Ion (Weapons)

Ion weapons deal ion damage, which disables systems by forcing power out of them. Ion weapons are blocked by shields, and the ion damage is applied directly to the shield system instead of the targeted room.

Ion weapons do not damage hull, systems, or crew. They can only be shot down by Mark II Defense Drones.

How ion damage works

Each point of ion damage forces 1 power out the system for 5 seconds; the power is returned to the reactor. While under the ion effect, the system is "locked" so that power cannot be added or removed. When the ion timer expires, the system is "unlocked" and functions normally. The ion timer is limited to 25 seconds, but there is no limit to the amount of ion damage that can be applied to a system, meaning that any system can be completely disabled with enough ion.

The ion timer is shown by a light-blue "ticking clock" circle overlaying the system icon, with a number in the middle. This number represents the 1/5 the remaining ion time (for example, "3" represents 15 seconds). This number is also equal to the amount of ion damage applied to the system, unless it received more than 5 ion damage.

When an ionised system is hit by more ion damage, the ion damage stacks: it forces more power out the system, and adds to the current ion timer, keeping the system locked down. Some ion weapons fire quickly enough that they can self-stack: their ion damage will not wear off before the next shot arrives, so they can disable a system completely by themselves (usually shields).

For example, an Ion Blast 2 fires every 4 seconds for 1 ion damage (lasting 5 seconds). Provided it does not miss (and is not delayed by a long cloak), this weapon can completely disable any number of shields. Whereas a Heavy Ion fires every 13 seconds for 2 ion damage (lasting 10 seconds), so by itself it can only disable 1 shield layer.

Tips and nuances

To learn how ion damage works, try fully upgrading your sensors and manning them. This allows you to see the power allocation and ion timers on enemy ships.

Multiple ion weapons can be combined to disable systems more effectively. A single Ion Blast 2 can theoretically take down 4 shields, but in practice this will be ineffective against enemies with high evasion or a long cloak. Adding another ion weapon makes it faster and more reliable, because you can afford to miss a few shots before the ion damage wears off.

Zoltan Shields take double damage from ion weapons. The power provided by Zoltan crew is unaffected by ion damage. For example, two Zoltans in the shields room will always power one shield layer, no matter how much ion hits the shields.

Subsystems (such as piloting) do not use power but are still affected by ion damage. Zoltans cannot protect a subsystem from ionisation. While a system is ionised, it cannot be manned by crew (even Zoltan crew).

The weapons system responds differently to ion damage, due to how weapon power works. Even a single point of ion damage will take a weapon offline, forcing all that weapon's power out the system (but still only for 5 seconds). Hitting the weapon system with multiple ion shots can disable multiple weapons, regardless of how much power each weapon uses.

When ion damage is applied to cooldown systems (such as cloaking), it adds to the current cooldown timer. Hacking behaves differently, due to a bug: ion damage will interrupt an active hack and reset the current cooldown to the amount of ion damage. This means that stun-bombing your own hacking while it is active will shorten the cooldown to 5 seconds instead of 20 (which may be considered an exploit).

Ion weapons table

Weapon	Price	Power	Charge time	Shots	Ion damage	Stun %	Speed	Rarity
Ion Blast	30	1	8	1	1	10	30	3
Ion Blast II	70	3	4	1	1	10	30	4
Heavy Ion	45	2	13	1	2	20	40	3
Ion Stunner	35	1	10	1	1	100*	30	4
Ion Charger	50	2	6	1-3*	1	-	30	3
Chain Ion	55	3	14	1	1-4*	-	30	4
Boss Ion	N/A	3*	21 -- 35*	3	1	-	40	0

List of Ion weapons

Ion Blast

  "Ion weapons can disable systems without causing hull damage."

• Purchase price: 30  (Store rarity: 3)
• Power requirement: 1 power
• Charge time: 8 seconds
• Shots: 1
• Ion damage per shot: 1
• Effect: low chance to stun crew (Advanced Edition)
• Two of them come equipped on Zoltan B
• Cannot self-stack, except with full crew skill and 3 Automated Reloaders.

Ion Blast Mark II

  "Ion weapons can disable systems without causing hull damage."

• Purchase price: 70  (Store rarity: 4)
• Power requirement: 3 power
• Charge time: 4 seconds
• Shots: 1
• Ion damage per shot: 1
• Effect: low chance to stun crew (Advanced Edition)
• Comes equipped on Engi A
• Can self-stack, provided it doesn't miss too much.

Heavy Ion

  "Ion weapons can disable systems without causing hull damage."

• Purchase price: 45  (Store rarity: 3)
• Power requirement: 2 power
• Charge time: 13 seconds
• Shots: 1
• Ion damage per shot: 2
• Effect: moderate-low chance to stun crew (Advanced Edition)
• Comes equipped on Engi B
• Cannot self-stack, except with full crew skill and an Automated Reloader.

Ion Stunner

  "Ion weapons can disable systems without causing hull damage. This ion weapon stuns crew inside the room for 5 seconds."

• Purchase price: 35  (Store rarity: 4) (Advanced Edition Content)
• Power requirement: 1 power
• Charge time: 10 seconds
• Shots: 1
• Ion damage per shot: 1
• Effect: stuns all crew in affected room for 5 seconds; this includes crew in the shields room if the shields themselves were hit
• Comes equipped on Kestrel C and Lanius A
• Cannot self-stack.

Ion Charger

  "This ion weapon can charge multiple times, giving it additional projectiles."

• Purchase price: 50  (Store rarity: 3) (Advanced Edition Content)
• Power requirement: 2 power
• Charge time: 6 seconds per shot, up to 3 shots
• Shots: 1-3
• Ion damage per shot: 1
• Effect: -
• "Autofire" causes continuous fire, disables charging
• Comes equipped on Zoltan C
• Can self-stack with fully trained crew.
• Fully charging helps it stack, by giving a longer ion timer (if two of three shots hit).

Chain Ion

  "This weapon's Ion damage increases each time it fires to a max of 4."

• Purchase price: 55  (Store rarity: 4) (Advanced Edition Content)
• Power requirement: 3 power
• Charge time: 14 seconds
• Shots: 1
• Ion damage per shot: 1, with each subsequent shot dealing 1 additional ion damage, up to a maximum of 4
• Effect: -
• Can self-stack, eventually.
• Effectively the slowest weapon in the game: it takes 56 seconds to fully chain. Use only if desperate.

Boss Ion

 

• Availability: only used by the Rebel Flagship in Phase-1
• Artillery system: with 3 system levels maximum
• Charge time (depends on the system level): 35s for level 1, 28s for level 2, 21s for level 3
• Shots: 3
• Ion damage per shot: 1