Weapons
The Weapons console targets, arms, and fires the ship's weapons and manages its shields.
This screen is designed for crews of 5-6 officers per bridge.
- For crews of 3-4 officers, see the Tactical screen, which combines functions of Helms and Weapons.
- For single-person crews, see the Single Pilot screen, which combines some functions of Helms, Weapons, and Relay.
For more details on specific types of weapons, see Weapon Types.
To fire beam weapons or guide missile weapons, the Weapons officer must target an enemy ship or station. This is done by tapping/clicking the desired target.
You can optionally fire missile weapons without a lock, either by not selecting a ship (to fire them in a straight line out of their tubes' orientation) or by tapping/clicking the Lock button to select a bearing using a targeting ring around the outside of the radar.
Shields can be activated (and deactivated) by pressing the shield button. It might seem tempting to keep the shields up at all time, but they drain significantly more power when they are active.
You can calibrate your shields to a specific frequency. Shield recalibration takes time and requires lowering your shields, which leaves you vulnerable until calibration is completed.
Missile and mine weapons must be loaded into tubes, which are located in fixed locations on a ship.
- Loading: Select a missile or mine and tap/click Load to load it into a tube. This takes time and is displayed as a progress bar that grows to the right.
- Unloading: Once a tube is loaded, you can tap/click Unload to remove it back to your weapon stocks. This takes time and is displayed as a progress bar that shrinks to the left.
When Lock is enabled, you select a target to target for guided missiles.
When disabled, you can use a targeting ring that appears on the outer ring of the radar to manually select a heading for guided missiles to fire toward. A skilled weapons officer can use manual targeting to fire guided missile weapons at particularly evasive targets, or targets that you otherwise cannot select.
The Fire function appears on loaded tubes. For guided weapons, select a target before pressing Fire. Otherwise, it fires straight forward from the tube's orientation, or if weapons are unlocked, in the direction set in the outer targeting ring. (HVLI and Mine weapons are unguided and always fire straight from their tubes.)
Beam weapons are energy weapons automatically fired at a selected target within the weapon's arc and range, which might be part of a turreted system that takes time to rotate toward a target. Beam weapons are perfectly and surgically accurate, even capable of damaging specific systems on a target ship, but are relatively weak compared to missile and mine weapons. They can also be calibrated to better penetrate an enemy's shields by applying shield frequency data from the Science officer.
- Frequency: Set the beam weapons frequency to best match what the targeted ship is weak against, so that your beams are most effective.
- Target: The specific system for beam weapons to damage. The Science station can fully scan a target to see its system status. Select Hull to destroy a target ship.
The ship's current energy, which is consumed by weapon functions and shields.
Front and rear shields status (100% is max, 0% is disabled).