Guide to Munitions

Do you long for new experiences? Are you comfortable working under pressure? Do you do well when working with explosives? Like making things go boom? If so, this is the guide for you! If you follow these simple instructions you will be prepared to load and maintain all of the weapons on your assigned vessel and qualified to call yourself a professional Munitions Technician. Be wary though, much like the goalie on a professional soccer team, you're the first one to blame if things go sour in combat, second only to the command staff, but if you can't handle the heat - stay out of the munitions bay.

Loading the guns

As a Munitions Technician, munitions assigned squad member, or Master At Arms, your job is to supply the various weapons on the ship with the ammo they need to continue firing. This includes the Point Defence Cannons (PDC), the Railgun, the Torpedo tubes, and the Gauss turrets. The faster you can load and prepare these weapons, the faster the bridge can open fire on enemy ships. Do note that not all of the weapons listed here may be on your assigned vessel, so be certain to take inventory at the beginning of a shift and prepare accordingly for each weapon's needs.

An example of a munitions bay configuration.

Point Defense Cannons

Point defense cannons are the lifeblood of combat, serving as a rapid-fire, semi-inaccurate close-to-midrange weapon that is effective at taking down enemy fighters that other weapons may miss and dealing heavy damage to larger ships at close range when all bullets are able to hit. The Point Defense Cannons do not require any form of maintenance.

The PDC loading racks are typically located to the north of the munitions bay attached directly to a wall. They require ammo from the PDC ammo crates, which are colored yellow and red. To load the racks, you simply grab some ammo and stuff it in. There may number between 3 to five total PDC racks on any given ship. Each magazine contains several hundred bullets and drains relatively quickly from continuous use. Once you do need to replace them, simply click a rack with a full magazine, and you'll swap it out for the empty one.

Flak Cannons

Flak Cannons are your defence against torpedoes, they automatically fire at incoming torpedoes in an attempt to stop them from hitting the ship. Just like the Point Defence Cannons, they do not require maintaining.

The Flak loading racks look the same as the Point Defence Cannon racks, however they have a different name to set them apart from them, you load them in much the same way as you load the Point Defence Cannons, but you must load them with the boxes of Flak ammo for it to work.

Railgun

The Railgun is a heavy-duty cannon that fires powerful burst rounds. It is the only weapon controlled by the navigation console in the bridge and requires regular maintenance.

This is the great big thing that does great big damage. It uses Teflon-coated tungsten rounds, which can be found in metal crates round start. You can load up to four of these at once before the railgun is full - once it's loaded, go to the console in front of the railgun, click "Load Tray", then "Chamber Tray Payload", and finally "Disengage safeties". You'll have to click all of these in reverse order to re-load the weapon.

Magnetic Accelerator (MAC)

The Magnetic Accelerator, otherwise known as the MAC tonight , is the stronger older brother of the Railgun. Instead of firing burst rounds, the MAC fires a single powerful piercing shot but must be reloaded immediately afterward. The MAC requires the most frequent maintenance of any weapon.

The MAC functions almost identically to the Railgun, accepting the same ammo of Tungsten rounds but must be reloaded often and has a much faster durability decay. To maximize MAC usage, keep Tungsten rounds adjacent to the MAC at all times to load immediately and call out over munitions radio the status of the MAC so that CIC will be aware of when it will be down for maintenance and can plan accordingly.

Torpedo Tubes

Torpedo tubes, as the name suggests, fire high-velocity torpedoes which detonate immediately upon impact. Torpedo tubes are slow loading, require maintenance, and can be inaccurate due to their travel time but are capable of dealing incredible damage.

To load a torpedo tube, acquire a pre-made torpedo by dragging one onto a trolley (trolleys have a capacity of 5 torpedos) and bringing it over to the tube. Click on the trolley, click a torpedo to detach it, then drag and drop the torpedo into the tube to begin loading it. Afterward, use the adjacent console and press "Load tray", "Chamber Tray Payload", and finally "Disengage safeties" to finish loading the Torpedo tube. Remember to re-engage the Torpedo tube safeties whenever reloading to prevent damage.

Gauss Guns

Gauss guns can be found exclusively on multi-z maps, and fire 300mm Teflon coated tungsten rounds. Unlike other ship weaponry, these are not controlled by Bridge Staff using the tactical console and are typically manned by Munitions Technicians. Gauss guns require no maintenance.

To man gauss guns, buckle yourself into the gauss gunner chair and you'll rise into the cockpit above. To fire, click on the overmap to fire a powerful short-range burst. Gauss guns eat through ammo quickly, and you'll ideally want someone below deck keeping you loaded at all times. Loading tungsten rounds is as simple as placing them in a crate, click-dragging it to the loading rack, and sending it up for reloading. Additional slugs can be acquired from a nearby Gauss ammunition dispenser that can be upgraded by science to produce slugs at a faster rate.

Acquiring ammunition

This is inevitable, the ship will consume ammo at a rapid rate. If you are out of ammo outside of combat, the following list will instruct you on how to acquire more. If you are out of ammo mid-combat you're fucked , communicate this with CIC and the rest of your team and use what you have left for the other weapons while coordinating with cargo.

PDC/Railgun/MAC

These are the easiest ammunition types to acquire. PDC ammo can be acquired from cargo in crates containing several sheets of ammo. Do not overestimate the amount within these crates, however - order multiple as PDC fire will go through all of this ammo quickly. Railgun and MAC rounds are shared and can be acquired the same way but do not require as many orders to remain stocked.   

Torpedoes

Torpedoes, unfortunately, cannot be ordered fully assembled and must be built by your own oil-covered hands. You need multiple things from cargo - components, casings, and warheads. Standard and armor piercing warheads can be ordered from cargo, but the other types must be researched by science before they can be made in the protolathe. Once you have all of these, acquire a set of tools, a cable coil, and flip down the welding shield on your helmet, then it's time to slap it together!

1. Get a casing, either made from metal or ordered from cargo.
2. Add the propulsion system.
3. Wrench the propulsion into place.
4. Add the guidance system.
5. Screwdriver the guidance system in place.
6. Add the IFF card.
7. Screwdriver the card in place.
8. Add the warhead.
9. Wrench the warhead in place.
10. Wire it.
11. Wrench once more.
12. Weld it all together.

There are a total of six different types of torpedoes you can make. Each serves a different purpose.

• Standard torpedoes are your stock standard torps. They carry an explosive payload that does a fair amount of damage to ships and fighters alike.
• Armor piercing torpedoes are able to do heavy damage to armored targets. Good against large ships.
• Nuclear torpedoes are the most powerful of the explosive torpedoes. They deal devastating damage to anything they hit, but are slower and more expensive than the other torpedo types. Use them wisely, as you won't be able to make more until science researches them.
• Decoy torpedoes don't carry an explosive payload, but can be used to distract an enemy's defensive weapons, giving you a clear shot for your more powerful weapons.
• Freight torpedoes are essentially cargo pods. Load them up and fire them at another ship to deliver the goods.
• Probes are torpedoes strapped with an array of scientific sensors. Firing one of these at an anomaly will generate research for science, and potentially unlock new technology nodes. Don't miss.

Weapon maintenance

The Torpedo Tubes, Railgun, and MAC require maintenance when they're used too much. You probably want to perform maintenance between each bout of combat.
Note: make sure there's nothing in the weapons and that the safeties are on, to prevent unnecessary explosions.

1. Unscrew the maintenance hatch on the primary external casing
2. Unbolt (wrench) the internal maintenance panel
3. Use a crowbar to carefully lever out the internal panel
4. Apply 10 units of Oil to the exposed internal machinery, repeat as needed
5. Replace (crowbar) and bolt (wrench) the panel, then fix (screwdriver) the hatch back in place

You're ready

It may be difficult to swallow all of the information you've read, but don't worry! You'll very rarely be working with all of these weapons at once as you have fellow Munitions Technicians at your side to pick up your slack. Above all, remember to have fun. With a bottle of spray paint, you can do all manner of things - name your torpedo tubes, draw funny faces near the PDC racks, and draw the borderline between the rest of the ship and the newly independent Munitia.

More Dakka

Is the ships just floating around in friendly space? Are all the guns loaded and you have nothing better to do? Or are those glorified laser pointers simply not enough? Fear not, because now you can even BUILD more guns! From the smallest PDC rack to the largets Railgun, you can outfit your ship with all the firepower.

Disclamer: this is ADVANCED munitions knowledge, you don't need to know this to be a Munitions Technician. If you know this, all the better for you, but first time MTs shouldn't read this, as the knowledge told up above is more than enough. Also, most ships come equiped with all the neccesary weapons to defend themselves, so building new ones should only be a side job.

With that out of the way, here are a few tips if you want to arm your ship:

• To build any weapon, you will need circuits that are researched by R&D. These techs are costly, and are a good way down the tech tree, so don't expect them to be ready fast.
• If you have the circuits researched, you can begin the constructions by using metal or plasteel in your hand, scrolling down to the bottom of the menu, and picking the weapon frame, rack, etc. of your choice.
• Usually the more complicated the weapon's maintenance and loading is, the longer it will take to build it.
  • The same goes for material cost. While a PDC rack might only need metal and a few machine parts, a Railgun will need metal, duranium, nanocarbon, and even more, complicated parts made from these materials, such as a loading tray.
  • If at any point you don't know what to do, or you want to reverse something, you can just examine the weapon, and it will tell you what steps to take.
• Many weapon parts can be printed from the cargo protolathe. For this reason, it is a good idea to ask the Quartermaster for his spare machine board. If you can get your hands on the resources needed, you might want to set up an autolathe too.
• All big guns (Torp tubes, Railguns, MACs) will need a Munitions Computer linked to them. These computers are researched along other weapon parts, and can be constructed like a normal computer. To link them, use a multitool on the built weapon first, then the computer, and select the deseried option.
• One last tip: Don't overestimte how much ammo you have. Because while making the ship into a giant sniper rifle with 20 railguns might be fun, cargo WILL swiftly run dry of credits trying to supply you with ammo. 30 PDC racks WILL destroy all the Torpedos launched at you, but the crew will easily go deaf from all the BRRRRT.
  • For this reason, giving the Munitions budget card to cargo is higly recommended.

As said before, this is advanced stuff, usually you don't need to build new guns, and it's one hell of a job to try and keep them all loaded. But it does take up the downtime that you otherwise would have spent in the bar, and some weird people might find it fun.