Torpedoes
Torpedoes are guided impulse-space weapons stored as ship inventory. Each launched torpedo is tracked as an incoming round on its target rather than as an independently moving object. The Torpedo command page covers command syntax, launch checks, and firing behavior.
Guidance and launch envelope
A launch succeeds only if the target is in scanner range and the guidance factor exceeds 0.7. The factor is determined by both ships' combined speed and their distance in sectors:
factor = (1.2 - ((shooter speed + target speed) / 5000))
* ((5 - distance in sectors) / (TORFACT / 10))
launch succeeds if factor > 0.7
The classic configuration description incorrectly calls speed the opponent's speed; classic 3.2e and ge-next both use the sum of the firing ship's and target's speeds. With the default TORFACT of 40, two stationary ships can lock at just under 26,667 distance units, a near-full-impulse shooter against a stationary target at roughly 22,000, and two ships near full impulse at roughly 15,000. Scanner range can impose a shorter limit, and a target at warp cannot be locked.
Each target has three incoming torpedo slots, shared among all attackers. Classic ship classes define torpedo capability as yes or no and have no per-launcher reload counter. ge-next defines zero to three launchers; each can fire once during a ship-state update, after which it reloads for the next update. A target with all three inbound slots occupied cannot accept another torpedo.
Flight and interception
At launch, the target's incoming record stores the firing ship slot and the distance between the ships, plus a small 20-unit offset. On each target ship-state update, the stored distance decreases by TORPSPED, whose stock value is 2,441 distance units per update. Ship-state updates normally occur about every six seconds. Although torpedoes are presented as weapons of normal space and cannot follow a ship into hyperspace, this travel rate is in the warp-speed range. It is a distance countdown, not a torpedo entering hyperspace. The torpedo hits once its remaining distance is no greater than one movement step. Since this countdown belongs to the target, ordinary impulse movement after launch does not let the target outrun or redirect the torpedo; the ships' speeds affect only the initial guidance solution.
Classic processes a torpedo only while its stored distance is greater than one. At launch, it truncates the measured separation to an integer and adds 20; a flight update then subtracts TORPSPED only if the torpedo is still more than one movement step away. If a subtraction leaves exactly 1, the next update skips the torpedo instead of resolving the hit. The vulnerable separations are those for which (truncated distance + 20) modulo TORPSPED = 1. With the stock speed of 2,441, the first is a truncated separation of 2,422 units (stored as 2,442, then reduced to 1); another occurs every 2,441 units within the permitted launch range. See Classic bug: Torpedo stalls at distance one for the full sequence. ge-next processes every positive distance and fixes this edge case.
Entering hyperspace breaks incoming torpedo tracks. A decoy can intercept an incoming torpedo when it is within 5,000 distance units; each eligible decoy gets a separate one-in-DECODDS chance per ship-state update, with a stock value of 11. A successful interception destroys both the decoy and torpedo. ge-next also clears incoming ordnance when a target enters a wormhole, leaves play, or is protected by the Enforcer Planet as the projectile closes in. Classic's 3.2d wormhole change attempted to stop projectiles from following a ship, but called the routine that cleared ownership rather than the routine that clears incoming projectiles; ge-next corrected this in 0.2.4 (Classic bug: Wormhole projectile cleanup).
Impact
With the stock TDAMMAX of 35, an unshielded hit applies a random amount from 50% to less than 100% of that maximum before target durability is applied. A shielded impact applies a lower random hull-damage amount, from zero to less than 50% of the maximum, and separately damages the shields. The target ship's DAMF scales hull damage in both classic 3.2e and ge-next; ge-next also reduces damage when armor plating is installed.
A hit can trigger random damage to ship systems or carried items. Classic resolves and reports each torpedo impact independently. ge-next combines impacts from one update into a single damage report and one random-damage assessment, while preserving kill attribution for each distinct projectile owner.
Ownership and combat consequences
A launched torpedo retains its firing ship slot for impact messages and credit. In ge-next, destroying the firing ship does not erase its torpedoes; if the firer leaves the game, its surviving projectiles are marked as ownerless so they cannot be credited to a later occupant of that ship slot. ge-arena retains projectile ownership through destruction and respawn, removing ownership only when the player leaves the match.
An incoming torpedo keeps its target in combat until it hits, is intercepted, or is cleared. Classic also starts combat timers on a failed guidance attempt, whereas ge-next does so only after a successful launch; see Torpedo command. Active torpedoes and their remaining distances can be inspected with REPORT ORDNANCE in ge-next.
See also
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