Ship combat

Ship combat occurs when you run out of diplomacy or are just fed up with whomever's on the other end.

Overview
When you first enter combat you will be asked to select your ship.You can choose your flagship, and when fully equipped it may very well be your most powerful vessel. But understand that if it is lost the game will be over. When selecting ships, it is best to think about what types of ships you are facing and which of your fleet has the best counter to them.

In space combat, use the WASD keys or your analog stick to turn and thrust, and the appropriate fire buttons to use your primary and secondary weapons/modules. While in combat, the physics are pseudo-Newtonian and you are thus encouraged to take advantage of, or at least be aware of gravity wells and your ship's momentum.

Use the primary and secondary fire keys (by default the left and right mouse buttons or right and left triggers on a controller) to use your ship's unique primary and secondary weapons. Your ammunition for most weapons is limitless, but power reserves require time to recharge.

Power-ups
Sometimes equipment, ammunition and spare fuel can be found on the field of battle. These can come from abandoned space stations, decayed satellites or even wreckages from previous battles. If you move over these with your ship you can scoop those up to provide a fleet-wide bonus. Red salvage includes equipment that will allow us to improve our regenerative capacitors. Blue salvage will boost our ships' maximum speed. Yellow salvage will supercharge our thrusters for greater acceleration. Green salvage includes emergency medical and life support equipment that will effectively increase our maximum crew capacity.

Hazards
There are more ways than simply enemy laser fire to die in combat. Always be aware of your surroundings as there are plenty of ways for your ship to sustain damage and lose valuable crew, represented by the green bar. The most obvious hazards are slamming into a planet or moon, getting struck by an errant asteroid or simply wandering too far out into interstellar space and getting caught in a radiation cloud. Position yourself accordingly and think about how you can force your opponent closer to the hazards.

Be aware of nebulae too. Some of the particle clouds have been observed as to having an electromagnetic effect that discharges shipboard capacitors. Wander into one of these small purple nebulae and expect your energy reserves to rapidly deplete.

Hints

 * From the fleet management screen, you can see your current fleet support capacity, both how large your fleet currently is and the maximum support size. Different ships have different requirements for support so think carefully when choosing which ships to recruit and take with you. You will also see which ships are currently in your fleet and their current crew levels.
 * There are two ways you can recruit ships into your fleet. The first is by paying for them with RUs. You may also sometimes receive a new ship from a grateful alien for free, but have insufficient space for it in your current fleet. In these instances, the ship will head to the nearest starbase and wait for you there. These ships will appear in your recruitment screen as a "free" ship.