Captured Ships and Hulks

6.9 Captured Ships and Hulks

Capturing Ships

Capturing Civilian Ships

If your empire is at War or Jihad with another empire and meets an Civilian Ship (such as an unarmed trade ship) from that empire with a Military Ship then you will attempt to capture it. If you have marines on your warship there is a much higher chance of capturing civilians spaceships. There is a possibility that the enemy space ship will self destruct to avoid capture, this chance is increased if the empire owning the spaceship is at Jihad with your empire.

Capturing Military Ships during Battle

To capture a Military Ship, it must be immobilised (i.e. its dodge must be 300) and then boarded by Marines.
There are a few ways for a ship's dodge to drop to 300:

Its sub-light drive may be so badly damaged that its dodge drops to 300.
It may be immobilised by being hit by enemy Tractor Beams.
Finally, large ships might be poorly designed and naturally have a dodge of 300, although the game will warn you of the risk of being boarded if you design such a ship.

There are a range of defenses which defend against Tractor Beams, including Pressor Beams.
There are a range of defenses against Marines, including AutoCannons, Lasers and Marines of your own.

Captured Ship Orders

When you capture a spaceship you will get a report of what orders it was currently on. The captured ship is taken off those orders and will await your orders. It is very helpful to capture a ship on trade orders, as this will often reveal an enemy's home world.

Capturing Enemy Hulks and Civilian Units

Your ships and units are able to make a hostile takeover of another empire's hulk or civilian unit. This occurs when:

a Military Unit captures a world; the Military Unit will attempt to capture all civilian units and hulks on the world.
a ship / unit uses the "capture" order.

To do this, your empire must be Neutral to, Hostile to, at War with or at Jihad with the empire which owns the hulk or civilian unit.

If the ship / unit attempting to capture has a higher Military Presence of the empire owning the hulk or civilian unit on the world where the hulk or civilian unit is located, then the hulk or civilian unit will be captured.

Attempting to capture an empire's possessions is considered a Hostile act.

Military Presence

Your empire's Military Presence (MP) on a world can be from 0 to 4:

Level 4 - Military Units on the world
Level 3 - Military Ships or SDIs on the world
Level 2 - population living on the world
Level 1 - Civilian Units and Civilian Ships on the world
Level 0 - nothing on the world (except hulks and sleepers)

Capturing Allied Possessions

If you are Allied to another empire, then that empire may capture your hulks and civilian units. To do this, issue the capture order ("ca") to a ship / unit at the same location as the hulk or civilian unit.

Capturing Hulks

If you know the location of a HULK (whether by surveying it or as a result of a recent battle) then there are 2 ways of capturing it. You can capture it by collecting ("co x") it with a ship or by using the "ca" (capture) order. The HULK can then be transported to a one of your planets for examination where you can use the "la" (launch) order to remove it from your spaceship.

Example.
	HULK [15] is on 15B. Your home world is 13C.
SHIP [ 10] TRADE 8	mo 15b co 15 mo 13c la 15

Note that HULKs may have been lying on a world's surface or floating derelict in orbit for many centuries. Who knows what might be inside... they may not be entirely safe to enter unarmed. Ships without marines to send in and unarmed civilian units attempting to capture HULKs do so at their own risk.

If the hulk is defended, then you may fail to capture it (see the section on Capturing Enemy Possessions ).

Analyzing Hulks

You may wish give the "an" (analyze) order to a Hulk or spaceship which has unknown technology on it. To do this you send it to one of your planets with eco levels and enough BURPS to be able to afford to carry out the analyze order. All the ships technologies that are unknown to you will become theoretical possibilities. The price of analysis 5% of the amount that it would cost to build the spaceship ignoring any modifiers. (See section 13.2: undeveloped technology cost modifiers).

Once you have analyzed a hulk or captured ship with unknown technologies on it you are allowed to build copies of it.

Disposing of a Hulk

After having finished with the HULK you may wish to dispose of it by using the decommission order ("de"), this will generate some BURPS at the HULKS location as long as there are some eco levels present.

An alternative to decommissioning the HULK when you have analyzed it is to instead give it the "fi" (fix) order. This will repair the HULK and make it into a fully functional spaceship again. You can only do this if the world that it is on has enough BURPS to afford to fix it. The price is 50% of the amount that it would cost to build the spaceship excluding undeveloped technology cost modifiers.

Swapping Technology by Building Hulks

You may also build your own HULKS. The purpose of this is to be able to swap technology with other empires or to give them a powerful spaceship that they would not be able to create themselves. HULKS are built for 60% of the price that a spaceship of the same design would cost including undeveloped technology cost modifiers. The empire that you give this hulk to will then also be able to fix this hulk and have a working spaceship very soon. Usually this is not the best way to swap technology. The best way is to use data crystals which are small and cheap.

Note that it is not possible to build spaceships or HULKS if they contain technology that you have not developed or at least have as a theoretical possibility. The way that you can obtain this is by analyzing a hulk or spaceship that has that technology, or through the normal process of technological research. For more information see section 13.2.