Combat Readiness (CR) is a general measure of a ship's logistical status. It is an abstraction of various factors such as crew fatigue, short-term wear & tear, availability of spare parts, etc. CR runs from 0% (completely unfit for battle) to 100% (absolute peak performance) and is normally 70% for a well supplied ship with no pertinent bonuses.
Usage and effects[]
Ships require CR to be deployed in combat, with the amount needed ranging from 9% for the Gemini to 40% for the Hyperion. The deployment cost is removed from the ship's available CR after each round of engagement. CR deployment costs are lower for frigates and low to mid-tech ships and higher for capital and high-tech ships. A ship with 0% CR cannot be deployed.
Ships in combat with 70% or greater CR have greater maneuverability, autofire accuracy, and damage reduction, they also deal more damage; conversely, ships below 50% CR suffer penalties in those stats. The bonuses and penalties scale linearly from 70% → 100% CR and 50% → 0% CR, respectively:
- Maneuverability: +/-10%
- Damage taken: -/+10%
- Damage dealt: +/-10%
- Fighter refit time (for ships with a flight deck): +/-10%
At less than 40% CR a ship will have reduced missile magazines (dropping to empty at 10% CR) and will experience temporary, random malfunctions in combat that take weapons, engines or the shields offline. These malfunctions increase in frequency as CR decreases.
At less than 20% CR a ship will suffer critical malfunctions upon deployment and in combat, which will disable a weapon or engine for the duration of the battle and cause hull damage.[1] Engines disabled by critical malfunctions do not count for inflicting flameouts.[2] The last weapon on a ship will not be permanently disabled by a critical malfunction.[3]
During a pursuit battle, the escaping fleet can crash-mothball low-CR ships to prevent them from suffering malfunctions during the chase.
At 0% CR a ship will no longer be able to use its shield or phase cloak.[4]
Fighters do not experience normal or critical malfunctions, or lose missile ammo, shields or phase cloak.[1]
All non-fighter ships have a limited "peak active performance" time after which their CR degrades in battle. This counter decreases when there are enough enemy ships within the ship's sight radius: for instance, a cruiser's timer will tick down if the enemy force in sight includes at least one cruiser, or two destroyers, or four frigates. Once this timer expires, CR is reduced by 0.25% per second. As before, low-tech and midline frigates have a longer peak performance time than their high-tech counterparts; also, larger ships last longer. The Hardened Subsystems hullmod will increase peak active performance time and reduce degradation rate.
If a fleet makes contact with another, hostile fleet on the strategic map and tries to run, the enemy fleet may harry it in place of attempting to pursue, which reduces the CR of each ship in the fleeing fleet as if it had been deployed.
Refitting a ship without being in a dock at a planet or a station, causes the ship to lose CR. Clicking on the CR bar in the top-left of the Refit Screen sets the CR of a ship for simulations.
Recovery[]
Ships will expend supplies to recover CR and repair hull damage after a battle, at a daily rate calculated from the ship's CR/deployment, CR recovery/day and supplies/deployment values given in the codex. The listed Recovery cost (supplies) stat is how many supplies it costs in total to recover from a single deployment i.e. if a ship uses 20 CR per deployment, recovers 10% CR per day (takes 2 days to recover) and has a recovery cost of 20 supplies then it consumes 20 / 2 = 10 supplies per day while recovering. Different ships recover different amounts of CR per day, with such smaller ships as frigates more quickly recovering. CR recovery and hull/armor repair are done in parallel, so there is no cost for taking sufficiently minor damage. Ships that are already at full hull/armor integrity and maximum CR will only drain supplies at their supplies/month value.
The repair function at stations instantly restores the CR of all ships in the fleet for the same cost in supplies as passive regeneration.
After each round of engagement in a battle, the winning side can automatically recoup some of the CR spent on deployment at no supply cost. The amount of recovered CR depends on a hidden battle total called "hard fought". This total is lower if you deploy more DP, but kill less DP, and higher if you deploy less DP, and kill more DP. [5][6]
Maximum CR[]
The base maximum CR for a ship is 70%. Player and officer skills can grant 15% CR each, meaning two relevant skills are needed to max out CR assuming no penalties.
An officer (player included) with the Combat Endurance increases it by 15% for the ship they are on, while Crew Training raises it by 15% for all combat ships in the fleet. Support Doctrine additionally gives all ships without officers 15% increased maximum CR via Combat Endurance. Hull Restoration grants ships in the fleet a 5% increase in maximum CR per S-mod, synergising with Best of the Best to reach its full potential.
Maximum CR will be reduced if the fleet does not have enough crew for its ships.
Fighters[]
Carriers will launch replacement fighters when they are destroyed in battle at the cost of that carrier's fighter replacement rate. If the carrier's Combat readiness reaches zero then the replacement rate will immediately drop to 0.
Strategy and tactics[]
Proper CR management reduces fleet operation expenses because CR usage directly increases the usage of supplies, which must be bought or plundered. The ways to lower your supply problem include:
- Deploying only as much firepower as necessary to win the battle (without taking losses or incurring excessive repairs).
- Use low-tech and midline ships, which have lower deployment costs.
- Deploying frigates with multiple d-mods, which might have a miniscule cost to deploy.
Buying a ship only once its added supply costs are covered for the short term prevents downward spirals wherein plundering desperately needed supplies and money too greatly reduces CR. Excessive ships could be stored, mothballed, scrapped or sold.
Other[]
Surprisingly, enemy fleets can harry your retreat, and cause you a huge loss in CR. An example of this is if a pirate patrol attacks you in range of the station, and forces your retreat. If you retreat, you retreat in order, but at a huge CR cost, close to half. This is especially a problem for larger ships, with their lower CR per day recovery.
References[]
Change History[]
0.8a
- Removed crew experience levels
- Base CR for ships is 70%
- Stat improvements start at above 70% (was: 60%)
- Changed when ships have a chance to suffer an accident
- Was: 0% CR and not mothballed
- Now: less than 10% CR, not mothballed, and repairs suspended or fleet out of supplies
- Removed CR reduction for hull damage taken in combat
- Added status indicator for when peak performance time is not going down due to nearby enemy presence being too weak
- Ship refit now only degrades CR when something is removed. I.E. adding weapons or hullmods will not reduce CR unless something is removed to make room
- Mostly applicable for recovered ships - spending their free OP will not tank their CR
- In-flight refit: adding weapons/hullmods will again reduce CR, but not below the malfunction threshold
- Still makes outfitting recovered ships mostly free as they can't start with more CR than that
- Prevents some potential exploits
At least two versions out of date. Last verified for version 0.9. Please refer to Version History and update this page.