Marauder
A light offensive ship. The cheapest ship you can put in front of an enemy and reasonably expect to do damage.
| Offense | 8 |
|---|---|
| Defense | 3 |
| Palladium cost | 100 |
| Iridium cost | 125 |
| Build time | 3m 40s |
| Upkeep / day | 60 credits |
| Speed | 30 ly/hr |
| Cargo hold | 150 |
| Shipyard level required | 3 |
What it does
The Marauder exists to push. Enough offense to hurt something, not nearly enough defense to soak a serious response. Slower than a Probe, faster than a Sentinel.
Iridium-heavy in construction. A Marauder fleet leans harder on your Iridium Extractor than your palladium side.
Why it matters
The Marauder is the first ship that puts real damage into another player's fleet. Its offense stat (8) drives the kill chance for every shot it fires in a combat round. On its own it gets ground down by defended systems; in a group it overwhelms the rolls before the defender can answer.
Strategy
Marauders are most efficient in numbers. Every additional Marauder on the line is one more shooter rolling against every enemy ship and kill probability scales with stack size, and the per-roll chance is intentionally low. A handful of Marauders barely scratches a defended system; a few dozen reliably crack it.
Don't send a single Marauder against parked defenders. Even a lone defending probe has a non-zero chance of rolling lucky and wiping it.
The Marauder is locked until your Shipyard is several levels in, so an offensive empire has to invest in the yard early.
