Design+5+Territory+and+Combat

__Territory__ __and Notes on Combat__


 * Territory**

Territories are the areas of space that your race control.

In order to control territory, the attacking players must first clear the area of all opposing battle groups and NPC planetary defence forces. After this is complete, a ship from the depths of the attacking forces territory will be sent forward to construct an outpost in the newly captured area. This construction ship is very slow but very heavily armoured. It must be protected all the way to the new area and for sometime after arriving as it constructs the new outpost. This gives the defending race a chance to retake lost territory and creates contested territorial 'deadzones'.


 * Supply Lines**

In a war on an interstellar scale, supplies must be taken into account (this also works for balance). Every ship has a limited supply of ammunition and if it's large enough, attack craft (these are the bombers, boarding craft and fighters). Once a ship is out of munitions, it can no longer fire it's weapons. Ships can re-arm at factories or space docks. This means that when players are assaulting, they can't over extend themselves or risk not having ammunition enough to repel any counter attacks or having to make long journies to factories to re-arm. Re-arming can also be done during battle (or in their lulls) by supply ships which can follow the fleets. They only have a limited suppy of munitions, unlike factories which are unlimited.


 * Subsystem Targetting**

A choice given to players when engaging and enemy ship is to actually target specific components on a ship, for example and engines or a particular weapons system. This can and will have many advantages in combat and will force players to alter tactics and strategies accordingly.

__Racial Strategies__

Different races have different weapons and ways of waging war.


 * Terran Union**

Being new to interstellar combat, the humans have yet to find a single solid tactic that suits them. They prefer flexibility to use new strategies of dogmatic adhearance to a single strategy. They are capable of fielding many different kind of ships with many different abilities. Their main weapon systems revolve around the use of large bore projectile weapons and when pressed, large yield nuclear weapons at range to devastate and disorganise the enemy before moving in to finish them off.


 * Hive**

The Hive use their latent psychic ability and bio-diversity to create vast ships that can carry hundreds of smaller craft with them into battle. They, unlike the other technology reliant races, have no 'guns'. Instead they use their psychic abilities to create a whip like lightning attack that, when used by their larger ships. can jump between enemy craft, devastating many ships at once. Hive ships tend to be extremely heavily armoured but also very ponderous. This is because each Hive ship is its own complete environment, and as such cannot be repaired as easily as a Terran cruiser. Hive tactis favour using their near limitless fighters and bomber organisms to harry enemy vessels while their larger bio-ships get into position to unleash lightning death.


 * The Marg'ih**

The Marg'ih barbarians are not a race known for subtlety in any way. This is shown through their ships and tactics. Their ships are poorly constructed and weakly armoured but extraordinarily fast and heavily armed. They believe that if they can't defeat an enemy in the first few minutes of a battle, that they should regroup and come back with more (and bigger) ships. This tactic rarely changes, unlike their weaponary. Because they have stolen technology from virtually everybody, it is almost impossible to determine what a given Marg'ih ship is actually armed with. This makes them a dangerous and unpredictable enemy and must be approached cautiously. Marg'ih boarding parties are universally feared and more than once a captain has surrendered and switched sides rather than face the Marg'ih once they have boarded the ship.


 * The Reclann**

Having seen their homeworld pillaged and their population almost exterminated, the Reclann are not interested in risking their small population. This has altered their tactics extremely. The universally prefer engaging enemies at range and have very agile ships that can appear almost without warning anywhere in contested sectors. Their advanced technology enables them to make use of deadly energy weapons and their dog fighters are some of the most deadly flying.

__Special Attacks__


 * Boarding Craft**

All but the Hive have access to a method of boarding enemy ships. The Terrans and Reclann use assult boats that latch onto enemy hulls and cut their way in while the Marg'ih use boarding torpedoes to punch through enemy shields and the hull. Boarding parties can either be used in an attempt to take over the ship or to target specific sub-systems. They are devastating once aboard but extremely vulnerable en route.