Antimatter - what does it do?

I know antimatter destroys matter.

Wow, we have a smart poster comedian here. I bet you were awake all night Googling that answer up.

Anyway, let's try to find the answers that relate to SoaSE; at least before this topic devolves into discussions on the opposing charges of matter and antimatter subatomic particles or why the universe is partial to matter.

Ah now THAT is interesting.............kidding*

Um, we know, as you say that antimatter powers shields, what we don't know is if the antimatter drains running the shields constantly or can maintain them indefinitely but drains under heavy fire.

I'm still not entirely clear on antimatter in phase space "it is not consumed but rendered unusable WTF"

Antimatter replenishing near a star, if you will allow some science for a moment, that is probably because the stars hydrogen can be turned into the isotope deuterium, which is one of the easiest particles to "flip" to an anti-deuteron. Its handy because Deuterium is a nuclear fuel (especially when combined with tritium) anyway.

Antimatter may not be used for regular weapons (I can't imagine basic weapons being powered by something as powerful as antimatter) but things like the Advent beam weapons or the TEC Multi Adaptive shield may consume antimatter. How fast? We don't know.

Wow...that was useless

*Scientists theorize that the big bang created an unbalanced (for whatever reason) amount of matter and antimatter, and during the initial few miliseconds of the universe, the reactions between the two gave the universe enough energy to expand, conversely they theorize that the big bang was caused when a matter dominated universe collided with an antimatter dominated universe, causing an explosion (big bang) that formed ours, we stayed in contact with the matter universe longer before separating and thats why wehave more matter than antimatter, y'know, with multiverse theory and all that, gets a bit complex

yes, AM does:
special weapons
phasespace
special defenses
shield defenses
other wierd special abilities.

thats about all we know.

I just know I can't wait to hear the off. explanation as to why does some AM dissapear during the jump although it's not neccessary for it...

The Devs made it so, do not question their powers!!

Yea, it is going to be used for special abilities each ship has.

I think the simple answer is that antimatter is the basic unit of fuel/energy for spacecraft.

Certain quantities of it are used up to do most things that ships do. This is to keep their special abilities in check and allow you to "prioritize" ship's activities... prioritize isn't quite the right word but what I'm trying to get at is that you are able to choose which abilities to use your limited supply of antimatter on thus creating a more specialized role for the ship. You can focus all your antimatter on offense-related abilities, defense-related abilities, or support-related abilities or go for a more rounded approach.

Someone needs to be.

I can kind of understand why the developers didn't want Phase jumping to cost AM. I mean, a player fleeing from battle from a much more powerful fleet would likely have all of his/her AM used up by the time they reached the edge of the gravity well (especially if shields use AM). The developers didn't want to see that player lose their entire fleet (and probably the game) because they were unable to phase jump away from an unfavorable position due to lack of AM.

Also, they can't deal with the above problem by simply making Phase jumping cost a tiny fraction of AM. Then you would have people phase jumping fleets non stop until they found a weak point in their opponents defenses = the game would become 100% offense with absolutely no hope of defense. Besides, it only makes sense that players who are on the receiving end of a long range invasion should have a fuel advantage.

So, with the present 'phase jumping uses up AM but doesn't require it' system the developers can prevent the 'first player to lose a battle loses the game' syndrome as well as phase jumping cheapness.

Hi Blair, this next bit is just for you on the off chance you are reading this post.

There should be a toggle switch during game setup that can force Phase Jumping to actually require an AM cost. I do see what you are trying to avoid with your present 'Phase Jump uses up but doesn't cost AM' system. Still, some of us players would prefer multi player games that would likely end more quickly and that would involve additional strategic AM considerations (some of us love more realism). Not to mention, an 'AM cost for Phase Jumping' toggle switch would be another cool tool for modders to take advantage of.

So, Phase Jumping would use up the same amount of AM as a standard game, but would differ in that ships without that amount of AM would be unable to even start the jump process.

I agree with Paradoxnt, that would be a cool little feature. Realism is awesome.

I agree antimatterless phase jumping can be very frustrating for anyone trying to chase an enemy ship.

There are other ways of preventing the overload of partisan (jump in/jump out) tactics. Jump engines may need to recharge or cool down or something.

As it is, I believe that there is a charging/calibration period for ships prior to being able to jump into Phase Space. That means that once they are out of a planet/asteroid/star's gravity well, they will have to sit for a bit of time before being able to enter Phase Space. This may indeed work for preventing Phase Space Cheapness...

Hmm, maybe we should have a game setup toggle switch that can set this waiting period to longer or shorter time. That would work just as well as my previous idea for a game setup toggle switch that sets Phase Space to require an AM cost.

Anyway, my only worry is that the charging up time will be too short. For example, if it is too short, fleets will be able to jump to a HEAVILY defended planet, and then jump away to the next one without any damage (or very little). I want to see smart players rewarded for good strategic fleet deployments. The other players who jump into carefully prepared ambushes should be allowed to be slaughtered.

I just don't want to see the Phase Space game mechanics reward dumb strategic moves by allowing players who make huge mistakes to simply jump away without penalty.

I have this terrible feeling that the developers might try to stop Phase Space Cheapness by making tiny tactical maps. Tiny maps would force fleets to start all battles at point blank range (or nearly so) but would also stop players from jumping all over the place. After all, even if the Phase Space engine charging period is short, starting a battle at point blank range against a vastly superior foe = death before the phase jump charging period is done.

Please Ironclad, don't make the mistake that so many other games have made with tiny maps. Let the maps in this game be big enough to allow for fleet maneuvers that involve at least 4-5 or more enemy players in a single tactical engagement.

The bigger the maps the happier the player

*drool*