Ships

Ships

Main Weapon Upgrades & Ship Weapon-Invader Affinity interactions

This section attempts to give a priority system as to how well upgraded Aura or Zen should be when you first get a ship with a certain Aura Zen combination. The lower the priority number, the higher the priority. Thus if the Aura has a higher priority number than the Zen, then upgrade the Aura first, and vice versa. Since you can only have one Aura and one Zen on a ship, several Auras are grouped together as one priority level, and several Zens are also grouped together. The priority goes from P0 to P9. The most significant levels of each Aura and Zen are also indicated so you know where you might want to hold off the upgrade for a while.

As you could see, it is of utmost important (Priority P0) to unlock the Zen (upgrade it to Level 1) as soon as you intend to upgrade the ship. It makes a whole load of difference to have a underpowered Zen than to not have it at all.

Priority Number	Aura(s)	Zen(s)
P0		Unlock all Zens to Level 1
P1	CF (To Ult) VL (To Level 2)
P2		TP (To Ult)
P3	LS (To Ult) IC (To Ult) GM (To Ult)
P4		REMP (To Ult) Nightfury (To Ult)
P5	BEMP (To Ult) SEMP (To Ult) PD (To Level 4)
P6		ML (To Level 4)
P7	Barrier (To Ult) MS (To Level 5) VL (To Ult) Phalanx (To Ult) Blade Storm (To Level 5)
P8		Kappa (To Ult) MB (To Ult) PS (To Ult) FL (To Level 4, or Ult if ship is AP) CATS (To Level 4) Tracking Minigun (To Ult)
P9	Any non-ult Aura / Zen to Ult level

The table summarizes all possible combinations of Aura and Zens, as well as the ships that have that Aura-Zen combination. Ships of the same column have the same Aura, while ships of the same row have the same Zen.

	Bullet EMP	Stun EMP	Barrier	Laser Storm	Missile Swarm	Point Defence	Chrono Field	Vorpal Lance	Phalanx	Ion Cannon	Goliath Missile	Total Ships with Zen
Kappa Drive	Shinova	Mist Star Oran	Heechi	Elyon Ogon	Von Braun	Tar'Cah Vuxine Zephyr		Gladius	Marauder	Polaris		13
Mega Laser	Tempest	Cinnri Photurius	Razor VI	Havoc Fujin	Ex04239	Arietis Proteus	Hime	Exarch Neni	502-Q8 Lorilou	X-81	Monsoon	16
Mega Bomb	Veil Juggernaut	Krillou	Jn'Dur Kada Veni Qhelqod	Buhloo	Proxymar Kibarrax	Wrackr	Baqlor	Wraith	Valkyrie	Dragonfly	Mistral	15
Teleport	Aurora	Czar	Tillat'Or Sakura	Xaniea	Trireme Prime X	Orion Luna	Trinity	Vani-Vith Icarus	Hunter	Barret	Claymore	15
Reflex EMP	Lyova	Nimbus Zimitr	Predator	Scuuxun	Uhb	AB8/Klyn	Yigothu	Saber Jeria	Boxer	Sonah	Starless	13 (+1)
Personal Shield	Jericho Phoenix	NC-150 Torrent	Gorthaur	Essin Lokie	Geist Atlas	Yoth-Hola Widget	Njörun	Antioch	Zhetass	NC-271	Centurion	16
Focus Lance	Disaris		Stinger	Reaper				Warden		Xavis	Banshee	6
Clover ATS						Pandora		Naya	Esperon			3
Total Ships with Aura	9 (+1)	10	10	10	9 (+1)	12	5	11	7	7	6

Special ships

• Corsair : Missile Swarm + Tracking Minigun
• Shogun : Blade Storm + Reflex EMP
• Mirage : Bullet EMP + Nightfury

Please note that a Chrono Field + Kappa Drive ship will NOT happen, as confirmed by the devs.

Trivia 1: Here's the list of ships that have already made it into the game in the pre-alpha version of Phoenix 2, which was showcased at GDC. Interestingly, note how the OG ship, Phoenix, does not actually seem to be included in this pre-alpha list. Instead, it is replaced by an unknown ship that was scrapped early in development.

Trivia 2: Here are some very early ship designs by Rogier van de Beek. You will recognize some of them while others, not really so.

Main Weapon

There are 3 affinities of main weapons, HI, SB and AP. The weapon specifics are explained under the Invaders section.

The behavior of the main weapon of each ship may change with upgrades, except for the ult level which simply increases the damage of each projectile proportionately. Thus, it is usually a good idea to leave the main weapon ult level as the last upgrade to fully ult the ship. How the upgrades change the main weapon varies for each ship. The way the main weapon changes for each ship will not be discussed in this guide as it is not important, since this guide assumes you have fully ult-ed a ship. The upgrades for the main weapon are shown below, where each number represents the cost for the corresponding level:

1. ¢0 (Unlocked by Default)
2. ¢100
3. ¢250
4. ¢500
5. ¢750
6. (Ult) ¢1.250

Ship Main Weapon vs Invader Affinity

There are 3 different affinities of invaders: Unprotected, Shielded and Armored.

All ship weapons deal normal damage to Unprotected invaders. However, ships with HI weapons can deal crits to Unprotected invaders. There is a 25% chance of dealing crits. Each projectile that hits the invaders is subjected to this probability, which explains why many HI rapid firing main weapons appear to crit all their shots. Each crit does 1.5 times damage of the normal main weapon damage. On average, this means a ≈12% DPS bonus from HI weapons.

Shield invaders have a blue outline around them which is their shield. While the shield is up, they are unable to be harmed. This means that you are unable to pop off any turrets while the shield is up. Shields account for ≈40% of their total health. They have overall, ≈25% more health than Unprotected invaders. Once their shield is down, they act like Unprotected invaders and HI weapons can deal crits on them. Ships with SB main weapons deal 150% more damage to shields, or 2.5 times the damage of other weapon affinities. Because shields only account for ≈40% of their health, the overall effectiveness of SB ships is ≈30% more than AP weapons. If any invader stripped of its shield is untouched for 4s (you do not deal any form of damage to it), it will completely regenerate its shield back to full health, however any damage done to its hull remains.

AP main weapons are the only weapons that are able to deal full 100% damage to Armor invaders (discount apexes). All other kinds of damage, which includes HI and SB weapons, even damage dealt through Auras and Zens (even if it's by a ship with an AP main weapon), are reduced by 30%. (This excludes apexes, as some apexes clearly state the Aura or Zen is AP and thus deal the full 100% damage on armor invaders) However, if you deal any form of damage to the cockpits of Armor invaders, you bypass this armor damage reduction and deal the full 100% damage. You can even score crits with a HI weapon if you aim it at the cockpit of Armor invaders.

The table below shows the penalty in the average time to kill a sufficiently large invader for using a mismatched main weapon affinity, taking the matching weapon affinity as the base. All base cases are underlined below. The table also includes Aura/Zen, which have no affinity (discounting apexes) and thus suffer a penalty in all cases. For armor invaders, the HI and SB weapons did not hit the cockpit of armor invaders (this bypasses armor damage reduction) at any point of time.

Weapon	Unprotected	Shielded	Armored
High Impact	0.0%	25.2%	42.9%
Shield Breaker	12.5%	0.0%	42.9%
Armor Piercing	12.5%	33.8%	0.0%
Aura / Zen	12.5%	33.8%	42.9%

It can thus be concluded that Armor invaders are the most resistant. Thus, it is crucial to have a ship with an AP main weapon. It can also be said that it is not essential to have a good ship that has a HI weapon since the penalty is much less than that of Shield and Armor invaders.