Beam (Weapons)

Beam weapons cut across multiple rooms, allowing them to damage several systems and deal large amounts hull damage. Some beams deal no damage to systems or hull, but instead start fires or hurt crew.

Beams are the only weapons that never miss. They hit the first room instantly, then rapidly track along their path. As they are not projectiles, beams cannot collide with anything - they can only be blocked by regular shields and/or Zoltan Shields (which get damaged and eventually depleted).

Beams do not deplete regular shield layers and even one shield layer is enough to block most beam weapons, making them ineffective without proper support. However, the Artillery Beam (a dedicated weapon system available only on Federation Cruiser A/B) can pierce all regular shields layers (up to all 5, when they are deployed by certain enemy ships).

The beam swipe speed depends on the beam weapon.

Beam targeting and damage mechanics

Unlike other weapons, beams allow players to target any part of a room. The first click sets the starting point and displays a line indicating the beam length, which can be rotated to set the end point. The second click fires the beam.

A beam weapon can target and fire (when charged) at a cloaked ship if there is a friendly crew, boarding drone or mind-controlled enemy aboard the ship. If a beam weapon completes charging the moment an enemy ship enters its cloak, the beam will still successfully fire and potentially damage the ship; one of the most common scenario being firing a Glaive Beam when a fully trained (in Weapons skill) crew is manning the Weapon Control from the very start of the hostile ship encounter till the beam successfully fires the already cloaking enemy, possibly destroying the Cloak system and cancelling the cloak altogether.

Even catching a room with the tiniest edge of a beam (when all enemy shields are down) will deal full hull and system damage. The damage is applied at the first moment that a beam enters a room. So it is possible to deal (or receive) no hull/system damage if the beam starts firing when the shields are up but get depleted a moment after, even if that initial beam swipe is still within the boundaries of a targeted room. Enemies target beams inefficiently, starting the beam in the centre of a room.

The damage of a beam is reduced by one for every shield layer, giving the most powerful beams (Halberd Beam, Glaive Beam) some ability to pierce shields. For example, a 2-damage Halberd Beam can deal 1 damage (to each hit room) through 1 shield layer.

The damage done by a beam to the crew works differently: it's applied when a beam first enters the tile that a crewmember occupies. Similarly, the Fire Beam starts fires on a per-tile basis, so hitting more tiles can start more fires. Damage to crew drones is halved.

Zoltan Shields take double damage from beams (in two "ticks", one occurring at the start and the other nearly the end of the swipe). Despite doing no hull damage, the Fire Beam and Anti-Bio Beam do 2 damage to Zoltan Shields per swipe.

While interacting with Zoltan Shields, there are instances when hull damaging beams can completely deplete the Zoltan Shields' remaining energy and still not do any hull damage to a ship with its shields down despite the beam swipe continuing along its path. The contrary is also true - 1 or more rooms can be damaged after depleting the Zoltan Shields when the ship's regular shields are down by the 2nd "tick" of a swipe. This depends on where the very tip of the beam swipe ends when the Zoltan Shields are depleted. Regular shield piercing mechanics are applied as usual. See Zoltan Shield piercing mechanics and tips: part 1, part 2, part 3.

Regular damage beams can be used as Anti-Bio Beam analogs, e.g.: Pike-bio Beam. Similarly, Mini Beam can be used as Fire Beam analog (albeit a far weaker one): a beam swipe must be started just before depleting the shield - a fire (10% chance) occurs even on the initial swipe tile (without dealing hull damage to the room where the beam starts its swipe); this also applies to the hull-damaging beam drones, but it is much harder to achieve the usually desired fire-starting result without accidentally dealing the hull damage - due to the randomness of the beam swipe starting position and high beam speed (especially in case of a Beam Drone I).

Beams can have very damage-efficient swipes against certain ships, e.g.: (Cheeky) Pike Beam swipes

Beam weapons table

Weapon	Price	Power	Charge time	Beam length	Damage	Fire %	Speed	Rarity
Mini Beam	Sells for 10	1	12	45	1	10	3	0
Pike Beam	55	2	16	170	1	-	13	2
Hull Beam	70	2	14	100	1*	-	5	3
Halberd Beam	65	3	17	80	2	-	5	2
Glaive Beam	95	4	25	80	3	-	5	5
Fire Beam	50	2	20	140	0	80	5	3
Anti-Bio Beam	50	2	16	140	0*	-	13	5
Artillery Beam	N/A	1-4*	50 -- 20*	500*	1*	10	13	0
Boss Beam	N/A	3*	19.5 -- 32.5*	100	2	-	5	0

List of Beam weapons

Mini Beam

  "Extremely cheap and weak beam weapon."

• Sells for: 10 (cannot be bought or found)
• Power requirement: 1 power
• Charge time: 12 seconds
• Beam length: 45 (1 tile diagonally)
• Damage: 1 damage per room hit
• Crew damage: 15 HP per room tile
• Effect: 10% chance to start fire (per tile)
• Comes equipped on Stealth A and Stealth C

Pike Beam

  "Can cut across entire ships, assuming there's no shield to stop it."

• Purchase price: 55  (Store rarity: 2)
• Power requirement: 2 power
• Charge time: 16 seconds
• Beam length: 170 (3.8 tiles diagonally)
• Damage: 1 damage per room hit
• Crew damage: 15 HP per room tile
• Effect: -
• Comes equipped on Zoltan B

Hull Beam

  "This beam is most powerful when targeting large, empty sections of hull."

• Purchase price: 70  (Store rarity: 3)
• Power requirement: 2 power
• Charge time: 14 seconds
• Beam length: 100 (2.2 tiles diagonally)
• Damage: 1 damage per room hit (2 damage on systemless rooms)
• Crew damage: 15 HP per room tile
• Effect: -

Halberd Beam

  "Slow but reliably powerful standard beam weapon."

• Purchase price: 65  (Store rarity: 2)
• Power requirement: 3 power
• Charge time: 17 seconds
• Beam length: 80 (1.8 tiles diagonally)
• Damage: 2 damage per room hit
• Crew damage: 30 HP per room tile
• Effect: -
• Comes equipped on Zoltan A
• Can target 3-4 rooms straight, 2-3 diagonally, 5 max.
• Still deals 1 damage per room through 1 shield

Glaive Beam

  "One of the most powerful weapons of war ever created. Known to take out some ships in a single blast."

• Purchase price: 95  (Store rarity: 5)
• Power requirement: 4 power
• Charge time: 25 seconds
• Beam length: 80 (1.8 tiles diagonally)
• Damage: 3 damage per room hit
• Crew damage: 45 HP per room tile
• Effect: -
• Comes equipped on Stealth B
• Still deals 1 damage per room through 2 shields, or 2 damage per room through 1 shield

Fire Beam

  "This terrifying beam does no physical damage but ignites fires."

• Purchase price: 50  (Store rarity: 3)
• Power requirement: 2 power
• Charge time: 20 seconds
• Beam length: 140 (3.1 tiles diagonally)
• Damage: -
• Crew damage: -
• Effect: 80% chance to start fire (per tile)
• Deals 1 point of damage twice against Zoltan Shields

Anti-Bio Beam

  "This terrifying beam does no physical damage, but rips through organic material, dealing heavy damage to crew members."

• Purchase price: 50  (Store rarity: 5)
• Power requirement: 2 power
• Charge time: 16 seconds
• Beam length: 140 (3.1 tiles diagonally)
• Damage: -
• Crew damage: 60 HP per room tile
• Effect: -
• Deals 1 point of damage twice against Zoltan Shields
• Enemies never use this weapon
• Comes equipped on Slug A
• Can be obtained in the Slug Home Nebula Surrender event
• Damages crewmembers and crew drones (including your own).
• Must hit the TILE of the room a crewmember is in to inflict damage. You don't have to hit the crewmember exactly, but merely hitting the room they're in isn't enough.

Artillery Beam

  "Powers a slow, high-powered beam that pierces all shields and does one damage per room hit. More power means faster cooldown."

• Availability: only available (pre-installed) on Federation Cruiser Layout A and Layout B
• Artillery system: with 4 system levels maximum
• Charge time (depends on the system power level): 50s for level 1, reduced by 10 seconds for each level above 1 to a minimum of 20s for level 4
• Firing mode: auto-fire
• Beam length: 500 (12.5 tiles diagonally)
• Deals 1 damage per room hit and ignores all standard shields
• Crew damage: 15 HP per room tile
• Effect: 10% chance to start fire (per tile)

Boss Beam

 

• Availability: only used by the Rebel Flagship in phase 1-2
• Artillery system: with 3 system levels maximum
• Charge time (depends on the system power level): 32.5s for level 1, 26s for level 2, 19.5s for level 3
• Beam length: 100 (2.2 tiles diagonally)
• Deals 2 damage per room hit