Combat Overview

This is just an introduction to ship combat in Aurora. The details of weapons and systems are covered on their own pages: Beam Weapon and CIWS
Beam Weapon Range
Missiles, Drones and Buoys
Point Defense
Armour and Shields
Carrier
Fleet Training
Ship Combat
Task Group Initiative
Cloaking

The Basics

There is no separate combat screen as in other 4X games. Ships move through the galaxy and if a ship or Task Group (which might consist of only one ship) detects a hostile Task Group or colony, combat might ensue.

In combat, ship speed is an important factor. The faster a ship is, the more difficult it is to hit it, both with missiles and beam weapons. Also, being faster than the enemy allows you to either run away or close the range. If your enemy is both faster and has greater weapon range, you are in trouble.

The Dangers of Jump Point transit

All of a ships's active sensors and fire controls (maybe passives too, I'd have to check) are "blinded" for a period of perhaps 30-60 seconds after transiting through a Jump Point. That's why a defender will often park his fleet there, to get a number of "free" shots at any attacker coming through the JP.

Sensors and Fire Control

To avoid detection, a fleet might travel with its Active Sensors switched off (the default setting for all Task groups). That's because ships with passive EM sensors might pick up the emissions from Active Sensors at long range, possibly without being spotted themselves.

Before you can fire at an enemy ship, you must first detect it with at least one Active Sensor. While passive sensors can detect ships as well, only Active Sensors provide targeting information. Only one sensor needs to detect an enemy ship to allow all of your ships, regardless of position, to fire at it, provided that both their weapons and their Fire Control sensors are in range.

Fire Controls are similar to active Sensors, but cannot detect anything. Instead, they direct weapon fire. You need Missile Fire Controls for missiles and Beam Fire Controls for beam weapons. One Fire Control can direct an unlimited number of weapons on the same ship.

Detection Range

Make sure you understand the way active sensors work in Aurora. While a large AS with a high resolution might detect an enemy battleship at 150 million km, it could miss a small incoming missile completely. And a sensor designed to pick up missiles is not ideally suited to detect a 400-ton fighter. You need sensors with different resolution to detect all that's out there.

Weapons

Ships and Planetary Defense Centers can carry Missile Launchers, various beam weapons or a combination of both.

While missiles can have ranges of more than 100 million km and great damage potential, a ship can carry only a limited number of them in its magazines. Once they are used up, the ship needs to rearm at a colony which actually stocks the missiles you require, or you have to transfer missiles from a collier.

Missiles are designed in the Missile Design window, which can be accessed by clicking the button at the bottom of the Population window.

Beam Weapons have much lower ranges than missiles, usually not more than a few hundred thousand km (depending on your tech levels), they have unlimited ammunition. They also tend to have a far higher rate of fire (ROF).

Layered Missile Defense

You might have noted that combat in Aurora is similar to modern naval battles. And like a real naval fleet, a space fleet typically employs different weapons to defend against missiles at different ranges.

CIWS

A Close-in-Weapon-System is an autonomous dual Gauss Cannon turret that is meant to shoot down incoming missiles in their final approach phase, just a second before they hit the ship. It's your last line of defense. It greatly simplifies adding point defense capability to a ship because it contains its own active sensor and fire control and is fully automatic. Just design it and stick one or more on every ship that you want to protect, the CIWS does all the rest. It only fires at missiles aimed at the ship carrying it, and only at a range of 10,000 km or less.