Ship Stats: A Pairwise Comparison

Overview

A look at the core ship stats and how they compare.Up to date as of April 2021

Overview

Mobility

Horizontal speed allows for chasing enemies, rushing to objectives, rapid flanking, etc. while horizontal acceleration is mainly useful during combat, to dodge or outmaneuver enemy ships. Having good stats for both is of course best.

• The Squid clearly reigns supreme when it comes to horizontal mobility.
• The Goldfish is fast, but takes a long time to reach top speed, so the use of pilot tools and stamina is recommended.
• The Stormbreaker is the opposite of the Goldfish. It easily outmaneuvers ships during combat, but can struggle to keep up over long distances.
• The Shrike has respectable stats but may have trouble competing against the other mobile ships.
• The Magnate and Corsair lead the pack when it comes to the rest of the ships.
• The Galleon is surprisingly fast, but takes a very long time to reach top speed.
• The Spire, Mobula and Judgement are the most sluggish, because they have powerful forward-facing firepower.

It is important to look at the exact magnitude of acceleration. In the horizontal comparison, acceleration was important to consider, but when it comes to turning, most ships reach their maximum turn speed in 1-2 seconds. The blue line is 1 second to reach the full turn speed. Note the strong correlation between high turn speed and turn acceleration.

• The Squid once again comes out on top, with an honorable mention for the Spire, Junker and Goldfish.
• The Galleon is horrible at turning, and the Pyramidion does not do too well either. Make sure to always use phoenix claw when turning on these ships.

Most ships have very similar vertical stats, but there are a few outliers to consider. Vertical acceleration is the more valuable stat in most situations, unless you are going for a prolonged rise (or fall). Note that ships with good vertical mobility fall faster when their balloon is destroyed.

• The Mobula is excellent at using vertical mobility in an engagement, and pilots may bring both hydrogen and balloon vent to make maximal use of this.
• The Junker, Squid and Corsair all perform well too.
• The Pyramidion has the highest vertical speed, but this is rarely relevant, given the slow acceleration.
• The Galleon and Shrike have poor vertical mobility and are easy to outmaneuver vertically.

Tankiness

Tankiness, or survivability, depends on a ship’s armor and hull stats. Higher hull health is always a good thing. Higher armor is a double-edged shield. It can absorb more shots, but also takes longer to rebuild if destroyed. Ships below the blue line have less hull than armor.

• The Galleon clearly tops out this comparison.
• Goldfish, Spire and Corsair can take several hits to their exposed hull health before dying.
• Note that the Goldfish and Spire particularly benefit from the high hull, low armor (fast rebuilds) combo.
• Squid and Stormbreaker should dodge shots whenever possible, since they have neither armor nor hull.
• On the Junker and Crusader it is very important to keep the armor repaired, given that they have more armor than hull.

Ramming Potential

There are a lot of interesting comparisons to do here.
Both ships take damage during a ram, so it is important to consider the stats of both the rammer and the ramee (?)

• Mass affects ram damage taken and dealt, with higher mass reducing damage taken and increasing damage dealt.
• High speed increases ram damage.
• High acceleration makes it easier to reach a high speed and also makes it easier to follow up with repeated rams.
• Armor and hull are relevant when you want to consider survivability and kill potential in ramming scenarios.

This comparison is perhaps the most important one for figuring out which ships can do a deadly multi-tap or jackhammer-style ram, where you ram the enemy ship again and again until dead.

• The upper-right quadrant is where the most deadly rams are possible. This area formerly housed the Corsair, which is still a great ramming ship with its high mass and respectable acceleration.
• The Judgment and Galleon have a powerful ram, but lack the acceleration to follow up with repeated rams.
• The Stormbreaker, Squid and Shrike risk killing themselves if they attempt a ram.

This comparison shows us the ships that have the potential to deal the most damage in a single ram. Moonshine may be required to reach top speed in a timely manner, and follow-up rams are similarly dependent on acceleration.

• The Galleon has a punishing ram, but cannot shoot on approach and also takes a while to reach the necessary speed. So Galleon rams are not very common.
• The Corsair once again shines in this comparison.
• The Magnate and Pyramidion sit at decent spot with situationaly powerful rams, but ramming should not define the play-style.
• The Goldfish does well too, especially with with its prevalent frontal carronade builds, where ramming enemies into the ground to finish them off is the main method of securing kills.

This comparison perhaps best illustrates which ships are resistant to being rammed. It also indicates with ships can afford to use their armor for ramming, and which ones should only perform balloon rams.

• Galleons are very resistant to rams. Do not try ramming a Galleon if you have not already destroyed the armor first.
• The Judgment and Corsair are also in a strong position.
• The Squid and Goldfish should ram with their balloons rather than with their armor.
• Note that some ships like the Pyramidion, Stormbreaker and Shrike cannot easily ram with their balloon due to protruding armor. In the case of the latter two, this means they should generally refrain from ramming, given their low armor.

Similar to the previous comparison, except here we look at the unarmored hull. Ships with a high mass and hull are more likely to survive rams and will fare better if their own armor breaks while ramming.

• Galleon and Corsair are in the best position when it comes to unarmored rams.
• Ships such as the Spire, Magnate, Goldfish, Judgement can do alright.
• The Squid and Strombreaker die immediately to unarmored rams, regardless of whether they are ship ramming or the one being rammed.