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Ship combat basics

Understand weapon types, shields, power and missiles well enough to pick a sensible loadout and win your first dogfights.

Ship combat in Star Citizen is about more than aim. The weapons you fit, how you share power between systems and how you deal with missiles all decide who flies home. This guide covers the basics you need before taking on bounties or heading into Pyro.

The three weapon types

  • Ballistic: fires solid projectiles and uses ammo, so you can run dry. Part of the damage goes through shields straight to the hull (roughly 20 to 60 percent, depending on the shield). Ballistics make little heat and keep your signature low. Restock ammo at a landing zone or a station with repair and rearm services.
  • Energy: uses no ammo. Its ammo pool refills over time, and how fast depends on how you balance your power. Energy weapons hit shields first and only reach the hull once the shields are down. They also give off electromagnetic emissions that other ships can detect.
  • Distortion: does not damage the hull at all. Sustained fire knocks out a ship's components and can shut down its power plant. It is used to disable a ship without destroying it.

A common mix is energy weapons to strip shields and ballistics to finish the hull. Ballistics are also handy against a target whose shields you cannot break.

Weapon classes

  • Repeaters: medium range with a steady rate of fire. Come in energy and ballistic versions.
  • Cannons: long range and hard hitting, but slower to fire. Come in ballistic, energy and distortion versions.
  • Gatlings: very fast fire with a wide spread, best up close.
  • Scatterguns: big damage at short range, weak at a distance.
  • Mass drivers: long range railgun-style weapons that hit heavily armored ships hard.

Shields and armor

Your shields absorb incoming fire before it reaches your hull. Behind them, armor reduces damage to the hull. Two recent changes matter here:

  • Patch 4.10.2 changed shield resistances so they now apply as flat values.
  • Since patch 4.10, destroyed armor no longer reduces damage. Once a ship's armor is gone, hits land at full strength.
  • Patch 4.10 also fixed energy weapons so they deal their intended extra damage to shields.

Power management

Your ship's power plant can only make so much power. The Power Management screen on your ship's MFDs lets you share it between weapons, shields and other systems. Move power to weapons when you are attacking, and to shields when you need to survive or escape.

Because energy weapons refill based on the power they get, starving your weapons to boost shields means your lasers recharge more slowly. Practice switching quickly in a safe area.

Missiles and countermeasures

  • Missiles lock on and guide themselves. They track by infrared (IR), electromagnetic (EM) or cross-section (CS) signature.
  • Missile racks hold smaller missiles. For example, a size 4 rack can fire two size 3 missiles.
  • Decoys (flares) create a bright signature that can pull missiles away from you.
  • Noise (chaff) creates a field that dampens signatures and can break locks.
  • Patch 4.10 raised missile and torpedo prices a lot, so every missile you fire costs more to replace.

Building your first combat loadout

  1. Look up your ship's hardpoints so you know the size of each weapon and component slot.
  2. Pick weapons that match how you fly: energy for long fights without reloading, ballistic for hitting the hull through shields.
  3. Check that your power plant and coolers can handle the weapons you chose.
  4. Upgrade shields if you keep losing them early in fights.
  5. Buy the parts and fit them at your ship terminal, then test them in a quiet area before a real fight.

Weapon changes from patch 4.10

  • The size 4 ballistic gatling now hits roughly 68 percent harder per round.
  • The size 4 ballistic combine cannon lost its splash damage, and its direct damage dropped by roughly 10 percent.

Rental ships come with fixed weapons and components. If you want a custom loadout, you need to own the ship.