Combat in the Space Stage of Spore is rather straightforward. Switch to your weapons tab, choose a weapon, and attack your target. Much like real life, different weapons work better on different targets. So here's a low-down of each of your permanent weapons, the badges required for them, and what they are good against!

• Laser: This weapon has 3 possible upgrades: Mini Laser, Laser, and Mega Laser. This weapon is useful against all targets, but does not specialize at all in what it damages. It's also a huge energy hog, easily draining your batteries greatly only after a little bit of use at higher levels. To use it, select it and left-click on the target, holding it down. You will deal continual damage until you run out of energy, destroy your target, get destroyed, or release the mouse button.This weapon requires levels in the Conquerer or Eco Hero badges.
• Proton Missile: This weapon has 3 possible upgrades: Minor Proton Missile, Proton Missile, and Mega Proton Missile. This weapon is useful against ship targets, thanks to its low energy cost, large range, and fast recharge. Click once to fire a missile. Proton Missiles are also good for attacking colonies once you have eliminated the defender ships, as they have a longer range than turrets (making you untouchable).This weapon requires levels in the Conquerer or Body Guard badges.
• Pulse: This weapon has 3 possible upgrades: Minor Pulse, Pulse, and Mega Pulse. It's similar to the laser, but is far more effective against ground targets, such as turrets or enemy land vehicles. Click and hold to continually fire, although not as fast as the laser. While they deal massive damage to ground targets, you have to get close, rendering you vulnerable to taking fire.This weapon requires levels in the Colonist or Conquerer badges.
• Auto Blaster: This weapon has 3 possible upgrades: Minor Auto Blaster, Auto Blaster, and Mega Auto Blaster. A weapon that is always on unless you turn it off (much like a hostile version of the radar), the Auto Blaster will automatically attack any nearby turrets and ships. It doesn't drain any energy as you do this, but it doesn't do much damage either, only really augmenting the damage you do in close quarters.This weapon requires levels in the Colonist or Conquerer badges.
• Bomb: This weapon has 3 possible upgrades: Mini Bomb, Justa Bomb, and Mega Bomb. This is obviously great against colonies. While you may want to take out turrets through other means (like a Laser or Proton Missile), nothing converts a city faster than bombing it into the ground. A single click equals one bomb. This weapon requires levels in the Colonist or Warmonger badges.

On top of there, there are 3 temporary weapons that you can use. These have ammo, much like any other tool in the game. Thus, every time you want to use it again, you have to buy another one. They are much more powerful than permanent weapons, though, which offsets the cost.

• Anti-Matter Missile: This weapon is like an area-of-effect, one-shot version of the Proton Missile. It deals large damage to all enemy ships in an area. It is next to useless against ground targets, however.This weapon requires the Conquerer 3 or Colonist 3 badges.
• Anti-Matter Bomb: This weapon, keeping in theme with the missile, is a vastly more powerful version of the Bomb. Dropped on a colony, it can instantly destroy or convert it. However, it is exorbitantly expensive.This weapon requires the Conquerer 4 or Colonist 4 badges.
• Planet Buster: This weapon destroys a planet. Enough said. This weapon requires the Conquerer 5 or Colonist 5 badges.

There's also 6 passive military abilities. These are much like the weapons themselves, but with more energy cost and a more passive effect than destroying something. Sometimes these can be a true life-saver, preventing your attacks or defenses from failing. Some are one-shot, others permanent.

• AOE Heal: This heals you and all of your teammates. This is a one-shot tooln, but can single-handedly save your strike force on a planet. This tool will also heal you.This weapon requires the Diplomat 2 or Body Guard 3 badges.
• Cloaking Device: This makes you invisible at a heavy cost to your energy. Attacking anything will cancel the cloak. This isn't a one-shot tool, but has a long cooldown. This tool requires the Conquerer 3 or Colonist 3 badges.
• Shield: This prevents damage to your ship for a short while, but has a huge cooldown and energy cost, making it great in certain scenarios. Never underestimate the power of a good shield! This weapon requires the Conquerer 3 or Colonist 3 badges.
• Rally Call: This ability makes all your allies ships deal extra damage for a short while. Much like the Cloaking Device and Shield, it has a heavy energy cost, but it incredibly useful in the right situation.This weapon requires the Conquerer 3 or Colonist 3 badges.
• Energy and Repair Packs: These 4 packs restore your energy and heal you, respectively. The first pack in each series will heal you about halfway, the second will heal you all the way. These are one-shot items, but incredibly valuable, so keep a heavy stock of them. They require varying levels in the Missionista or Trader badges.
  

Having talked about all of the weapons, it is now time to talk about expanding. The easiest way to expand your empire, although easily the most dangerous, is that of outright invasion. This is accomplished by entering an enemy's planet's atmosphere, bombing their colonies into surrendering, and clicking the "Capture System" button. It's that easy! Unfortunately, while the base system is that easy, the actual execution is harder. You must deal with planetary garrisons, interplanetary reinforcements, and turrets. Also, a surrendering city will sometimes merely be destroyed, forcing you to rebuild the colony with your own materials.


Obviously, attacking an enemy planet will cause them to engage you in war! While at war with an empire, they will periodically attack your planets and attack you whenever you enter their controlled territory. Unlike normal combat, attacks inside a territory will merely damage you and the attacker at regular intervals until you are both dead. There's no control over weapons, positioning, or any of that. As far as ending a war, you can try giving the enemy a peace offering or using a happy ray. However, exterminating them is much easier. To do this, just capture or eliminate all enemy systems!

There's not much more to the combat beyond what has been said here. Obviously, higher level weapons consume more energy but do more damage, which should be offset by upgrades to your ship. It is highly recommended that you switch to WASD controls if you do lots of combat, however, as it is much easier to perform advanced maneuvers such as circle-strafing and bombing runs.

Stay tuned the rest of the week for our detailed strategies on Spore's complicated Space Stage. From trading, to diplomacy, to exploration, we've got you covered!