Zoltans

The 'Zoltan' are allies of the 'Engi'. Their innate energy can power ship systems.

With the majority of their bodies composed of pure, harnessable energy, the Zoltan are ambivalent towards the Galactic Federation. Whilst a deeply officious and obtuse people, they generally favour diplomacy over acts of aggression and are known for being fair and just in their dealings with others. Although they inhabit their own home systems, Zoltans often appear in Engi Homeworlds and Engi-Controlled Sectors due to their alliance with the Engi.

Being ingenious experts of technology, the Zoltan race pioneered a unique ship-based shielding technology which can be found on nearly every Zoltan vessel. These shields are very difficult to breach, however they cannot regenerate during a battle - unless a Shield Overcharger drone is deployed. Therefore, once they are impacted by enemy fire enough to deactivate them, Zoltan vessels must rely on conventional shielding systems.

The Zoltan ability provides a single block of power to the ship system whose corresponding room they are currently standing in (no effect on subsystems). This is especially useful in reduced-power battles, or in battles against ships with ion weapons, as their energy cannot be blocked by the ion effect. For example, having two Zoltan in the shield system room will ensure that your ship will always have at least one layer of shields active at any time. The addition of Zoltan-provided power means maximum reactor power can be exceeded.

The Zoltan ability can also be used to "clean" power. Cloaking, Hacking, Crew Teleporter, and Mind Control systems require a cooldown period after use that locks power into that system. By walking a Zoltan into a room with a system in cooldown, one of the power bars will turn from blue (cooldown) to yellow (Zoltan power). Leaving the room will empty the power bar, allowing that unit of power to be utilized elsewhere while the system is cooling down.

In Weapon Control and Drone Control systems, Zoltans provide power starting with the highest priority module (the left-most slot), and their power can only be redistributed by changing the priority of the modules.

Race characteristics

• Hitpoints: 70
• Explodes upon dying and deals 15 HP damage to all enemy crew in the room
  • Damage to drones is halved (full-HP drones will be shown missing 8 HP, however, a drone actually loses only 7.5 HP - it is how the game rounds down the decimal values)
  • No damage to allies, if the exploding Zoltan was mind-controlled
• Adds 1 zoltan (yellow) power bar to an occupied system or replaces 1 reactor (green) power bar in a system; subsystems are unaffected. Adds to or replaces the top-most system power block (with few exceptions)
  • Weapon Control and Drone Control:
    • Weapons and drones are powered by Zoltans from the left-most weapons/drones slots (i.e. from the bottom, contrary to the game visuals)
    • Leaving the room without enough spare reactor power will de-power the weapons/drones from the left-most slots
    • If Zoltans' power is not enough to fully power the left-most weapons/drones when there is no spare reactor power available, these weapons/drones will not be operational and must be swapped to another slot (it is also possible to have maximum power in the Weapon/Drone Control system and not be able to use some of the - or, in certain cases, any - weapons/drones, which otherwise could be normally powered with reactor power, e.g.: 2 zoltans in Weapon Control level 4 system with enough spare reactor power, slot 1 Vulcan, slot 2 Burst Laser I, slot 3 Charge Laser - only slot 2 or slot 3 weapon will be operational despite the system being completely filled with power; either slot 2 or slot 3 weapon needs to replace the slot 1 Vulcan in order to be able to power both Burst Laser I and Charge Laser)
    • Fully powering the left-most weapons/drones slots with zoltan power will keep the weapons/drones online providing the ion-proofing effect. While fully powering a weapon has almost no downsides, in case when a drone schematic is deployed, the drone cannot be manually de-powered (to be efficiently or safely used) - the manual control can be regained when the zoltans stop fully powering the drone schematic solely by their zoltan power
    • With Zoltans in the Weapon/Drone Control, the weapons/drones in the left-most slots can become depowered when other weapons/drones get positioned in these slots if there is not enough cumulative power in the system or not enough spare reactor power for both of these weapons/drones. (example: 1 zoltan and 2 reactor power are powering slot 1 Halberd in Weapon Control level 4 system, slot 2 Leto is unpowered due to lack of reactor; if slot 2 Leto is moved into slot 1, the Halberd goes offline)
  • Shields system:
    • 1 Zoltan can fill power into a buffer (uneven system power level)
    • 2 Zoltans replace the reactor power in pair and unable to fill into a buffer
• Adds, removes, or replaces power from ion-locked systems (depending on the system)
  • Adds power if a system has no power or if there are unfilled system power levels due to partial ionization of Shields, Engines, Medbay/Clonebay, Oxygen.
  • Removes power by passing through (or leaving the room) when as many Zoltans pass through the room as there are power levels in a system. (common use examples: freeing up reactor power from systems on cooldown - Cloaking, Mind Control, and Hacking, usually leaving 1 power bar to keep the passive disruption debuffs vs enemy ships; e.g. 2 zoltans can free up only 2 reactor power from a previously fully powered level 3 self-ionizing system)
  • Replaces regular reactor power
    • When entering Weapon/Drone Control system rooms
    • When as many Zoltans enter and stay in the room as there are power levels in Shields, Engines, Medbay/Clonebay, Oxygen, and other systems.
• Can "ion-proof" most systems by providing zoltan power and enabling the functioning of the systems
  • The ion-lock status, preventing manning the system console, is not removed, and ion damage can accumulate up to a maximum of 5 if the system continues to get ionized
  • Cloaking, Hacking, Mind Control, and Crew Teleporter cannot be activated if they are ionized
  • Mind Control system with a Zoltan will not shutdown if it gets ionized by external factors. (system power levels not filled with zoltan power can get ionize, thus, reducing the maximum MC effect and duration)
  • Hacking cannot be ion-proofed with zoltan power - the hacking disruption gets interrupted and the systems enters cooldown equivalent to the ion damage received. (number of Zoltans occupying the room doesn't affect the outcome - 1 ion damage is enough to shutdown a level 3 Hacking pulse)

Blue options

• Federation terraforming team C12 (equivalent of Sensors 2-3)
• Zoltan trade hub

See also

• Crew races (comparison) (includes other specific characteristics and describes the listed ones)
• Crew races (cost and rarity)