Damage (ES2)

There are two basic types of damage in Everspace 2: Kinetic and Energy damage. While shields are solely affected by energy damage, armor can only be brought down with kinetic damage. Once the shield is down and the armor destroyed, both the energy and kinetic damage amount will decimate the hull. Usually, a weapon deals both types of damage but different weapons are needed in different situations depending on which value is higher. The color of damage text popups corresponds to what is being damaged: shield (blue), armor (orange), or hull (red).

A simplified explanation:

• Shield - energy only
• Armor - kinetic only
• Hull - both

Base damage for area of effect weapons with a damage radius has damage falloff based on the distance from the original impact/explosion. For weapons with a small radius like Flaks, this falloff is insignificant and does not noticeably affect damage. For abilities with a large radius like the Bomber's ARC-9000, it is more noticeable. A player ship right next to the ARC's explosion origin will take extreme & likely lethal damage, while a player ship at the edge of the explosion will only slightly damage the shield.

Critical Hits/Damage

Whenever the player ship attacks a target and deals direct damage, each damage-dealing hit has a chance to become a critical hit and deal more damage than usual, with the base critical hit chance and critical damage multiplier ranging between 4.7-28.2% and 1.2-2.2x, respectively, based on the current value of the primary attribute Precision. Hits converted into critical hits by this mechanic show their damage in larger font and altered text color as an indicator of an unusually powerful hit.

• Weapons with an area of effect or damage radius (ex: Flak) will proc their crit chance for each enemy hit in the area. If the "base" shot crits, it doesn't mean all surrounding targets in range will also be crit.
• All projectiles from multi-shot weapons like scatter guns will each have their own proc chance.

Interactions

The following effects alter critical hit chance by multiplying the base chance provided by Precision. Effects from multiple sources stack together additively.

• Vanguard Expertise - 9-450% increased critical hit chance on rear attacks based on Expertise value
• Interceptor Passive - 1-20% increased critical hit chance based on energy orb collection
• Exploitation perk - 50% increased critical hit chance on enemies with impaired movement
• Universal module modifier - 5% increased critical hit chance
• Universal module modifier - +1% increased critical hit chance

The following additional effects can only trigger on critical hits or affect critical hits in some way:

• Crit Happens perk - 30% chance for critical hits to create an explosion for an additional 50% of hit damage
• Critical Faculty perk - 30% chance to gain 1% ULT charge on critical hit
• Interceptor passive - 50% chance to recharge Weapon Overdrive by 1% on critical hit
• Interceptor passive - While firing primary weapons, gain 1% increased critical hit damage every second to a maximum of 20%
• Vanguard passive - While shields are overcharged, gain 25% increased critical hit damage
• Missile Launcher modifier - 20% chance for a free missile with 60% reduced damage/effect to be fired at the locked target on primary weapon critical hits (1.5s internal cooldown)
• Universal weapon modifier - Critical hits have a chance to recharge weapon energy by 2%
• Universal module modifier - 10% increased critical hit damage
• Deteriorator (Thermo Gun) passive - Critical hits apply their damage as Corrosion for 2s
• Shredder (Gauss Cannon) passive - Deals 20% increased critical hit damage
• Executioner (Rail Gun) passive - Fully charged critical hits instantly kill smaller targets
• Eye of the Storm - Secondary weapons will always critical hit while your ULT charge is below 50%.
• RGBeam Laser - Green state increases critical hit damage by 160%.

Other Notes

• For assorted damage buffs, see Conditions.
• For information related to critical hits in Everspace, see Perks or Critical Hit Chance Mod.