The Guide

Vanguard

Balanced all-rounder

The HSS Vanguard is the Toyota Corolla of Earth's defense fleet — utterly, maddeningly reliable. It has no signature weapon, no revolutionary drive system, and no interesting stories told about it at bars. Every engineering review concludes with the phrase 'performs adequately,' which its pilots have started printing on t-shirts. The Vanguard will not make you famous, but it will get you home, and in the current job market that counts for rather a lot.

◇ Available from the start

Bulwark

Fortress hull — massive shields, no regen

The Bulwark was designed by engineers who fundamentally misunderstood the concept of 'defense' and ended up inventing what is essentially a flying castle. Her shields are magnificent — vast, shimmering, and absolutely incapable of regenerating on their own, a design choice that the original team insists was intentional and not, as widely rumored, the result of forgetting to order the regeneration module before the budget meeting. Pilots describe the experience as 'bringing a fortress to a knife fight, except the fortress is on fire and nobody packed lunch.'

◇ Unlocked — Mercury Liberated

Dart

Velocity kills — fire rate scales with speed

The Dart's design philosophy can be summarized as: 'What if we removed everything that wasn't an engine?' The hull is so thin that on quiet nights the pilot can hear space. She has no armor, shields that might charitably be described as 'decorative,' and a structural integrity rating that her insurance company has simply annotated with a question mark. Standing still in a Dart is not so much inadvisable as it is a philosophical statement about the brevity of existence.

◇ Unlocked — Venus Liberated

Raptor

Surgical strikes — fewer weapons, devastating crits

The Raptor carries only six weapon mounts, a fact that caused considerable alarm at the procurement board until someone pointed out that each one hits with the focused malice of a very expensive freight train. Her targeting arrays are so precise that they once achieved a confirmed kill on a drone that hadn't technically been deployed yet. Raptor pilots tend to develop a certain smugness about accuracy that makes them deeply unpopular at fleet social gatherings.

◇ Unlocked — Neptune Liberated

Wraith

No guns — you ARE the weapon

The Wraith was a classified close-assault interceptor whose entire design brief was 'fly directly into the enemy ship and start cutting.' The forward lances are technically hull-cutters, not weapons, which means the Wraith is officially classified as a mining vessel for tax purposes. She carries no guns because someone at naval intelligence decided the most terrifying thing you could do to an alien was show up with a ship that very clearly intended to be inside their ship. The test pilots described the experience as 'intimate.'

◇ Unlocked — Planet IX Liberated

Salvation

Capital rescue frigate — 10 free weapon slots

The HSS Salvation was a deep-space rescue frigate, which is to say she was built to be comforting, spacious, and absolutely not involved in combat. Then the swarm arrived and her captain, displaying the sort of lateral thinking that gets people either court-martialed or promoted, welded every weapon on the station onto the hull. She now carries ten weapon mounts where the patient recovery ward used to be. The rescue stretchers are still in there somewhere.

You may already be acquainted: the Salvation is the ship the cadet manuals use to demonstrate every system at once, on the grounds that if you can fly her you can fly anything. Veterans of the tutorial nod knowingly.

◇ Unlocked — Jupiter Liberated

Barrage

Martian ordnance platform — missile specialist

The HSS Barrage is a Martian Ordnance Platform, which is the military's way of saying 'we put so many missile tubes on this thing that the structural engineer resigned.' Her wide-aspect hull exists solely to present the maximum possible number of launch tubes to the target simultaneously, a design priority that left very little room for crew amenities, or crew. The flight manual's tactical section simply reads 'point at problem, hold button, problem goes away,' which has proven surprisingly comprehensive.

◇ Unlocked — Mars Liberated

Junker

We weren't ready — scrappy survivor

The Junker was not so much 'built' as 'accumulated.' Dockworkers welded salvage hulls together using whatever weapon mounts they could pry off nearby wrecks and a generous interpretation of the word 'airworthy.' No two Junkers are alike, in the same way that no two car accidents are alike. She comes with eleven weapon mounts, an underpowered reactor, and a warranty that expired before the ship was finished. The survival rate for first sorties is technically classified, but the recruitment posters have stopped mentioning it.

◇ Unlocked — Uranus Liberated

Golem

Hollowed asteroid — alien crystal core

Found drifting in the asteroid belt, already hollow and humming at a frequency that made three scientists simultaneously decide to retire. Earth's engineers, operating on the principle that anything can be a spaceship if you bolt enough engines to it, attached thrusters to what is essentially a haunted rock and declared it combat-ready. The crystal core at its center glows, pulses, and occasionally rearranges itself when no one is looking. The official classification is 'vessel,' though 'geological anomaly with an attitude problem' would be more accurate.

◇ Unlocked — Earth Liberated

Tempest

Signature so loud everything converges

The Tempest's energy signature is so staggeringly loud that it shows up on alien sensors roughly two solar systems away, which is the tactical equivalent of fighting a war while on fire and shouting. Fleet command classified her stealth rating as 'anti-stealth,' then created the category specifically for her. Pilots who fly the Tempest are, by necessity, the sort of people who respond to being outnumbered two-to-one by asking if more enemies are available. They don't hide because they can't, and they've made a lifestyle out of the distinction.

◇ Available from the start

Bastion

Fortress mode — stand your ground

The Bastion was a perfectly respectable mining platform before the war, notable mainly for being too heavy to move quickly and too stubborn to care. When someone bolted weapons to it, the crystal core began amplifying weapons fire whenever the hull was stationary — a phenomenon the engineering team has written fourteen papers about, none of which contain the word 'understand.' Her pilots have elevated 'refusing to move' from a character flaw to a tactical doctrine. The Bastion does not retreat, not out of bravery, but because by the time she's turned around the battle is usually over.

◇ Unlocked — Saturn Liberated

Conduit

Three void crystals — one will remain

Three alien crystals were found orbiting each other in the Kuiper Belt, connected by energy arcs that made every measuring instrument in the vicinity emit a small, defeated sigh. When a hull was built around them they hummed louder, which the engineering team interpreted as enthusiasm rather than the warning it almost certainly was. As the ship takes damage, the crystals shatter one by one in a spectacular display of progressive structural failure that someone in marketing rebranded as 'staged combat evolution.' The last crystal doesn't break. It opens. Nobody has yet been brave enough to ask what it opens into.

◇ Available from the start

Basic Kinetic Gun

kinetic weapon

The universe's most dependable weapon, in the same way that a cheese sandwich is the universe's most dependable lunch. It won't impress anyone, but it'll do.

Heavy Cannon

kinetic weapon

A weapon designed by people who believe that any problem can be solved by throwing a sufficiently large piece of metal at it. They have yet to be proven wrong.

Scatter Shot

kinetic weapon

Fires a generous handful of projectiles in roughly the right direction. Accuracy is not so much a goal as a vague aspiration. What it lacks in precision, it makes up for in enthusiasm.

Rapid Blaster

kinetic weapon

Subscribes firmly to the 'quantity over quality' school of weapons design. Each individual shot is about as threatening as a strongly-worded letter, but there are rather a lot of them.

Flak Cannon

kinetic weapon

The close-quarters equivalent of opening an airlock on a room full of angry ball bearings. Devastatingly effective at short range. At long range, devastatingly useless.

Railgun

kinetic weapon

Accelerates a metal slug to a meaningful fraction of the speed of light. The slug arrives at its destination before the sound of firing does, which is fortunate, because the sound of firing is deeply upsetting.

Laser Cannon

energy weapon

A perfectly respectable energy weapon that does exactly what it says on the tin. It fires lasers. From a cannon. The naming committee went home early that day.

Plasma Bolt

energy weapon

Superheated ionised gas compressed into a ball and flung at high velocity. It's essentially the universe's most expensive game of catch, except nobody wants to catch it.

Beam Rifle

energy weapon

A focused energy beam that punches through multiple targets and leaves a lingering afterimage, like a very aggressive torch being pointed at a very aggressive queue.

Beam Lance

energy weapon

A focused lance of coherent energy that runs a target clean through and keeps going, leaving a searing line hanging in the void where five ships used to be. Slow to charge, but deeply unsubtle.

Plasma Torch

energy weapon

An industrial cutting tool that someone, against all advice, mounted to a spaceship. Fires fast, wide-spread plasma gouts at close range — more a welding arc than a weapon, but nobody's told the plasma that.

Antimatter Lance

energy weapon

Fires a beam of antimatter that annihilates everything it touches with total, unreasonable thoroughness. The safety manual is a single page that reads 'Don't.'

Torpedo Launcher

missile

Fires torpedoes with all the urgency of a civil servant on a Friday afternoon. They are slow, they do not home in, and they cannot be reasoned with. But they do explode rather impressively.

Homing Missile

missile

A missile that follows its target with the single-minded devotion of a golden retriever chasing a tennis ball. Unlike the retriever, it explodes on contact.

Rocket Pod

missile

A pod full of small, enthusiastic rockets that go exactly where you point them and nowhere else. Like training a very obedient dog, except the dog is on fire and moving at Mach 3.

Mine Layer

missile

Scatters proximity mines behind you like cosmic breadcrumbs for anyone unfortunate enough to be following. The mines are polite enough to wait until the enemy is right on top of them before detonating.

Tesla Coil

energy weapon

Named after a man who would be simultaneously thrilled and horrified to see his work adapted for deep-space violence. Arcs electricity at anything nearby, which in space is both impressive and deeply questionable.

Firewall

energy weapon

A ring of fire that surrounds your ship. Not the Johnny Cash song, though the emotional experience for enemies is broadly similar. Slows anything that enters it, presumably out of sheer surprise.

Thruster Mk1

thruster

The entry model of the Mk-series: a dependable engine pod that bolts straight onto your nozzles. Not fast, not flashy, but the exhaust glows a reassuring shade of 'probably fine.'

Thruster Mk2

thruster

Twice the nozzle, twice the noise. The Mk2 trades the Mk1's polite hum for a throaty rumble that the chief engineer describes as 'concerning' and the pilot describes as 'fun.'

Shield Projector Mk1

shield

The entry model of the Mk-series: a nose-mounted projector that hums a barrier into place slightly faster than danger arrives. The manual calls the coverage 'generous', in the way estate agents call cupboards 'bedrooms'.

Shield Projector Mk2

shield

Twice the emitters, twice the confidence. The Mk2 projects a barrier that shrugs off debris, small-arms fire and most forms of criticism, while the nose array pulses in a way the marketing department describes as 'reassuring'.

Shield Projector Mk3

shield

A tuned resonance array that wraps the hull in a field smooth enough to skate on. Crews report a faint glow, a gentle hum, and a deeply unearned sense of personal safety.

Shield Projector Mk4

shield

The Mk4 doesn't so much project a shield as politely inform reality that damage is no longer accepted at this address. The nose array glows a faint, extremely smug shade of purple.

Armor Plating Mk1

armor

A slab of metal bolted to the outside of the ship. Low-tech, reliable, and installed by an engineer whose solution to every problem is 'have you tried putting more metal on it.'

Armor Plating Mk2

armor

The hull has been reinforced to the point where the ship is essentially a flying bunker. Manoeuvres like one too. The pilot has filed several complaints, all of which bounced off the hull.

Patch Drone

A tiny drone with a welding torch and the disposition of a worried grandmother. Follows your ship around fixing holes and tutting disapprovingly at your flying.

Repair Drone

A dedicated repair unit that heals your hull with the calm professionalism of a field surgeon who's seen worse. And it has seen worse. It always has.

Restoration Drone

Two repair drones working in tandem, restoring hull integrity with the quiet determination of council workers filling potholes. The holes, in this case, were made by plasma cannons, but the principle is the same.

Hull Repair Mark 1

repair

A hull-repair module with a small onboard drone and a single maintenance welder. Workmanlike, unspectacular, takes a repair mod.

Hull Repair Mark 2

repair

Upgraded repair module with heavier tools. Patches real structural damage, not just cosmetic dents.

Hull Repair Mark 3

repair

A heavy-duty hull medic module with redundant manipulators and industrial plasma welders. Fast, precise, and unnervingly confident.

Hull Repair Mark 4

repair

Fleet-issue repair module reserved for flagship escorts. Self-fueling, self-directing, capable of rebuilding entire hull sections mid-combat.

Targeting Computer Mk1

targeting

A computer dedicated entirely to the task of pointing guns at things. In an age of faster-than-light travel and void technology, it's oddly reassuring that the fundamental challenge of 'aim at the bad thing' still requires dedicated hardware.

Targeting Computer Mk2

targeting

Connects all weapons systems into a single neural network that identifies enemy weak points with unsettling accuracy. Fires slower, but when it hits, it really means it.

Capital Rangefinder

targeting

Extends weapons range to distances usually reserved for diplomatic incidents between star systems. Lets you shoot things that haven't even noticed you yet, which feels rather unsporting.

PDC Mk1

point defence

A stubby corner-mounted autocannon that swats incoming projectiles out of the sky with the quiet efficiency of a librarian shushing rowdy patrons. Not glamorous, but you'd miss it if it weren't there.

PDC Mk2

point defence

A twin-barrel corner turret with the reflexes of a caffeinated cat. It doesn't sleep, it doesn't blink, and it has very strong opinions about incoming ordnance.

PDC Mk3

point defence

A rotary flak turret that fills the sky with so much metal that incoming fire files a complaint. The complaint is also shot down.

PDC Mk4

point defence

The top of the PDC line: a predictive quad-mount that intercepts ordnance before its guidance system has finished booting. Physics considers this rude.

Solid State Battery

ammo

A battery with no moving parts, which sounds unremarkable until you realise that most space batteries are basically angry boxes of liquid metal. This one just sits there, storing energy and being insufferably reliable.

Sonic Repulsor

ammo

Adds knockback to projectiles through a process that involves sound waves, which shouldn't work in a vacuum. When asked about this, the inventor simply shrugged and said 'and yet.'

Electron Infuser

ammo

Infuses your ammunition with electrons, which is a bit like adding glitter to a hand grenade — technically unnecessary, but the results speak for themselves.

Ignition Optimizer

ammo

Ensures that everything your weapons touch catches fire with maximum efficiency. The galaxy's most advanced solution to the ancient question of 'how do I make things burn more.'

Improved Gunpowder

ammo

Gunpowder, but better. In a universe of plasma cannons and void beams, there's something deeply endearing about the continued relevance of 'make powder go bang harder.'

Plasma Injector

ordnance

Injects plasma into your weapons systems, which sounds dangerous because it absolutely is. Think of it as adding jalapeños to every meal — eventually you stop noticing the burning.

Energy Weapon Attuner

field

Boosts the power of your energy weapons through a process called 'attunement,' which no two engineers describe the same way. Physics is flexible out here.

Void Focussing Array

field

Focuses void energy with the same intensity that a magnifying glass focuses sunlight, except instead of ants, it's aliens, and instead of sunlight, it's an unknowable cosmic force. Scale differs.

Interceptor Wing

A pair of fast strike fighters launched from the carrier runway. They punch above their weight in strafe runs and keep the hull clear of problems. Carrier ships only.

Swarm Drones

A cloud of tiny autonomous drones that orbit your ship and swipe across enemies in tight arcs. They're particularly fond of finishing off wounded targets, which says something about their programming.

Scout Drone

A small, eager drone that circles your ship like an excited puppy with a gun. Its combat capabilities are modest, but its enthusiasm is boundless.

Assault Drone

Two drones that have been specifically programmed for violence, which distinguishes them from scout drones that merely stumble into it. They work in pairs because even robots appreciate having someone to talk to.

War Drone

The final evolution of the combat drone, a machine so dedicated to warfare that its only non-combat subroutine is a deeply aggressive standby mode. Even its error messages are threatening.

Missile Drone

A drone that launches missiles, combining the autonomous decision-making of a robot with the explosive payload of a small warhead. What could possibly go wrong is, mercifully, someone else's problem.

Striker Drone

Two missile drones that coordinate their attacks with the synchronised precision of a dance troupe, if the dance troupe were performing exclusively with high-explosive ordnance.

Siege Drone

Drones that fire missiles large enough to have their own area code. The explosions are so big that nearby enemies experience them as a philosophical event rather than a physical one.

Prospector Drone

A tiny drone with a pickaxe and an optimistic attitude. Mines asteroids for credits with the cheerful industriousness of a gold rush prospector, minus the dysentery.

Excavator Drone

Two mining drones that strip asteroids with the efficiency of locusts and the personality of a tax audit. They never complain, they never rest, and they never share the profits.

Core Miner

Industrial-grade mining drones that extract resources from asteroids the way a dentist extracts teeth — thoroughly, efficiently, and with a faint whining noise that sets everyone's nerves on edge.

Disruptor Drone

A drone that flies up to enemies and shouts 'BOO' in electromagnetic pulses. The stun duration is brief, but the look of surprise on an alien fighter's face — if it had a face — would be priceless.

EMP Drone

A more powerful disruptor that stuns enemies long enough for them to reconsider their life choices. Most of them don't, but the opportunity is there, and that's what counts.

Cascade Disruptor

Two EMP drones that create overlapping fields of electromagnetic chaos. Enemies caught in the crossfire experience what can only be described as a very bad day for their circuitry.

Armor Plating Mk3

armor

Multiple layers of exotic materials sandwiched together like the universe's most paranoid club sandwich. Each layer is designed to stop a different type of weapon, which is reassuring until you wonder who tested them all.

Armor Plating Mk4

armor

Armour that has been tempered in the void itself, a process so exotic that the manufacturing instructions are classified as a minor existential hazard. Weighs approximately as much as a philosophical argument.

Thruster Mk3

thruster

The Mk3 swaps combustion for a fusion torch with the raw fury of a small star having a tantrum. The exhaust plume is visible from three planets away and serves as an excellent 'do not follow' signal.

Thruster Mk4

thruster

The top of the Mk-series: a drive that moves your ship by convincing the universe you were always somewhere else. Physics has filed a complaint. The complaint could not catch up with the ship.

Targeting Computer Mk3

targeting

Calculates where enemies will be before they know themselves. This occasionally produces results that seem to violate causality, but since the enemies are dead by then, there's nobody left to complain.

Targeting Computer Mk4

targeting

Targets enemies across all possible quantum states simultaneously, ensuring that no matter which universe they try to exist in, they get shot in all of them. Heisenberg would be appalled.

Drone Bay Mk1

drone support

A single-cradle hangar tube. Houses one extra drone. Cramped, no-frills, and held together by zip ties — but a drone has to live somewhere.

Drone Bay Mk2

drone support

A two-cradle hangar with proper docking arms and a charging rail. Fits in any spare bulkhead and pretends not to notice the smell of overheating motors.

Drone Bay Mk3

drone support

A proper drone carrier bay — three cradles, a maintenance arm, and an automated armorer that slides fresh ammo into clamps before the drones get back from their last sortie.

Drone Bay Mk4

drone support

A capital-grade drone wing. Five cradles, magnetic launch rails, and an autoloader that can scramble the entire flight in under a second. The bay is bigger than most fighter cockpits.

Drone CPU Mk1

drone support

An entry-level drone controller with a co-processor that almost predicts where enemies will be. Drones still bump into asteroids occasionally, but only the ones they could've sworn weren't there a second ago.

Drone CPU Mk2

drone support

A networked controller that lets drones share targeting data in real time. Their fire converges, their reflexes sharpen, and they finally stop arguing about who has dibs on the boss.

Drone CPU Mk3

drone support

A hardware-accelerated tactical core with predictive targeting. Drones bring down their prey faster than they used to draw aggro.

Drone CPU Mk4

drone support

A neural-lattice combat AI co-developed with the targeting array. Drones move with eerie coordination and flank without instruction.

Rivet Plating

armor

Rivets, applied generously, by someone who believes that any problem can be solved if you hit it enough times with a small metal cylinder.

Impact Bracing

armor

Internal struts that absorb the kind of impact you weren't expecting. The kind you were expecting is, of course, your own problem.

Bulkhead Geometry

armor

Reshapes the bulkheads into angles that incoming fire finds philosophically discouraging. Heavier than a bulkhead has any right to be.

Ablative Weave

armor

Layered foil that flakes off in a controlled, dignified manner under fire. The shields object to sharing the budget, but the shields always object.

Reactive Plates

armor

Plates that detonate outward when struck, on the grounds that the best defence is being slightly more annoying than the attacker.

Stabilized Frame

armor

A rigid skeleton that stops the ship wobbling when the guns fire, so the bullets land where they were aimed instead of nearby.

Hardened Bulkheads Core

armor

The bulkheads have been hardened. Nobody asked against what. The engineers refuse to elaborate and have stopped returning calls.

Emergency Bulkhead Protocol

armor

When the hull dips into the red, doors slam, sirens wail, and the ship briefly becomes considerably harder to kill. Then it stops, embarrassed.

Armor Resonator

armor

A plate that hums at a frequency incoming rounds find unsettling. The crew also find it unsettling, but they have signed waivers.

Capacitor Coil

shield

A coil of capacitors wound by hand and several apologies. It holds more shield charge than it should and asks no further questions.

Siphon Coil

shield

Threads a fine line back from your guns into your shield bank. The hull notices it has been demoted to second-tier protection and sulks.

ECM Patch

shield

A scrap of electronic countermeasures stapled to the targeting array. Incoming missiles get confused, embarrassed, and detonate elsewhere.

Shield Relay

shield

An extra relay in the shield circuit, doing the job of two relays and the work of three. Nobody has yet asked what the third one was.

Crystal Buffer

shield

A crystallised shield charge held in reserve: once per wave it eats one incoming hit whole, then shatters with what witnesses describe as smug finality.

Leech Tap

shield

Taps directly into the enemy's energy as your weapons connect, returning a pleasant trickle to your shields. The armor was in the way and is now slightly less in the way.

Shield Gate Node

shield

The first hit on a full shield is politely waved through at half strength. Subsequent hits are not waved at all, and the shield is rather rude about it.

Leech Regulator

shield

Smooths the shield-leech intake into something the capacitors can drink without choking. The hull, which donated bracing for the privilege, has stopped speaking to it.

Harmonic Generator

shield

Tunes the shield bank to a frequency that energy weapons find agreeable, mostly for the energy weapons. The hull and armor were not consulted.

Patch Foam

repair

A pressurised can of foam that hardens into something approximately hull-shaped. Inspectors prefer not to look too closely at the cured result.

Scavenger Medkit

repair

Assembled from parts found in derelicts, mostly. The bandages remember being someone else and occasionally weep.

Field Kit

repair

A modest box of clamps, sealant, and stern instructions. Repairs anything that doesn't argue back, and a few things that do.

Repair Bay Logic

repair

A scheduling daemon that tells the repair drones which holes are most embarrassing. Productivity rose; morale, less so.

Nano Swarm

repair

Several million small machines, each individually quite stupid, collectively able to argue convincingly that the hull was always this shape.

Blood Pump

repair

A heavy circulatory rig that pushes coolant, sealant, and the occasional grudge through the hull at unwise pressures.

Regenerative Mesh

repair

A lattice that knits itself shut while you watch, which most pilots learn not to do after the third time.

Combat Auto-Surgeons

repair

Tireless mechanical surgeons that operate during firefights, on the reasonable theory that nobody can complain mid-explosion.

Overrepair Converter

repair

Treats leftover repair stock as a structural surplus and pours it into the shields, which receive the gift with quiet alarm.

Ion Booster Mod

thruster

A small ion injector bolted onto the main drive. The drive accepts this, the way a horse accepts being asked to gallop uphill.

Gyro Mod

thruster

A spinning weight that disagrees, on principle, with whichever direction you were drifting in. Turning becomes noticeably less of a suggestion.

Afterburner Nozzles

thruster

Replacement nozzles tuned to convert reactor surplus into raw forward intent. Comes with a small scorched warning sticker, since burned off.

Vector Nozzles

thruster

Articulated nozzles that point thrust wherever it's least expected, including, occasionally, by you.

Mass Reducers

thruster

Composite shell plates rated to weigh less than they ought to. Engineers describe the underlying physics as 'cheating, but politely.'

Drift Stabilizer

thruster

Cancels the long, lazy slide that ships acquire after a hard burn. Some pilots miss the drift; this module does not care.

Overdrive Thrusters

thruster

The safety governor, the redundant safety governor, and the small handwritten note from the previous owner have all been removed.

Brace Engine Mod

thruster

Reinforces the engine mounts so the rest of the ship stops apologising every time the throttle moves.

Slipstream Router

thruster

Reroutes plasma exhaust into a thin trailing tunnel of compliant vacuum. The ship moves. The vacuum sulks.

Compact Reactor Mod

reactor

A reactor folded into a smaller box by engineers who insist the laws of thermodynamics are more like guidelines, really, when you think about it.

Capacitor Bank

reactor

Four hundred capacitors in a tidy row, humming the same nervous note. Touching the casing is discouraged for reasons the warning label declines to elaborate on.

Power Regulator

reactor

A regulator that talks the reactor down from its more enthusiastic moments. Output is steadier, the reactor is quieter, everyone sleeps better.

Power Router

reactor

Reroutes weapon draw through a shorter path nobody had previously considered, mostly because the previous path went through a person's office.

Load Balancer

reactor

Distributes module drain so evenly that no single system can be blamed when something inevitably catches fire. A triumph of accountability engineering.

Surge Capacitor

reactor

Stores a small thunderstorm and lets it out at intervals. The ship technically counts as weather in seven jurisdictions.

Fusion Reactor Mod

reactor

Persuades two hydrogen atoms to become helium under conditions normally found in stars, or in the worst sort of accident reports.

Zero Drain Window

reactor

For two glorious seconds, the laws of energy conservation politely look the other way. Nobody has asked them why and nobody intends to.

Overclock Grid

reactor

Runs the entire power grid slightly above its stated tolerances, on the grounds that stated tolerances are written by people who have never been shot at.

AP Rounds

ammo

Tungsten darts with a hardened tip and absolutely no patience for armour, hull plate, or whatever happens to be standing behind either.

Ricochet Module

ammo

Soft-cased rounds that prefer glancing blows. They lose a bit of energy on each rebound and a bit of dignity on the third.

Warhead Upgrade

ordnance

A larger warhead bolted onto each round, on the kinetics team's theory that more is, in most cases, more.

Splitfire Adapter

ammo

Splits each shot in two on the way out of the barrel. The barrel is not consulted about this, and remains professionally tense.

Shrapnel Lining

ammo

A brittle inner casing that fails on schedule. Killshots scatter into a small, vindictive cloud of follow-up shards.

Armor Shredder

ammo

Tipped with a serrated alloy that strips plating off enemies one ugly hit at a time. Aesthetic concerns rank low on the spec sheet.

Guided Warheads

ordnance

Each round carries a tiny, opinionated brain that decides where it wants to go. Mostly it agrees with the targeting computer. Mostly.

Thermal Rounds

ammo

Slow-burning incendiary cores that leave their target somewhere between hit and ignited, and tend to keep working long after the trigger does not.

Precision Payload

ammo

Hand-machined sabots for the patient shooter. Every round is a small request that the universe please hold still for a moment.

Impact Slugs

ammo

Solid lumps of dense metal travelling fast. The kinetic equation is short, well understood, and very rude on arrival.

Mass Driver Core

ammo

Magnetic accelerator coil wrapped around a heavier round. Adds reach and authority; subtracts any pretence the ship was ever nimble.

Railgun Capacitor

ammo

A bank of supercapacitors that flings rounds at speeds the manual lists under 'Don't.' They arrive before the noise does.

Frag Warheads

ordnance

Pre-scored casings that come apart on detonation in a way the marketing department insists on calling 'efficient distribution.'

Shaped Charge

ordnance

A precisely cupped explosive that focuses its temper into a single, narrow, very impolite direction.

Thermobaric Payload

ordnance

Aerosolised fuel that detonates twice: once for the pressure wave, and once because the chemistry simply will not let it stop.

Incendiary Rounds

ammo

Phosphorus-jacketed rounds that ignite on contact and continue arguing the point well after impact.

Plasma Jacket

ammo

A thin sleeve of contained plasma wrapping each round. It cools the moment it touches anything, usually by setting that thing on fire.

Solar Core Rounds

ammo

Each slug carries a sliver of stellar plasma kept stable by sheer institutional optimism. Whatever it touches catches, eventually.

Arc Emitter

ammo

A small coil at the muzzle that sends every round out humming. Targets report a tingling sensation immediately followed by structural concerns.

Tesla Conduit

ammo

Ionised rounds that leave a conductive trail. The current looks for company, finds it, and introduces everyone.

Lightning Forge

ammo

A miniature storm packed into each casing. The arc travels between targets like a rumour, and is about as easy to contain.

Null Shard

ammo

Splinters of recovered alien glass embedded in the round. They hum at a frequency the manufacturer politely declines to identify.

Phase Inverter

ammo

Each round briefly disagrees with the local laws of physics. Armour, in particular, finds itself unable to win the argument.

Entropy Engine

ammo

Rounds tuned to a frequency that local space finds upsetting. Killshots leave a small hole in things that were previously considered fundamental.

Precision Scope

targeting

An optic so finely ground that it can resolve the regret on an enemy's face from across the arena. The trigger has to wait its turn.

Marksman Module

targeting

A small box of steady hands and patient maths. It corrects for everything except, occasionally, the pilot.

Range Finder

targeting

Measures the distance to things you'd rather shoot from further away. Reports the answer in a tone of mild disappointment about your current position.

Targeting Matrix

targeting

A grid of probabilities that quietly redistributes itself until 'unlikely' becomes 'in the back of the head, please.' Slower, but very rude about it.

Threat Tracker

targeting

Ranks every enemy on the screen by how much they personally bother the ship, then shoves the projectiles a bit faster toward whichever one wins.

Lock-On Uplink

targeting

Whispers target coordinates into a missile's ear with such conviction that the missile feels embarrassed not to follow through.

Predictive Aim Core

targeting

Calculates where the enemy will be a moment from now, which is unfortunately also where the bullet is. Bad luck for the enemy.

Multispectrum Scanner

targeting

Reads the universe across every wavelength at once. Weak points can no longer skulk; markets can no longer hide their better stock behind the cheaper stock.

Kill Mark Suite

targeting

Paints a small tasteful crosshair on the first thing it sees. Subsequent hits land harder, as a kind of professional courtesy.

Drone Bay

drone_bay

Two extra hangar tubes welded to the underside, with all the elegance and most of the structural integrity that implies.

CPU Uplink

drone_cpu

A direct cortex link to the drone flock. They now answer faster, and occasionally finish your sentences in the wrong order.

Drone Stabilizer

drone_cpu

Cancels out the tiny wobbles every drone has when firing. The drones never noticed they were wobbling and are now mildly offended.

Attack Drone Controller

drone_cpu

A dedicated console for telling drones who to shoot. Mostly used to tell them to shoot harder at things they were already shooting.

Carrier Core

drone_bay

A proper hangar with bunks, refuelling rigs, and a tiny mess hall the drones don't technically need. They use it anyway.

Link Efficiency

drone_cpu

Compresses the command bus so orders arrive in time to be useful. The drones have started reflexively shooting before you finish thinking.

Overclocked attitude thrusters on every drone. They now zip between targets fast enough to make the slower ones look like they're sulking.

A wider antenna spread lets your drones wander further from the nest before the leash snaps them back. They test the limit constantly.

Swaps the drones' chemical thrusters for whisper-quiet ion drives. They reposition so fast the enemy keeps shooting where they used to be.

Autonomy Core

drone_cpu

A self-directing flight computer. The drones range far, take a beating, and have started filing their own patrol reports. Nobody asked them to.

Elite Drone Kernel

drone_cpu

Drones now read your targeting solutions and copy your homework, including the bits where you aim for soft tissue.

Interceptor Drone Node

drone_bay

Reassigns a portion of the swarm to swat incoming rounds. The drones consider this beneath them and do it anyway.

Swarm Protocol

drone_bay

Every tenth kill, a fresh drone unfolds itself from spare parts and joins the formation, slightly damp and looking confused.

PD Array

point_defence

An extra ring of pop-up turrets along the spine. Each one is convinced it's the most important turret on the ship.

Rapid Tracker

point_defence

A tracking package that swings the muzzles fast enough to leave faint vapour trails. Bullets arrive looking faintly embarrassed.

Flak Processor

point_defence

Crunches incoming trajectories into something the turrets find personally insulting, then asks them to do something about it.

Wide-Angle Lens

point_defence

A larger optical aperture that lets the turrets spot threats from further off. Mostly they spot debris and birds, but occasionally a missile.

Recycler Module

point_defence

Scoops up the scrap left after each interception and feeds it back into the salvage hopper. Frugal in the way only an engineer can love.

PD Targeting Suite

point_defence

A full sensor package for the point defence array. The turrets now make tiny smug clicks every time they hit something.

Autonomous Defence Grid

point_defence

Hands the turrets full discretion. They have been waiting their entire service lives for this moment, and they will not be subtle.

PD Priority Logic

point_defence

Teaches the turrets that missiles are scarier than bullets. They take the news badly and develop a small grudge against missiles.

Flak Curtain

point_defence

Each interception now blooms into a cloud of fragments that catches whatever was flying alongside. Tidy in a horrible sort of way.

Energy Amplifier

energy

Pumps more current into the emitter assembly. The beam gains half an octave of hum and a noticeably shorter temper.

Focus Lens

energy

A precision-ground lens that keeps the beam coherent a few hundred metres past its design spec. Enemies who thought they were at a safe distance were working from the old manual.

Pulse Frequency Node

energy

Tightens the gap between shots. Your energy weapons now harass the battlefield at a brisker, more conversational tempo.

Resonance Coil

energy

A tuned coil that gets every weapon humming on a frequency hostile to most known materials. The damage is real; the headache is complimentary.

Overload Capacitor

energy

Stores one breath more charge than the emitter strictly allows, then lets go of it all at once. Wider, farther, and occasionally spectacular.

Phase Coherence Array

energy

Aligns every photon into perfect phase agreement. Physicists call it coherence. The targets call it briefly.

Singularity Core

energy

A very small, very well-behaved singularity that lends its opinion to every shot. The opinion is heavy, exotic, and non-negotiable.

Cascade Engine

energy

Each hit seeds the next discharge. The engineering report calls it a sustained cascade; the gun crew calls it the drumroll.

Harmonic Resonator

energy

Resonates the beam against enemy shielding until the shield starts paying you. Sips a little hull integrity to keep itself in tune.

Singularity Tap

reactor

A controlled pinprick of collapsed matter wired straight into the power rail. The reactor no longer outputs energy so much as screams it, and the guns have learned to scream back.

Resonant Barrier

shield

Once attuned, the shield emitter stops merely stopping things. It hums at a frequency that makes your own ordnance arc sideways into whatever's nearest. Nobody is sure this is a feature. It is sold as one.

Warp Inertia

thruster

It folds the space directly ahead of the hull, so the ship is technically never accelerating, merely arriving. The void mass you've been stacking stops mattering. Mostly.

Thermal Lens

energy

Focuses the beam's waste heat back into the shot. The bright spot in the middle is known, to whoever it lands on, as the regret point.

Prism Splitter

energy

Splits one immaculate beam into several enthusiastic ones. Coverage improves. Precision has filed a complaint.

Zero Point Tap

energy

Draws power from the vacuum itself, which the vacuum considers theft. Every shot arrives on borrowed energy with no intention of repayment.

Proximity Fuse

ordnance

Detonates on the polite assumption that close enough is close enough. The warhead no longer waits for formal contact.

Cluster Charges

ordnance

One warhead becomes seven smaller, angrier ones. The targeting computer files each fragment as its own separate grievance.

Chain Detonation Rig

ordnance

Wires every warhead to admire its neighbour's explosion and attempt to top it. Escalation as a design principle.

Prize Assessor

economy

A small appraisal AI that values every wreck before it has finished being a ship. Rounds up, out of respect.

Deep Scan Manifest

economy

Cross-references every debris field against insurance manifests nobody ever filed. Finds things that were never officially lost.

Motivational Poster

Features Commander Roxy 'Ace' Johnson clinging to a satellite dish with the caption 'KEEP EM FLYING, TIGER.' The pose was, she insists, a controlled micro-gravity maneuver and not in any way accidental. Surprisingly effective against existential dread and alien invasions alike.

Contraband Stimulants

Technically illegal in forty-seven jurisdictions, but out here the nearest magistrate is roughly eight light-minutes away and unlikely to care.

Vegan Rabbit's Foot

A lucky rabbit's foot, ethically sourced from a rabbit that is still using it. Statistically it has no effect on combat performance. The universe, however, has a well-documented sense of irony.

Targeting Decals

Someone has drawn little crosshairs on the viewport with a marker pen. The gunnery officer insists it helps. Nobody has the heart to tell him the viewport is purely decorative.

Overclocked Coffee Machine

In the vast emptiness of space, the only truly essential piece of equipment. Wars have been lost for want of a decent cup. This one runs at 140% factory spec and voids its own warranty every six seconds.

Spaceship Radio Deck

An original 80's head unit bolted into the dashboard, wired straight into the main battery and the captain's sense of drama. One knob is volume. The other knob is also volume. It blasts Wagner at levels that would make a supernova feel self-conscious.

Captain's Mixtape

A hand-labelled cassette of the captain's finest synthwave, dubbed and re-dubbed until the tape hiss became part of the arrangement. Side A is for cruising. Side B is also for cruising, but angrier.

Weapon Oil Kit

Contains seventeen types of lubricant, none of which are for the weapons. The manual was lost sometime around Jupiter, but a well-oiled gun is a happy gun, probably.

Go Faster Stripes

Purely cosmetic racing stripes that, through a mechanism no physicist has been able to explain, genuinely make the ship go faster. Peer review is ongoing.

Tungsten Core Rounds

Ammunition so dense it has its own postcode. Punches through things with magnificent indifference to what those things might prefer.

Volatile Warheads

The R&D department's answer to the question nobody asked: 'What if explosions were bigger but also worse?' Handle with the sort of care usually reserved for diplomatic incidents.

Combat Rations

A generous supply of vacuum-sealed nutrition paste that technically qualifies as food in the same way that techno technically qualifies as music. Keeps the crew alive, if not happy.

Emergency Blankets

Shiny foil blankets rated for the cold void of space. Primarily used for shock treatment, secondarily for impromptu fancy dress parties during quiet watches.

Reinforced Bulkheads

Extra-thick walls between compartments, installed by an engineer who firmly believed that the best kind of decompression is none at all. Makes the ship handle like a shopping trolley full of bricks.

Crew First Aid Training

A three-hour course in which the crew learned that space bandages are just regular bandages but more expensive. Still, knowing where the medkit is has proven surprisingly useful, and focused medics make for a focused gunnery deck.

Shield Emitter Juice

A proprietary blend of exotic particles that the manufacturer assures you is 'definitely not just sparkling coolant.' The shields seem to like it. The point-defence turret network, which is calibrated to a rather less enthusiastic electromagnetic environment, emphatically does not.

Ablative Paint

Military-grade hull paint that ablates under fire, sacrificing itself so you don't have to. The manufacturer describes it as 'self-removing' which is technically accurate and deeply unhelpful.

Backup Life Support

A secondary oxygen recycler for when the primary one inevitably fails. The manual cheerfully notes that if both fail, you won't need to worry about a third.

Lucky Horseshoe

Found welded to the hull of a derelict freighter that had been destroyed in fourteen separate engagements. Evidently the horseshoe was luckier than the freighter.

Nitro Fuel Additive

A chemical additive that makes your engines run faster, hotter, and with a magnificent blue flame that absolutely nobody should stand behind. The health and safety officer resigned.

Gyroscope Calibrator

Keeps the ship pointed in roughly the direction you intended, which is more than can be said for most of the crew's career choices.

Lightweight Furniture

All the chairs, tables, and decorative potted plants have been replaced with inflatable versions. The captain's ready room now feels like a children's birthday party, but the ship turns twenty percent faster.

Drift Racing Manual

A well-thumbed paperback titled 'Initial D(rift): The Zen of Sideways Spaceflight.' Chapter seven, 'Controlled Sliding Into an Asteroid Field,' has been bookmarked by every pilot on board.

Salvage License

A laminated card that technically authorises you to pick through the wreckage of your enemies. Whether the enemies consented to becoming wreckage is considered outside the scope of the licence.

Trade Manifest

A spreadsheet of dubious provenance that claims to know what every shop in the sector is selling. Roughly 40% accurate, which in space commerce counts as insider trading. The binder is reassuringly heavy.

Crew Recruitment Poster

'SEE THE GALAXY! MEET INTERESTING ALIEN LIFEFORMS! (Then shoot them.)' Surprisingly effective at attracting drone operators, who apparently don't read the fine print.

Lucky Rubber Duck

A neon-lit rubber duck with glowing cyan eyes and a faint purple pulse running through its circuitry. It sits on the weapons console and judges you silently. Multiple captains have reported that removing it results in immediate and catastrophic bad luck. The duck's internal wiring is beyond analysis — it appears to run on spite and good fortune in equal measure. It hums at 440Hz when things are about to go well.

Crew Mascot (Space Cat)

A cat of indeterminate breed that wandered aboard at a refuelling station and has since refused to leave. Improves crew morale by 300% and occasionally sits on the fire control button.

Void Artifact

Nobody knows what it does. Nobody knows where it came from. Everyone agrees it's probably fine. It hums at a frequency that makes the lights flicker and the crew's teeth itch.

Momentum Reconciler

A device that turns the act of shooting down incoming projectiles into a form of aggressive target acquisition. The logic is circular, the results are not.

Plasma Injector

Superheats ammunition to temperatures that would embarrass a small star. The resulting projectiles are devastatingly effective, provided you can hit anything while your ship handles like a sedated whale.

Improved Warp Core

An engine upgrade that makes the ship go faster whilst simultaneously making everything it fires go slower. The physics department has issued a formal apology.

Improved Barrels

Longer barrels for more accurate shooting, at the slight cost of looking absolutely ridiculous. The ship now resembles a porcupine that's been through a metalworking phase.

Void-in-a-Box

It is exactly what it sounds like. Someone put a piece of the void in a box. The box is labeled 'DO NOT OPEN' in fourteen languages, three of which don't exist yet.

Sonic Repulsor

Generates sound waves in the vacuum of space, which shouldn't work at all. The laws of physics have filed a complaint, but the device is ignoring their calls. Pickups seem to feel it too — they come running.

Ignition Optimizer

Makes things burn more efficiently, which is a polite way of saying it makes things burn more. The fire marshal's office has been suspiciously quiet since its installation.

Overloaded Warp Core

The engine equivalent of having your cake and eating it, if the cake were a miniature fusion reactor running well past its recommended operating parameters. The warranty expired the moment you installed it.

Electron Infuser

Adds electricity to things that were previously not electric, which is to say, everything. EVERY round now leaves the barrel as an angry little lightning bolt. The weapons officer has stopped asking what the original damage type was — the weapons have stopped listening.

Tractorbeam Extension Cord

A longer tractor beam, achieved through the innovative engineering solution of plugging an extension cord into it. Health and safety regulations are notably silent on the subject of space extension cords.

Energy Weapon Attuner

Amplifies your ship's energy weapons by attuning them to frequencies that technically don't exist, which sounds impossible until you remember that most of space physics is just vibes and confident naming conventions.

Charge Tubes

Tubes through which charge flows. Nobody on the engineering team could think of a more exciting name, and frankly the tubes didn't deserve one.

Oxidizer

Introduces oxygen into your projectiles, which is mainly notable because there isn't supposed to be any oxygen in space. Sets things on fire with the kind of cheerful inevitability usually reserved for tax audits.

Improved Gunpowder

Gunpowder, but better. Sometimes engineering really is that simple. The kinetics team celebrated with champagne, which is also technically an improvement on gunpowder.

Improved Railgun Slugs

Heavier, denser slugs for the railgun, machined to tolerances that would make a Swiss watchmaker weep with professional jealousy. Each one costs roughly the same as a small house.

Improved Fibreoptic Relay

Faster data transfer between your ship and its drones. The drones are now better at killing things, though they still haven't learned to tidy up after themselves.

Capital Rangefinder

Originally designed for battleships the size of small countries. On a fighter, it's rather like using a telescope to read the menu at a restaurant you're already sitting in.

Void Focussing Array

Focuses void energy into a coherent beam, which is impressive given that nobody can agree on what void energy actually is. The array itself seems to know, but it's not telling.

Solid State Battery

A battery with no moving parts, which sounds unremarkable until you realise that most space batteries are basically angry boxes of liquid metal. This one just sits there, being reliable. Revolutionary.

Dark Beacon

A pulsing void-light that attracts enemies and loot in equal measure. The galactic equivalent of leaving your porch light on, except the moths are homicidal and the porch is your entire ship.

Duck Tape

An inexhaustible supply of duck tape, applied with the kind of grim conviction usually reserved for war memorials. The hull is now 4% more cylindrical than the manufacturer intended, and 12% more functional than they would publicly admit.

Asteroid Attractor

A magnetic beacon that lures every loose chunk of derelict tonnage in the sector into your patch of space. More wrecks drift through the arena — and more buff crates rattle around inside them. The insurance company has stopped returning calls.

Medical Bay

A dedicated medical compartment staffed by an AI with the bedside manner of a battlefield surgeon. Patches hull breaches and keeps the shield emitters humming.

Aether Charge Bank

Stores electrical charge in what the designers insist is 'aether' and what the engineers insist is 'a very fancy capacitor.' The arguments have become electric, in every sense.

Oxidizer Unit

Adds oxygen to your ammunition in deep space, which is rather like bringing sand to a beach, except this sand is on fire and the beach is an enemy warship.

Overcharge Core

Makes everything hit harder and fire faster by running all systems beyond their rated capacity. The engineering manual calls this 'overcharging.' The warranty department calls it 'void on arrival.'

Detonation Sequencer

Times explosions with the precision of a Swiss watch and the enthusiasm of a pyromaniac. Each detonation occurs at the mathematically optimal moment, which is always sooner than the target would prefer.

Dyn-Core Accelerator

Adds kinetic force to projectiles through dynamic core acceleration, which is a fancy way of saying 'makes bullets push things harder.' The marketing department earned their bonus on this one.

Weapon Amplifier Array

Amplifies all weapons equally, like a teacher who doesn't play favourites but does play extremely loud explosions. Your shields may suffer, but your enemies will suffer more.

Void Containment Unit

Contains a small amount of void energy in a box marked 'CAUTION: CONTENTS MAY NOT EXIST.' Boosts void and energy weapons while attracting slightly more enemies, who presumably want to see what all the fuss is about.

Neural Uplink

Connects your brain directly to the drone network. You can now think at your drones and they'll obey, which is magnificent right up until you think about lunch and they all fly to the galley.

Aegis Defence Grid

The final word in point defence, a system so comprehensive it can shoot down missiles, harass brute-class enemies, and still find time to judge the pilot's evasive manoeuvres. Raises the PD cap out of sheer overachievement.

Fractal Core

A crystalline structure that exists in slightly more dimensions than it should. Boosts plasma weapons and explosion radius through geometry that makes mathematicians quietly uncomfortable.

High Impact Capship Rounds

Ammunition rated for capital-ship broadsides, crammed into guns that were promised nothing of the sort. Each shell arrives with the confidence of something four times its size, and the loading time to match.

Commemorative Plaques

Every particularly memorable kill earns a commemorative plaque, and every plaque gets bolted to the hull. The memorial wall is now load-bearing.

Insurance Policy

Comprehensive hull coverage with an extremely responsive claims department. Every dent pays out instantly. The premiums are, technically, your blood.

Hull Futures

A standing contract that converts hard currency into hull plating at every launch. The plating is real, the upgrade is permanent, and the broker takes no commission, which worries everyone.

Bounty Ledger

A leather-bound ledger that logs every confirmed precision kill and invoices the void accordingly. Payment arrives instantly, which raises several questions about who exactly is paying.

Advanced Kinetics Upgrade

An upgrade so advanced it comes with its own peer-reviewed research paper. Bullets now pierce through targets and continue onwards, presumably with a sense of moral superiority.

The rank-and-file of the alien horde: cheap, plentiful, and possessed of a tactical doctrine that begins and ends with 'fly at the human.' Individually about as threatening as an annoyed toaster, they make up for it by arriving in quantities usually reserved for weather.

Tiny, quick, and structurally optimistic, the Swarm exists to fill space and drain your patience. A single one dies if you look at it sternly. The problem is that there is never a single one; there is a low-pressure system of them.

Swarmers that have discovered the concept of peer pressure. They move as one shifting mass, turning and diving together with the eerie grace of a murmuration that has decided, collectively, to ruin your afternoon.

Not so much an enemy as a weather event with intent. Shoals arrive as a solid front of expendable hulls, less interested in killing you than in simply being in the way until something behind them can.

A Grunt that survived long enough to be handed thicker plating and a slightly better attitude. It is measurably harder to kill and considerably more smug about it, though the improvement in either department remains, on the cosmic scale, negligible.

The horde's answer to 'what if we didn't have to touch the human to hurt it?' Shooters hang back and lob fire from range, having correctly deduced that the safest place in the sector is anywhere the player is not.

A ranged harasser that fires a volley and then flees with the enthusiasm of someone who has just remembered they left the oven on. Catching one is a matter of principle. Killing one is a matter of luck.

A slab of angry alien tonnage that arrives rarely and leaves an impression, usually a hull-shaped one. The Brute does not dodge, does not flinch, and does not appear to have been briefed on the concept of self-preservation.

An enemy whose entire life plan is to reach you and then, enthusiastically, stop being an enemy in the most kinetic way available. There is a philosophical elegance to the Exploder: it succeeds and fails at exactly the same instant.

Sleek strikers that hunt in synchronised squads, darting in from the edges to open you up before you've finished reading this sentence. They are the reason experienced pilots develop a nervous habit of checking their flanks, and their therapists.