Ship battles · Magehold Fairwinds Wiki

Battle basics#

Space pauses. Battles start paused so you can plan.

Each weapon in the weapons bar has two parts. The power bar on top (the Flow pips, ON/OFF): click it to give the gun its Flow or take it away. The big weapon button below it: click it, then an enemy room, to fire there. 1–9 select weapons, in the order of the weapons bar. Right-click a weapon to power it down. A gun that is charged and waiting for a target pulses red.

Click system icons (bottom left) to route Flow; right-click to remove. Ships carry a bar or two less Flow than their systems could use, so what to power is a choice in every fight. Gold shows where your Flow is: in the strip above the icons, Flow not yet given to anything; in a system's column, the bars it powers. Empty ticks are room for Flow, red bars are damaged, and a Flow surge's bars are brighter. Each fight opens with your Flow set as you left it at the end of the last.

Crystal can buy you a moment: a Flow surge (crystal crystal) lends +flow Flow for times and, if the Ward Loom works, raises a Greater Ward for wardTimes that refills every ward layer, bounces most enemy fire back and blocks heavy artillery. It is ready again after cds, when the bonus Flow runs out. Wind shield (shield crystal) restores one ward layer at once if the Ward Loom works. Both work while paused.

Click crew (or drag a box) to select them; click a room to send them there. Crew repair, fight fires and man stations in the room they stand in.

Zoom and look around: the mouse wheel (or a pinch) zooms toward the pointer. Zoomed in, drag empty sky or the enemy ship, or hold the middle button, to pan; a drag that starts on your own ship draws a selection box, so you can pick up a group of crew even while others are chosen (Shift-drag adds to them). While aiming, a drag from anywhere pans, and only a click aims. On a touch screen one finger pans and a tap clicks. + − zoom, 0 fits both ships again, F centres on the enemy ship, or use the small control above the bottom bar. Each battle opens on the whole fight. Between passages, the flight deck zooms and pans the same way (hover a room to name it), and so does a delve.

The flight deck shows your systems, guns and constructs and the Flow each has (bottom left; on a phone, behind the Flow button). Set it there before a fight, the same way as in one: the next fight opens with your Flow as you last left it.

The Flow panel shows numbers you can check: the Flow in use, of the Flow you have, and the Flow that is free. Every system shows the Flow it has, and it always adds up. Flow you take out of a system goes to your free Flow, and Flow you give comes out of it. Nothing else changes. The Keel takes 1 Flow, whatever its level.

Battle stations

The battle is paused — press Space to begin. Click a weapon (bottom), then an enemy room to fire at it: their weapons and wards are good first targets. Your Ballista punches straight through wards. Keep someone at the Helm or you cannot dodge. Your stone mage casts from the Casting Room, but the Hen has less Flow than her systems could use and the Casting Room starts dark: right-click a system (bottom left) to take a bar, click the Casting Room to give it one, then try Needle on their weapons.

Reading the battle#

Hull: both ships show their hull as a number and a bar. When a hit lands, the chunk it took flashes on the bar and drains away, and the number floats up where it struck: red for hull lost, gray when it glanced off armor or was blocked (a small line says why). The pill under the speed buttons keeps the fight's tally: hull damage dealt and taken.

Their weapons (under the enemy box) show each gun charging and which of your rooms it is aimed at. The guns on both hulls tell it at a glance too: a spell battery's light builds as it charges and pulses when it is ready, a bow draws back, a gun with no Flow goes gray, and one on a damaged Battery Deck sparks. A sky beast has no guns: its breath gathers at its mouth, its other attacks glow in its body. Rooms with boarders in them are outlined in red, and a sinking countdown appears when the Keel loses power: 60 s on Fair and Trade Winds, 75 s on Tailwinds, 45 s on Crosswinds and 40 s on Headwinds. On a level-1 Keel the lower hull frame holds the first break each fight.

In Options you can have the battle pause itself when boarders cross, the ship starts sinking, a fire breaks out, a crewmate falls or the hull runs low. The menu button in the top-right corner (or Esc, once nothing is aimed or selected) pauses the fight and opens the menu, with this help.

Range#

Long: ballistae lose accuracy, no harpoon reaches, few can board; a ram needs a long charge. Close: spells +10% accuracy, the Boarding Harpoon fires, flyers and element disks cross. Grappled: a harpoon line holds the ships together (either side's): nobody dodges, nobody breaks away, crew cross by the line (a line works both ways: climb theirs back), a ram is only a shove. The ships part to Close when the last line is cut or reeled in. Change range from the top bar. The ships glide nearer or apart as the range changes: well apart at Long, nearer at Close, all but touching when grappled.

Evasion & wards#

Someone must stand at the Helm for any evasion. Drive levels add more. Ward layers (bands of woven wind around the hull) stop spell shots and re-weave in about two seconds, so single shots rarely get through: fire together. Weapons on Auto hold a moment to volley with each other. Kinetic bolts pass through wards but use bolts, and a room's armor takes its number off each one (a bolt that loses all its damage glances); after a win your crew pulls about a third of the spent bolts back out of the wreck.

Spell tiers and wards. A spell is stopped only when at least as many ward layers are up as its tier: one layer stops a tier I spell, a tier II spell needs 2 layers up, tier III needs 3, and tier IV ignores wards. Each spell stopped uses up one layer, and a spell that gets through leaves the layers up. The same goes for your spells against their wards.

A stand-off ends itself. When neither hull has taken damage for a minute, a ley surge rolls through the fight: their wards go down for 20 seconds, and yours lose two layers. It is announced ten seconds ahead, and it can happen again and again.

Armor appears as a small shield with a number beside a room's badge on both ships, and plated rooms have a riveted frame. It comes from hull plating (fitted at a shipwright), the Keel's own main beam (+1 on every ship), a Braced Keel Beam (+1 more), or a Rampart spell (+2 temporarily). Hover over a room to see its armor sources and incoming bolt damage. Spells and beams ignore armor.

A miss

That shot missed: their ship dodged it. Evasion is the percentage beside the Drive icon under a ship's name. It needs someone at the Helm, and every Drive level adds to it. Hit their Helm or Drive to bring it down. A grappled ship cannot dodge at all. Ballista bolts miss more often at Long range.

Their wind shield

Their wards blocked your shot. Each ward layer (blue pips under their ship name) blocks 1 spell shot and recharges in ~2 seconds. Fire weapons together in volleys to break through, cast spells at a higher tier (tier II gets past 1 layer, tier III past 2), use physical bolt weapons or Mortars (which ignore wards), or damage their Ward Loom.

Enemy strength#

Under an enemy's name stand two rows of pips. Offense is what she does to you: her guns, her striker mages, her boarding party. Defense is what denies or outlasts your damage: her hull, her ward layers, her evasion, her mages' counterspells, mending herself. Each row has max pips at most, and N pips is an ordinary ship of the act you are in. Point at a row to see what it is made of.

Defense is counted as how long she lasts, and it is not the same for every ship: a ward layer makes a fight about a quarter longer for guns and a third longer for a ship of mages, evasion counts for half as much against a ship that boards, and a ship that repairs herself holds out longest against a ship of mages. The tooltip gives all three: against guns, against spells and against boarders.

Offense is counted three ways too: what she costs a gunline, a ship of mages and a boarding ship each minute. A striker mage costs a gunline with one ward layer several times what she costs a ship of mages behind wards and counterspells, and fires and breaches cost most when your crew are away aboard her. The tooltip gives all three and names the kind of ship she is hardest on.

Factions lean one way or the other, and a ship strong in one is weaker in the other. Clan warbirds are hard to hit, weave few wards and hit hard. Household ships hide thin hulls behind wards and trained counterspells. Clockwork sentries are slow, heavy and mend themselves, with modest guns. Hollow ships and bounty hunters are built to hit and to board. Guild convoys are a great deal of hull and not much bite. How strong a ship is depends on the act, the fight's place in the act, the kind of fight and the wind. It never depends on your own ship.

The names of her crew, her mages' counterspell training and her boarding party are listed only while you can see inside her. The pips count them either way.

Damage, armor and hazards#

Hull damage

Hits that get through cost hull: the green bar and number, top left (the bright chunk that drains away is what the last hit took, and the number floats up where it struck). At 0 the ship breaks apart. Crew repair damaged rooms in battle; the hull itself is repaired at a dock, or by stopping for a passage to make repairs yourselves.

Armor

That bolt was stopped by armor. The small shield beside a room's badge shows its armor: each point takes 1 off every kinetic bolt that lands there, and a bolt left with nothing glances off. Spells and beams ignore it. Hover the room to see where its armor comes from; aim bolts at softer rooms, or use spells there.

Fire!

Fire spreads through open doors, burns crew and wrecks systems. Send crew into the burning room to put it out, or put it out with a Deluge. Closed doors slow the spread (click a door); with working Bulkheads they are locked, and stop it.

A breach

A shot has holed the hull. Fire grows 2x faster in a breached room and crew there are slowed. Send someone in to patch it.

Sinking

Your Keel has no power—the ship is sinking! Send crew to the Keel to clear out boarders and repair it before the timer runs out (40–75s depending on difficulty).

Hazards#

Fire spreads through open doors (half as fast through shut ones; locked ones stop it) and burns crew. Breaches must be patched (a harpoon's breach holds its line). Frost slows everything. Soaked rooms can't burn but short out. Hushed rooms lose all magic: only mundane crew work normally there.

Seeing inside their ship#

Their ship is veiled: its rooms are washed over and you cannot see their crew, what they are doing, their mages' mana and spells, or how they power their systems. Their weapons, damage, fires and wind shield still show.

Your Lookout can Look inside (the button, bottom right, or V; or click the eye under their ship): the veil lifts from the whole ship for 10s at level 1 or 15 s at level 2, then the Lookout rests 25 s or 15 s. At level 3 it never stops looking. It needs a bar of Flow a level but nobody standing in it; unpowered or wrecked it sees nothing. The eye on its badge and the eye under their ship show the time left. Their Lookout can look inside yours, and their grapeshot finds your crew while it does.

Their systems sit in a strip under their ship: one icon each, with its bars (damaged ones red), wrecked systems crossed out, and fire, hush and frost marked. While you see inside, the bars show the power in each and a dot shows whether it is manned. Click an icon to aim the chosen weapon or spell there.

Looking inside

Their ship is veiled: you cannot see their crew, their mages' mana and spells, or how they power their systems. Press Look inside (bottom right, or V) and your Lookout shows the whole ship for a while, then rests; at level 3 it never stops looking. It needs a bar of Flow, not crew. Under their ship, a strip shows each of their systems and its damage: click one to aim there.

Scouting their ship

You carry a scouting device. Select its wearer and use it on an enemy room: you see who is in that room (without the Lookout), and a beetle or a far-sight lens also shows their mages' mana and what they are charging there. The lens even shows where those spells are aimed. Rooms in sight wear an open eye.

Ramming#

Any ship can ram (the Ram button, bottom right). From Long range she makes a run-in first, quicker with more Drive and a better pilot, and the ram brings you to Close; at Close it is quick; grappled, it is a shove. Both hulls are holed and a few rooms on each ship are shaken (system damage, crew hurt and thrown down, a chance of fire), but the rammer takes the smaller share. The target may slip aside if its Helm is manned. Then 35 s before the next.

To take less yourself: a Ram Prow (more to them, only a fifth to you), iron, ironwood or stoneskin plating on your bow room (the Helm), Braced Frames (they also soften a ram against you), and a pilot with Helm 2. Clan raiders and sky beasts ram most often.

They mean to ram you

The enemy is preparing to ram! Ramming damages both ships, though the attacker takes less damage. Keep your Helm manned and Drive powered to dodge it. You can also ram using the Ram button at the top-center of the screen.

Constructs#

Constructs (wisps, crabs, beetles, kites, golems, moths, weevils, hounds) need Construct Bay Flow and crystal to activate in battle; they run automatically without needing a crewmate stationed in the bay. You can watch them work on the ship even outside battle: the crab scuttling across rooms, the beetle on the hull, the kite on its line.

Auto Battle#

The Auto Battle switch stands beside pause and speed on the battle screen and on a landfall (I). While it is on, the game fights for you. In a battle it powers the systems, aims and fires, casts and counters, posts the crew, puts out fires, patches breaches, repairs, meets boarders and changes range. Whether it boards and rams depends on its strategy.

You can still pause, change speed, look around, select crew and read every tooltip, and you can order a break-away at any time. Your other orders do nothing until you switch it off: an order you try shows a small note by the pointer. Switched off, the ship is yours again as she stands: the guns keep their targets and the crew stay where they are.

It never decides to break away and never answers an offer of surrender. Those are your calls. Break away (J) works with Auto Battle on: the game goes on fighting while the Drive charges, keeps the Drive powered and throws no new boarding line. The fight pauses when the Drive is charged, so you can sail off. It also pauses for an offer of surrender, and once when the hull falls to a quarter (low% under the Bulwark strategy).

On a landfall, Auto Battle fights for you. It does not explore. When enemies come for the party it fights on its own, and between fights the party is yours to lead. The party drinks flasks by itself only if Drink flasks is ticked.

Repeat#

Repeat (weapons bar) keeps every weapon firing at its target each time it charges. A weapon keeps its aim until you clear it: right-click the weapon or its target room, or press Esc while aiming it.

Each mage has a ↻ auto-repeat toggle: after an attack spell lands they cast it again at the same room while over 20% of their mana is left. A spell on repeat shows ↻ on its button and a faint ↻ mark on its room; click the spell again to stop it. A ward or heal cast in between does not stop it. On a landfall, repeats stop by themselves when the fight is over.

Offense: Enemy attack rating (1–5 pips; 3 is average for this Act). Measures the enemy's total threat from weapons, attack mages, and boarders. Hover over the pips in battle for a detailed breakdown.
Defense: Enemy durability rating (3 pips is average for this Act). Measures how hard the enemy is to destroy based on hull, ward layers, evasion, counterspells, and repair crew. Hover over the pips in battle for details.
Evasion: Your chance to dodge incoming enemy shots. Requires a crewmate manning a powered Helm, plus power in the Drive.
Range: Distance between ships: Long, Close, or Grappled. At Long range, bolts are less accurate and boarding is disabled. At Close range, spells are more accurate and crews can board.
Grappled: Both ships are locked together by a harpoon line. Neither ship can dodge or flee, and crew can cross the line to board.
Kinetic weapon: Physical projectile weapons (such as ballistas). Each shot uses 1 bolt and passes through wards (the light bolts of repeaters excepted), but room armor reduces its damage.
Bolts: Ammo for physical weapons. Buy bolts at ports or salvage them after winning battles.
Break away: Retreating from battle. Requires a manned Helm and powered Drive to charge; once full, your ship escapes.
Auto Battle: AI combat toggle. When on, the AI controls your ship or ground party (you can still pause, inspect, or order Break Away at any time). Customize AI strategy and resource spending in Options.