We had a great response to our second ship building competition, so we're holding our third combat competition! See the details below. Some things have changed, so be sure to read all the way through.

You can watch the battles from the previous competition here: https://youtu.be/hvuvCpo5YBU

Goal & Prize

Create the most effective combat ship and see how it holds up against the competition! All submitted ships will compete in a bracket competition if we receive enough entries. Ships must come stocked with ammo, crew, and life supporting resources. See details below. The winner receives the Competition Winner flair on Reddit and/or associated roles in the Discord server.

Submissions & Rules

All ships must be submitted by February 15th, 2025 at 9:00 PM EST. Totengeist (that's me) and Johnny Struggles will not submit any ships to participate in the tournament, as they'll be running the battles.

You may submit your ships to the Ship Showcase on Discord or send a Steam Workshop link or .ship file directly to Johnny Struggles.

We will allow up to 2 submissions from each contestant, and each submission may be composed of 1 or more ships, so long as the combination of them meets the requirements below. (e.g. the combined total cannot cost more than 6 million space bucks.)

The tournament bracket is randomized (3 times using RANDOM.ORG), so we may end up having 2 submissions from the same person fighting each other.

Build Requirements:

* Submissions must be built between now and the deadline and work properly in the current version (Alpha 13).
* Submissions must cost less than 6 million space bucks.
* Submissions must have at least 1 Engine.
* Submissions must not travel at speeds higher than 130.
* Submission crew capacity must be equal to or greater than the number of crew.
* Must use your own ship design(s).
* Do not use weapons officers or consoles as the AI doesn't handle them properly in this setup.

Combat rules:

* Ships will start combat facing each other outside of Railgun Range.
* The games AI will control all the combat.
* The default orders will be on so hull repair will be enabled during combat.
* Ships will fight each other twice and the ship with two kills wins. If both ships get a kill then the ship that killed it's opponent the fastest wins the tie.
* Combat has a 5 minute time limit. If the limit is reached, the ship with the highest percentage of health left wins.

AI options:

To add even more excitement we can alter the basic strategy your ship uses by default for combat. They are defined below, so you now have the opportunity to choose one that you think best fits your ship. Now two things to be aware of. It's possible the AI will change the strategy it's using based on the situation it's in so it may not stick to what you have picked.

Strategies to choose from:
* StrategyVeryCloseOrbit: Broadside orbits within Gatling gun range.
* CloseRangeAggressive: Broadside orbits in cannon range just outside of gatling gun range.
* MediumRangeOrbit: Broadside orbits at far end of cannon range.
* LongRangeSniper: Broadside orbits at railgun range well outside of cannon range.
* FastMovingJet: Forward facing strafing Runs, fly's straight at opponent then circles around to do it again.

Let us know if you have questions and any feedback is appreciated.

There has been a minor change to the rules for this and future competitions. Submissions must not travel at speeds higher than 130. If you've submitted a design for the competition, please double-check that it meets this requirement.