Combat

Combat is a necessary feature of any and all attempts to survive on Chiron.

Regular combat
Combat is resolved by matching the attacker's weapons rating and the defender's armor rating, modified by special abilities, any applicable combat modifiers, and morale. The game rolls virtual dice based on these odds for as long as the units remain engaged. Fast units, like speeders or gravtanks can disengage from a losing battle and retreat.

Otherwise, the combat continues until one of the units is destroyed. Damaged units that survive combat suffer impaired performance proportional to the damage they've sustained.

Psi combat
Some units (usually alien creatures such as Mind Worms) can engage in Psi Combat. In Psi Combat, weapon and armor strengths are ignored, and the attacker is given a 3 to 2 advantage on land (1 to 1 for sea combat). Morale level becomes quite important in Psi Combat.

Combat modifiers

 * The game allows for customizing combat bonuses via the alpha/alphax.txt file. The following values are given for unmodified alpha/alphax files and affect attack or defense strength depending on the role.
 * -50%: Non-combat unit defending vs. combat unit
 * -50%: Air superiority unit vs. ground unit
 * -50%: attack after airdrop
 * -33%: Attack after moving.
 * -0%: attacking from lower elevation
 * +	0%: attacking along road
 * +	0%: Defend vs. mobile in rough
 * +	0%: for attacking from higher elevation
 * +	10%: Psi attack bonus/penalty per PLANET rating level
 * +	25%: Artillery bonus per level of altitude
 * +	25%: Defend in range of friendly Sensor
 * +	25%: Fanatic attack bonus
 * +	25%: Infantry vs. Base
 * +	25%: intrinsic base defense
 * +	25%: Mobile unit in open ground
 * +	50%: Comm Jammer unit defending vs. mobile unit
 * +	50%: Empath Song bonus attacking vs. psi
 * +	50%: Land based guns vs. ship artillery bonus
 * +	50%: Trance bonus defending vs. psi
 * +	100%: AAA bonus vs. air units
 * +	100%: Air superiority unit vs. air unit
 * +	100%: Bonus vs. ships caught in port