Power
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Power is the represents both the actual ship stat "power", and generally speaking, all specific types of power a ship may posses - such as "combat power", "salvage power", "drone power" and many others. It affects everything a ship does, and can be modified, scaled and changed.
The Five+ PowerStats
The game tracks many separate power values. They are stored independently and used by different systems.
| Stat | What is it? | Notes |
|---|---|---|
Power |
This is a general type of power that, if it exists on a turret or a module, will mirror into some of the other specific power types the ship has. | Combat, Mining and Salvage power types will count this Power as their own. |
Combat Power |
Applies when doing damage. | All weapons use it and as a rule of thumb, very roughly, a ship's DPS will be total Combat Power / fire rate / 5. |
Mining Power |
Applies when mining asteroids | Same DPS as combat power but only against asteroids. |
Salvage Power |
Applies when salvaging scrap | Same DPS as combat power but only against wrecks. |
Drone Power |
Applies to drones and whatever they do. | Exceptions are drones that don't actually do any damage to anything, which is beside the point. |
Torpedo Power |
Similar to combat Power but torpedo specific. | Unclear why this is separate for torpedoes, but it is. |
There are even more different powers, like Repair Power which is used when repairing a ship's armor or shields, but these are not as relevant to players.
Base Power applies to some other Powers
Anything that adds Power (the Power Power) adds the same amount to Combat Power, Mining Power and Salvage Power. It will not be added to any of the other types (Torpedo, Drone, etc). This is useful when kitting multi-role ships - if you're using a ship in multiple roles by swapping turrets from combat to mining or similar. This way modules that add Power will be useful to any and all activity types.
Normally, ship gear that list a class-specific stat (e.g. a Surface Mining Laser with +1,500 MiningPower) contribute only to that specific activity - mining power, and will not be useful if the ship is fighting.
If you want to double- (or triple-) down on power, Exotic (purple) gear has three substats along their main stat. The main stat of a weapon is Combat Power. One of the three substats may *also* be Combat Power, while another one may be simply Power. All three are combined and counted when summing up total Combat Power.
Feed Your Reactors, Polish the Hull, Man the Cannons
The Reactor
A major source of Power Multipliers is the Reactor.
| Reactor usage | Power modifier |
|---|---|
| ≤ 50% | +20% |
| ≤ 75% | +10% |
| ≤ 100% | 0% |
| ≤ 125% | -25% |
| ≤ 150% | -50% |
| > 150% | -75% |
It is always optimal to craft your gear (through the use of Workshop and Aspects such as Solar Powered) so your energy usage remains below 50%. This will grant a 20% modifier (with further bonuses to Combat Power from the Combat skill tree), multiplying the main three powers on a ship (combat, mining, salvaging).
The Hull
Aside for Reactor, the Drydock can upgrade the hull in many ways. Each node along the individual upgrade tracks will upgrade the total power of the ship regarding a certain stat (combat, mining, salvage), and each milestone unlocked grants a lump bonus.
In addition to hull upgrades, varying ship classes have their own innate power modifiers, such as combat hulls having a +30% power (applied to combat power) or a mining hull having +30% power (applied to mining power). See Ship List for all the ships and their hull bonuses.
The Crew
See Crew for crew details. Crew can have different professions, so Miners will boost Mining Power, while Gunners will grant a boost to Combat Power. Crew bonuses added this way count as a separate source of Power and will be multiplied by all normal skill and item multipliers.
Officers also have their own passive bonuses which are added to varying powers - a Mining officer with a passive 2.34% Mining Power will use it to multiply the total if active on a ship.
Drone Power
Drone Power is universally a confusing and often discussed topic because how it applies, and what really happens. It is scheduled for a revamp, so until that happens, the math specifics are not relevant. suffice to say there are some math issues with how Drone Power applies to combat drones and how it combines with existing combat power coming in from the hardpoints (turrets).
For other uses (mining and salvaging, painting and other utility uses), drones work perfectly as expected.
If you need to know anything about Drone Power, know this - the "+2000 Drone Power" shown on a Drone Bay main stat is cosmetic. If you set all your drones to be Painters or Scanners (which have 0 power), total Drone Power is actually zero, no matter what the display says. Actual Drone Power is calculated from individual drones you have equipped, and this number is not shown anywhere except (with varying accuracy) in the ship Info screen. However, a Drone Bay, same as any other module or turret, can have +Drone Power as a substat, in which case that number is fully added to the Drone Power total.
See Example 3 for a better breakdown.
For general info on drones, please consult Drones.
Examples of Power Distribution
Example 1: Salvage & Combat modules don't mix, which is good
- Ship Power Power: 10,000 Power
- Installed Salvage Equipment: +1,000 Salvage Power
- Installed Combat Turret: +1,000 Combat Power
Resulting Stats:
- Salvage Power: 11,000 (10,000 Power + 1,000 Salvage Power)
- Combat Power: 11,000 (10,000 Power + 1,000 Combat Power)
Example 2: Torpedo usage
Torpedoes are similar to weapons, in that they use both Torpedo and normalized Combat Power - these are added together and then converted into damage similar to weapons.
Example 3: Mining ship with a drone bay
- Ship Type: Mining Ship - slots: 1× Surface Mining Laser, 1x Combat Autocannon, 1× Medium Drone Bay
- Ship Power: 10,000 Power - coming from various modules
| Module | Stat line | Activity |
|---|---|---|
| 1× Medium Drone Bay | +2,000 Drone Power main stat, +1000 Drone Power substat |
Ignore the main display on the item itself, it's cosmetic. The +1000 is actually added to the Drone Power total any any drone can use it. |
| 1× Surface Mining Laser | +1,500 Mining Power |
This is added to Mining Power and will be usable by Mining Drones |
| 1× Combat Autocannon | +1,500 Combat Power |
This is added to Combat Power and will be usable by Combat Drones |
Resulting ship-side Power stats
- Mining Power = 10,000 (Base) + 1,500 (mining laser) = 11,500 - This is the amount the ship mines with when firing the mining laser
- Combat Power = 10,000 (Base) + 1,500 (autocannon) = 11,500 - This is the amount the ship fights with with when firing the autocannon
- Salvage Power = 10,000 (Base) = 10,000 - no salvage gear, but the Salvage Power still exists and will show up in Ship Info stats
- Drone Power = +1,000 (Modules or turrets with a substat explicitly adding "+xy Drone Power" ) + 0 (Drydock/officers) = 1,000 - Counterintuitive, but we ignore the main stat of the drone bay. The individual mining or combat drones give their bonuses to mining and combat power pools instead. In the ship Info display the UI will wrongly also add the main +2,000 to the total drone power, however this is not the case in reality.
So, if a number of drones are doing mining, they use:
- Mining Pool = 11,500 (Mining Power) + 1,000 (Drone Power) + (xy) Individual Mining Drones Combined Power = 12,500 + xy - This amount is divided across all mining drones (and turrets), after applying a stacking penalty (not relevant for this example). More drones, less power each, but more resilient to being destroyed.
If you have half drones mining, half salvaging (an ideal example for actual Industrial Ops missions), then the salvage drones would dip into:
- Salvage Pool = 10,000 (Salvage Power) + 1,000 (Drone Power) + (xy) Individual Salvage Drones Combined Power = 12,000 + xy - This amount is again divided across the salvage drones (and turrets), after a stacking penalty for multiple turrets (where drones also count as turrets).