BSGO · Pilot reference · Build 0.0.129
Exactly how a shot resolves: whether it hits, how much it takes off, and what changes those two numbers. Every formula here is the one the server runs. If you want tactics rather than arithmetic, start with the combat guide — this page is the maths behind it.
Direct-fire weapons roll once per shot. The roll is a straight contest between your weapon's Accuracy and the target's Avoidance — nothing else enters it. Only the difference matters, so a 400-accuracy gun against 400 avoidance behaves exactly like a 100 against 100.
Your chance to hit when accuracy and avoidance are equal
67.5% base hit chance
Every point of accuracy you gain over the target's avoidance adds 0.15 percentage points — and every point they gain over you takes the same away.
The formula
hit chance = (67.5 + 0.15 × (Accuracy − Avoidance)) ÷ 100
then clamped between 0.05 and 0.95
Reaching the 95% ceiling needs +183 accuracy over their avoidance. Falling to the 5% floor takes −417.
Both clamps are marked. Between them the line is perfectly straight — there are no soft curves or diminishing returns anywhere in this formula.
Accuracy minus the target's avoidance, and the resulting chance.
| Accuracy − Avoidance | Hit chance |
|---|---|
| −417 or worse | 5.0% (floor) |
| −300 | 22.5% |
| −200 | 37.5% |
| −100 | 52.5% |
| 0 — dead even | 67.5% |
| +100 | 82.5% |
| +183 or better | 95.0% (ceiling) |
A Line cannon carries 125 accuracy. A geared Strike fighter runs around 680 avoidance. That is −555, far past the floor, so the shot sits at 5% — and no amount of skill, upgrading or ammunition can lift it, because the very best a Line gun can reach is about 172. This is intentional: capital guns are not meant to swat fighters. Flak and point defence are, which is why they carry 300–500 accuracy instead.
There is no separate NPC formula and no hidden player bonus — one code path serves every shot in the game. Note that bot fighters are built carrying level-10 skills, so they quietly run about 10% above their listed accuracy, avoidance and hull.
Avoidance is not a flat stat on the smaller hulls — it scales with how fast you are actually moving. Strike and Escort ships carry an avoidance fading value of 0.75, meaning a stationary pilot keeps only a quarter of their evasion.
The formula
effective avoidance = Avoidance × max( throttle ÷ top speed , 1 − 0.75 )
The floor is 0.25, so a parked Strike fighter sits at 25% of its avoidance. Boosting always restores it to full instantly.
A Viper Mk-II at full throttle sits near 510 avoidance. Stationary, that collapses to about 128 — which moves an incoming Line cannon from the 5% floor into ordinary hit-chance territory. If you are being shot at, keep moving.
While boosting, the throttle term is skipped entirely and you get 100% of your avoidance regardless of speed. Remember boost burns tylium, not power.
Line ships, carriers and capitals carry no fading value at all, so their avoidance is always full — but it is so low to begin with (15–50) that it barely matters.
Base hull avoidance: Viper Mk-II 510, Rhino 490, Gungnir 50, Jotunn 30, Pegasus 15. Evasion modules and the avoidance skill stack on top of those.
Range never changes your damage — only your chance to hit. Inside optimal range you get the full number from the formula above. Past it, accuracy decays in a straight line to almost nothing at maximum range.
A shot starting at the 67.5% base, on a weapon with 675 optimal and 1,700 maximum range. The decay is linear and it is not re-floored at 5% — it really does approach zero.
What happens at each distance.
| Distance | What happens |
|---|---|
| Below minimum | Weapon will not fire at all |
| Up to optimal | Full hit chance, floored at 5% |
| Optimal → maximum | Decays linearly toward 0.01% — the 5% floor does not apply here |
| Beyond maximum | Weapon will not fire at all |
A shot blocked by range costs you nothing — no cooldown, no power, no ammunition. The weapon simply stays ready and tries again.
These have a genuine dead zone you cannot shoot into.
| Weapon | Dead zone | Maximum |
|---|---|---|
| Carrier cannon | 2,300 | 4,000 |
| Escort missile | 1,350 | 1,900 |
| Line torpedo | 1,200 | 1,920 |
| Carrier flak | 900 | 1,500 |
| Strike torpedo | 600 | 1,080 |
| Line flak | 500 | 800 |
| Kill cannon | 100 | 1,500 |
Getting inside a carrier's main guns is a real tactic — under 2,300 units they cannot touch you.
Both the range check and the firing arc are calculated from each individual weapon mount, not from the centre of your ship. On a large hull with mounts spread across it, some guns will reach a target that others cannot.
Every hit rolls a fresh damage value evenly between the weapon's low and high figures — every value in that band is equally likely, so on average you deal the midpoint. There are no damage types and no resistances in this game: one damage number meets one armour number.
The formula
damage = roll(DamageLow … DamageHigh) × crit × armour × situational
Criticals and armour are independent multipliers on the same roll — a critical does not bypass armour, and armour does not cap a critical.
A Strike cannon listed at 9–18 averages 13.5 per hit before armour. Multiply by your hit chance for true damage per shot, and divide by cooldown for damage per second.
HESC rounds raise only the low end. Stack a strong enough grade and the floor can pass the ceiling — at which point the weapon simply deals its low value every time, with no roll at all. It is not a loss, but your damage stops varying.
Armour is the simplest system in the game and the most misunderstood. Each point of the target's armour that your armour piercing does not cancel removes exactly 1% of your damage. There are no diminishing returns.
The formula
damage kept = (100 − (target Armour − your Armour Piercing)) ÷ 100
The difference is clamped at 0, so surplus piercing is wasted — it never becomes bonus damage. At least 0.1% always gets through.
A perfectly straight line. Cancel their armour with piercing and you keep everything.
Firing at a Jotunn (armour 45) with different weapons.
| Weapon | Piercing | Unmatched | Damage kept |
|---|---|---|---|
| Strike cannon | 5 | 40 | 60% |
| Strike + AP-D rounds | 7.5 | 37.5 | 62.5% |
| Kill cannon | 45 | 0 | 100% |
| Line cannon | 35 | 10 | 90% |
| Escort cannon | 60 | 0 | 100% |
What you are shooting at.
| Ship | Armour | Hull | Crit defence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Viper Mk-II | 5 | 450 | 80 |
| Rhino | 10 | 715 | 120 |
| Gungnir | 40 | 4,550 | 80 |
| Jotunn | 45 | 4,500 | 120 |
| Pegasus | 60 | 80,000 | 200 |
Every shot rolls separately for a critical. It is a contest between your weapon's critical offence and the target's critical defence, starting from a 5% base — and a critical is worth exactly double damage.
The formula
critical chance = (5 + 0.15 × (Critical Offence − Critical Defence)) ÷ 100
critical damage = ×2.00
Each net point adds 0.15 percentage points, exactly like accuracy. There is no upper cap short of 100%, and the chance can be driven to zero.
Real weapon and hull values.
| Attacker | Target | Critical chance |
|---|---|---|
| Escort cannon (200) | Gungnir (80) | 23.0% |
| Kill cannon (150) | Viper Mk-II (80) | 15.5% |
| Strike cannon (100) | Viper Mk-II (80) | 8.0% |
| Strike cannon (100) | Jotunn (120) | 2.0% |
| Strike cannon (100) | Pegasus (200) | 0% — never |
The server rolls and applies criticals correctly and they genuinely double your damage — but the current client does not display any indicator when one lands. If your damage numbers occasionally look twice as large as expected, that is why. This is a client display gap, not a bug in the maths.
Each weapon mount can only fire within a cone pointing out of that mount. The number on the card is a half-angle, so a listed 45 is a 90-degree-wide cone. A mount listed at 90 covers a full hemisphere.
Strike cannons at 15 are a narrow 30-degree cone — you must point at the target. Line cannons at 90 cover everything in front of the mount. Anything listed at 180 or more is effectively omnidirectional: platform guns, capital point defence and carrier launchers all fire in any direction.
On a Line hull the mounts are spread along the flanks, and each only covers its own hemisphere. Head-on, roughly five of nine guns bear; turn a few degrees and seven do; at true broadside only three. All nine never bear at once, at any angle or range — that is how the hull is designed, not a bug.
Every weapon costs power to fire and has its own cooldown. Power regenerates constantly — including during combat — at a flat rate. Hull does not.
The formulas
power = clamp( power + PowerRecovery × seconds , 0 , MaxPower )
shot allowed when: current power ≥ power cost, and cooldown elapsed
A shot with exactly enough power fires and leaves you at zero. Below the cost the weapon is refused and retries every half second.
Power in combat
Regenerates
Flat rate, always — being shot at does not stop it
Hull in combat
Blocked
No hull regen for 15 seconds after taking damage
Boost costs
Tylium
Not power — run dry and you drop out of boost
Capacity, recovery per second, and boost cost.
| Ship | Max power | Recovery | Boost / tick |
|---|---|---|---|
| Viper Mk-II | 100 | 5 | 0.5 |
| Rhino | 150 | 5 | 0.7 |
| Jotunn | 500 | 25 | 6.3 |
| Gungnir | 750 | 25 | 8.1 |
| Pegasus | 2,000 | 60 | 30 |
If a weapon cannot fire — out of arc, out of range, not enough power, still cooling — it charges no power, no ammunition and no cooldown. It stays ready and keeps trying. You are never punished for holding a firing button while manoeuvring.
Missiles, torpedoes, rockets and mines do not roll to hit. Accuracy and avoidance are irrelevant to them: they are physical objects that damage whatever they collide with. The only way to survive one is to stop it reaching you.
Everything that defeats an incoming missile.
| Counter | Reliability | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| ECM / deflect | 100% | No roll — every enemy missile in range loses its lock |
| Flares | 10% → 95% | Closer missiles are far more likely to be decoyed |
| Point defence | Shoots it down | Must chew through the missile's own hull points |
| Cloak | Breaks lock | Missile flies straight on and expires |
| Outlast it | Lifetime | Every missile expires after its flight time |
Flare chance
chance = 10% at the edge of flare range, rising in a straight line to 95% at zero distance
Rolled separately for every missile in range. A decoyed missile is not destroyed — it just loses guidance and flies on.
What point defence has to destroy before impact.
| Missile | Hull |
|---|---|
| Strike missile | 5 |
| Strike torpedo | 15 |
| Capital missile | 25 |
| Line missile | 30 |
| Heavy missile / torpedoes | 45 |
| Carrier missile | 150 |
| Escort missile | 900 |
An Escort missile at 900 hull is effectively immune to point defence — you will not shoot it down before it arrives. Use ECM or flares.
Missiles carry avoidance but no armour, so defensive guns always deal full damage — they just have to connect often enough, fast enough.
| Defensive weapon | Accuracy | vs Strike missile | vs torpedo | vs Escort missile |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Platform point defence | 700 | 75.0% | 95.0% | 95.0% |
| Line / carrier point defence | 500 | 45.0% | 82.5% | 95.0% |
| Line / carrier flak | 300 | 15.0% | 52.5% | 95.0% |
Escort missiles carry no avoidance at all, which is why everything hits them 95% of the time — and why their 900 hull still makes them nearly unstoppable.
Line, carrier and capital hulls are barred from targeting missiles with their cannons and mining guns entirely. Against incoming ordnance your only options are point defence, flak, ECM or flares — fit them.
A torpedo damages everything hostile inside its blast radius, and every target inside takes the full rolled damage — there is no falloff with distance from the centre. There is also no friendly fire and no self-damage: allies and neutrals are never hit.
Ammunition modifies your weapon's own stats by a percentage, so a round that gives +15% damage is worth more on a bigger gun. The percentages are identical for every ship class — a Strike HE-D round and a Carrier HE-D round both give +15%. Only the weapon underneath differs.
Four families, each in escalating grades. Standard issue rounds give no bonus at all.
| Family | What it boosts | A | B | C | D |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HE rounds | Damage, both ends | +3% | +6% | — | +15% |
| HESC rounds | Minimum damage only | +10% | +25% | +40% | +60% |
| AP rounds | Armour piercing | +20% | +25% | — | +50% |
| HERT rounds | Accuracy | +10% | +15% | — | +25% |
HESC grade C exists only for Line ships. Because HESC raises just the low end, it makes your damage more consistent rather than higher — useful when you need reliability, not spikes.
All follow the same standard / high-quality / master ladder.
| Type | Boosts | Standard | High quality | Master |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Missiles | Damage | — | +15% | +30% |
| Flak rounds | Damage | — | +15% | +30% |
| Point defence rounds | Damage | — | +15% | +30% |
Repair, power, flares and mines.
| Type | Boosts | Standard | High quality | Elite |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Repair cells | Hull restored | — | +15% | +30% |
| Power cells | Power restored | — | +15% | +30% |
| Flares | Flare range | — | +15% | +30% |
| Mines | Damage, hull, lifetime | — | +10% | +20% |
| Merit mines | Damage, hull, lifetime | +30% | ||
Everything else you can load.
| Item | Effect |
|---|---|
| Radiation packs | +2% decay resistance, elite +10% |
| Escort metal plates | Advanced +25% duration, elite +50% |
| Mini-nukes | +400% damage — five times a normal warhead |
| Torpedo tokens | +1,900% damage — twenty times base |
Against fighters, accuracy is your binding constraint — HERT rounds convert directly into hits. Against armoured hulls, check the armour table above: if their armour exceeds your piercing, AP rounds are worth more than raw damage. When neither applies, HE is the straightforward choice.
What happens between pulling the trigger and the target losing hull.
Cooldown elapsed, enough power, ammunition present, target within minimum and maximum range and inside the mount's arc. Failing any of these costs nothing and retries.
Card values, then skills, then passive equipment, then your loaded ammunition, then any active buffs.
Accuracy against the target's speed-adjusted avoidance, decayed by range if past optimal. Missiles skip this entirely.
Evenly between the weapon's low and high figures.
Independently. A critical doubles the roll.
Minus 1% per point of their armour your piercing does not cancel.
Hull cannot fall below zero, and reaching zero is a kill.
Last updated: 2026-09-07