This week we’ll go over two mechanics: missiles and fighters. Missiles never miss, well unless they miss. Missiles can miss due to ECM (electronic counter-measure) or being shot down. But by default a missile has a 100% chance of hitting a target, quite unlike a beam weapon.
Missiles are very powerful, and unlike beam weapons will do consistent damage to a target. Missiles have limited ammunition in combat, based on rack size. Missile ammunition is replenished at the end of combat even if away from a colony or outpost.
In Lord of Rigel, Warhead technologies for missiles are based on the reactor technologies. To begin with you have nuclear missiles, followed by fusion, anti-matter, and singularity warheads. Missile speeds also increase as you research ship drive technologies, and missile armor gets better as you research better armor technologies. Like beam weapons, you automatically receive missile mods as you research advanced technologies. Missile mods range from ECCM (which counters ECM) to heavy armor (makes it harder to shoot down a missile), shield generators, and even cloaking devices.
Fighters are small craft launched from a carrier. They are fitted with the player’s best armor, engine, shield, and point defense weapons available. Fighters will approach their target, fire their weapons, and return to the carrier. Fighters can be very powerful, but are vulnerable to being intercepted by point defense weapons and other fighters. Destroyed fighters are automatically replenished at the end of combat, even if a ship is away from a colony or outpost. Overall, carriers can be very effective in Lord of Rigel if supported by other ship types. But generally they are best saved for the mid game when larger ship classes such as Battleships are available which can carry larger amounts of fighters.
One final thing to mention are torpedo weapons. These behave much like missiles but have the added advantage of not being able to be shot down by point defense. Torpedoes are a mid-late game technology and there are also direct-fire torpedoes that behave much like beam weapons (hitting their target in the same turn as fired).
We hope you learned about a bit more about how missiles, torpedoes, and fighters work. Importantly though you have seen some ways that they can be useful in your own future ship designs. Next week we will be going over star generation in Lord of Rigel. Talk to you then!
