Latest revision as of 07:54, 2 March 2023

A Glossary provides a list of terms and abbreviations unique to a game, group, or profession. The following is a list providing words commonly used in Star Sonata and their definitions.

Mechanics Glossary

A

The Acropolis

A system off of lyceum, contains a HUGE number of valuable Blueprints for sale, most of which are REQUIERED for any significant degree of base building. Aug Condensers, Base Aug Blueprint packs and Base Gear Blueprint packs can all be found here.

Alternate Currency

A system of Currency other then credits, usually a token traded in an AI stations Trade bay for specialized equipment. These include, but are not limited too, Enforcer Badges, Constable Badges, Gold Doubloons, Launching Tubes, Trader Badges, Trader Signets, Trader Insignia, Fist Full Of Dollars, Zephrengi Research Diplomas, Honorary mentions/diplomas, and bronze/silver/gold/platinum Bars.

Astral Injection

A skill required to equip augmenters onto permanent drones, in addition to allowing you to use Drone controllers to enhance drones. Currently available in Perpetual Motion after a series of missions.

Area of Effect

Also called AOE, these effects impact multiple ships at once. AOE effects will usually list the radius of the effect, but it is important to remember that this effect does not extend past the base range of the weapon.

Augmenter

Used as permanent enhancements to ships, permanent drones, and stations. Auging your ships, bots and stations is critical to success in Star Sonata. Augmenters are usually acquired either by killing AI ships or by building them from Blueprints. Nearly every stat in the game can be changed by some augmenter or another.

Auras

Auras are created by Aura Generators, and effect all ships in their range. Auras can effect both allied and enemy ships, and different aura generators are used depending on what effect you want and if you want it to effect an enemy or ally. The OVERWHELMING majority of auras are Capital ship locked, so classes that do not use capital ships tend to derive minimal benefits from aura generators.

B

Bar Skills

These skills are scattered around earthforce layer. Each skill costs gold or platinum bars to obtain. They are generally considered end game skills, increasing things like Maneuvering or Cargo space. They are nice to have but generally optional with the recent changes to Zens Skills.

Base

A space station used for trading or construction. Frequently player-owned, you can dock your ships at a base to keep more then one or two around if you like. AI stations and some player station sell gear, in addition you can use Storage at AI stations to pass items between characters on the same account and hold your money securely.

Adonis

Tech 9 stations and station gear. Generally considered the first level of base gear to be relevant to orbital defenses as it has the full complement of station augmenters, station gear like a Pulse Gun, Mag Cannon, and Overloader, and Industrial Y and Z construction. The Adonis Energy bank X is the first station energy to use Nuclear Waste as a fuel source rather than produce it as a waste. Adonis Stations have a significant power jump over the previous tier Apollo at Tech 6. Also the first tech of stations to use extractors other than Tech 0 AI station extractors.

Argonaut

Second level of base gear from Adonis. They are Tech 12. A number of base items are Tech 12, like Mzungu Transdims. Some teams require you to have tech 12 stations minimum in wild space.

Ambrosia

Tech 14 stations are rarely used for anything other then shops. A few extremely poor or extremely new teams occasionally use Bellarmines Cathedrals for Healing Kits, but this is extremely rare as they are not particularly effective.

Andaman

This tech 16 base is the highest base Free to Play players can use, and is a frequent sight on earthforce layer. Moderately effective as extractors due to the low cost of tech 16 Fusion extractors, they are also seen in Wild Space.

Achilles

This is the tech 18 base. Sometimes used as Healing kits by new teams in defenses, the are occasionally used as extraction bases in wild space.

Annihilator

The most common base to see in Wild space is a tech 20 Adamantium Kit. Used primarily for defenses, large teams with lots of resources can also use them for extraction if they can afford the cost of the tech 20 Fusion Extractors.

Bindomite

A critical late game commodity, Bindomite allows you to mod equipment, adding additional small bonuses to your equipment. After modifications the equipment will be account locked. Bindomite drops form all Dungeon Galaxies at a low rate and can usually be sold to late game players are a relatively high price.

Blueprints

Items that can be used to build one or more pieces of equipment if attached to a space station. Nearly all late game gear requires blueprint construction. Blueprints will have several things you need to pay attention to.

Max build. This is the total number of times you can use the blueprint.

Max Workforce. This is the maximum number of workers each build of the blueprint will use. The dev team uses this to balance certain blueprints to a minimum time.

Hours. Are not in fact actual IRL hours. Each “build hour” is the equivalent of 10 seconds, so 1 worker can build 8640 “Hours” of builds each day.

Initial Cost/Materials. This is what you need to have on hand in the station to start the build

Periodic Cost/Materials. Will be slowly consumed over the total build time. Be careful to make note of any materials with a half life. They will frequently decay before they are used so you need large number of extras on hand.

Bots

A semi-autonomous ship controlled by a player. Requires the skill "Remote Control". These ships can be built or captured, and used for multiple purposes depending upon the controlbot inside them.

Trade Bots Bots with a Trade controlbot inside them can be given orders to dock at stations to buy and sell materials, equipment and items. Frequently used to transport basic materials from extraction bases to centralized production bases, tradebots are an essential part of any teams strategy in wild space. To buy or sell anything the trade bot must be told to dock at the base once for EACH transaction it is going to make. Trade Bots are NEVER effected by class skills but can mount some class items that are beneficial.

Combat Bots These bots are used by nearly all classes sooner or later. The add additional firepower by mounting weapons and other equipment like super items to help you kill things faster or tank more damage. They DO NOT receive any bonuses from class skills unless you get both Bot PhD and Combat Bot Tweaking skills, except in rare cases where the class skill specifically says it effects combat bots.

Wild Bots Refers to any captured bot. Fleet Commanders get a significantly larger selection and number of these then other classes, but all classes can technically use them. Wild bots receive no class skills and become combat bots if they are docked and then undocked. Several of the Fleet commanders options cannot be docked.

Building Academy Entrance

The location you go to to learn the absolute basics of base building. Its a training simulator for base construction. NOTE, if you have a base in Building Academy you CANNOT join a team until it is demolished!

C

Capacity

The hull space of your ship or base. This stat is adjusted by class bonuses and augmenters, as well as certain rare (And very expensive) skills. Many very powerful weapons happen to be exceedingly large in size, so having more space can, in some cases, mean doing more damage. In addition, different classes give hull bonuses to different ships, so using the correct ship for your class is very important to maximizing your damage output.

Capacitor

An item that gives you extra energy or shield bank. Capacitors come in three types, Shield for shields, Energy for energy, and combined as a mix of both. Capacitor Bonuses occur after augmenters, and so do not benefit from Aug bonuses to energy or shields.

Capture

To capture a ship or base. In order to capture something you must fulfill three requirements. 1) Have skill levels necessary to use everything on it. 2) kill it with Radiation Damage (the last shot is sufficient) 3) inject a controlbot into it with a specific weapon (Prismatic Conversion is normal). Capturing is an important income source in game, as well as critical for Fleet Commanders who use Wild Bots.

Classes

Refers to the various job divisions in star sonata. There are 4 classes in game divided into 8 sub classes. These are Recon, Combat, Support and Fleet. The sub classes are Speed Demon, Seer, Berserker, Ranger, Engineer, Shield Monkey, Gunner, and Fleet Commaner.

Speed Demon specializes in fast maneuvers and fast attacks. A very hyperactive class for very hyper active players.

Seer specializes in sneak attacks, getting bonuses for attacking from behind when unseen. Able to use mines and a special item with huge burst potential, it kills enemies quickly before disappearing.

Berserker The primary tank in the game, Zerkers are one of two classes able to fire multiple weapons. They are a very short range class that hits very hard and keeps the enemies attention for other classes.

Ranger CURRENTLY UNDER DEVELOPMENT! Ranger is looking like it will be a fire and fade class, building damage on an enemy over a long time while stationary and hidden.

Engineer is a support class focusing on using drones. Drones are small mobile or immobile weapons platforms which benefit from the engineers bonuses. Engineers can also use tractors very effectively and get specialized tractors to power other squad members weapons.

Sheild Monkey is the specialized healing class of the game. It also gets strong bonuses to combat bots so it can solo level effecitvely.

Gunner is the second class to be able to use multiple weapons. In addition, gunner gets a special item called Deathbloosom that allows it to target multiple ships at once.

Fleet Commander has a wide variety of abilities. It uses combat and wild bots very successfully, it also uses fighters quite a lot, in addition to have a large number of auras it can use.

Critical

Critical are special hits which do extra damage. Each shot (or volley in the case of multifire) has a 5% chance to do 50% more damage. Critical Hit bonuses add a flat change to increase up to 100%. Critical Strength bonuses stack normally, per the Formulas page. In addition to doing extra damage, critical's have effects based on what type of weapon is used.

• Energy Damage Crit: -100% Thrust for 2 seconds
• Heat Damage Crit: -90% Radar for 3 seconds
• Mining Damage Crit: -60% Electricity Regeneration for 3 seconds
• Physical Damage Crit: Forced left or right turn for 2 seconds
• Radiation Damage Crit: Warp Interdiction (target can't warp) for 6 seconds
• Surgical Damage Crit: +60% Recoil for 3 seconds

Colonies

One of the major aspects of the game is colonies. Colonies are population centers you start and manage throughout the Uni, on planets you control and must maintain. Colonies are a major source of income in star sonata and a number of guides have been written about how to setup and manage colonies.

Commodities

Materials used to build items in game. The most basic level are called T0, and include Metals, Silicon, Nuclear Waste, Baobabs, space oats, and rations. These can be gotten from planets, moons, asteroids, various enemy ships, and other systems in game. They are critically important to late game advancement as nearly all of the later game equipment requires construction from Blueprints.

D

Damage

The ability to harm another ship, drone or base. Damage refers either to the basic amount of damage a weapon does or a specific type of bonus granted by an augmenter. Weapon Damage is a flat number that, in the case of normal weapons, can be modified by a number of augmenter stats including Damage (the Aug stat) Rate of Fire, Critical Hit Chance and Critical Hit strength. Criticals and Damage Bonuses do not increase electrical consumption, but Rate of Fire does. There are six types of damage in game

• Energy Damage: The most basic damage type, most early game and easily acquired weapons use this.
• Heat Damage: Damage from high temperatures. Many heat weapons cause fires, which are Damage over time effects.
• Mining Damage: Armor Piercing Damage. Late game enemies and bosses are usually weak to Mining Damage, so many mining weapons are low damage compared to other weapon types.
• Physical Damage: Damage from physical Projectiles. Very Ineffective against high armor targets, but good against light fighters. Usually has the best Damage Per Energy rating of any weapon type.
• Radiation Damage: Nuclear Damage, kills the crew but leaves the ship intact. Used almost exclusively for capturing AI ships, bases or drones. To capture something you must kill it with radiation damage before shooting it with a control bot.
• Surgical Damage: Tears the ship apart from the inside. Surgical Damage slightly increases the drop chance of certain items when you kill a ship with it.

The Damage Aug bonus increases the amount of damage each shot does. This is useful as it does not increase the energy used.

Dark Sun

Blue SUns Used to refer to blue-colored suns, or ones that reduce visibility. Certain commodities for Prospecting only appear on dark suns.

DoT

Damage over Time Used to refer to long term effects from items added to enemy ships, Usually Fires or Parasites. Fires are countered by Fire Extinguisher and Parasites are countered by Exterminators. DOT weapons have their damage listed in a special bar half way down their description tab, for example “360 damage over 10 seconds for large fires”. This means that each shot will put a fire on the target lasting 10 seconds and doing 36 damage each second.

DPH

Damage Per Hit. The amount of damage a weapon does in a single hit.

DPE

Damage Per Energy. Ratio describing how much damage a weapon does per unit of energy used. Because all weapons use energy this stats is nearly as important as DPS, as using low DPE weapons will quickly exhaust your electricity bank, leaving you defenseless before your target!

DPS

Damage Per Second. Used to measure the amount of damage a weapon can deal per second. This is a general measure of how powerful a weapon is.

Destroyed

(1) Used to describe a base, drone, fighter, or bot that has been killed beyond recovery. Destroyed Drones, fighters and Bots require credits to get back into service, however bases can simply be repaired using the original base kit or better than the base that was destroyed.

Drone

An autonomous attack platform. Requires the Drone Deployment skill to use. Drones are the primary damage source for Engineers, and temporary receive part of the augmenter statistics of the ship that deployed them. In addition, with Droney skill, temporary drones can receive a portion of the Class Skills of the player who owns them as well.

Drone Controller

An item you can equip onto your ship that will improve the stats on your drones only. Drone Controllers require levels in Astral Injection Skill to use. They can be purchased by bringing 30 or the relevant Augmenters to the Perpetual Motion system.

Drone Deployment

The skill to use drones. You can only equip (and therefore deploy) drones equal too or lower then your ranks in this skill. You do not get extra drones for more ranks, just higher tech ones.

Drone Ops

The percent of your skills that transfer to your drones. Found on your ship window on the right side.

Dungeon Galaxy aka DG

A special type of galaxy, signified with a red jump gate. Dungeon galaxies are effectively dungeons, between 3 and 8 layers deep, with a boss at the end. Some split, and the total number of galaxies inside can be determined from the number before the decimal in the Dgs name. So 15.123 would have 15 galaxies inside and certainly contain at least one split. DG drop off a special loot list, DG drops list, and have loot that is available in no other part of the game. Further, each individual DG drops the same or similar items, so you will get a DG that only drops shields and radars, or energies and engines, or weapons only, etc.

E

Earthforce Layer

The Layer that players go to after the training area of The Nexus. This is the Free to Play layer, where new players can try different things out and see if they like the game before subbing. The Blue and green areas are build-able, but resources are limited and no where near the levels available in Wild Space. In general EF layer is treated as a “Try before you buy” layer of the game.

Electricity

Electricity is how fast your Energy reactor regenerates energy. This is important as if you run out of energy you cannot fire your weapons or use most items. Usually, though not always, smaller sized energies have higher elec due to recon classes using high ROF weapons.

EPS

Energy Per Second.

Describes how much energy a weapon can use per second. This is important as if you bank out you will no longer be able to fire. People tend to focus on DPS and DPE more then EPS, but a few sustain builds will compare EPS with elec to make certain they can continue firing indefinitely.

Energy

What weapons, Super items, shields and other equipment use for power. Energy is the bank, Electricity is the regen. Energy is exceedingly important in star sonata, as if you run out of bank your equipment stops working. Comparing your energy bank and regen to your equipment consumption is a critical part of designing a ship load out

EXP

Experience Points. How you gain levels in star sonata. 1000 xp equals 1 level, and you get 200 xp from an at level AI per kill. This number drops off VERY FAST if the AI are lower level then you. Missions also give experience. The Premium Zone known as Sub Space has both triple XP bonuses on AI as well as daily, weekly and monthly missions for even more XP.

Extractors

Base Items used to extract resources from planets. To find out if a planet has extraction points you first scan it with a planet Scanner, the higher powered the better, but power 3 will work for tier 0 materials. If you find extraction points you then put one or more bases (the scan will tell you how many) and add a number of extractors to each station for each extraction point on the planet. IMPORTANT, each extractor needs one worker, and each worker eats one ration per hour. DO NOT add workers to your base without ration production on the base!

F

Fires

A type of Damage over Time. Applied to your ship or to your enemies ships when you take or deal heat damage. Will naturally go out very slowly, but can be snuffed out with a Fire Extinguisher item.

F2P

Free to Play. Used to describe an account that is not subscribed to the game. In SS2 this means you can only play on Earthforce layer, which is usually fine for the first thousand levels of the game.

Fighter

Fighters are small independent craft launched mostly by capital ships. You do not have any control over them after you launch them, but they are a significant part of a Fleet Commanders arsenal. Fighters do different damage and different damage types depending on which one is used. To launch a fighter you must have a fighter bay of higher tech then the fighter you are trying to launch, place the stack of fighters in the hot bar, and press the hot key.

Fighter bay

A launcher for fighters. Can be purchased from East Vandia, dropped from AI or built with blueprints. Capital ship bays have more launch slots then freighter bays, and different bays give different bonuses to the fighters.

Freezer

This is technically a game bug. A freezer is a ship you do not enter. Its that simple, just do not click on the ship. You then transfer decay-able commodities (those with a half life) into the freezer and so long as you do not enter it they never decay. It is advisable to park your freezer somewhere other then your main ship parking before putting anything in it, that way you will not accidentally end up in it if you are selling ships or the game crashes. It is also advisable to rename your ship with the parking location, such as “Freezer at (insert base name here)”. This helps you remember where you put it so you can access it later.

Fusion Extractors

These are more powerful versions of the normal extractors. Purchasable at Blue Photon Processing, they increase a bases resource extraction by 10x or more. These items are purchased as blueprints and require Industrial Commodities to produce. The usual build process is to put up bases, add advanced extractors to them, route the resources to the central hub, build the fusion extractors and then equip them on your stations. Fusion Extractors degrade with uni reset, so you need to rebuild them every uni.

G

Grem Weapons

Weapons that have a Grem effect. Traditionally this refers to a item injected onto your or an enemies ship via a weapon that has a negative effect. More broadly a grem effect is a negative buff to your or an enemies ship. This can range from a speed debuff to a weight increase, a turn or thrust debuff or a reduction in shields, energy, elec or regen. Any stat can have a grem effect. Sadly there is currently no way to show on your HUD if you are under the effect of a grem weapon, so you have to pay close attention to your stats. Frequently grem effects get confused with server lag due to slowing maneuvering or rate of fire down. You can see most grem effects by opening your ship window (f10)

Galaxy

A single area in star sonata, separated by jump or warp gates. Galaxies have a Danger Factor which tells you how hard they are. Each galaxy will have different things in it, planets, asteroids and suns, that you can interact with. In open areas AI will move from galaxy to galaxy, but in dungeons they will stay in the same galaxy and not jump in or out.

H

Half Life

The time it takes half of a decay-able commodity stack to disappear. See Freezers.

I

Industrial Commodities

An item created by molding several hundred (or thousand) tier 0 commodities together. Used in very large building projects to save on the number of base extensions you have to equip on bases. They are also used to manage storage on smaller station like Mining Station on Asteroid belts, as 1 Steel Girders is less room then 1000 metals. They can be sold to AI stations for profits in Wild Space. This is one of the major income sources in game but requires extensive base building to make use of.

Item Form

Used to describe a ship that behaves like an item. Ships in item form take up space, have weight, and can be placed into inventories. When a ship in item form is sold through a player base, it becomes a full ship and leaves item form. Ships which are built from blueprints come as items. A ship that is not in item form can be made an item by submitting a Support Ticket and paying a fee.

J

Jump

To travel between galaxies using a Warp gate. To jump you must be sitting on top of the warp, have a high enough Warp skill to go through the warp, and press the “F” key.

Jump Gate

A connection between two star systems. Different color jump gates designate the Warp skill needed to use that gate. With SOME exceptions, Purple is W0, White is W1, Rainbow stripped is W2, Yellow is W3, Green is a warp tunnel that travels great distances over the map, Light Blue is an even longer warp tunnel, and Red leads to a mini dungeon.

Jungle

The last actual dedicated leveling dungeon in the game, Jungle is an important jump off point for new players. The AI are level 250 to 300, with tech 12 to 14 equipment on them. With powerful weapons and gear, as well as incredibly strong ships for its tech, jungle represents a high risk, high reward area. Jungle ship blueprints are infinite use, and most competent teams will have them installed on stations for your use.

K

Kalthi Depths

Kalthi Depths is one of the end game regions. Large groups of high level AI prowl this region and half a dozen bosses roam around killing whomever they find. This region is P2P only.

L

Lyceum

A CRITICALLY important system to all players, Lyceum is where you get all of your class equipment as well as access to a huge number of other equipment. Jungle, Platonic Academy, Serengeti Blockade, Building Academy Entrance, & The Acropolis. Lyceum is also where you can get a Neuroreset, allowing you to change classes for your level x million credits (max 500 million). It is USUALLY located off of sol.

M

Missiles

A single use item that launches a series of projectiles from your ship. These do different damage and damage type depending on what missile is launched. Missiles require a missile launcher of tech higher then the missile you are trying to launch. Missiles are usually found in crates of 50, and can be acquired from factories on bases, missions, or AI drops. Some missiles do AOE damage. To launch a missile you equip the missile stack, not the launcher, on the hot bar and press the hot key.

Missile Launcher

an item that launches missiles. The tech of the launcher must be higher then the tech of the missile to launch. Launchers are specific to ship type and will not equip on the wrong ship. Most launchers can be purchased in Hyperion after a short mission chain. Some are dropped elsewhere. Some launchers, notably capital ship launchers, have bonuses to missile damage and survivability.

Missions

Found mostly inside AI bases, missions allow you to complete certain tasks for XP, credits and items. Some missions are repeatable while others are one time only. The missions tracker can be brought up in game by pressing the “M” key.

MC

Short for Market Check, mc is used by the “/mc” chat command to check the price of items. The menu shows both the average price, the scrap value, a short list of best buyers and best sellers, and the stats for the item at the bottom of the pop-up.

Mira

An Early leveling zone, Mira contains a number of very useful items as well as a station filled with all the relevant core skill for you to train. Be certain to stop here as you are progressing through the early game.

Modifications

Modifications are small bonuses that items sometimes get when they drop from AI. They are very useful for getting a slight edge in combat situations. In addition, modifications can be added to items by using Bindomite on them.

Modules

Modules are constructed items necessary for higher tech items in the later game. They require several different blueprints and factories to construct in a drawn out process, and are fequietly unavailable on MC due to the large diversity of individual modules making demand scarce. They are usually considered quite annoying to make by casual players.

N

Nexus

The starting area of the game. Nexus is intended as a quasi tutorial area where you learn the basics of the game and how the most simple mechanics work. Unfortunately because ss2 has so many mechanics, only a small portion of the overall knowledge base can be fit into a few galaxies. It is strongly advised that as soon as you leave nexus you find a team to help you fill in the blanks.

NueroTweak

NeuroTweaks, or Tweaks for short, and consumable bonus items. These range for healing items like shield soother to energy regen items like Warmth, into combat bonuses like rapid attack or power punch. Tweaks are one use only and usually have a very short duration. See SuperTweaks

NeuroTweaking

this skill available at sai's retreat in the sol system makes Tweaks 2% stronger per skill level, this does not work on super Tweaks so there is a definite trade off between a weaker bonus you can spam endlessly and a stronger bonus you have a limited supply of.

Neural Reset

Available at the central station in Lyceum, this allows you to reset certain skills in exchange for about 500 million credits maximum. Possible resets include your class, your advanced class skills, zen skills, Lagrange skills, and trade skills.

O

Out of Combat

Out of combat refers to not being shot or shooting your weapons for 10 seconds. In addition you need to have not warped through jump gate for 30 seconds. When these conditions are achieved your Shield Chargers, Solar Panels, and Exterminators/Extinguishers will activate.

Overloader

Overloaders are items you can equip on your ship that give passive bonuses to your combat stats, usually Damage, Rate of Fire, or Range. While overloaders are less powerful then augs, they can be hot-swapped in combat, allowing you to react to changing situations around you. Some overloaders, called Unstable Overloaders, have a small chance to damage your weapons when using them, but they are more powerful then stable overloaders in exchange. To hot-swap overloaders you place them in your hotkeys and press the hotkey of the overloader you want equipped, any you have will automatically unequip.

P

Parasites

Parasites are like fires. Certain weapons inject them into your ship. However, unlike fires the major effect of parasites is to add extra weight to your ship, slowing your turn and thrust down significantly. In the early game exterminators will only handle fires or parasites, later in the game they will handle both.

Perilous space

a late game zone with high level AI.

Platonic Academy

One of the sub areas of Lyceum, Platonic academy is a system with 4 stations in it. Two of these station allow you to train Infinite Knowledge, which is needed to use certain items and augmenters. Another station allows you to trade Honorary Diplomas and Mentions for special Neurotweak Blueprints.

Prismatic Conversion.

A special weapon type, Prismatic conversions allow you to capture AI ships as combat bots. To capture a ship, you must “Kill” it with radiation damage, then fire a conversion weapon at it. Conversion weapons can be built with a blueprint, or can be gotten from missions in Articia or Colored Empires. It is VERY IMPORTANT that a fleet commander get these as early as possible as one of their core abilities depends on having captures bots with them.

Prom

Short for Promethium. An important commodity used for some skills and blueprints. Promethium is usually converted from fermium, which is mined from asteroid belts, but fermium can also be harvested from certain planets. Nearly all mid and late game builds require promethium, and its decay timer of 25 minutes means its actually a significant build gate to progression in these levels.

P2P

Pay to Play. Used to describe a player or account who has purchased a subscription. Subscriptions allow access to certain skills, such as trade skills, and the higher level areas of the game like wild space and perilous space.

R

Rate of Fire

Also called Recoil, reflects the speed at which your weapon fires. On the weapon recoil is used to denote the time between shots, while on augmenters and overloaders rate of fire is used to denote the percent decrease in this time. Recoil cannot go below 0.1 seconds. Increasing recoil also increases electricity consumption, unlike increases to damage, so rate of fire tends to be easier to increase then damage.

Rations

Used on bases to feed colonies and workers. Made from Space Oats. Rations are necessary to keep your bases from dying, as starving workers will shut he base off, throw equipment overboard and eventually blow up the base. Rations require both space oats and credits to produce, so make certain you have large supplies or a steady influx of both of those to keep your bases alive.

Recoil See Rate of Fire

Reflective

Part of the visibility equation, Reflectivity effects how much light your ship reflects from nearby suns. This is expressed in percentage terms, so 50% means you only reflect half while 200% means you reflect double.

Regeneration

the speed at which your shields naturally come back, measured in shields per second. All shields have a normal regen speed. In addition, you can equip a shield charger to further increase this speed. Augmenters and some Tweaks will increase your shields base regen, but not your shield chargers additional regen speed.

Remote control

one of the most important skills in the game, Remote control allows you to use combat and trade bots. As a huge percentage of income in SS2 is related to passive trade, this skill is literally make or break for most players. The skill allows you to control two tech levels worth of combat and trade bots per Skill Level, with a tech limit of the skill level and a swarm limit of half the skill level.

Examples, If you had Remote Control 10, you could have 2 tech 10 combat bots AND 4 tech 5 trade bots, OR 5 tech 4 combat bots AND 3 tech 6 and 1 tech 2 trade bots, BUT NOT 1 tech 20 combat and 20 tech 1 trade bots.

Resistance

Your ability to ignore damage. Resistances are specific to weapon types, so there is a different resistance for each type. The percent shown in your shipwindow is the percent of damage your ship ignores. So if you have 66% energy resistance and an enemy ship does 10,000 energy damage to you, you only take 4,400.

S

Shields

The equivalent of your hitpoints, when your shields are gone your ship explodes and you go into stasis. Shields are determined by a combination of 1) your shield, 2) any shield capacitor you have, 3) any Aug bonuses for shields on your augmenters, 4) The zen of shields skill, and 5) any Tweaks, Auras, or effects you are under which boost shields. Shields (the item) come in a range of types from small to large and regen focused to bank focused. The more basic ones are in the AI shops, but you can get more advanced shields from boss drops, Dungeon Galaxies, Missions and Blueprints.

Shield Chargers

These items provide a bonus to shield regen when not in combat. You need to have not fired your weapons or taken any damage for 10 seconds for them to turn on. Because your Shields are your life pool, having a high powered charger giving passive regen between fights is very important. A few very low powered chargers can be found in the AI shops, but most chargers you will actually want to use come from DG or boss drops.

Ship

The thing you are inside of when you log in game. Ships have different tech levels and become larger and more powerful as you get higher in tech. There are 4 ship types, Light Fighter, Heavy Fighter, Support Freighter, and Capital ship.

Light Fighter is good are fast movements and being sneaky. Usually used by recon classes, they have 4 aug slots at higher levels but incredibly bad defensive stats.

Heavy Fighter has some of the best defensive stats in the game, but is slower and more cumbersome then other ships. Usually used by combat classes, you need to pay close attention to your reflectivity when picking a heavy fighter, as they are either very good or very, very bad at stealth.

Support Freighter has a lot of hull, and that is about all it has. Slow speed, bad resistances, poor maneuverability make this a lackluster ship for all but the few classes specialized in it.

Capital Ship is the other high defence ship in the game. It is also staggeringly slow and has only two augmenter slots at any tech level, so it is generally a flying brick.

Industrial Freighter is used almost exclusively for bulk transport, usually as Trade Bots. They are almost never used as combat ships by any class.

Station Management.

Skill needed to make bases. You can have more bases the higher skill you have in station management, at a tech level equal to your station management level. Unlike remote control, the progression is not linear, please reference the special table in the Station Management page for how many bases of what level you can have. Bases are where all construction is done, and as most of the better items in game require construction, Station Management is a critical skill for all players.

Skill Points.

Skill Points are necessary to acquire skills and are earned through gaining Experience. Once a player has earned enough Experience, his Experience Points are reset to 0 and he advances a level. 5 Skill Points are awarded each level.

Stasis

You dead. Good job. Statis is a state you enter when your shields reach zero. You loose some of the credits you are carrying, your equipment takes some VERY EXPENSIVE damage, and you have to either return to sol or sit and wait for half your shields to come back. The good news is that as you are not shooting or being shot any shield charger you are carrying kicks in so it does not actually take that long to sit and wait. Go get a soda, and peel an apple, and you will be fully up and fighting when you get back to your computer. Getting back on your financial feet might take a bit longer, so try not to do this so often, m'kay?

Solar Panels

Solar panels are like shield chargers for your energy bank. They allow you increased elec regen out of combat, IE when you are not shooting or being shot at for more then 10 seconds. Unlike Shield chargers you can equip more then one of them. Most of the solar panel found in AI shops are trash, except Lords Solar Collector which is in a special station that is somewhat difficult to get too. Though solar panels do drop from bosses and DG, they do not drop that frequently and you will likely have to buy a full set if you want a decent one.

Sustain

The ability to fight without depleting your energy bank. Sustain can be further divided into two sub categories, Full Sustain and Cycle Sustain. Full sustain is just that, your weapons Energy consumption is less then your Electricity regeneration. Cycle Sustain is a bit more complex. Cycle sustain means that while your weapons are depleting your energy bank, it is at such a low rate that you never run out of energy, and can regenerate all of the lost energy in the short travel times between fights. Sustain is not something that just happens in star sonata, you actually have to specifically build for it.

SuperTweaks

These permanent items simulate tweak effects. The can be used repeatedly to add small, short duration bonuses to your ship. Constructed to 50+ neurotweaks, the Blueprints are found in the shadow system. It is important to remember that because the supertweak is not consumed, it DOES NOT benefit from the Neurotweaking skill!

T

Trag

Traginium. Very rare mineral used for obtaining further levels of Remote Control in Serpica. Because remote control is critical to all classes and Traginium occurs only in a single asteroid belt in a single dungeon (Bonnet) it tends to be in very high demand and very low supply. New players can make quite a bundle mining trag and selling it to shops. Not as much as Bindo, but you know where to go for the Trag.

Turning

the ability of your ship to spin in a circle. Turning is measured in degrees per second, and is increased by your engines, your augmenters, some skills, and some equipment mods. Turning decreases depending on how much weight you are carrying, including your cargo!

Thrust

How fast your ship accelerates. Thrust is dependent upon your engine, your augmenters, some skills, and some equipment modifications. It is decreased by your weight, including your cargo!

V

Visibility

the ability of enemies to see your ship. Visibility is represented by a grey bar to the left of your Shield and Energy bars, the lower the bar the better. It is currently unclear how specifically visibility functions, but generally a visibility of 10 is considered good. Visibility is increased by certain equipment, usually shields, energies or engines, and decreased by cloaks.

U

Universe

Universe refers to a 4 month long section of star sonata. Once every 4 months all the permanent assets deployed (IE bases and permanent drones) are destroyed and a new map is created to play in. There is usually a very large scramble at the start of the uni to claim space and territory in those areas of the game where you can build.

Uni reset

The time when the universe resets. Usually implies a lot of building, large price spikes, and a lot of opportunities to make money if you know what items will be in demand.

W

Warpers

The Items allow you to move direct from one point to another, and come in two varieties, Micro Warpers and Trans Warpers. Micro warpers allow you to move around inside a system. Some micro warpers will warp you a certain distance in a given direction, other will warp you to a point you have selected within a certain range. Many people use micro warpers to move large cargo ships that are too heavy for normal engines to move. Trans Warps allow you to move to any game within a certain number of jumps. This is specified on the transwarper and increases as tech increases. Transwarpers can be purchased in Blue Photon Processing after a short mission chain among other places, and micro warpers can be gotten from boss drops, missions, or built from BP.

Warp Gate Synonymous to Jump Gate.

Wild Space

The primary building are of SS2. A P2P PvP layer, wild space focuses around a combination of Base building, Base vs Base fighting, and general construction. Wild space features enlarged colony size, Higher yield resource planets with tier 1 to 3 resources on them, and AI bases which buy Industrial Commodities. All of this makes wild space territories highly desirable and hotly contested. It is advisable that you arm yourself with a large number of advanced defense stations before attempting any wild space runs.

X

XP See EXP

Z

Zen Skills

Located in Sai's Retreat in the Sol system, these skills can increase certain ship stats by 2% per level. These skills effect Turning, Thrust, Energy and Shield banks. In addition zen of reaching gives a +7 to range up to double your weapons range, zen of calmness decreases the effect of grem weapons, and zen of devices has a variety of effects depending on which super item its effecting.

Vocabulary Glossary

A

Adonis (Stations)

Tech 9 stations and station gear. Generally considered the first level of base gear to be relevant to orbital defenses as it has the full complement of station augmenters, station gear like a Pulse Gun, MagCannon, and Overloader, and Industrial Y and Z construction. The Adonis Energybank X is the first station energy to use Nuclear Waste as a fuel source rather than produce it as a waste. Adonis Stations have a significant power jump over the previous tier Apollo at Tech 6. Also the first tech of stations to use extractors other than Tech 0 AI station extractors.

Aggro

An AI ship that is aggressive to players of a certain level. It can also be used to describe an aggressive player, his bots, bases, or his drones.

AI

(1) Automated computer controlled objects in the game, including ships, bases and drones. Free roaming ships and standalone teams can be also called NPCs.

(2) Astral Injection skill. A skill required to equip augmenters onto permanent drones and use Drone Controllers.

Argonaut

Second level of base gear from Adonis. They are Tech 12. A number of base items are Tech 12, like Mzungu Transdims.

Aug

Abbreviated form of augmenter. Used as permanent enhancements to ships, permanent drones, and stations.

AT

Augmenter Tweaking, a skill which increases all stats on a player's augmenters by 2%.

Ana, (Sniper) Analysis

(1) Refers to Sniper Analysis, a special item for (as of writing) Sniper class which builds damage and critical strength bonuses over time while a target is attacked by the player's weapons, building up over two minutes at a rate of seconds equal to the specific weapon that hits the target. ITs bonuses are lost when the player targets, attacks, and end up hitting a new target.

B

Base

A space station used for trading or construction. Sometimes player-owned. See: Station

BE

Bule Eradicator.

BK

Bana King, short for UrQa'qa Qu'ishi.

BvB

Base versus Base combat.

Bots

A semi-autonomous ship controlled by a player. Requires the skill "Remote Control".

(*) "Control Botting." Used to describe the process of creating a bot. See also: Capping

C

Cap

(1) To capture a ship or base.

(2) Short for capacity.

(3) Short for Capacitor.

D

Destroyed

(1) Used to describe a base, drone, fighter, missile, or bot that has been killed beyond recovery.

(2) Used to describe a destroyed base that can be recovered using a repair kit, or a player ship that has been destroyed and enters into stasis.

Drone

An autonomous attack platform. Requires the Drone Deployment skill to use. Split into Temporary and Permanent classifications, which are used to describe their lifespan before they [can] go inactive.

DD

Short for Drone Deployment.

DM

An older abbreviation for Engineer Class. Stands for "Drone Master". It is a secondary Engineer class skill providing bonuses for temporary drone deployment.

DWO

(1) Short for Death Warmed Over, a long range, non-tracking fire-based pulse gun.

(2) Short for DeathWarmedOver, a retired player. Lead the Capitalists and became an Emperor.

DHO

Short for Death Heated Over. Weapon similar to Death Warmed Over.

Drag

Using a tractor to pull a ship or base. Sometimes the maneuver is used to speed a ship up.

DS

Short for Death Striker, a rare, powerful, and high-tech ship.

DPS

Damage Per Second. Used to measure the amount of damage a weapon can deal per second.

DPE

Damage Per Energy. Ratio describing how much damage a weapon does per unit of energy used.

E

EDC

Emperor's Drone Controller.

EDM

Electrified Defense Matrix.

EPS

Energy Per Second. Describes how much energy a weapon can use per second. Also can describe how much an energy source regenerates per second. See Also: Regen

EXP

Experience Points.

F

F1, F2, F3, Etc...

Highly sought after "Faranji" alien energy source. The higher the number, the more powerful the energy is. The full names are Faranji Energy 1, Faranji Energy 2, and so forth.

F2P

Free to Play. Used to describe an account that is not subscribed to the game.

G

Gimmo

Short for Great Immolation, a short-ranged heat weapon that causes some damage to the user when fired.

GnT, GaT

Abbreviation of "Give and Take". A rare shield.

I

Incin

Short for Incineration, a short-ranged self-damaging heat weapon.

Immo

Short for Immolation, a short-ranged self-damaging heat weapon.

Item Form

Used to describe a ship that behaves like an item. Ships in item form take up space, have weight, and can be placed into inventories. When a ship in item form is sold through a player base, it becomes a full ship and leaves item form. Ships which are built from blueprints come as items. A ship that is not in item form can be made an item by submitting a Support Ticket and paying a fee.

J

Jump

To travel between galaxies using a gate.

Jump Gate

A connection between two star systems. Different color jump gates designate the Warp skill needed to use that gate.

L

LC

Love Cylinder. Medium range, tracking surgical weapon.

M

MisD

Short for Misdirection. A highly sought after shield with a high rate of regeneration.

MF

Short for Multifiring. A secondary skill that allows a player to fire multiple weapons at once.

MFM

Short for Merchant Fleet Mastery. A secondary skill that allows for large hulls on bots.

N

Noob, Newb, Choob, Etc...

Used to describe a new player. Oftentimes the word carries a negative connotation. Sometimes used as a synonym to acting childish.

O

OS

(1) Overloader Stable. (See: Overloaders)

(2) Over Sized.

OHL

Open Heart Laser. Medium range, beam-style surgical weapon.

Oly

(1) Olympus, the main Tech 21 boss zone for training Tech 21 skills with daily missions and weekly lockouts.

P

PC

(1) Prismatic Conversion. Used in conjunction with a radiation weapon to capture AI ships. A projectile from the weapon is a short-ranged, small, slow-moving red sphere.

(2) Price Check.

Pill Box

Synonym for drone.

PM

Private Message. To PM someone means to open a private chat channel with them using the `/w command. A PM is the conversation held within that channel.

Pod

Short for escape pod.

Podded

(1) To be killed while in pod form.

(2) To be ejected from a ship inside a pod.

Prom

Short for Promethium. An important commodity used for some skills and blueprints.

Prom Sun

A sun with asteroids where Fermium can be mined for conversion into Promethium.

PtE

Poseidon the Earthshaker, an augmenter.

P2P

Pay to Play. Used to describe a player or account who has purchased a subscription.

R

Rats

Short for Rations. Used on bases to feed colonies and workers. Made from Space Oats.

Regen

(1) Synonym for EPS.

(2) Synonym for SPS.

(3) "To regen." Used to describe the process of one's shield or energy bank recharging.

S

SM

(1) Short for Station Management. Skill needed to make bases.

(2) Short for Fleet Commander Class. Secondary skill that increases the effectiveness of bots.

(3) Short for Station Mastery. Trade skill that increases the effectiveness of a player's stations.

(4) Short for Shield Monkey class. Shield Monkey is usually shortened to "ShM" or similar to avoid confusion between it and the station skills.

SP

Skill Points. Skill Points are necessary to acquire skills and are earned through gaining Experience. Once a player has earned enough Experience, his Experience Points are reset to 0 and he advances a level. 5 Skill Points are awarded each level.

T

Trag

Traginium. Very rare mineral used for obtaining further levels of Remote Control in Serpica.

TW

Transwarp.

W

Warp

(1) Short for Warp Navigation, a skill that determines what level of star systems a player can enter.

(2) Synonymous to Jump.

Warp Gate

Synonymous to Jump Gate.