fission or nuclear fusion. All power supplies need uranium. Unfourtunately, Uranium is the rarest of all the resources. Sulphur: This yellow substance is used to make advanced gunpowder and ammunition for unit weapons. Also needed for targeting systems. However, Sulphur is very common, despite it's usefulness. !!UPDATE!!: Those who pump their education to high levels are usually those who get their resources depleted even faster than it should be, for the fact they'll get the more powerful, and obviously, more resource-hungry equipment for their units, unless you prefer to stick to your lower tech weapons. UPDATE 2: Resources are obsolete in the V 1.03 patch. The only remaining resource is Money. To gain resources.. there are several ways. - Go to the Resource Exchange Market to buy resources using Money. (Obsolete after V 1.03.) - Get tribute. (Every 15 minutes, you will get tribute, in either Reduced Tribute if you didn't fight a battle yet, Normal Tribute if you are fighting in caves, and Extra Tribute if you are fighting enemy factions. The amount you get depends on your activeness and how much land your faction currently owns, and the amount of resources contained in that particular land.) !! UPDATE 3 !! : Now tribute has been reduced to a mere 50 dollars per 15 minutes, provided you have fought a battle, no matter in alien caves, alien provinces (land) or real battles. (VERSION 1.03 PATCH) - Harvest resources using a unit with a CARGO PACK. (Usually infantry) When a infantry with a cargo pack walks over battlefield resources, it'll collect it and fill up. However, it is very risky -- if the infantry unit dies, the resources it collected are disintigrated. (Obsolete After Patch 1.03?) - Fight (and try to win) battles. An easy way to get resources, no? :) 6. Question & Answers ----------------------- LIST OF Q&As Q. What faction should I join? Q. Pegasuses are no match for Leviathans? (Or anything related to this?) Q. I equipped a GA weapon, they send ground after me, I equipped a GG weapon, their air is after me, I equipped a V-weapon, it's far too weak... Q. My units came in, they got mobbed, they died! Q. If I am forced to choose between H-armor and H-weapon, which should I choose? Q. My arbs are hiding, no enemy spotted them yet, but why did Gryphons/Pegasuses manage to find me and blast me to pieces? Q. What are "Strategic Units"? Q. What should I do with level 1 new units? Q. If I have a level 20 unit that needs 7-8 levels to upgrade to another chassis, but I can buy the new chassis, what should I do? Q. Arrggh! A fusion storm wiped my whole air squad out! Q. Why do I see a unit (no matter it may be ally nor enemy) totally motionless on the battlefield, not shooting anything? Q. What are those wierd white geysers? Q. My units are walking through enemy arb shelling, and they are cloaked, but why do they still take damage? Q. What's with the long names on some people's units? Q. What should I say when the time is less than 30 seconds and my faction won? Q. There are two kinds of arbalest shells are there? One which the Arbalest uses and the other type the Vulture uses. How do I identify them? Q. What is a faction? Q. Why are Battlefield Commanders putting Auto-Reject on battles when 3 minutes are left in battles? Q. What are the four council powers? Q. Then, what about faction relations? Q. Could a relation be like that forever? Q. What's the use of Faction Relations? Q. Could a relation be like that forever? Q. What is Cooldown? Q. What is Damage? Q. What are those teleporting units and how do they do that? Q. Are there four types of weapons? Q. What is a POC and how long does it take to capture one? Q. How do Attackers and Defenders win the battle? Q. What's Engine Strain and what does power do? Q. What faction should I join? -------------------------------- A: It's entirely up to you. Go on an IRC channel and ask for any opinions of the different factions. Note that no matter what the faction is, winning is always possible, and there is no faction that never loses. Q. Pegasuses are no match for Leviathans? (Or anything related to this?) ------------------------------------------ A: Nope, if the pegs keep the heat up, even the Leviathans can be slaughtered. So as Ghasts vs. Behemoths. Q: I equipped a GA weapon, they send ground after me, I equipped a GG weapon, their air is after me, I equipped a V-weapon, it's far too weak.. ------------------------------------------------------ A: This is a common problem of weapon choices. Always give a GA or GG weapon unless your V-weap is powerful, even if their target choices are pretty limited. You have to have your allies help you against targets you can't hit, or pray that the enemy doesn't have air / ground that noticed your units can't attack them. Q: My units came in, they got mobbed, they died! ------------------------------------------------- A: Too bad. Portal mobs are fairly common at these times. Q: If I am forced to choose between H-armor and H-weapon, which should I choose? --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A: If the armor adds good protection and health, give the armor. If the weapon is very powerful, use the weapon. It's best that you can have both, seriously. Q: My arbs are hiding, no enemy spotted them yet, but why did Gryphons/Pegs manage to find me and blast me to pieces? ------------------------- A: It's either that they are arb hunting, or they spotted a suspicious unit using their red eye and decided to check it out. There is no guarantee that strategic units last through the whole 20 minutes of the battle. Q: What are "Strategic Units"? -------------------------------- A: Arbalests, Ballistas, Trebuchets, Spectres, or whatsoever unit that can make a big difference in a battle without dealing damage directly through "Attack". Q: What should I do with level 1 new units? --------------------------------------------- A: Train them up in alien caves till they're about 3-4, and send them out to shoot some real units. Q: If I have a level 20 unit that needs 7-8 levels to upgrade to another chassis, but I can buy the new chassis, what should I do? ------------------------------------ A: Upgrade the unit to the new chassis. The upgraded unit carries over their levels, stats and tech levels, enabling more access to the more advanced weapons, making it more useful than newbie new chassises. (For example, train a spirit up to an app instead of buying apps. Only buy apps if you can buy both but own neither. I mean, if you can buy both the Spirit and the Appraition, but don't have both, don't attempt to buy spirits to train up to size - it's time-consuming and stupid, just buy apps.) Q: Arrggh! A fusion storm wiped my whole air squad out! --------------------------------------------------------- A: Just your luck. ALWAYS spread out and FLY AWAY as fast as you can when fighting Condors to prevent their FS beam attack from catching multiple targets in the blast. Q: Why do I see a unit (no matter it may be ally nor enemy) totally motionless on the battlefield, not shooting anything? ---------------------------------------- A: He's most likely out of energy. I prefer to call these units "drained". However, it isn't impossible that the person is faking drain units. Q: What are those wierd white geysers? ---------------------------------------- A: Just a decoration on the battlefield. It stumped me once before. Q: My units are walking through enemy arb shelling, and they are cloaked, but why do they still take damage? ----------------------------- A: This is a realistic game. When your uncloaked allies get pelted by arb shells, anything that goes through the explosions, cloak or infil, as long as it's an enemy unit to the arbalest, gets hit by blast damage. However, if the area clears of the uncloaked units, the cloaks and infils can travel through without being pelted with shells. Q: What's with the long names on some people's units? ------------------------------------------------------- A: You can use longer names when upgrading units to higher marks or when buying them, but not when equipping them. Q: What should I say when the time is less than 30 seconds and my faction won? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A: Most probably, say "Good Game ". If you are bad, spam about " ARE LOOOOSSSSEEEEEERRRRRSSSSSSS" =). However, it makes you unpopular and gives you many enemies. That's the case with me. (Ask xEvilchampx) Q: There are two kinds of arbalest shells are there? One which the Arbalest uses and the other type the Vulture uses. How do I identify them? ------------------------------------------------ A: Vulture artillery shells have low CD (about 1.5 Cooldown) while Arbalest shells have around 2.3 CD. Estimate and see how many explosions occur whitin a few seconds and you know it. However, Vulture range is short compared to Arbalest range, and if it's vultures that are pouring shells, you will be able to find them nearby. You should know how long is 1 second. =) Q: What is a faction? ----------------------- A: How should I say it?.. Just a country fighting for dominance for a planet between four other factions. Q: Why are Battlefield Commanders putting Auto-Reject on battles when 3 minutes are left in battles? ----------------------------- A: It's not them. The battle system so far will reject any players which try to enter at the last 3 minutes, or 180 seconds for the matter. Q: What are the four council powers? --------------------------------------- A: They are: Shout - Transfer a message to all faction members regardless of location, Martial Law - Faction Members are barred from alien caves, can be toggled, Kill/Punishment - Declares a faction member unruly to his own faction, and he can be targeted by ally units even if his TK option is OFF, Health Bonus - The council members get more health on their units. Q: Then, what about faction relations? --------------------------------------- A: They are: Enemy - War against each other. No friendlyness. When you walk into enemy land, you fight it, and vice versa. We Offer Cease Fire - Two factions decide to stop attacking each other for now. However, this is only council based, in other words, the faction members of each faction can still attack each other. Neutral - Like Ceasefire, two factions decide to stop attacking each other. Also, each faction member can walk into each other's land without starting a war, however, they can still Attack if they wanted to. We Offer Alliance - Same as Neutral, and the one receiving the request for an alliance can decide whether to ally with the other faction or not. Ally - Total friendlyness. Faction members of two factions can walk into each other's land without starting a fight (they can't), and in battle, the allies are treated as those of the same faction, except that the Battlefield Commander is respective for both sides. In other words, two factions as one. Battle Size is also expanded to 32, for the fact that 16 people are participating in a battle from each alliance side. Here's a small chart I made: Ally => Alliance Offered => Neutral => Ceasefire => Enemy Peace ===========> Unstable Peace ================> War Q: Could a relation be like that forever? ------------------------------------------ A: For the Ceasefire and above, it's impossible. For a set amount of time, faction relations may drop by one, and eventually, you will reach Enemy state, and it's possible to be enemies forever, though. Q: What's the use of Faction Relations? ---------------------------------------- A: In desperate situations, like a dominant superpower is overtaking the whole map, and the three other factions are powerless to stop it, maybe two of the three or all of them will ally or CF with each other to take on the superpower. This is just one example of the ever changing universe of SG, you never know what is going to happen next. Q: What is Cooldown? --------------------- A: "Reloading Time" is another term for this. It is how long the weapon needs to cool itself down for another shot to prevent wear and tear from overheating. For example, a H-Machine Gun (fake weapon, BTW) has 120 damage and a 2.0 sec cooldown, that means that once it shoots, it needs 2 secs to cooldown and shoot again. Note that low cooldown weapons are actually devastating compared to high cooldown weapons, even if the damage is much higher. Another theory for Cooldown is when missiles are given to Pegasuses. When it shoots, the driver inside it reloads another missile and shoots it again. Well, it's unreal, but who cares about all these, Cooldown is just the time pause between weapon bursts. Q: What is Damage? ------------------- A: Don't you know?.. Well, it's the amount of hurt it does to an enemy unit. The damage is subtracted from the enemy unit's health. However, damage is reduced through armor. Once health reaches 0, the unit explodes and dies. Q: What are those teleporting units and how do they do that? ------------------------------------------------------------- A: That is called "Phasing" or teleporatation. To phase, you need.. Infantry: Phase Factiliator or Phasic Biodrive. However, spirits and apps are automatically phasic without any help. Mobile: Phasic Plating. Aviation: Phasic Plating. (Yes, it's possible to phase aircraft, if you can find the weight and space to put the plating.) Organic: Only the Slanth can phase, and they are automatically phasic. Then, you need an Orbus or a Roc with a Phase Generator. Now use the Roc/Orbus and phase your units through large distances. Q: Are there four types of weapons? ------------------------------------- A: Actually, five types. Energy Weapons: Mostly lasers, these weapons can shoot a beam of intense radiation from great distances, and a low cooldown make them fearful weapons. However, their energy drain is highest among all the weapons. Missile Weapons: Missiles or rockets. These are explosives placed inside a metal projectile that is launched forward to a target and explodes in great force. The impact and blast adds to the damage. A high Cooldown rate is a weakness of Missile weapons, but it makes it up for a slightly lower energy drain, medium range and high damage. (2nd highest energy drain BTW) Ballistic Weapons: The most common type of weapon, involving machine guns, rifles, sniper rifles, tank cannons and maybe more. These are mostly shells or bullets fired from it's gun and it hits the target with great damage. It mostly relies on kinetic (movement) energy to penetrate the target's armor and damage circuits inside the unit. Medium damage, cooldown and energy drain. Good range too. Flame Weapons: Mostly Flamethrowers. These fire weapons generate fire blasts that is able to singe multiple units at a time. The intense heat of the fire is able to melt armor and deal damage to the inner computing systems whitin the unit, doing extra hurt. A very high damage ratio is a fearful factor of fire weapons. Low cooldown and energy drain too, but the range is also very low. Melee Weapons: Fists, claws, swords, spikes, teeth, or anything that strikes melee. (Face to face with target) Using brute physical strength, units wield melee weapons that cuts into a unit doing extreme damage. Very, very deadly damage is a feared factor for melee weapons, low cooldown and very low energy drain too. But the range, prior to the fact it's melee, it's lowest, as you need to get toe-to-toe with a target to swing your melee weapon at it. Q. What is a POC and how long does it take to capture one? ----------------------------------------------------------- A. Point Of Contention that takes 45 seconds to be captured. In the v. 1.02 patch, it has been decreased to 35 seconds. The Crater (Land 000044) has since became a bloodbath province (latest 30/4/02), and there's only one Point Of Contention, but you need 2 minutes and 30 seconds to capture it. Difficult, but true. Q. How do Attackers and Defenders win the battle? -------------------------------------------------- Attacker: 1. Capture all POCs or hold the majority till the end Defender: 1. Destroy all Attackers 2. Hold equal or majority of the POCs till the end As you can see, Attackers have a slight disadvantage. However, the defenders will be kept busy as they need to recapture POCs captured by the Attackers. Q. What's Engine Strain and what does Power do? ------------------------------------------------ It means that the engine is overworked. It happens when your engine's power rating is lower than the unit's total weight of equippment it can currently carry. The engine will need extra effort to push the unit along, increasing energy drain. In other words, choose your engine wisely, especially for chassises that are heavy e.g. Behemoths. Power is the "Strength" of the engine, whether is it able to support the whole laden weight of your unit. Low power can be disasterous in a lot of situations (POWER is not ENERGY), with your energy drain increased, you can be forced to retreat out or run to a methane/battery pad faster than usual (without Engine Strain), or your units will run out of energy and become free kills instead. UPDATE: Power in V 1.03 of SG has a new purpose -- as all mobile units can have the booster ability just by having an engine, the Power rating will decide how fast your unit will move when you turn on booster. There's still the Turbo Booster, but that will just consume weight, space and complexity because your own engine has inherited the Booster ability and you don't need another device for the booster speed. (There's no such thing as double boosters, hell no :P) Because of that, MOBILE and AVIATION units now have their respective engines, instead of sharing the same types of engines. (Aviation having autobooster? Hell no.) Although they're of the same name, picture and provides the same HP and power (i think), their names have been seperated by adding an "A" for aviation units. (E.g. AH-Dorian Light Drive) 7. How Aliens Evolve And How Your Stats Can Affect Aliens ----------------------------------------------------------- As the date of this writing (Nov 30 2001, Singapore), aliens evolve when you are offline for 3 hours. Logging on during the 3 hours will restart the timer. Also, if your alien qualifies for a new weapon, it would also change during the three hours. In the past, aliens evolve during server resets, but it's different now. Your MECH APT increases your alien's HP. The more MA you have, the more your alien's health will increase. Your EDUCATION increases the damage your alien does. In other words, if you pump it to a full 120, your aliens will be extremely fearsome. The sub-species of the aliens are Primus, Amplus, Magnus and Maximus for the Slanth, Ubik and Poda. The oizy's sub-species are Prima, Ampla and Magna. The last sub-species evolution is always Haltyr-Extremeus, Rouke-Extremus, Mlortha-Extremus and Lyssa-Extrema. Does your alien qualify for a new form? It solely depends on your alien's U.Q. In these lists, it shows the different forms and their UQ needed. Obvious Fact: To get the Extreme-Evolutions, you need 120 clout. (duh) FORMAT: Name And Stage-U.Q. Needed A reminder, UQ is 1/2 clout+Unit Level UBIK-FAMILY SLANTH-FAMILY Ubik-Primus-0 Slanth-Primus-0 Ubik-Amplus-10 Slanth-Amplus-10 Ubik-Magnus-20 Slanth-Magnus-20 Ubik-Maximus-30 Slanth-Maximus-30 Tyr-Primus-40 Crudgin-Primus-40 Tyr-Amplus-50 Crudgin-Amplus-50 Tyr-Magnus-60 Crudgin-Magnus-60 Tyr-Maximus-70 Crudgin-Maximus-70 Haltyr-Primus-80 Rouke-Primus-80 Haltyr-Amplus-90 Rouke-Amplus-90 Haltyr-Magnus-100 Rouke-Magnus-100 Haltyr-Maximus-110 Rouke-Maximus-110 Haltyr-Extremeus-120 Rouke-Extremeus-120 OIZY-FAMILY PODA-FAMILY Oizy-Prima-0 Poda-Primus-0 Oizy-Ampla-10 Poda-Amplus-10 Oizy-Magna-20 Poda-Magnus-20 Boreas-Prima-30 Poda-Maximus-30 Boreas-Ampla-40 Kritisk-Primus-40 Boreas-Magna-50 Kritisk-Amplus-50 Eris-Prima-60 Kritisk-Magnus-60 Eris-Ampla-70 Kritisk-Maximus-70 Eris-Magna-80 Mlortha-Primus-80 Lyssa-Prima-90 Mlortha-Amplus-90 Lyssa-Ampla-100 Mlortha-Magnus-100 Lyssa-Magna-110 Mlortha-Maximus-110 Lyssa-Extrema-120 Mlortha-Extremeus-120 MANTA-FAMILY (May Be Wrong) ABOMINATION-FAMILY Manta-Primus-0 Abomination-Primus-0 Manta-Amplus-10 Abomination-Amplus-30 Manta-Magnus-20 Abomination-Magnus-60 Manta-Maximus-40 Abomination-Maximus-90 Manta-Extremeus-50 Abomination-Extremeus-120 Onnir-Primus-70 Onnir-Amplus-90 Onnir-Magnus-100 Onnir-Maximus-110 Onnir-Extremeus-120 Q. What types of armor are there? ----------------------------------- There are four types of armor: (This applies to INFANTRY ONLY) Ablative: Provides no armor protection, but gives a lot of HP. Kevlar: Won't give much HP, but gives superior armor. Hybrid: Gives balanced HP and armor, and deflects laser damage by 25%. (I think.) Morganian: Gives a lot of HP and armor, the best type of armor. They are further divided into five catagories: Minimal - The lightest of the five, but gives little protection. Light - Gives more protection, but heavier. Standard - A basic version of that type of armor, no more light or heavy. Heavy - Usually very heavy, but gives a lot of protection. Ultimate - The ultimate in that type of armor. Gives most protection, but is the heaviest, too. They are FURTHER divided into Light, Normal and Heavy armor. (L-, No letter and H-.) For mobile and aviation, they have a large, large variety of armours that I need to research for some time before putting them here. Sorry. -___-; Q. Should I go for more armor or HP? ------------------------------------- My recommendation is to balance both armor out. However, strongly consider my words: do you want your units to take less damage or able to take more damage without dying? Your answer will decide should you go for more armor or life. For those lighter chassises who can't put much armor, put a high HP armor for them. But for the heavier chassises, give them more protection. But overall, balancing HP and armor still rules. =P 8. Miscellaneous Skills and Techniques ---------------------------------------- ================= Setting/Using Formations ================= Control+Any letter makes you set a custom formation on how your current selected units are placed. This opens the way for endless possibilities of formations that you like best. There are some preset ones that are good, though. Alt+Any letter makes your selected units go in that formation bound to that current letter. This is how you use your formations/custom formations. There's a not-so-well-known formation to "stack" your units. Sometimes good for ground units who can't seem to walk in groups and needs to walk in straight lines. To do so, select ONE of your units and bind as a formation. Then select all of your units and use the formation you just bound. Your units will stack together, cool eh? =) Actually, stacking only works for aircraft, the rest can only walk one behind another, for easier micromanagement. To reset formations back to the normal movement range, select a group of units with your mouse. =============== Recommended Formations =============== Some units are best suited if used in a proper formation, like.. War Pigeons: If there's only two to four enemy units on the POC that is currently attempting to capture your faction's POC, you might consider on "Concentrated Bombing". To do so, stack your pigs as mentioned in the "Setting/Using Formations" above. Then your pigs will gather as one and start dropping concentrated and thick bombs on the enemy POCCers. However, if there is multiple units on POC, use the default formation and start bombing. Albatross: Use the A or X formations, which are line formations. Then you can start mining the air equally as you move without stacking mines. Stacked mines explode with the force of one mine. =========== Clearing Air Mines =========== Extremely useful technique to learn. However, this may cause you to lose one or two air units in return. Spread out your squad of air units (preferably Manta-family units, they have a lot of HP compared to the Aviation chassises) and fly to whereever you think there is blanketed with air mines, and ram into them. Once you covered an area, let a Medic/Geardoc heal you and continue. However, do note that you can have scarifical air units to clear air mines instead of being healed or repaired. =========== Last Minute POC rush =========== High-levels on Morgana has one thing in common: they know this skill of POC rushing at 1.30, or at the last 90 seconds. In other words, this skill is to put every thing on a POC and wish that it is captured before time runs out. Phasing is the favorite way of doing poc rushes. Make sure you bring phasic units if possible to let them phase on the POC, or bring something useful to kill POC defenders or protect units that phase. (Orbus or Roc) Note that even the weakest amount of damage helps. ============ Anti-Last Minute POC rush ============ An essential skill nowadays. You have to watch out for Rocs and Orbuses and destroy them ASAP before they phase whatever crap they have on the POC. Bring Imps to flame the POC defenders and war pigeons to bombard heavy armored foes. Note that it is the exact opposite of the Last Minute Poc Rush, and victory falls on the side with more powerful units and good strategy. ============ Retreating Dying Units ============ I don't really mean retreat from battle. It means, when your units go into a firefight with another squad of units, and one unit is dying, send it retreating backwards from the firefight (not retreat into the portal!). This is a favorite tactic if you want to conserve your units, as it minimizes losses. ============ Anti-Condor Tactics ============ Spread out and/or fly out of range when he attempts the fusion storm blast on you! Make sure it doesn't nail multiple units, or else you will suffer major losses! Condors without FS/FS charged are basically free food to AA. Do note that even with the 4 second cooldown on their weapons, there is no guarantee that your planes can't be shot down using their weapons. ============ Vulture's Weak Point ============ Vultures, like arbs, have a certain range and it would stay this way as long as they deploy their artillery cannons. Vultures are also very slow. In other words, to kill a vulture using a ground unit, you must make sure it shoots air (^_^;) and get your unit INTO its range, but not to it's artillery target. That way, they can't pelt at you, and you can kill them. Getting under them is also a good tactic, but if it flies over water, you can't kill it =p. Of course, the best way of killing vultures is to use AA units, but I am showing what you should do if you want to kill it with ground, especially using Tyrs :). ============ Some things IN SG You HAVE to understand ============ I find that some people had failed to understand any of these things which are a truth in the world of Shattered Galaxy: - NOTHING is indestructible! Leviathans are indestructible IF they turn Neutron Shield on, but they can't keep it on for ever! If you find that you can't kill a unit, it's either he has extremely thick armor or a hell load of HP, but it usually means that your weapon is far too weak. Even without a twist of fate, a Level 1 Imp can burn a Level 60 Behemoth down! - HACKING is always possible! You never know how or why - some how some way, most people can just hack their units or resources, making them either filthy rich or powerful, or both! Report those whom you think are hackers to Nexon ASAP. However, Nexon doesn't give an ass about hackers, as they need the money rolling in instead of rolling out. =/ - Hero levels are sometimes JUST FOR SHOW! Most of the time, the hero's units have lower levels than the hero itself. Sometimes, even high level units may even be weak. You never know. - The only way to win a battle is to HOLD MAJORITY of the POCS on the map or CAPTURE ALL POCS, there is no cheat or bug to winning the battle! - This is something you ought to understand, especially in three-way/four-way fights. There are ATTACKERS and DEFENDERS in a battle - the Attackers are those who attack the province, Defenders are those being attacked. ONLY one faction is a defender, the rest are counted as ATTACKERS. Defenders have the advantage in battle. Only ONE attacking faction may hold the province -- the rest must lose. In other words, if the DEFENDER holds two Point Of Contentions, while the FIRST ATTACKER holds 1 POC, and the other holds 2 POCs, the defenders win, due to the fact that NO ATTACKING factions hold majority of the POCs. However, if any ATTACKER faction captures majority of the POCs compared to the defenders and the attackers, that particular ATTACKER faction wins the fight. COnfusing, but true. - REGIMENT BATTLES. This is one factor of SG that pisses many people off, as it only allows certain people of one regiment to enter a battle. Do not attempt to force yourself in or spectate the battle. You will get framed and punished. (DA SUXORS :P) - WWW.SGALAXY.COM is the main website for Shattered Galaxy. Use the War Room to pledge from faction to faction and do plenty of other things. - COUNCIL PLACES. These make you the ministers of your faction. Do not abuse your power - the Overlord can overpower you and the one being abused can ask Nexon or the Overlord to remove your council for good. - ALWAYS POC!!! This is important for Attackers -- you need to worry about CAPTURING A POC at all times! Unless the faction is planning for a last minute rush, always capture a POC if you have the chance. - PROTECT STRATEGIC UNITS. This is one thing that most people fail to understand. Strategic units need protection at all times to prevent War Pigeons, Pelicans, cloaked Pegasuses, Gryphons or so fourth from killing them!! Even better and if possible (especially nukers), HIDE THEM in a Bunker (deployed Mantlet)!! That way, strategic units can do their stuff in safety. - DEFENDERS, HUNT FOR ROCS/ORBUSES!! This is very, very important, as Morganians mostly like to use phasic rocs/orbuses for last minute poccing. Bring powerful AA/GA and blast rocs to bits and pieces, FS works even better. For orbuses, for god sake just damnit hunt them down with fast ground! - BRING ARMOR PIERCERS. The enemy fancies bunkers nowadays, and they're overkilled experts at POCing and POC Defending. So use APs and kill them. - ALWAYS HAVE STRONG POC DEFENDERS AND PAY ATTENTION. Especially for defenders. Attackers may use Mlorthas as last minute POC rush even without a ROC/ORBUS or it can be just a diversion tactic to let Rocs come into play!! Strong POC Defenders should have powerful guns and armor to take hits and deliver a serious dent into the enemy POC rusher. Pay attention to the battlefield. Diversion tactics are plenty. I got a sudden surprise when I got my GA lured away for a ROC to CAPTURE THE POC BESIDE ME!! ARRGH! DAMNIT! - KEEP A SHARP EYE ON WHAT THE HELL'S GOING ON. Watch what your allies type and look around the map, scouting POCs, looking at the backlines in case of a nasty backstab, watch out for firefights between enemy and ally units, and so on. In Shattered Galaxy, everyone can play a part, no matter the person is a level 1 beginner or a level 60 professional. - KNOW WHAT TO BRING AND WHAT NOT TO BRING. Attackers should start out with fighting units first, before the real POCcers can come into play. Defenders should set up POC Defense after knowing some recon about the opponent. Retreat units that are crippled if there is no healers available. Bring something else that is useful. It's near impossible to run out of all of your 48 units in battle. (Unless you: 1. Buy less than 48 units 2. Likes suicide strikes.) And don't bring rubbish units when your allies need something else. - IF YOU NEED HELP, ASK! No one is psychic! They can't read your mind and know that you need help! Don't expect anyone to come to you automatically when you need help - no one really knows unless you ask. So, remember to type it out when you need it! - ALWAYS GIVE CRITICAL INFORMATION. Examples include: "POCCERS AT A2", "KILL THE ROC AT B4", etc. Well, not always in all caps, of course =P. Always keep a sharp eye out and tell your allies in case they're occupied with something else to bother about it. =============== Mixing Squads =============== When I mean mixing squads of units, I don't mean that you use, like, three imps, a hawk and two wraiths or any stupid combination, I mean a mix squad that actually proves REALLY useful in battle. Who says you must use a whole squad of the same units? =P (NOTE: Most of these assume you only can command 6 units, which means your tactics are 19 or lower.) 1 PHASIC ROC + 5 PHASIC MOTHS - Best for last-minute POC rushes. Fly your ROC to an enemy POC and QUICKLY phase your moths ON IT and attempt to capture the POC. However, the moths need to be armored well. Note that the moths can be subsituted with any other unit that can be phased. (And usually, heavily armored.) 1 SPIRIT WITH MINDWARP + 6 IMPS (20 TACTS only, otherwise 5 IMPS) - I saw a player use this. I don't know the point of a mindwarping spirit and a squad of imps. I saw him mindwarping some enemy infantry, sending his squad of Imps over the confused spirit, and he started flaming them to death without much fear of them shooting back. Maybe you can follow him? Subsitute the imps with something else and see what happens. TELEPORTING SUICIDE SQUAD: 1 ROC+5 PHASIC SD SAPPERS - I don't see any point in this at all. Some SG players may have used it, just to use the roc to phase sappers to a place for self-destruct e.g. clearing POCs. The roc can be more useful - dispose of it ASAP. 1 PHASIC ORBUS + 5/6 CRUDGINS (DEPENDS ON TACTICS) The fastest way of moving crudgins. Rocs drain way too much energy for crudgins -- get an orbus and you'll move fast enough. Best of all, your own Crudgins can surround your orbus to protect it from ground hunters. 6 VULTURES/ARBALESTS/TREBUCHETS/BALLISTAS + 1 MANTA/ONNIR (20 TACTS ONLY, OTHERWISE 5 VULTS/ARBS/TREBS/BALLS) A great way of using artillery units. Get your Manta or Onnir over to your arbbing spot and keep doing a tachyon sweep when a cloaked unit walks by and he will get arbbed. The more advanced your tachyon sweep, more things can be detected other than cloak, e.g. infiltrators, camouflaged units. 1 MANTLET+5/6 SPECTRES Another way to hide nukers - inside the almighty bunker. What's more? You can launch the nuke from the mantlet itself! OMG! What a great way to use the Mantlet. Abuse it, period. 6 IMPS, 1 MEDIC AND A MINDWARPER SPIRIT (40 TACTS ONLY) Wow. What a great squad. Imps for firepower, medics to heal damaged Imps and a spirit to mindwarp other infantry units, allowing your imps to come and flame 'em good. ============= XP Divide ============= This skill is essential for fast-level ups. Switch units occassionally during some battles. That way, those units who just came in can get XP, and when they level up, your hero also gains a level! Don't do it too often, as in some battles, what matters is what units you bring to fight the battle. 1. Bring a set of units into battle. 2. Retreat and bring another set. 3. Don't attempt to switch between every unit - it wastes time, and you never know will your faction win this battle. Switch between 2-3 sets of units. ============== Phasing Units ============== There are a few things you need to get straight when phasing: - The unit teleporting the unit gets energy drained, not the one being phased. - When you attempt to phase a unit and it says that the phasic requirement (or something) is too high, it means that the unit can't phase at all! Or either that your teleporter has no enough energy left to phase anymore units. - The unit will phase to whereever the teleportation unit is currently standing, not anywhere on the battlefield, take note of that. - To phase units, you need... Apparitions, Slanth family aliens and Spirits - Born phasic. You don't need anything special to phase them. All other Infantry: Phasic Biodrive, H-Phasic Biodrive or Phase Faciliator. Mobile: Phasic Plating or H-Phasic Plating. Unfortunately, Leviathans can't phase. Aviation: Phasic Plating or H-Phasic Plating. If you can fit in those, that is. Organic: Auto Phasic, Slanth only. Also, one thing to note about is, for Mobile and Aviation, they depend on Phasic Plating, an armor that gives pathetic protection and HP! Unless you have at least mk4 moths, don't bother having phasic moths. =============== Outranging Tactics =============== Another thing that most newbies can't understand in Shattered Galaxy. If you can outrange the opponent in a hit-and-run fight, DO IT!!! Don't fight head on unless you're absolutely sure you can kill the adversary with only injuries instead of casualties. If the opponent outranges you instead, and it's a strong unit, don't fight it -- just run, unless you can really take it. If so, fight it. Hit-And-Run is a good way to use most fast units that has great range, for example, Hawks, Pegasuses and Banshees. These units are usually quite weak considering that they're fast and thin-skinned. So, to avoid casualties, chicken out and not take short ranged units head on. Blast 'em from long range and run when they attempt to get you into their target range. Then repeat till he dies, and let the strong armor deal with the threat. Usually, the threats are slow units or short-ranged units which suffer from a lack of range or the speed of moving into range. Take Owls for example. They're slower than Hawks, and you shoot those owls from a range with your Hawks. Then they'll come after you. RUN!! At a range he can't reach you, shoot again. However, note that the Owl STILL can chase after you considering the delay you use to stop and shoot. Furthermore, if the owls have afterburners, they may speed after your hawks instead and blast them to bits when you can't outrun their speed. Well, remember this strategy. It helps out a lot. Seriously. Try it out, your cloaked Pegasuses blasting short-ranged Behemoths for example. ^_^ Another outranging tactic is when you're using air units and ground based anti-air is trying to attack you. When you get shot, try to move out of range and blast your target from another direction, which will force him to turn back to get you in his sights. However, it can be foiled if the GA is long-ranged with a excellent sensor. :P ================= Sensor Range And Weapon Range ================= These are two things that will make your units extremely good than they really are currently, which is.. how far your weapon can shoot and how far can your unit see. SENSOR RANGE - This factor decides on how far can your unit currently see. Your unit can only shoot what it can currently see whitin it's sensor range. Sensors also can prove useful in helping your units scout the area to allow them to see more of the terrain. WEAPON RANGE - This decides on how far your weapon can shoot from. Range is an important factor especially in hit-and-run. Sufficent sensor range is required for the current weapon to shoot from it's maximum range. There are some things you need to note about these... if you have a short weapon range but incredible sensors, your weapon range WON'T BE EXTENDED -- your unit still has to get the target into it's range and shoot it. At the fact of a short sensor range but great weapon range, your range will be reduced due to the fact that you can't see far. Note that, your weapon range SOLELY depends on your unit's OWN sensor view, don't expect it to be extended by ally sensors. =============== XP Trading =============== A truly forbidden skill in Shattered Galaxy -- XP trading. This is the act of you and another friend from opposing factions to fight a one-on-one battle in any land, setting your battlefield commands to Auto-Reject or manual, and letting one person kill the other without him shooting back. Then it's repeated the other way round. Bascially, to do this forbidden skill, just: 1. Tell a friend in an opposing faction 2. Go to any land 3. Initate a battle 4. The one getting the EXP should be the defender for easier purposes (Defenders win when all attackers die out) 5. Your friend should let you kill him, since you're the one getting the XP (for example) 6. Harvest the XP, then repeat the other way round (your friend killing you) Note that, this forbidden skill, although great, is known to delete off characters. So be careful. ============================= Anti-Gravity and Earthquake ============================= To spot whether an enemy unit has anti-gravity, just look at how it walks. If it leaves footprints, it doesn't have anti-gravity. (Provided you have your 'Footprints' option on!) If it walks without footprints, it's most likely with anti-gravity, don't earthquake these units -- you won't hurt them. Anti-Gravity units won't leave footprints and are not hurt by Earthquakes and won't trigger mines. Revenant users are highly vulnerable to aerial attacks. You should armor your revenants well, give a good fist and the best earthquaking device your revenant can currently equip. All aliens have no anti-gravity (except Oizy-Family and Manta-Family, they fly), so earthquaking them is making sense. Do note that most of them has a high base HP. All mobile units (except the Gryphon) are vulnerable to earthquake. Therefore, Revenants can clear a whole POC of mobile defenders (e.g. Behemoths), allowing your allies to capture the POC. Some other units without anti-gravity enabled can also be hurt, too. 9. Leviathan Mystery ---------------------- You are probably wondering why did I start this section. Well, it's odd about how Leviathan's shield plating works. Nobody knows exactly how they work, as they don't seem to block whatever they are supposed to, sometimes. The four shield platings are as follows: Hafnium Flame Shield - Supposedly to block all fire attacks. Hafnium Ballistic Shield - Blocks all ballistic weapon attacks. Hafnium Laser Shield - Blocks all energy weapon attacks. Hafnium Missile Shield - Blocks all missile weapon attacks. My own theory on how the shield platings work: Hafnium Flameshield: Made of a special alloy that deflects extreme heat into the atmosphere, making flame weapons nearly useless against it. Hafnium Ballistic Shield: A compound of Kevlar and Titanium, these are near-bulletproof and deflects bullets or heavy ballistc impact. Hafnium Laser Shield: Has a reflective metal surface, totally reflecting the intense light radiation of lasers away into the air, rendering them useless. Hafnium Missile Shield: Made of a special metal with many small holes, the holes stop missiles from crashing against the Leviathan. Instead, it traps it and pushes it away, making it explode well away from the Leviathan. From top to bottom, the lower tech shield platings to the higher tech platings at the bottom. All the shield platings give the "Neutron Shield" ability, which is supposed to block off all damage from any attack when on, but a person on Shattered Galaxy (I think he is called Pendarr) says that Neutron Shield grants an instant 450 armor protection to the Leviathan, and that IRBMs can punch through Neutron Shield, and so do War Pigeon bombs, which pierces armor. I do not know much about it, as I never had the chance to lay my hands on a Leviathan (my influence of Mobile is too low :P). However, judging on what most players can say, shield platings are really difficult to use, as you have to guess what your opponent is going to throw at you. Melee weapons seemed to be impossible to block from any Shield Plating, as there is no such thing as a Hafnium Melee Shield or whatsoever. However, judging from what players say, most or all of the melee weaponary can be blocked using a certain shield plating. (It is not confirmed) Ghasts wield energy swords/laser swords, which should be blocked by the laser shield, as it was of the same type of attack. Revenants have fists, that are "counted as a ballistic attack", and blocked by the ballistic shield. High-level Poda family attacks seemed to be ballistic, and blocked by the ballistic shield. However, it's not the end, really. The mystery isn't quite solved. What about low-level Poda family attacks? Are Leviathan's rocket cannons counted as a missile attack or a ballistic attack? What about Manta's acid ball attack? Oizy's flamethrower is blocked by the flame shield, or is it? Does any shield block the Revenant's Earthquake attack? What about the Slanth and Ubik family weapons? Deava's grenades? There are too many questions to this mystery along with a myraid of unknown answers. Another thing wierd about Leviathan's Ballstic plating. Supposedly, high level Apparition sniper rifles can pierce right through their ballistic plating! Even more scarier, some people claim that it can pierce through Neutron Shield. However, this may be just a rumour. Shade machine guns, even the lower tech ones, seem to pierce through Leviathan's ballistic shield plating!! WIERD!! About the Leviathan itself. It is totally impossible to put even the smallest piece of armor on it, as it has ZERO space, even if your Leviathan is Mk9. They have to rely on their SHIELD PLATINGS for protection. Also, they need a extremely good power supply, even better, a H-Gamma Array! That way, you can guarantee a nearly infinite Neutron Shield. Please contribute information about this mystery. 10. For Beginners ------------------ First, when you are just starting on Shattered Galaxy, and chose your appearance, and now you have 20 stat points to distribute among your base stats of 5/5/5/5.. what should you choose, you ask? Well, here are the advantages of disadvantages of every stat you put most points into. Concentrating On Clout ("Clout Whores") ======================= When you concentrate most of your stat points on clout, it gives you faster access to the variety of units that need more influence, and gives you an easier time on upgrading units to higher marks and other chassises. (Also decides should your aliens evolve) Clout affects: Influence - Half your clout + division level. Upgrade Quotient/Unit Quality - Half your clout + unit level. The disadvantage of this is that although you can upgrade and get the other chassises more easily, you won't get to equip the better items, due to your lack of your Education points, nor can you put the more heavier items on your units. However, Clout isn't all that important at aquiring better units to be brought at factories. You just need your division level to be at it's maximum (60) and you can buy everything or at least most of the more useful units available. Concentrating On Tactics ("Tactic Whores") ========================= When you concentrate most of your stat points on tactics, it allows you to bring more units into battle, increasing your XP gain and net damage. Also increases your unit HP (5 tactics = 1 HP) Tactics affects: Units brought into battle - 20 Tactics = 1 unit. Unit HP - 5 tactics = 1 HP. The disadvantage of this is that although you can bring more units into battle, most likely, you can't buy the higher chassises nor give good items to your units yet. Concentrating On Education ("Education Whores") =========================== When you concentrate most of your stat points on Education, it gives you faster access to the more powerful equipment you can put on your units, strengthening your units. Also decides whether should your aliens get a new weapon. The favorite choice of most SG players. Education affects: Tech Level - Half your Education + Unit Level. Alien Weapon Change - Refer to "Ubik and Slanth Weaponary" Section. The disadvantage of this is that you can't get access to the better chassises yet, and can't equip heavier items on your units. However, this isn't a large disadvantage. NOTE: This is a critical note to all SG players. 120 (MAX) education DOESN'T GIVE you full access to ALL ITEMS! It merely gives you 60 tech level automatically! You must boost your unit level to a full 60 to get the 120 education ITEMS! Concentrating On Mech Apt ("MA whores") ========================== When you concentrate most of your stat points on Mech Apt, it gives you faster access to the heavier equippment you can put on your units, enabling you to equip the heavier and more powerful items. Also decides should your aliens change their weapons. Mechanical Aptitude affects: Unit Weight - Base Weight x [1+(MA/120)] Alien Weapon Change - Refer to "Ubik and Slanth Weaponary" Section The disadvantage is that although you can equip heavier items, your low education may limit you to the low tech heavy items instead. Also can't buy the better chassis units. Isn't a large disadvantage too. Balanced Stats =============== This balances you with average equipment, slightly heavier equipment, and more unit chassises to choose from, and maybe you can bring more units into battle. It also prepares you for being a future MA whore, Edu Whore, e.g. For starters: begin with 20/5/10/5. This gives you access to 7 units and some higher tech equipment. For wannabe clouters, I recommend 5/15/15/5. These are only some examples. You may wish to balance your MA, Education and Clout to the same levels first before concentrating on one stat. The disadvantage of this is that you have limited options at doing anything, but more options at the stat you put more points into. But who cares, you can remedy this once you are sastified with your balanced stats and start concentrating. However, totally concentrating on one stat is plain useless. You may consider balanced stats before concentrating. Here are some "combos" to use your precious stat points. Mech Apt + Education combination ================================= This gives you the advantage of equipping heavy items and not to mention the higher tech heavy items, enabling you to strengthen your great units with heavy and high tech items, making you a fearsome general leading deadly units. Advantages - Can equip the heavier equipment. - Higher tech equipment is available. Disadvantages - More difficult access to better chassis units. <- Doesn't matter :P - Can't upgrade units easily. - Can't upgrade units to the highest marks. <- Especially when you have lack of space to put stuff. Clout + Education combination ============================== This gives you access to upgrading to the highest marks, also gives you an easier time upgrading your units. Also has access to the high tech items. In other words, you can have units with high marks (Mks) and high tech equipment. Advantages - Easier access to various unit chassises. - Higher tech equipment is available. Disadvantages - Can't equip heavy items on units. <- Sole disadvantage, but who cares =p Updates soon to come on this section. Balanced + Education combination ================================= This is the technique I used to get my stats. First, you balance your stats at 5/30/30/30, before you start concentrating. This is quite a good idea, actually, you have an average number of units you can buy, heavy items you can put, and higher tech items you can get. Advantages - Balanced options at all aspects - It's my way of getting my stats =p Disadvantages - You may have a hard time strengthening your units. See what you like and pick one stat combination to divide your stat points among your various stats. Then, you are faced with one option: What units should I buy? For me, I recommend that you have Imps, Hawks, Pegasuses and Ubiks. Refer to the Unit List and see which one you prefer. I recommend those because: Imps - When with a flamethrower and trained well, these burn multiple units in a row, doing serious damage. Pegasus - A fast trike with very powerful weapons even at low tech levels, and the easiest unit you'll ever want to train, especially for it's cloak device. Hawks - The best in anti-air defense, with fast speed and long-ranged weapons. Ubiks - The balanced unit of the organic class, with proper training, these little guys can evolve and change their weapons and how much damage they can do. Versatile weaponary is another strong side of the Ubik. However, you are not forced to buy these. I can only give advice, anyways, the other units are great ones, too! Not just these! Now, I recommend that you go to the alien caves and train yourself and your units till you're at least level 4 and your units are level 5 before you wander out of your faction to experience real war and advance yourself even more. Remember to buy various units and change your equipment every now and then, and use your extra stat points you gain from level up to strengthen your hero. Once you hit your level limit, go to the www.sgalaxy.com site and pledge yourself into a higher tier planet. And now, you are on your way to becoming a powerful hero. There are rumors that the Star Portal in the Crater (000044) still works, but I doubt it. Anyway, the Star Portal is a small portal with ring-shaped energy around it. I, Alfonse, salute you, and wish that you can become a very good player at this great game! Anyway, for beginners, read on the next newbie guide, written by yours truly. ========================================================== THE VERY BASICS OF SHATTERED GALAXY: CHAPTER 1 - CAPTIAL ========================================================== This BIG section is a cut down version of the long manual on how to play the game. This section explains how the hell do you play this complicated game which looks confusing. It's divided into different chapters. To start off, well, you'll need to understand a few things in your captial first... (Names may be a bit wrong, but these buildings REALLY do exist.) Unit Factory - Located right in front of where your hero appears. Used to Buy, Sell and Repair units. Faction repairs are much cheaper than those in enemy captials, obviously :P. Unit Development Laboratory - To the right of the factory. Used to Upgrade units to another type or a higher Mark. Also used to equip your units with various equipment and to check their statistics. Resource Exchange - To the left of the factory. Here, you can buy and sell your resources at the current rate. Faction Headquarters - Dead center of your captial. Here, the current faction relations, Overlord/Election and council members are displayed. Overlords can manipulate the faction relations and council members. If in an election, those beyond level 6 can either Support/Nominate a candidate, Put your name on the list as a candidate, or Oppose a candidate. If you are already running for office, you can't Support/Oppose. Simulation Center - Left of your faction HQ, southwest of the Resource Exchange. Here, you can engage in simulated battles with allies or enemies from the same planet, and as simulated battles/units, your actual units don't get damaged, nor will it spoil your record/prestiege/honor. However, you will get 0 tribute if you're in the sim center during a tribute distribution (every 15 minutes of game time approximately). Cadet Combat Field - South of Lab. Same as the sim center, but on the same plot of land everytime. This time, you don't need an ally -- you can spar against the computer -- but they're using.. weak machine-gun imps. Consider it barren. Alien Caves - You can't miss these. These wormhole-like caves, where two is in your captial, is where aliens reside. You'll get minimal XP fighting aliens, and more will spawn if heroes come in. You can POC and win, but alien caves CAN NEVER be taken over. Cadet Training Facility - Near the alien caves. Where you use actual battle units (provided by the CTF, which is one unit per type) and try to capture a POC full of Slanth-type units which attack with a weak melee attack (I forgot the name ^_^ Crawlers maybe). Just carry a unit with the ROC and put it on the POC, and have the arb arb it. Simple as that, but the actual thing is to let real newbies experiment with the units and get used to them. Observatory - Directly south of the faction HQ. Allows you to view the Fata Morgana solar system and see land ownage (of your own planet only, it used to be all planets) of the planets, and resource abdundance. You can manipulate the planets and see them in different views or different speeds. Just an extra to whoever is intrested to know what does Fata Morgana looks like. Royal Rumble - Used to be there, but now, it's gone. Allows your units to fight each other and you'll gain a lot of money though you have to pay 3 million to get in. Now try walking to each of them. Once you're done, proceed on to the next chapter. --------- YOU HAVE LEARNED: - What your captial contains - What does each building do. --------- ===================================================================== CHAPTER 2 - UNIT SELECTING, BUYING, SELLING, REPAIRING AND UPGRADING ===================================================================== Okay, I know I have repeated myself.. but sorry :). Walk to the Factory, select the unit you want and click Buy. You'll be prompted to name it. Well, name it whatever you want. When you start a new hero, you start with no units. What are you waiting for.. start buying. These are recommendations, but I repeat, you are NOT forced to choose these units. For the purpose of this exercise, we'll use these units in battle. For a new hero, I recommend you have a mix of ground to ground firepower, Air to Air firepower and at least one Organic Unit. Imps - If you have at least 10 education, buy these and go to the Laboratory and change their weapons to the Flamethrower-type weapons, which should be the MA Ignite or something. You can't mistake a flame thrower when you see one. :P Make sure you have a Methane Reactor. Ghasts - Fast and furious suiciders. I recommend you do buy these. Change their blades into any blade for now, as long as it's not H. Give any armor you can. Pegasus - I highly stress that you buy Pegasuses. These will HELP you out a LOT in battles, no kidding! ^_^; Give the H-Odin Crusher if possible. Do equip a H-weapon if you can't get cloak yet. Manticores - P.A.R. Pure Aerial Carnage. This is how to describe these units which gives even the most fearsome aircraft nightmares. Give them their best Ground-To-Air missile. Hawks - You gotta have these babies! These hit-and-run hitters can wreck air up and live to tell about it! The most essential air unit that everybody has to have. Change their machineguns into a AA weapon in the Lab. Pelicans - These are miscellaneous units, at least to me. If trained well, Pelicans can kill ground units and perform a MAJOR slaughterfest. >:) Equip their best missile, preferably, the one which is only AG (Air To Ground, you should get it now), not the V-missile that does 91 damage. (H-Genus Manta) Ubiks - If trained with effort, these little bugs can someday change their balls into plasma balls and evolve themselves into their big bad brothers, the Tyr and Haltyr. There's a statement that I have to make. Well, at one time, I thought Ubiks are useless since they're weak when I fought them at the alien caves (at that time, my mind was pretty new to the great SG game), and Oizys are pretty deadly. So, I bought Oizys instead, and later on, I found enemy Ubik-family aliens to be much stronger than they really seem!! My evolved oizys (Boreas) got shot to death by plasma Tyrs and he has one left when the rest of my bats died!! Now I use Ubiks and took the time to train them, and they kick serious butt as Tyrs with stats of 8000+ HP, 11 armor, and their plasma balls 249 damage at a 3.1 cooldown rate. Slanths - Long range alien artillery. I found these aliens more powerful than they really are. Anyway, they fire acid balls that pierce armor and makes nice defenders. If you accidently bought an extra unit or you don't want a particular unit no more, click on it and click Sell. If you have injured/dead units, and you want to repair them, click Repair All to repair them all in one shot. Or if you prefer one-by-one procedure, click on the injured/dead unit and click Repair. After buying your units, go to the Lab and upgrade their respective equipment by choosing Equip Item. It's recommended that you do not fill all 48 units slots up at the start, though. Once you're done changing equipment (the interface is easy to understand unless you're illterate, in which case you can't even understand this FAQ :P), click Ok or Cancel at the bottom of the screen. You're back at the menu. Click Upgrade Unit. Click on, let's say, your Imp. You'll see your current unit U.Q. and the various chassises it can upgrade to. Click Imp-Mk2. You'll see Upgrade Impossible, but never mind, for now, look at the stats which will improve. Experiment with the rest of your units. When you're sastified, exit the Upgrade Unit screen and the Lab. ----------------- YOU HAVE LEARNED: - Which unit to buy. - How to buy units. - How to sell units. - How to repair units. - How to upgrade and change equipment. ----------------- ======================================= CHAPTER 3 - IMPORTANT KEYS (NON-BATTLE) ======================================= In this chapter, you will learn what keys are important in the game, and what do they do. However, these are hotkeys, and you can access them by clicking on their respective buttons, but these hotkeys make the game better. Now you're standing in front of your captial. Okay, fine. Try pressing F1, you will see the in-game manual which is more detailed in the various equipment with pictures and the like. Click Exit and press f2. This is the most important key in the whole game -- the strategic map!! This is how you see how is your faction and the other factions are doing. And you can see what battles are commencing. To join a battle, right-click on a battle. However, there's a 70 second Battlefield Communication to be set up, so you have to walk there for the meantime. Once 70 seconds are up, you can't still join the battle instantly, but you can see the battlefield and wait for your units to reinforce. You can change your squadron, too. For now, don't join any battles. If you are a council member or overlord, there will be extra keys in the strategic map, which is to tell your faction members to either avoid or assemble at a particular land, and to force open a battle, in the case of a biased battlefield commander. To exit out of the strategic map, press F2 again. Now press F3. It's the mini strategic map. An important map to see if you are preoccupied in battle. Now exit and press F4. You'll see your hero statistics. If you gain any attribute points you can add them here. You'll also see what resources you have. Exit out of the screen and press f6. Here you can see the Hall Of Fame (the top heroes), the Who-List (who in your planet is online) and the various regiments of each and every faction. Then comes F7 the Unit Deployment Screen button. Here, you select which units to be deployed into a battle. F8 is the key to teleport back into your faction captial when you're in another land. This saves time walking all the way back to the captial. F9 is to take a screenshot. Nothing much new. Once you're done playing around, look at the buttons at your interface. At the extreme left is the name list and ignore list. In battle, it'll turn into the command wheel whom you can select commands for your selected units and see their shortcut keys. You can switch between during battles though. Okay, at the middle is the textbox whom messages you and other heroes type are displayed. Just above the textbox is where you type your message and just above the entry box you can see who you want to type the messages to. Allies means any faction member whitin the same province will hear the message. Public means that anyone in the province will hear your message. The middle button is for private messages to a regiment or person. To the bottom right of the text box are four buttons, as follows from top to bottom: Letter Box Button - Your private SG-mail inbox. Tick button - Messages about tribute, battlefield commander manual acceptance, and other things. Thumbtack Button - The Shattered Galaxy BBS (Bulletin Board System). Person Button - Unit deployment screen. Wrench Button - Where you can check your units out, their stats, and equip them with things in your inventory. A private warehouse or something. Then, BESIDE THE buttons to the extreme right is the MOST important part in the game asides the strategic map -- the MINIMAP!! It displays various info, like enemy and ally location in the current province/battle, and the grid squares are locators to know where your allies can locate you, etc. Red grid squares are grid squares with a POINT OF CONTENTION. Well, that's about all the keys. Of course, the Hero List button (F6), Strategic Map button (F2) and Exit button are just above the minimap. Now you're ready to learn about battle. ------------- You have learnt: - About the various hotkeys in non-battle mode. ------------- ========================= CHAPTER 4 - BATTLE ========================= In this chapter, you will learn what to do during a battle. But first, go into a battle. ^_^; Go into your captial's alien cave. You should know where it is, no? =] (Pay attention to the keys mentioned here.) Battle means a confrontation between a faction versus another faction, when they walk into each other's lands with a faction member in it. Then a violent power struggle begins as the heroes clash using their soldiers, or "units". The main thing about battles is to capture the Points Of Contention. More on that later. You'll see the name of the place you're attacking, your squadron that is going to be deployed into a battle, who's on each side (attacking and defending). Well, since you're attacking, click on Attack. WAIT!!! Check your units - what did you bring? I recommend you bring some ground units, preferably infantry. For now, deploy your Imps. The shortcut key to deployment is F7. Now you're ready to fight. Okay, see your squadron? You can either click to select on one unit, drag a whole box to select two or more, or maybe.. just press BACKSPACE to select your whole squadron. Now move out. You'll find some ground aliens, like Ubiks. Press A and click on the Ubik. Your whole squadron will move forward to engage the Ubik. Watch your Imps spray their flames at it. (Unless you're using guns..) Obviously, the Ubik will retaliate (duh) with their acid ball attack, but it shouldn't be too bad. Okay, to move your squadron, select your units and just click anywhere you want. It's an auto move command. Or if you want to change their orders, press M and click the place you want your squadron to move to. Since you're attacking, your priority is to scout out the POCS (point of contentions) and capture them by standing on them for 35 seconds. You're probably wondering: the map is so big, how do i find the pocs? Check your minimap out - the grid squares numbered 1-4 and named A-D is essential to help you find your way around in battles. The grid squares with a red outline indicates a grid square with a Point Of Contention. Well, move your units towards there. When you select or highlight your units, you can see two status bars by default. It's energy reserves, and HP. The green bar indicares your energy reserves which will slowly turn blue as energy is depleted. The yellow bar is your hit points. When you get hit by damage, this bar decreases. If you completely run out of energy without recharging (more on that later), your units will be IMMOBLIZED and unable to move. If you run out of HP, that particular unit dies. Also, if your units happen to have special abilities, their charge bar and/or special abilties will appear on your command wheel. Use them by either clicking on them or pressing their shortcut keys. Okay, walk your Imps to a POC now. If a poc is revealed, you'll see it being pinpointed on your minimap. A POC looks like a 9 slice pizza. In alien caves, POCs are empty and without any faction symbols. Stand on POC now. You'll slowly see it light up. It means you're in the midst of capturing it. After 35 seconds, the POC will lit up fully and your faction symbol will appear on it. Then walk to the other POC. No, wait, you need to learn more. Notice that you may run into some electric circle-like things and methane geysers? They're the so-called recharge stations. Electric Circles refill the energy of batteries (Examples include Edison Accumulator, SodiumSulphur Accumulator), methane geysers refill the energy of methane reactors. (Examples include Methane Reactor, Dual Methane Reactor) There are four more types of energy you can put on all units except organic units (they're natural-bred aliens not machines). The four types are: Solar Energy - Energy from the sun is converted into power for your unit to run. However, the recharge rate is VERY SLOW, but it allows you UNLIMITED energy (technically anyways..) for the duration of the battle. Next up, is Gamma Energy - Light energy from the sun is converted into radiation used as power. The same theory as solar energy, but recharges much more faster than solar cells. Low storage capacities are one weakness of gamma arrays. Next up is Battery Cells. Don't mix Batteries and Battery Cells up. Battery Cells can't be recharged like batteries. Nonetheless, they provide a LARGE amount of energy. However, once drained, cell-equipped units are helpless. They can't be refueled by couplers. They must be killed instead and you'll need to rein another squad of units. LAST BUT NOT LEAST, is Nuclear Reactors. Don't worry, this is Shattered Galaxy, not Simcity 2000 - your units won't suffer any nuclear meltdown and explode - Nuclear reactors are of the same theory as solar cells - but they provide more energy. The drawback is the VERY SLOW recharge rate. The only reason you would use fallout reactors is that you can TRIGGER a "nuclear meltdown", ahem - a Self-Destruct that is sometimes more powerful than the Sapper's self-destruct! You can make suicidial units with this reactor. It ain't built for it's energy, anyway. Now you've learned about battle. Now capture the POC, let's move on to MORE ADVANCED battle. If you level up, press F4 and you will find an extra attribute point for you to add on to your stats. :) ------ You have learned: - The basics of battle. ------ =============================== CHAPTER 5: THE ADVANCED WAR =============================== Now the real battle begins. Remember to repeat Chapter 4 and train in the alien caves till you and your units are at least level 4 or higher. Go to the Unit Development Laboratory. Give each of your 48 units (if you bought 48 units) some good items and weapons. As you add on attribute points to your stats (especially Edu/MA), you should be able to upgrade a few of your units, or at least give better items. Once you're sastified, exit. Go to the factory for last minute repairs. After that, exit, and press F2. This is the strategic map - the essential key to serving your faction. The land ownage of the factions in your planet is shown. Each faction has it's own captial and colour. The amount of land available decides on how much tribute you will get, depending on how much resources are currently present in that land. Now you should see some battles going on. Battling provinces will have two or more different coloured "figures" inside them, representing a hero from a faction, and there will be a small plume of fire to indicate it. Faction and faction battles which doesn't involve your faction won't show you it's battlefield acceptance mode. Battles involving your faction will show you it's battlefield acceptance mode. Anyway, find a battle. Battling provinces involving your faction have symbols that may appear on it, depending on some factors... Battle Full - You will see a three-person icon on the province, and the battlefield communication link won't work. It means that it's maximum battle size has been reached. BattleField Mode: Auto Accept - You will see a bright bluish-white target icon on the faction. It means it's not full and you can go in without permission from the battlefield commander. (More on that later.) BattleField Mode: Auto Reject - The same target icon will appear, but with a diagonal strike through it and it's red in colour. It means that no other heroes may go in the battle. Useful if you're having regiment battles nowadays. BattleField Mode: Manual Select - No icon will appear, you will only see a plume of fire on it. It means that the BC must PERSONALLY welcome (accept) you into the battle, or else your entrance is suspended until he either accepts or rejects you out. BattleField Mode: Late Reject - Same icon as Auto Reject, and it automatically kicks in during the last 3 minutes of battle. No heroes may reinforce this battle, as it's far too late. BCs cannot override Late Reject. BattleField Mode: Forced AutoAccept - It's the same icon as the Auto Accept, but it's red and blinking. A faction member has forced open that particular battle. Good if you don't want a biased BC to lead a battle and accept people he only likes. (And provided you're a council member. However, do understand that forced autoaccept can piss people off, and spoil regiment battles.) Either way, find a battle, and go into it. If you're accepted, you will see a "Battlefield Commander Has Accepted Your Entrance" message, and you need to wait for the server to synchro your computer with the battle, therefore there will be a 35-40 second countdown before you see the actual battlefield. After the long wait, you will see the battlefield. Pay attention to what is going on. Now you should know what to do. Kick some enemy butt. See the circle inside your command wheel? It's divided into parts depending on how many POCs are there in the battle. If it's red, your faction is DEFENDING. If it's green, your faction is Attacking. On the map, battles IN your province are defending battles, battles in ANOTHER province are attacking battles. I'll leave it to you on what you want to do in the battle, but let's just give you a few hints on battling. - If possible, always capture a POC. Rush it like there's no tomorrow. (Applies both to attackers and defenders.) - Scout, give some recon, and try to kill enemy strategic units while you're at it, too. - Kill all enemies that stop you, of course, with some support. - Air superiority is the key to winning 95% of the fights. - If you have crippled units which can't be used for anything else other than being free food, retreat them and bring a fresh squad. If all of your units die, you automatically retreat from battle. - If Defending, hold equal or MORE pocs than the attacker. If attacking, it's the other way round. Hold more pocs than the defender or CAPTURE all POCs. That's it for the newbie guide, you should know how to play the game now. Good luck. =] To tell the truth, I started being addicted to the game due to the fact that I saw other players play the game. Then I started to pick up the basics and mastered the game. Now I'm sharing my learned knowledge with the whole lot of you guys. :) 11. Unit Base Stats --------------------- This whole list is taken from the SG Reference on the www.sgalaxy.com, credits go to them for compiling the HTML version. Due to lack of time, I only can add the infantry stats and equippment, I'll add the rest as soon as I have the time. Influ = Influence Slots = Slots MaxWt = Max Weight MaxSpc = Max Space UWgt = Unit Weight Type = Type (Biological = Bio, Mechanical = Mech) BHlh = Base Health BArm = Base Armor Spd = Speed VRange = View Range VType = View Type INFANTRY Chassis Influ Slots MaxWt MaxSpc UWgt Type BHlh BArm Spd VRange Imp 1 10 64 10 60 Bio 1680 6 2.6 3.5 Imp-Mk2 15 10 64 11 60 Bio 1860 10 2.8 3.5 Imp-Mk3 29 10 64 12 60 Bio 2160 15 2.8 3.5 Imp-Mk4 43 10 64 12 60 Bio 2550 19 2.8 3.5 Imp-Mk5 57 10 64 13 60 Bio 3060 24 2.8 3.5 Imp-Mk6 71 10 64 14 60 Bio 3750 28 3 3.5 Imp-Mk7 85 10 64 15 60 Bio 4590 33 3 3.5 Imp-Mk8 99 10 64 16 60 Bio 5670 37 3 3.5 Imp-Mk9 113 10 64 17 60 Bio 6930 42 3 3.5 Deava 34 10 64 12 65 Bio 1200 6 3.6 6.5 Deava-Mk2 48 10 64 13 65 Bio 1440 10 3.6 6.5 Deava-Mk3 62 10 64 14 65 Bio 1740 15 3.6 6.5 Deava-Mk4 76 10 64 15 65 Bio 2130 19 3.9 6.5 Deava-Mk5 90 10 64 16 65 Bio 2610 24 3.9 6.5 Deava-Mk6 104 10 64 17 65 Bio 3210 28 3.9 6.5 Deava-Mk7 118 10 64 18 65 Bio 3930 33 3.9 6.5 Mephit 55 10 92 19 100 Bio 2850 30 1.8 10 Mephit-Mk2 72 10 92 20 100 Bio 3630 33 1.8 10 Mephit-Mk3 90 10 92 22 100 Bio 4740 36 1.8 10 Mephit-Mk4 107 10 92 24 100 Bio 6090 40 1.9 10 Mephit-Mk5 120 10 92 25 100 Bio 7350 45 1.9 10 Shade 3 10 68 8 75 Bio 1200 9 4 7.5 Shade-Mk2 17 10 68 9 75 Bio 1350 13 4.3 7.5 Shade-Mk3 31 10 68 9 75 Bio 1560 18 4.3 7.5 Shade-Mk4 45 10 68 10 75 Bio 1830 22 4.6 7.5 Shade-Mk5 59 10 68 11 75 Bio 2220 27 4.6 7.5 Shade-Mk6 73 10 68 11 75 Bio 2730 31 5 7.5 Shade-Mk7 87 10 68 12 75 Bio 3330 36 5 7.5 Shade-Mk8 101 10 68 13 75 Bio 4110 40 5.3 7.5 Shade-Mk9 115 10 68 14 75 Bio 5040 45 5.3 7.5 Banshee 25 10 64 15 50 Bio 1200 3 4 9 Banshee-Mk2 39 10 64 16 50 Bio 1410 7 4.8 9 Banshee-Mk3 53 10 64 18 50 Bio 1680 12 4.8 9 Banshee-Mk4 67 10 64 20 50 Bio 2070 16 5.2 9 Banshee-Mk5 81 10 64 22 50 Bio 2520 21 5.2 9 Banshee-Mk6 95 10 64 24 50 Bio 3120 25 5.6 9 Banshee-Mk7 109 10 64 26 50 Bio 3810 30 5.6 9 Phantom 45 10 70 5 80 Bio 1050 5 3.6 10.5 Phantom-Mk2 52 10 70 5 80 Bio 1140 9 3.9 10.5 Phantom-Mk3 70 10 70 6 80 Bio 1500 12 3.9 10.5 Phantom-Mk4 82 10 70 6 80 Bio 1770 15 4.2 10.5 Phantom-Mk5 95 10 70 7 80 Bio 2160 18 4.2 10.5 Phantom-Mk6 107 10 70 7 80 Bio 2580 21 4.5 10.5 Phantom-Mk7 120 10 70 8 80 Bio 3090 24 4.5 10.5 Ghast 3 10 70 10 70 Bio 1200 3 5 5.5 Ghast-Mk2 17 10 70 11 70 Bio 1350 6 6 5.5 Ghast-Mk3 31 10 70 12 70 Bio 1560 6 6 5.5 Ghast-Mk4 45 10 70 12 70 Bio 1830 12 6 5.5 Ghast-Mk5 59 10 70 13 70 Bio 2220 15 6 5.5 Ghast-Mk6 73 10 70 14 70 Bio 2730 18 6.5 5.5 Ghast-Mk7 87 10 70 15 70 Bio 3330 21 6.5 5.5 Ghast-Mk8 101 10 70 16 70 Bio 4110 24 6.5 5.5 Ghast-Mk9 115 10 70 17 70 Bio 5040 27 6.5 5.5 Revenant 48 10 104 16 120 Bio 1920 18 3 5 Revenant-Mk2 63 10 104 19 120 Bio 2370 24 3.2 5 Revenant-Mk3 78 10 104 22 120 Bio 2940 30 3.2 5 Revenant-Mk4 93 10 104 25 120 Bio 3660 34 3.2 5 Revenant-Mk5 108 10 104 28 120 Bio 4590 39 3.2 5 Spirit 10 10 60 10 50 Bio 1200 0 4.8 16.5 Spirit-Mk2 24 10 60 11 50 Bio 1350 3 4.8 16.5 Spirit-Mk3 38 10 60 12 50 Bio 1590 6 4.8 16.5 Spirit-Mk4 52 10 60 12 50 Bio 1920 9 5.2 16.5 Spirit-Mk5 66 10 60 13 50 Bio 2340 12 5.2 16.5 Spirit-Mk6 80 10 60 14 50 Bio 2850 15 5.2 16.5 Spirit-Mk7 94 10 60 15 50 Bio 3510 18 5.2 16.5 Spirit-Mk8 108 10 60 16 50 Bio 4320 21 5.2 16.5 Apparition 50 10 56 11 50 Bio 1500 0 3.6 20 Apparition-Mk2 67 10 56 12 50 Bio 1890 3 3.9 20 Apparition-Mk3 85 10 56 13 50 Bio 2490 6 3.9 20 Apparition-Mk4 102 10 56 14 50 Bio 3180 9 4.2 20 Apparition-Mk5 120 10 56 15 50 Bio 4140 12 4.2 20 Wraith 2 10 92 15 80 Bio 1680 12 1.6 12.5 Wraith-Mk2 16 10 92 16 80 Bio 1860 16 1.6 12.5 Wraith-Mk3 30 10 92 17 80 Bio 2160 21 1.6 12.5 Wraith-Mk4 44 10 92 19 80 Bio 2550 25 1.8 12.5 Wraith-Mk5 58 10 92 20 80 Bio 3090 30 1.8 12.5 Wraith-Mk6 72 10 92 21 80 Bio 3790 36 1.9 12.5 Wraith-Mk7 86 10 92 23 80 Bio 4650 42 1.9 12.5 Wraith-Mk8 100 10 92 24 80 Bio 5700 48 1.9 12.5 Wraith-Mk9 114 10 92 26 80 Bio 6990 54 1.9 12.5 Spectre 36 10 88 15 90 Bio 1440 0 1.6 13 Spectre-Mk2 50 10 88 16.5 90 Bio 1710 3 1.6 13 Spectre-Mk3 64 10 88 18 90 Bio 2100 6 1.6 13 Spectre-Mk4 78 10 88 20 90 Bio 2580 9 1.7 13 Spectre-Mk5 92 10 88 22 90 Bio 3150 12 1.7 13 Spectre-Mk6 106 10 88 24 90 Bio 3870 15 1.7 13 Spectre-Mk7 120 10 88 26 90 Bio 4740 18 1.7 13 Liche 50 10 88 17 90 Bio 1500 3 1.6 22.5 Liche-Mk2 65 10 88 18 90 Bio 1860 7 1.8 13 Liche-Mk3 80 10 88 20 90 Bio 2310 12 1.8 22.5 Liche-Mk4 95 10 88 21 90 Bio 2880 18 2 13 Liche-Mk5 110 10 88 22 90 Bio 3570 24 2 22.5 Medic 7 10 56 9 60 Bio 1560 0 2.4 4.5 Medic-Mk2 21 10 56 10 60 Bio 1770 3 2.4 4.75 Medic-Mk3 35 10 56 10 60 Bio 2040 6 2.4 5 Medic-Mk4 49 10 56 11 60 Bio 2430 9 2.6 5.5 12. Equipment Stats ----------------------- 13. Unit Abilities -------------------- OFFENSIVE ABILTIES - Air Bombard/Air Bombard-Release, Alt Charges, Attack, Bombard/Bombard-Release, Carpet Bombing, D-Virus Kill, Deploy Mine/EMP Mine, Earthquake, EMP Attack, EMP Grenade, Explosive/Detonate Explosive, Fusion Storm, Grenade, IRBM, Self-Destruct, Snipe/Snipe-Release, V-Virus Attack. DEFENSIVE ABILITIES - Defensive Field, IRBM Defense/IRBM Defense-Release, Mine Detector, Neutron Shield, Repair/Heal, Shield Install/Shield Release. MOVEMENT BOOSTS - Afterburner, Anti-Grav Harness, Booster, Install/Install-Release, Link Gate, Phase Enable, Move, Stop, Transport In/Out, Teleport. ADVANTAGE ABILTIES - Camouflage, Cloak, Disguise, Flare, Radar, Radar Evade, Radar Jam, Tachyon Sweep, Unit Inspection. MISCELLANEOUS - Cargo Hold, Mindwarp, Refuel, Short Curcuit. OFFENSIVE ABILTIES -------------------- AIR BOMBARD / AIR BOMBARD RELEASE Used By: Ballista, Trebuchet Description: This ability is used for Trebuchets and Ballistas to deploy at one spot, where it will aim at a fixed location. Any enemy aircraft flying into the location will the pelted with powerful flak shells that is powerful and damages multiple aircraft in one shot. Exploding flak shells don't hurt friendly air. ALTCHARGE Used By: Albatross Description: Specialized air miner units can spread invisible altcharges into the air, decimating any enemy air that crashes into them. Friendly aircraft won't trigger altcharges and can see the area currently mined, and you can use these evil mines as your weapon by luring enemy air into them (!). However, exploding air mines will damage any aircraft near it, no matter it maybe ally or enemy. Use this to your advantage when attempting to kill Albatrosses. ATTACK Used By: All units that attack directly (DUH) Description: The unit will target the unit you choose with "Attack" and will keep attacking it till it dies or your units die. The main command of fighting. BOMBARD / BOMBARD RELEASE Used By: Arbalest, Trebuchet Description: This makes the artillery unit aim at a specific target and pelt it with constant artillery shells when enemies pass by. This is what the artillery is meant for. Any non-cloaked, non-disguised enemies that walk through the bombard target will get hit by the long-range, powerful arb shells. Exploding artillery bombs won't hurt friendly ground, but if any cloaked or disguised enemy is hit by exploding shells that land on their area, they'll also take damage due to the fact they're still enemy units. CARPET BOMBING Used By: War Pigeon Description: The most dreaded of all attacks. Carpet bombing allows the war pigeon to drop an unlimited supply of bombs (provided they have the energy) on enemy ground, decimating entire groups of enemies. Plus, they're armor piercing, making the War Pigeon a dreaded air bomber. However, their intense energy drain forces you to recharge after a time of bombing. D-VIRUS KILL Used By: Virus Description: The most powerful attack besides the Carpet Bombing. This makes the virus throw a red-charged death grenade at a single enemy, making it self-destruct after some time. There is NO WAY to escape or cure the unit when it's hit with D-Viruskill. The self-destruct the unit does is weak, but hits anything around it's impact path. DEPLOY MINE/EMP MINE Used By: Sapper Description: Sappers use this command to lay mines on a specific area. EMP mines make the sapper lay mines that zap energy when an enemy steps on it. Mines explode with force to damage anything that steps on it. Only enemy units may trigger mines - however, enemy-triggered mine explosions can damage allies. EARTHQUAKE Used By: Revenant, Abomination Description: The cheap-assed skill is used by muscular and big units like the Revenant and Abomination. This ability makes it punch the ground with an energy fist with such force to create a earth-shattering shockwave attack that damages any nearby ground units. However, it hurts both allies, enemies and even the Revenants themselves when they get in radius of each other's Earthquake attacks. Earthquake attack range depends on how far the Revenant can see. Anti-Gravity units can avoid the shockwave as their feet is off the ground. Revenants and Abominations can earthquake when Anti-Gravity Harnessed, preventing friendly fire damage among the Revenants. EMP ATTACK Used By: Wraith Description: A special attachment attached to the gun of a Wraith. This makes it fire electro-magnetic pulses that drain a unit of it's energy. Not very useful, but best against pigs. Whoever you can shoot depends on your weapon. EMP GRENADE Used By: Deava Description: A special type of grenade which explodes into electro-magnetic pulses that drains the energy of an enemy unit. However, Deavas can only throw these at ground units. EXPLOSIVE/DETONATE EXPLOSIVE Used By: Sapper Description: FUSION STORM Used By: Condor Description: This ability needs 3 minutes to be charged. This ability enables condors, when charged, release a massive plasma beam that rips any air units that gets in contact with the blast. Very, very powerful. Any enemy aircraft, no matter it's HP or armor, has a 90-10 chance of getting killed by the fusion storm. And, I do mean whatever that it gets in contact with -- in other words, if the FS catches a whole line of hawks and owls, and provided that you aimed at the furthest hawk or owl, the blast will rip the whole line of aircraft into bits and pieces. However, a pending FS is easy to dodge by spreading out. GRENADE Used By: Deava Description: This ability enables Deavas to fling explosive grenades that pierce armour and deal extreme damage on impact. Again, this is only anti-ground. IRBM Used By: Spectre Description: This ability needs to be charged for 5 minutes. Anyway. This ability allows Spectres, when charged, to launch a powerful explosive missile (Infrared Ballistic Missile) that devastate the impact area with a powerful explosion when it hits. It's armor piercing, and all allies, enemies, cloaked, disguised, camouflaged or whatever units will get hit full damage unless they get out of the way. There are many types of IRBMS, the most powerful being H-Talon. SELF-DESTRUCT Used By: All units with a self-destruct mechanism and Sapper. (Fusion Reactors) Description: This suicidial ability allows the unit to explode in such a great force that it damages ALL units whitin it's radius, unless it's killed before it detonates or you managed to get out of the way. It's armor piercing, only allowing the strongest of units to withstand it's might. The unit that self-destruct itself is dead (duh). SNIPE/SNIPE RELEASE Used By: Apparition Description: As a sniper unit, this allows the Apparition to set up a sniping position and release a thin laser beam invisible to enemy intelligence. The laser beam decides on the area that the Apparition will attack at. Any enemy that passes by the laser beam will make the Apparition open fire. Unlike Arbalests and Ballistas, where they are forced to aim at a far area and only a far area. The Apparition's laser will SNIPE anything from it's far range, even if it means point blank. V-VIRUS ATTACK Used By: Virus Description: DUH. That's the only weapon that the Virus can use aside the D-Virus Instant Kill. This ability makes it throw a poison grenade at the target, slowly draining it of it's life. Unfortunately, the effect doesn't stay for long nor is the damage great (Even tech 120 poison grenades do jack to level 1 Arbalests). My suggestion - don't even think of using the V-Virus Attack. Period. DEFENSIVE ABILITIES -------------------- DEFENSIVE FIELD Used By: Orbus Description: IRBM DEFENSE / IRBM DEFENSE RELEASE Used By: Liche Description: OMG it just gets better and better! This great ability generates a cybernetic energy dome-shaped targeting net at a range from where the Liche is targeting from. This targeting net will protect anything under it from nukes. Bascially the Liche's targeting dome is high enough to detect any nuke before impact, and shoot it down using a anti-IRBM energy rocket. Unfortunately, the Liche will get energy drained when the shield is set up, and even more when an IRBM impacts against the "shield", which in the split second the Liche will fire a lighting speed rocket that blows the IRBM up. Also, it is rumoured that the IRBM Defense is too weak to blow H-Talons (Tech Level 120 IRBM) out of the sky. MINE DETECTOR Used By: Sapper Description: Few to none people use this ability. When switched on, the Sapper will sweep any mines it walk over and disarm it. Isn't any bit very useful, due to the undeniable fact that very few people use Sappers nowadays. Wish there was a altcharge detector? Ask Nexon. ^_^; NEUTRON SHIELD Used By: Leviathan Description: The Neutron Shield ability. A forbidden skill indeed. This ability will energize the Leviathan with a red-coloured energy shield that makes it invincible to EVERYTHING. However, the Leviathan will get a lot of energy drained as a result, and the neutron shielded Leviathan can't fire at opponents, due to every bit of power of the Leviathan is taken to generate the shield, leaving next to little reserve power to make the Leviathan move, and there will not be any more power to enable it to fire. Neutron Shielded Leviathans also can't capture a POC. -_- REPAIR/HEAL Used By: Gear Doc, Medic, Manta/Onnir (Heal only for Manta/Onnir) Description: Depending on your Gear Doc's repair arms or your Medic's first aid kit, you may have a mechanic or a medic. Either way, the abilties work the same way - restore HP to aviation and mobile units (repair), and restore HP to organic and infantry units (Heal). How much is healed depends on the power of your Medkit/Toolkit. SHIELD INSTALL / SHIELD RELEASE Used By: ? Description: MOVEMENT BOOSTS ---------------- AFTERBURNER Used By: All Aviation With Afterburner/Intensity Afterburner/Improved Afterburner. Description: This ability will put the air unit's afterburner booster to use, providing more thrust into the main engine, which in turn increases it's speed. Very, very invulable to hawks and falcons as hit-and-run AA. Although sometimes, you need to sacrifice a few good weapons or so to give the Afterburner. My advice is to give afterburners whenever possible, and even better -- let it be an intensity A/B. However, do note that they use up space, and when turned on, the afterburner eats up energy. ANTI-GRAVITY HARNESS Used By: All Infantry and Abomination. Description: Makes your infantry units walk without touching the ground. This way, there is no worries of your infantry stepping on any land mines, leaving footprint trails or getting hurt by Earthquake. That's the beauty of the Anti-Gravity, which is usually considered worthless. !!UPDATE!! There's a rare item for air units that allows it to have this ANTI-GRAVITY ability, but this time, it avoids aerial mines. Somewhat unrealistic o_O. BOOSTER Used By: All Mobile units with Turbo Booster. (UPDATE VERSION 1.03: ALL MOBILE UNITS) Description: Mini-boosters on mobile units which enables to move a bit faster. However, their speed isn't really doubled like AFTERBURNERS. Very good for most mobile units which takes ages just to walk from one spot to another. In the new version 1.03, all mobile units with an engine (you can't produce engineless units =P) can use the booster, giving a powerful boost of speed depending on the POWER rating of the engine. INSTALL/INSTALL RELEASE Used By: Red Eye, Mantlet, Triage, Orbus. Description: Some strategic units need to be installed to make full use (or activate) of their abilities. When installed, they can't move. LINK GATE Used By: Orbus Description: This ability allows two Orbuses to establish a link between each other's portal gates, allowing units to teleport between the two orbuses portal gates. Refer to Unit "Orbus" for more details on Link Gate. PHASE ENABLE Used By: All units with phase-providing equipment on, or units which are born phasic. Description: Allows units to be teleported from one place to another. Only those with phase-providing equipment may do so. The phase-providing equipment helps the teleporter breaks the unit's molecules up, allowing them to fly through the air and reassembled at whereever the teleporter is. The teleporter, when teleporting units, drain energy (duh) and the units will appear at where the teleporter currently is. MOVE Used By: All units Description: Enables to move from a location to another which you select. The basic way of movement. (DUH!) You can just press backspace and left click anywhere to move your units. (DUH! X2) Flying units always have free movement above all terrains. Units can only attack while they're not moving. STOP Used By: All units Description: The opposite of Move. STOP ceases all orders currently given to the unit and it stops totally on that particular area. However, it will shoot any nearby enemy units if any happen to pass by. TRANSPORT IN / TRANSPORT OUT Used By: Roc Description: This is the Roc's transportation ability. The roc will pick one unit up as it's cargo and carry it. Then the command turns into Transport Out, where the Roc will drop the unit, provided it's on solid ground. You can't drop units in water or lava, sorry =P. TELEPORT Used By: Roc, Orbus, Triage Description: This allows the Roc, Orbus or Triage to teleport units which has inherited the ability to phase. Teleported units will appear below, beside or on the teleporter itself. (Depends, if you're using a Roc, Orbus or Triage.) This allows great mobility for usually slow but strong and powerful units. ADVANTAGE ABILITIES -------------------- CAMOUFLAGE Used By: Apparition, Abomination, Revenant Description: This allows the unit to blend into the surroundings, totally hiding it's presence from any enemy unit. However, IT DOESN'T TURN the units invincible, the units are just INVISIBLE. It can still be hurt by area-damaging attacks, if any happens to hit the camouflaged units. This is the perfect poc-blocking ability. Camouflaged units CAN'T POC. CLOAK Used By: Falcon, All Infantry, All Mobile except Gryphon, Triage, Volte, Mantlet and Red Eye Description: Turns the unit transparent, totally making it undetectable by sensors. However, they can be manually targeted with a good mouse hand, cloaked units still can be attacked. If detected, cloak units are considered uncloaked. Cloaked units can't POC. DISGUISE Used By: Imp Description: Turns the unit into an enemy unit. Actually, it makes your Imps show up as friendly units on enemy minimaps and interface. This way, your enemies can get confused at who to kill and who to not kill. Infiltrators (Disguised Imps) show up as yellow dots on the enemy minimap, but on the interface, they show up as friendly imps without status bars, and most of the time, they stick out like a sore thumb. Infiltrators must be manually targeted to be attacked. Pile this up with cloak. Hehehe. =P Disguised Imps can poc, enabling a whole lot of trickery to be involved. !!UPDATE!! Most air units can equip a rare item called the "Violator", which gives it a disguise ability. o_O Imagine disguised air units that you have to manually target. FLARE Used By: Banshee Description: This generates two fireballs from the banshee's hand-mounted guns which are scout flares that reveals anything in two straight lines. Enemy units, if they see the scout flares, they'll also be able to see what's revealed by the flares. Mostly a ability for long-range recon. Flares disintigrate into environment heat once they burn out. RADAR Used By: Red Eye Description: This allows the Red Eye to scan the minimap, and reveal all units currently not radar-evaded, enemy or friend. Ally dots are yellow, enemy dots are red. Radar Evaded, Camouflaged and Cloaked Units don't show on the minimap when scanned. Enemy Infiltrators will show up as yellow dots. DUH. RADAR EVADE / SENSOR EVADE Used By: Spirit Description: This coats the spirit with a dark barrier that absorbs radar waves and does not bounce them back, disabling radar recon using Red Eyes. Also jams sensors, making the Spirit harder to be shot, due to the fact that they have to get nearer due to the sensors' jammed and blurred vision. !!UPDATE!! The Ghast has a new RARE ITEM called "Darkside Convertor", which bestows upon the rader evasion ability on the ghast. Eee-gads. RADAR JAM Used By: Red Eye, Orbus Description: This requires a LOT of energy to be put into use. The radar jam will make the red eye release great disruption frequencies into the air, disrupting and blacking the enemy's minimap and interface out totally. However, all you can see on the minimap is what your units can currently see if you are radar jammed. Friendly radar is kept in a frequency stealthed from the disruption frequencies, so the Radar Jam won't backfire at allies. However, Jammers can only release a disruption salvo every once in a while, before it needs to automatically shut itself down for system cooldown before releasing a jamming flux again. TACHYON SWEEP (ANOTHER NAME: DETECT) Used By: Manta, Onnir, Owl, Albatross. Description: This reveals any cloaked, camouflaged or infiltrators whitin the radius of the detector. However, what information can be uncovered solely depends on the deceiver's device tech level, the detector's tech level and what information can the detector's device can reveal. The higher the effectiveness, the higher the chance the detector can defeat the deceiver, or vice versa. UNIT INSPECTION Used By: Red Eye Description: Argh, just a lame ability. This allows the red eye to select ONE unit (doesn't matter which) and reveal it's current HP and energy reserves. MISCELLANEOUS -------------- CARGO HOLD Used By: All Infantry Description: Any infantry with a cargo pack will have this ability automatically activated and it requires no energy. This will allow the infantry to collect resources currently on the battlefield, and repair itself at the same time (unsure). However, the infantry must survive through the battle or retreat out in order for you to gain the resources, and your faction MUST WIN THE BATTLE! If the infantry is killed or if your faction loses, all the resources in your infantry's cargo is lost. MIND WARP Used By: Spirit and Medic. Description: This allows the spirit to throw a long-range psycho grenade that will confuse any organic or infantry unit on detonation. It will literally warp the mind of the current infantry and make it lose contact with the hero controlling it, making it confused and it will attack any nearby units, no matter may it be ally or enemy. Medics do the same thing, but the problem is they do it melee instead. Mind Warp don't last long, much to the disadvantage or advantage of the user and victim, depending on what side you're on. REFUEL Used By: Infantry, Mobile and Aviation units. Description: This enables a unit to transfer energy from one unit to another, adding energy to it's energy reserves. However, lower tech refuelers generally release energy into the empty air instead of the unit, losing some of the energy in the process. Higher tech refuelers usually give energy and the receiver receives at least 99.99% of it (if not 100%), making it far more effective. Energy types doesn't matter - it's still electrical energy, no matter may it be methane, solar, gamma, battery or cell. SHORT CIRCUIT Used By: Spirit Description: This is like the Deava's EMP Grenade, but this time, it short circuits the unit, disabling it from doing anything as long as it's still in short circuit. Once it recovers, it can move again. It doesn't mean you can't short him out again! =P Short circuit grenades can be thrown from great distance like mind warp grenades, and unfortunately or fortunately, like mind warp bombs, the short circuit effect isn't that long. ^_^; Whew! That's all the abilties in Shattered Galaxy! (For now :)) 14. SG Versions ----------------- This section will list the various things in the different versions of Shattered Galaxy (Commercialized Version). Version 1.03 New unit: Volte. Resources reduced to mere money. - You can now travel to other alien planets to get rare items. However, you need a set amount of "Mobility Points" to do so. To gain mobility points, take the crater (Land 0044) and control it. The faction will gain MPs as long as the crater is still in their hands. MPs are gain every minute or so the faction has control over crater. Version 1.02 New units: Triage, Mantlet and Virus. Geography Damage: Units on higher ground deal more and suffer less damage from units shooting from lower ground. Version 1.01 Initial Version. Nothing new. (I think) Royal Rumble non-existent. Starting Factions: Talis, Xanteru, Ituron and Vora. More features will be added: There are just too many =P. 15. Credits ------------- - CJayC (owner of gamefaqs.com) for posting up this guide! And hope that he didn't mind that I keep sending updates frequently! =) - My faction members and regiment members. =) - Agrias for being a retard. =P - Thanks to the people who had helped me out a lot in my life in Shattered Galaxy, especially these people: -> DeadAndAlive/Smartevil (Not to mention xAstrolx) for being my best online friend since beta. *cough* Those who want their real names PM me in SG *cough* -> xXLegolasXx for being a pal. -> YxEvilicexY for being a pro =P. -> Havock and HanselxAmber for being the only friendly Blood Angels around. =) (Well.. ex-BA for Havock's case :P) -> Chemisty/Kylrie for.. err.. altering my Deavas? ^_^ -> Creslin for his sense of humour. -> xZerocoolx for being a good irc friend. =D -> xRevenantx for being a moronic friend and inventing "Alfondick" _|_ =P -> Astrider and |VC|Pyrokid/KraZ for being MOS-Ituron traitors. LOL. -> SaNsEiu for being a manwhore =P. -> Phantomlord for making me a wraith whore. :p -> xXxChOpxXx for giving me council! -> DIESELone for being an asshole. =X -> Desmond (xXChiogirlXx) for leveling up slower than myself! =p -> Clemens (YxKraZexY) for being a friend and letting me play SG at his house :P. -> Mercurial for being the stupidest DA regi commander around. (In the past anyways.) -> Fallenangel, XDeathLord (now xkittyx), xDoomtrainx for being fellow SG players in the cybercafe. -> Dreamers Regiment, Blood Angels Regiment, Roughnecks Regiment, Masters Of Shadow Regiment, Troopers Regiment, Nightmare Weavers/Nightmare-Weavers (they're different) regiment, Specialists regiment, Black Lotus regiment members. -> #Shatteredgalaxy channel people! =D -> Nexon for solving my account problems. -> Battlefield commanders for accepting me into battles. -> xZerocoolx (Northy) and next for being the first people to blast my wraiths to bits with their Deavas. ^-^ -> LordDreylon for letting me test out my Wraith guns on his weak oizys and pelicans. Haha. =p -> xmidgetboyx, Swampy, Acheron, Wicked and x|Magedon|x for giving reasons why they can't create the regiment I wanted. -> And those that I have forgotten or missed! ^_^ - Nexon for making such a mind-blowing game! - My friend allowing me to use my account to play instead of hogging it most of the time, and sharing money to buy the renewal cards. - Northy`- for ubik/slanth weapon clarification. And being a good pal =P. - Thanks for the IRC people for clarifying on the ubik/slanth's 3rd weapon. - Myself for writing this guide. :P - Brett "Nemesis" Franklin's for lending me his disclaimer. - Cobralord (or is it xdraculax? =/) for correcting me on the Spirit's Sensor Evasion. - xDarenx/xTICKx and Mephosis/||Mephosis|| for being the elite players in the faction. (Same goes to the regiments Death Angels, Strategists, Blood Angels, ZeitGeist, SouleSS, Nightmare-Weavers, Black Lotus, Dark Knights o_O.) ABOVE ALL, GOODBYE - AND HAPPY SGING! =D By the way.. my personal congratulations to the current Talis OL, InsiGnia, who is newly elected. (Hence of 23/3/2002) And served a good term as Overlord. And next up is HanselxAmber and now, Cobralord. ^_^. To Neopets players who read this FAQ: Make lord_alfonse as your neofriend, and challenge ApocalypseAnnhilator (my pet) to a battledome fight! All right? =P ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ That's the end of the guide, comment at will. Copyright 2001-2002 by Alfonse "Legend Of Crystania" See.