Equipment

Weapons

The kind and number of weapons that can be mounted is different for every ship. On some ships turrets can be installed on which more weapons can be mounted. There are turrets for top, tail or bottom installation depending on the ship.

- Guns

(energy and particle weapons)

• Light guns: Laser, Mass driver, Meson blaster
• Medium guns: Neutron gun, Particle cannon
• Heavy guns: Tachyon cannon, Ion pulse cannon, Plasma gun, Fusion cannon (Righteous Fire only)

- Heavy artillery

(launchers and their projectiles)

For lock missiles onto a target an advanced scanner is necessary.

-- Missile launcher

• Dumb-fire missile: cannot lock.
• Heat-seeking missile: locks onto heat emission of target.
• Image-recognition missile: locks onto shape of target.
• Friend-or-foe missile: locks onto hostile targets.

-- Torpedo launcher

• Proton torpedo: cannot lock.

Armor

There are two kinds of ship armor: plasteel armor and the double effective tungsten armor. The third kind is only in Righteous Fire: isometal armor is four times as effective as plasteel.

Engines and shields

There are five levels of engines and shields, up to seven levels in Righteous Fire. The higher the level the more power the engine has, the more effective the shield is. But not all levels can be installed into every ship.

ECM system

The ECM system can be installed to disturb missiles that are locked onto your ship. There are three levels of the system. The higher the level the better the chances for breaking a missile lock. The highest chance is 75%.

Other equipment

• Jump drive: allows travel from system to system.
• Afterburner: boosts the speed using the ship's energy reserves. When reserves are depleted, the afterburner cuts until just enough energy is available to fire it up again.
• Cargo expansion: increases cargo bay volume depending on the ship.
• Repair droid: repairs damaged equipment while still flying in space.
• Tractor beam: pulls in loose cargo from space.

Additional equipment in Righteous Fire

• Gun cooler: increases refire rates of guns.
• Speed enhancer: increases the ship's maximum velocity and afterburner output.
• Thrust enhancer: increases the ship's turning and acceleration speed.
• Shield regenerator: increases the shield regeneration rate.

Software

In the software booth at the shipdealer's you can buy maps for navigation and scanners for the ship's radar. The map for the Gemini sector consists of four quadrant maps: Humboldt, Fariss, Potter and Clarke quadrant. The starting ship and every ship you buy is already equipped with the map of the current quadrant. Still it's a little cheaper to buy all four maps at once than to buy the missing three separately.

Scanners come in three brands:

• Iris: displays all objects in gray.
• Hunter: displays enemies in red and allies in blue, other objects in gray.
• B&S: besides red and blue for enemies and allies it displays missiles in yellow, jump points in cyan, cargo in brown, Nav points in white and only bases / planets in gray. This brand has higher accuracy in detecting ship types than Iris and Hunter scanners.

Each brand has three different advanced levels. The higher the level the better the chances of detecting ship types. The second and third level of each brand can be used to lock missiles onto targets. Third level scanners create an inertial-targeting pipper on the main screen in the area you need to aim for to hit the target; unlike in real aircraft where the pilot's job is to align the floating gunsight pipper on the enemy aircraft, in the Wing Commander universe the gunsight is in a fixed position and needs to be aligned with a point in space ahead of the enemy.