Design: combat rating and combat missions

Status: agreed direction, Modern rules unless stated otherwise. Weighted kill points (sections 1–3) and the status display (section 6) fit into the single-player game now. Player kills (section 4) wait for multiplayer, and missions (section 5) for a mission system. Numbers marked (to tune) are starting points for playtesting.

The idea

The rating from Harmless to Elite stays what it was in 1984: a measure of how good you are in a fight. Witchspace keeps the original names and thresholds, but changes what earns points:

1. Danger earns points, not body count. Beating a pirate in a well-armed ship is worth far more than shooting a trader.
2. Combat missions are the main road to Elite. Kills along the way help, but the big steps come from taking on hard, deliberate fights.
3. Other players are worth the most, if they're a real match for you. Picking on weaker commanders earns nothing.
4. Crime earns nothing. Killing innocent traders or the police never raises your rating.

Trading, exploration and delivery missions pay credits and reputation, never rating points. "Elite" means a combat pilot, as it always has.

Related designs: law and travel (crime, bounties, Marshals, power and protection), player-run stations (stations that issue missions).

1. Ranks and thresholds

The ranks and thresholds are the original's, now counted in rating points rather than kills:

The rating never goes down. Points are kept to fractions internally, as the later 8-bit versions did, and shown rounded.

2. What history tells us

The 1984 BBC Micro version gave one point per kill, whatever you killed. Players soon found the cheapest road to Elite: wait outside a station and shoot police Vipers.

The Commodore 64 version, and then the BBC Master, Apple II and NES versions, gave each ship type its own value. That made pirates and Thargoids the way up. Some of those values:

Source: bbcelite.com, combat rank and ship specifications.

The lesson is that a fixed value per ship type is a big improvement, but players still hunt whatever pays best for the least risk. Witchspace adds the context of each fight.

3. Points for NPC kills

Points = ship value × role × threat × experience

Ship value

Each ship's JSON file gets a ratingValue, starting from the original's table above. New ships take a value in line with ships of similar strength. Community-designed ships need one too, checked by npm run validate.

(Built, 26 October 2026: Sidewinder 0.33, Mamba 0.5, Cobra Mk III 0.91, Viper 0.1, Bullsnake 0.5, Lancer 1.25, Falcon 2.0, Bastion 5.33, cargo canister 0.04; the station, the Titanoboa and missiles 0.)

Role

Threat

How well armed and supported the target was (to tune):

• Lasers: beam × 1.2, military × 1.5.
• Extra kit: ECM, missiles and better shields add a little each, up to × 2 in total.
• Wingmen: a pirate flying with others is worth more. If you're outnumbered, each kill scores × (1 + 0.25 per extra enemy in the fight), up to × 2.

Experience

Easy targets wear thin as you improve. Every NPC has a threat rank worked out from its ship, role and kit, for example:

• a lone Sidewinder pirate: Poor;
• a pirate Cobra with beam lasers: Competent;
• a Thargoid: Dangerous.

A Deadly pilot gets nothing for Sidewinders, but every fight with a real threat still counts.

The combat computer

Kills made while the combat computer flies the ship count × 0.5: the rating should mean you flew the fight yourself.

How it's built

Sections 1–3 and 7 are built for Modern rules (src/game/rating.ts, with tests): ship value × role × threat × the odds × experience, halved for the combat computer. Threat counts the laser (beam × 1.2, military × 1.5), an ECM (+0.15) and missiles (+0.05 each, up to four), up to × 2. The odds count the other ships fighting you when it died. A foe's threat rank comes from the same numbers: a lone Sidewinder pirate is Poor, a pirate Cobra with a beam laser Competent. Destroying another commander earns nothing for now, because the game treats it as a crime (section 4 comes with legitimate fights). Driving off the Falcon counts as a kill. From Harmless, Average now takes about 70 lone Sidewinder pirates rather than 32 kills of anything.

4. Points for player kills (multiplayer)

Other players are the most valuable targets when they're a real match.

Points = their ship's value × 3 × rank factor (to tune)

A Competent pilot who brings down a Deadly one in a better ship has earned a lot.

Rules against abuse:

• Legitimate fights only. Killing a clean player in lawful space is a crime: no points, and you become a Fugitive. Points come from fights where the other player was a pirate, Wanted, in an anarchy, or fired first, or from agreed duels.
• Repeat kills count less. Killing the same commander again within 24 hours earns half as much each time, so friends can't trade kills up to Elite.
• A real fight is needed. The victim must have been in control and able to fight back, not freshly launched, docking or disconnected.
• Shared kills are split by damage dealt.
• The server decides. Rating changes are worked out server-side from the fight's record, never trusted from the client.

5. Combat missions

Missions are the main road to Elite. Only combat missions award rating points. Trading, courier and exploration missions pay credits and reputation only.

Kinds of mission

Rank opens doors

• Contracts and campaigns have a minimum rank. Harder work becomes available as you prove yourself, which gives the rating a use beyond the title.
• Contracts below your rank still pay credits, but rating points follow the experience rule. You can't farm easy contracts.
• Failing a mission earns no points and costs reputation with whoever issued it. It never lowers your rating.
• Some campaigns are only open to Clean commanders. The Marshals don't hire Fugitives.

Content

Missions are a natural community contribution, like ships. A mission would be a data file: issuer, minimum rank, stages, enemies and rewards. It would be checked by npm run validate and kept original, with no missions or characters copied from the original games or novels.

6. Pacing

A rough target for the road to Elite (to tune):

Missions should provide well over half of the points above Competent. Elite should stay a long-term goal that few commanders reach.

Routes to Elite: explorer first

Exploring never earns rating points (Elite means a combat pilot), but exploring to Pathfinder first is a natural apprenticeship for the road to Elite:

1. It pays for the fighter. A proper fighting fit (military laser 6,000, a rear beam 1,000, extra energy 1,500, ECM 600, escape pod 1,000, missiles) costs 10,000–16,000 Cr: about what Pathfinder takes to earn at the new pacing, with no money risked on cargo.
2. It teaches the flying: jumps, fuel, mass lock, docking, the chart, closing on a target, staying out of the star.
3. It teaches the map: where the anarchies and big bounties are, which high-tech stations sell military lasers, where to refuel on the run.

Military lasers are earned (Mark, 28 October 2026): "I thought military lasers were only available much later on in the game and commanders would need to be at least Competent, or else it would be far too easy." Under Modern rules a station sells a military laser only to a pilot rated Competent or above (and still only at tech level 10 and up); the shipyard's configurator follows the same rule. Classic sells them as 1984 did. 4. The kit carries over: long-range tanks for escape jumps and reaching the frontier; Wexley-Yorozu standing for guarding their yards and developments.

To make the pairing designed rather than accidental (proposed):

• Explorers find the fights. A pirate nest signal that only surveys reveal; sold to the police or the Marshals, it becomes a combat mission to clear it (missions are the main road to Elite, section 5).
• Scanner intelligence. The Deep Survey Scanner reads a ship's threat rank and kit at long range, so an explorer-turned-fighter picks fights at or above their rank, which is what scores (the experience multiplier, section 3).
• The Will-o'-the-Wisp as a way out. Working only while your lasers are cold, it gets a learning fighter out of fights they can't win, and adds nothing to attacking.

Elite has no twin.

7. Showing it

• Status screen: rank and progress, for example "Competent · 41 points to Dangerous".
• After a kill: a short note with the points, for example "+1.4 rating". A kill that earns nothing says why: "No rating · crime" or "No rating · too easy for you".
• Rank-up: a banner when you reach a new rank.
• "Right On Commander!" every 256 points, as in the original, even beyond Elite.

8. Classic rules

(For now Classic still counts one point a kill, as the first BBC version did: Classic stays as it is until Mark decides on the per-ship values below.)

Classic uses the original per-ship values from section 2, as the Commodore 64, BBC Master, Apple II and NES versions did, rather than the first BBC version's one point per kill. Every kill counts, police and traders included, at their original (low) values: it's a crime, but the rating doesn't judge. There's no role, threat or experience multiplier, and no player kills, because Classic is single-player. Combat missions may appear under Classic later, as one-off campaigns in the spirit of the original's missions.

9. Moving existing commanders over

Existing commanders keep their kills, converted one-for-one into rating points, so nobody loses rank when weighted points arrive. (Built: the commander's kills already holds points, so nothing needed converting.)

Open questions

• Classic: settled: the original per-ship values, with no multipliers.
• Ship values for new ships: who sets them, and how are they reviewed when community ships arrive?
• Agreed duels: how two players agree a fight (a hail and accept?), and whether duels count fully or at a reduced rate.
• Exact multipliers and pacing: to be tuned in play.
• Mission issuers: stations, the Marshals, governments, player stations and AI-run stations. Who offers what?

Think something here should change? Say so on the ideas board, where others can vote it up, or email hello@witchspace.org.uk. If you code: this page is docs/design/combat-rating.md on GitHub, open to pull requests.