This guide has been designed and created to teach you everything that you need to know about ShadowOps, whether your a new player just starting out wanting to know everything, or an experienced player wanting to refresh your memory, this guide is for you.

This is now Version 4.0.0 of this ShadowOps help site.

This game guide has been created and designed by:

Devistation [CoW]
Holyavenger

In the battle room you have 5 options to choose from, these are:

Fighter - This is where you attack players with your fighters.
Starship - This is where you attack players with your starship.
Cloaked - This is where you attack players with your cloak bombers.
Military Status - This is the place that shows you the status of all 16 of your generals, 4 fighter, 4 starship and 4 cloak, including if they are available or unavailable. If they are unavailable it states how many revs (revolutions) are left until they return, as well as showing how many of each ship are out with each general.
Missile Attack - This is where you launch your user missiles (EMP missiles and Deterium missiles).

You cannot attack players that are:

Locked by admin or moderator, you will know this as it will say 'Locked By Admin' in the status column.
In protection mode, you will know this as it will say 'Protection Mode' in the status column.
Less than 1/3 (one third) your own networth, if you are at war, or the member is stationed in your system this rule DOES NOT apply
More then 5x (five times) your own networth, if you are at war, or the member is stationed in your system this rule DOES NOT apply

Fighter Attacks:

The main funtion for fighter attacks is to destroy cast amount of an oppenents ships, this is the only form of attack that will hit all types of ships at once, including turrets.

Opponent does not have shields researched.

Opponent has researched shields.

Please be aware that during attacks, cloak seekers and cloak bombers act as fighters, so their losses will be classed under the "Defenders ship losses (fighters)".

It is also worth noting, that if you are attacking a player that has 0 power, their ships will be 60% less effective when defending against an attack.

Starship Attacks:

The main function for starship attacks is to take platforms and resources from oppenents, it will also destroy some of the enemies starships and turrets during the attack.

Opponent does not have shields researched.

Opponent has researched shields.

Please be aware that during attacks, cloak seekers and cloak bombers act as fighters, so in a starship attack, they will not be destroyed.

It is also worth noting, that if you are attacking a player that has 0 power, their ships will be 60% less effective when defending against an attack.

Starship Attack Gains:

Below is a list of platform gains when you attack with your starships:

* Attacking someone larger than you in stations will gain you 12% of their platforms.
* Attacking someone smaller than you in stations will gain you 6% of their platforms.
* Attacking someone that you are currently waring then you will gain an extra 50% of their platforms.
* Attacking a BOT will gain you 10-12% of their platforms.

Below are some rules which only apply for a certain period of time at the beginning of the round.

** Attacking someone 1/2 of your size in networth will gain you 4% of their platforms.
** Attacking someone 1/4 of your size in networth will gain you 2% of their platforms.
** Attacking someone 1/6 of your size in networth will gain you 1% of their platforms.
** Attacking someone 1/8 of your size in networth will gain you 0.05% of their platforms.

* = Minimum grab is 30 stations.
Inactive's DO NOT apply to this rule.
BOTS DO NOT apply to this rule.
Members of your own system DO NOT apply to this rule.

** = Minimum grab is 30 stations unless this rule apply's.
Inactive's DO NOT apply to this rule.
BOTS DO NOT apply to this rule.
Members of your own system DO NOT apply to this rule.

Cloak Bomber Attacks:

There are two types of cloaked ships, superchargers and thunderstrucks. Thunderstrucks are bigger then superchargers giving them that ability to hold and fire more hunter droids, which seek out residence and destroy them. A cloak bomber attack works differently to the other two previous attacks shown above as a cloak bomber attacks specifically target the opponents residence and population. Each droid has a 50% chance of success, and if successful it destroys the one of the enemies residence and all the population inside of that residence (population is spread evenly across all your residence).

Defending Cloak Attacks:

Defending against cloak bomber attacks is very important indeed, if you lose your residence your population will die and you will not be able to produce anymore until you re-build the residence lost, during this time you are open to such attacks as population kills through enemies probes attacks.

There are two ways of preventing enemies cloak bomber attacks being successful.

The first way is to build cloak seekers. These are fighters that have been designed specifically to destroy incoming cloak bombers before they can fire their hunter droids. cloak seekers need to be researched before they can be built (see the 'Research' page on this help site for more information), they also require spaces in your fighter pads.

The second way is to build turrets. Turrets do not actually detroy the cloak bombers, but will destroy their hunter droids, so if you have enough turrets, a cloak bomber attack will actually fail. Turrets must be researched before being able to be built (see the 'Research' page of this help site for more information), they also require 200 power each per rev to keep online.

Missile Attacks:

From this section of the attack page, you will be able to fire your EMP missiles, and deterium missiles at a player of your choice (as long as they can be attacked), this will cost you a certain amount of power per missile. Many people see it to be pointless to fire missiles before their system has missile guidence researched (see the 'System Treasury' page of this help site for more information), because without missile guidance, you have a 50/50 chance of the missile hitting the target, and if the missiles fails to reach its target, it will automatically destroy itself, which is just a waste of a missile. Many systems will build and donate offensive missiles all round and use them on the larger players nearer the end of the round.