Flying

Combat

Three layers, a lock that takes time, and a range band per weapon.

Every ship has three layers and they behave differently. Shield comes back on its own and comes back fastest. Armour comes back far more slowly and only if something repairs it. Hull is the last of it — when hull runs out the ship is destroyed.

Each layer resists damage types differently, so what is loaded matters as much as how much of it there is.

Locking

You cannot fire at something you have not locked, and a lock takes time. How long depends on two numbers: your ship's scan resolution and the target's signature. A big slow target locks almost instantly; a small fast one takes long enough that it may be gone.

This is why an Interceptor is worth flying. It is the hardest thing in the game to lock, and its reserved slot holds the module that stops something else leaving.

Range

Every weapon has a band rather than a maximum. Inside its optimal it lands what it says; past that it falls away, and past the band it does not reach at all. Choosing where to stand is most of the fight.

Your sensors reach 14 400 m. Anything further away than that is not there as far as you are concerned, which is also how a fight is broken off: get far enough, and you were never in one.

Where you may fight

• Nowhere in a Portus or a Litus. Pilot-versus-pilot is refused across the whole map, and a harbour additionally refuses every shot inside 15 km of its station.
• Anywhere below that. The Vadum allows it and records nothing; the Altum and the Abyssus allow it and mean it.
• A practice target stands outside every harbour. It is exempt from the peace zone in the direction of being shot at, which is what makes it a place to learn a weapon.

Aggression

Firing on a pilot flags you, and so does emptying their hold. The flag is why a pirate cannot simply leave after taking something: the thing they did follows them for a while, and everybody can see it.