[Hugh Manatee]

- You say there are no hidden rolls, just a question of hit or miss? But there must be, since otherwise the business of "shields" and "optimizers" wouldnt mean much. But if what you say is for the most part true and plasma = laser = railgun etc., that is: these differences are cosmetic only, then that would be a pity.

Shields affecttheamount of damage you take before your components take damage, it's denoted by the blue line on the display in combat(the green is your hull). The Optimizers increase the rate at which your guns fire, and improves the rate at which they track targets(I think at least, watch a continuous beam weapon sweep back and forth, it seems to sweep less witht he optimizers).

Also, while there are "tiers" of weapons, a particle vortex cannon will almost always own a gauss riffle, a Multi missile launcher will own a Impaler missile ect(you can tell how much whupass a gun has by checking out the credits, "***" it's worth), some of the lesser guns do have different purposes. For example the neptunium rail gun auto targets missiles and torpedoes, the micrometeorite cannon firesa spray of shrapnel, 1 ship with this can cover a fleet from fighters and missiles, the beam type weapons which sweep have similar aplications, they do continuos damage as opposed to bursts like the gaus cannon, they can sweep a target hitting more of their components ad sweep missiles.

- Just tested (in the demo, anyhow), and once you get the hyperdrive, you can sell the FTL-drives of other ships and teleporting still only takes 2 days.

Yes but if that ship gets blasted somehow or damage in a retreat(urquali are hard to retreat from, they suround you and ambush) you're stuck. Having one or 2 of the faster drives, a Zorg Corvette or a nebula drive or plow in case is a good idea.

- See what you mean by firing from the broadside; so what does "arc of fire" mean??

For example, the science ship has 1 gun on the left side of it, the sensor array is on the right. The gun can only track in front of the ship, to the left and a bit to the rear. The Pirate corvette has guns on both sides, able to fire left right and both guns straight ahead. The military frigate has a gun in front, and on the sides. You can see the arcs of ships you can ally with by clicking on them, if you can get behind a ship in it's firing arcs blind spot you can kil it unmolested.