autofix:

The amount of energy used to auto fix damaged subsystems. Your ship tries to auto repair itself every 3 seconds. Auto repair fails if your AUTO REPAIR (AR) device is damaged.

autoxfer:

The amount of energy to transfer from shields when AUTOXFER is enabled via the "SET AUTOXFER ON" command and your ship is about to run out of energy.

damage:

Damage is essentially a measure of hull thickness; it determins much pounding can the ship take.

You die if your damage goes over the damage limit. Typical damage is around 3500. You must buy it in chunks of 500.

When you dock at a base, damage drops by 100. Subsequent docks at the same base lower damage by 200. The only way to reduce ship damage is to dock (device damage, not related to hull damage, repairs itself as time passes and can be reduced more quickly with the REPAIR command and by setting AUTOFIX and UDAMAGE in DRYDOCK to a high value.).

ecells:

The amount of energy cells holding your ship's fuel. When the ENERGY CELL (EC) device breaks, the amount of energy in your ship divided by the number of energy cells on ship may be leaked into space.

energy:

Energy is ship's energy. The amount you buy is the maximum energy that your ship can hold at any given time. As your ship spends energy during the game, it can replenish it by docking at friendly ports. The advantage to a high value is that you can do more in the game between docks.

Ship energy is used for moving, capturing planets, building planets, and phasering enemies. A ship with no enhanced WARP ENERGY REDUCTION (WER) will spend roughly 100-300 units of energy per move (6 * distance * distance) (see WF-factor below); capturing costs 100, putting one build on a planet costs 100; and phasering costs the amount of the shot (plus 200 per shot if shields are up).

If your ship energy goes to zero, you die.

NOTE: the "SET AUTOE ON" command will automatically transfer the amount of energy specified in AUTOXFER from shields (if available) to your ship if your ship energy goes to zero; thus, saving your life.

An average ship has about 5000 units of ship energy. You must buy it in chunks of 500.

help:

The following commands are available inside of DRYDOCK:

  ALTER [para#] ........ Set each or specified current ship design
  CLASS ................ Switch ship classes
  DEFAULT  ............. Reset ship design back to ship class defaults
  EXIT or QUIT ......... Exit drydock
  FILE [all] ........... Display ship class designs on file
  LOAD [predef#] ....... Load predefined ship design from file
  NAME [name] .......... Assign name to current ship design
  OFF  ................. Logout
  PRINT [def] .......... Print current or standard/default ship design
  RESET  ............... Reset to previous design (before drydock)
  SAVE [predef#] ....... Save current ship design to file
  ZERO ................. Clear current ship design

More information is available on individual parameter names (listed below) by saying "HELP names" or "HELP *" for all parameter names.

  #MINES      DAMAGE    PHASERS?    TOENERGY    UARMOR 
  #TOINHOLDS  ECELLS    PHENERGY    TORPHOLDS?  UDAMAGE
  #TORPS      ENERGY    SENSOR-RNG  TORPTUBES?  WARP
  AUTOFIX     LSDAYS    SHIELDS     UABILITY    WEN-FACT
  AUTOXFER    MINES?

lsdays:

The number of life support days your ship had sustain. When your LIFE SUPPORT (LS) device is damaged, your LIFE SUPPORT days are decreased and continue to decrease over time until your REPAIR or DOCK.

mines:

If you buy the ability to lay mines, you can use the DROP command to lay them. If an enemy ship hits a mine, it is equivalent to a hit by a torpedo (and your side receives the points for it). It's a passive weapon, but one that cannot be ignored.

For Q500, you can fly a miner class starship with cargo capacity capable of storing up to 5 mines. You can buy additional storage for additional mines for Q100 per 5 mines by changing the DRYDOCK #MINES setting.

numbmines:

The number of mines on board your ship. You must also have the mining capablity.

numbtoinholds:

The number of torpedoes in the torp holds. You must also have torp holds.

These torps are reloaded (in 20 seconds) when your torpedoe bays are depleted; the actual amount loaded depends on the the number of torps the firing torpedo bay can contain at once.

numbtorps:

The number of torps in your torpedoe bays and available for firing.

phasers:

It costs Q1000 to have the ability to phaser. You can fire a maximum of 100 units of energy with the basic capability.

phenergy:

You can increase your maximum phaser for Q400 per 50 units added, up to a maximum phaser shot of 700-900 units depending on ship class.

An average ship can fire 400-500 units of phasers.

sensor-rng:

The range of your SCANNERS, NAV computer, LIST command, and DUAL SCREEN are affected by the value of SENSOR-RANGE.

shields:

Shields absorb the effects of enemy attacks and star explosions to reduce the damage they do to your ship. In effect, high shields mean that you endure shield energy loss instead of ship damage when attacked. This is good, because shield energy can be replenished about 5 times more quickly than ship damage can be repaired (see Damage below).

Skip this paragraph if you don't care about details. Suppose your max shields are 5000 and you are at full power (100% shields). If you are hit with a 500P hit (500 unit phaser hit), it is entirely absorbed by the shields, and your shields drop to 90% (4500). If you are hit with ANOTHER 500P hit, since your shields are at 90%, they absorb 90% of the hit. So, your shields drop to 4050 (81%) and your Damage increase by 50. When your shields get low enough, significant amounts of the hits get through to your Ship Damage, and your devices (such as computer, life support, warp drive) can be damaged too.

High shields are also good because they can be easily transferred to ship energy if the need arises. You might ask, "why not have 1000 max ship energy, and 7000 max shield energy?" Not a bad idea, since you really have 8000 available for the ship's use. The catch is that, when you dock, ship and shield energy both increase by the same amount: that is, a ship with 4000 max ship energy and 4000 max shield energy will come to full power in about 3-4 docks, while a ship with 1000 max ship energy and 7000 max shield en may take 6-7 docks.

An average ship has about 4000 units of shield energy.

toenergy:

The amount of energy that your torpedoes contain when they hit an object.

torpholds:

If you have torp holds on your ship then you have the ability to reload your torpedoe bays while in space (ie: without docking).

torptubes:

It costs Q1000 to have the ability to fire torps. You get a max of five torps that your ship can use before it must restock by docking. You can increase this maximum number of torps for Q500 per five torps (yes, weapons are expensive!)

An average ship can fire 10-15 torps.

uability:

Increasing unit-ability increases the intellence of your subsystem units and controls the amout of damage a subsystem may receive when your ship is hit.

TORPS do not tend to missfire and PHASERS and WARP ENGINES do not tend to overheat with a high UABILITY.

UABILITY works in conjunction with UARMOR and acts as extra hull protection around subsystems. Each chunk of UABILITY increases subsystem unit protection by an additional 10% of total hull; however, UARMOR still determines if a subsystem takes a hit.

That is, if a hit upon your ship does damage to a subsystem (determined by UARMOR), the percetage of hull damage minus ten times the value of UABILITY (but in total: atleast 40%) goes directly into a subsystem.

For example, if your hull is damaged at 80% and UABILITY is set to 1, then 70% of the hit goes direclty into a subsystem; if UABILITY is set to 2, then only 60% of the hit goes into a subsystem; if 3 then 50%, etc.

The formula is:

  subsys damage =
         hitamount * (hull damage percent - uability*10 )
                or
         hitamount * (atleast 40% )

uarmor:

Increasing UARMOR makes your ship's subsystems harder to damage.

Subsystem units are damaged when your ship takes a hit.

The value of UARMOR determines when units take damaged based on the amount of ship hull damage.

For example, if UARMOR is set to 1 then 10% of your hull must be damaged in order for a subsystem to take a hit; if set to 2, then 20% of hull must be damaged; if set to 3, then 30%, etc. (There are random deviations).

UARMOR also works in conjunction with UABILITY.

The formula is:

  hit subsystem if:

         hull damage percent > uarmor*10

udamage:

Increasing UDAMAGE makes your ship's subsystems more reliable and raises their FAILURE, BREAKAGE, and DESTROYED thresholds.

waenreduce:

The energy expended in movement is based on a simple formula:

        WFFACTOR*distance*distance  (WFFACTOR is generally 6)

This product is doubled if shields are up, and tripled if you are cloaked or tractoring a friendly ship.

WFFACTOR is reduced by the amount of WARP ENERGY REDUCTION (WER) you purchase.

warp:

Max. Warp is the farthest you can move with a single move command. It's not much use to have a huge max warp unless you also invest in WARP ENERGY REDUCTION (WER). For example, with shields up and no investment in WER, moving 25 sectors would cost 12*25*25 or 7500 units of energy!! Moving 5 sectors 5 times would cost 5*(12*5*5) or 1500 units. It's much cheaper to move slowly.

But, a high maximum warp is handy for escaping enemies and for scouting.

A typical ship has a max warp of 10.