Special Abilities
The Evil Empire possess two racial advantages that help to increase their power. These two advantages are very beneficial to the Evil Empire and are useful when it comes time to conqueror the Echo Cluster. These abilities are free fighters at their starbase(s) and the dreaded Dark Sense.
Free Fighters
Evil Empire starbases produce “X” number of fighters per turn. The “X” amount is determined in the HCONFIG.EXE program settings. The usual default setting is between 5 and 10 fighters. For the starbase to be able to produce these “free” fighters the planet the starbase is built over must have enough minerals present to support the construction of “X” number of fighter, but this process requires no supplies or megacredits. (i.e., If the empire is set to produce 5 fighter per starbase per turn the planets under these starbases need 15 Tritanium and 10 molybdenum each to support this “free” construction). The starbase also must have room for the fighters or it will not build them. Remember that a starbase only has room for 60 fighters.
The Dark Sense
This ability is derived from the psionic abilities of all Evil Empire starship captains. This ability is selected as a special mission. When selected the starships captain stretches out with his mind to search deep space in a radius that is set in the HCONFIG.EXE program. The suggested setting is 200 to 300 light years.
With his senses extended the captain can determine the type of enemy colonist life is present on any planet with in range of his senses. It will also tell him the number of colonists, the amount of minerals on/in the planet, the amount of megacredits on the planet, and whether or not the planet has a starbase in orbit. There is nothing that can hide a planet from the Dark Sense.
How to Initiate a Dark Sense
To select the Dark Sense you need to be at the starship menu screen. To get to this screen press the [ F1 ] key from anywhere in the game and then up or down arrow through the list of starships until you find the starship for which you wish to select a mission. When the starship is in the selection box you press the [ENTER] key.
At the main starship screen you press the [M] key to bring up the primary mission menu. From here, press the key that corresponds with the Dark Sense mission, ([9]). Now the Dark Sense mission is selected. Remember that cloaking starships will not remain cloaked while doing the Dark Sense mission, if the Evil Empire have somehow stolen or captured a cloaking starship.
The Evil Empire’s Fleet
The Evil Empire depends very heavily on fighters when attacking their enemies. Their fleet has only one starship type capable of launching torpedoes. Most of the Evil Empire’s starships are large and expensive. The Battlecarrier of the Evil Empire is the largest and most heavily armored starship in the universe. It not only has ten launch bays but it also has 10 beam weapon banks. This is very impressive for a carrier.
Other Special Abilities of The Evil Empire
Raceplus
The Evil Empire has a fearsome new race specific mission for the Gorbie Class Battlecarrier. This new ability is called a Gravity Well Generator. The new Gorbies under RacePlus can perform this mission if they meet specific criteria.
The Gravity Well Generator (GWG) is only installed on Gorbies equipped with Transwarp Drives and Heavy Phasers. These Gorbies are the only ships with stable enough power conduits to handle the massive amounts of energy that get channeled through the ship when the GWG is activated.
The GWG mission has three configurable parts to it. These are the range of the GWG, the fuel cost of the GWG and the length of time that the GWG disables the Gorbies engines and beam weapons. The range is between 25-100 LY. The fuel cost can be configured to be 300 to 500 KT of fuel. The “recharge” period of the Gorbie is between 2-4 turns.
To activate the GWG the Gorbie sets its friendly code to ‘SUK’ and has to have fuel enough to start the GWG process. The Gorbie can not be over a planet. If it is, it will destroy the Gorbie and any ships in orbit with the Gorbie. This destruction happens as a direct result of the conflicting gravity spheres of the planet and Gorbie. These conflicts cause the ships to be torn apart. Starbases receive damage from stress waves. Starbases will receive 50% damage to its current state. (if the base was 50% damaged it would become 75% damaged). The starbase defense rating is reduced by 50% and 50% of the fighters are lost.
When the mission is activated it will cause all ships (including your own), that have a base hull mass of 200 KT or less to be drawn to the Gorbie. There is no way to escape this gravity field. Ships pulled to the Gorbie in this manner have their warp set to zero. Once the mission is activated the engines of the Gorbie will become non-operational and the beam weapons will be inactive and unable to fire. This disability lasts for a number of turns equal to the configuration setting.
Gryphon & Jupiter
ComBots.
The Empire can build ComBots to defend their planets. See the Universal Abilities section on ComBots for details.
Hyper-Moscow.
Moscow class Star Escort has had a hyperdrive installed. Just like default hyperdrive capable ships, the Moscow will burn 50 units of fuel and jump (350) light years in the direction of the waypoint. Just set the “HYP” FC and warp factor to greater than 0. NOTE: Because of the size of the ship (it is much larger than the probes) there MIGHT be a small inaccuracy in targeting (1-3 ly, at random) so do not count on exact results every time.
Imperial Pacification mission.
The Super Star Carrier with 100 or more fighters in its bays can instantly improve morale of any Imperial planet’s natives or colonists to 69% if it drops below 69. The ship has to be at warp 0, have FC “PAC” and not be towed.
Mig detection of Birdman beacons.
The Mig class scouts will automatically detect and destroy all Birdman minefield beacons that are (20) ly from the ship’s position at the start of the turn.
Nemesis & Jupiter
Imperial Probe Droids.
Any Imperial ship with more than 100 crewmen will be able to send out Imperial Probe Droids to planets by setting FC “IPD”. It uses 20 fuel, 1 of each mineral, 1 supply unit and 1 MC. Set the Warp to 0 and waypoint to a target planet less than 100 ly away, and next turn you will receive a message telling you the number of colonists, population, type and government of natives, number of factories, defenses and mines, minerals, money and supplies on planet and the number of ships orbiting the planet. The probes will even penetrate Planetary Cloaking Shields! However, they can be shut down by defenses; a planet with 100 defenses will shoot down a probe 50% of the time, and 200 defenses will almost guarantee safety since a great number of planet’s fighters can be assigned to patrol around the planet.
Of course, you can launch the droids toward un-owned planets, serving as advance recon units.
Due to space limitations, the following numbers represent the type of natives: 0 none, 1 humans, 2 bovines, 3 reptilians, 4 avian, 5 amorphs, 6 insects, 7 amphibians, 8 ghipsoids, 9 silicons. The following numbers represent the govt of natives: 0 none, 1 anarchy, 2 pre-tribal, 3 early tribal, 4 tribal, 5 feudal, 6 monarchy, 7 participatory, 8 representative, 9 unity.
Gorbie Capture Beam.
The Gorbie Class Battlecarrier, being the biggest ship in the universe, has a non-standard method of capturing enemies. Instead of lowering the shields and beaming enemy crew out, this ship pulls an enemy into its huge hangar and captures the ship with stormtroopers. This way, the Gorbie can capture any ship of tech 7 and below with the loss of some crew using its capture beam (FC “CPB”). The amount of crew lost is a half of the enemy ship’s crew due to superior training of Imperial stormtroopers.
In addition, the Rebel crews fight even less vigorously than average, and when capturing Rebels the Gorbie loses only a quarter of enemy ship’s crew. For example, capturing a 322-crewman Birdman Valiant Wind would cost a Gorbie 161 crewmen, and a Rebel 172-crewman Patriot will only cost 43 troopers. The captured ship will have 10% damage as a result of fighting in its interior.
To use the Capture Beam, set the Gorbie’s FC to “CPB”, warp factor 0, and mission intercept. The Gorbie has to be undamaged and have Transwarp drives.