OUT TO THE BLACK

Every ship in Out to the Black carries three weapons in a single weapon slot. You cycle between them with W. The current weapon is shown in the HUD's top-right corner. Each weapon has a role; none is strictly better than the others.

• Bullets — your primary damage weapon. Hits ships and asteroids. Scaled by your Weapon Damage and Bullet Speed stats.
• Harpoon — a rope-and-hook. Doesn't deal damage directly, but unlocks your faction's signature ability (ARREST, LOOT, or — for the Bone Collector AI — EAT). Also used to tow asteroids and ships.
• Mining Laser — a continuous beam. Strips materials and fuel from asteroids; doesn't work on ships.

You can't fire two weapons at the same time. The cycle costs no fuel, but the moment you spend switching is a moment you're not shooting. Experienced pilots commit to one weapon for the duration of an engagement and accept the tradeoffs.

Bullets are the workhorse. They fire toward your mouse cursor (or toward your facing direction on touch), travel in a straight line, and damage anything they hit. The first ten levels of your ship are essentially "learn to aim bullets" — it's the fundamental skill.

• Damage scales with your Weapon Damage stat. A level-1 ship does small chip damage; a level-30 ship with Weapon Damage maxed deletes other level-30 ships in seconds.
• Bullet Speed affects how fast the projectile travels. Higher speed means easier hits at long range and harder targets to dodge. At low Bullet Speed, leading the target by a ship-length-and-a-half is normal; at high speed, lead is almost nothing.
• Bullet lifetime is short. They expire after about a second of flight, so long-range sniping isn't possible — you need to close to medium range to land hits.
• Asteroids block bullets. Use cover. A skilled pilot will weave behind a tier-5 rock to break line-of-sight while reloading shield.

Pro tip: Bullets hit asteroids too. If your bullets are eating into a tier-1 rock you're trying to mine, switch to mining laser. Bullets are bad at extraction.

The harpoon fires a single rope-and-hook projectile. When it sticks to a target — ship or asteroid — the rope tensions and you're tethered until either party breaks the line. Each faction's harpoon does something different when it sticks to an enemy ship:

• Concordium — ARREST. Target's engine and weapons lock down for 7 seconds. Police strobe rotates around them.
• Unbound — LOOT. Target's materials drain into your hold at 10% of their cargo capacity per second.
• Bone Collectors — EAT (AI only). Drains target's health directly, bypassing shields.
• Outlaws — LOOT. Same drain as Unbound, but everything you collect is yours alone.

The harpoon also attaches to asteroids. This is how you start the build process: harpoon a tier-1+ rock, hit Build, and the asteroid becomes your faction's claim. Larger asteroids can be towed under harpoon tension — useful for moving rocks into a defensive line or out of an enemy's mining circuit.

Harpoons break when the tension exceeds the rope's strength. Maxing out your engine power against the tether will snap it. So will flying behind cover (the rope can't curve through solid asteroids).

The harpoon's biggest weakness: while tethered, you can't fire bullets. The pilot who harpoons first is committing to that engagement. Skilled fighters use the harpoon as the opening move of a fight, not the response to one.

The mining laser is a continuous beam that locks onto an asteroid in front of you. Aim, hold fire, and the beam strips material and fuel into your hold for as long as you maintain contact.

It's a non-combat weapon in the sense that it doesn't damage ships. Pointing it at an enemy does nothing. But the mining laser is essential for the economic side of the game — you can't build, you can't refuel, and you can't level fast without it. See the Mining & Economy page for the full breakdown.

Why mention it on a combat page? Two reasons. First: when an enemy attacks mid-mining, you have to drop the laser, cycle to bullets, and engage — that transition is awkward and gets pilots killed. Practice the cycle. Second: the mining laser is a tell. If you see an enemy with a green beam attached to a rock, they're not paying full attention. That's the moment to close.

The single most important mechanic in Out to the Black combat is the connection between fuel and shields. They are linked. You cannot understand survival without understanding this loop.

• Shields regenerate from fuel. Every second your shield is below max, the regen process converts fuel into shield. No fuel = no regen = your shields stay broken.
• Fuel also powers your engines. Thrusting costs fuel. The harder you fly, the faster you drain.
• This means every fight is a fuel-budget fight. A pilot with full fuel and depleted shields recovers quickly. A pilot with empty fuel and depleted shields is a wreck waiting to happen.

The Shield Reboot

A massive single hit — anything that takes more than about a third of your max shield in one instant — triggers a 5-second shield reboot. The HUD flickers red. During the reboot, your shield is offline regardless of how much fuel you have. You are paper until the reboot ends. A second hit during reboot goes straight into hull, and hull damage doesn't regen at all (until you level up the Health Regeneration stat).

Disengage during the reboot. Every. Single. Time. Even if you're winning the fight 80/20 — that 5-second window is when the 20% comes back to kill you.

The Fuel Starvation Penalty

When fuel drops to zero, two things happen at the same time: your engine stops responding, and your shield stops regenerating. After five additional seconds, fuel starvation begins eating your hull at a slow but constant rate. You are drifting in a coffin.

The fix is to mine — even one second of mining laser contact on a tier-1 rock will drop enough fuel to restart shields. But you have to be in mining range, and you have to point at an asteroid, both of which are hard when your engines aren't responding.

Pro tip: Watch the forward-thrust slider. When fuel gets low, the slider glows red as a warning before zero. That's your cue to disengage, not to push harder.

Asteroids deal damage when you ram them. The damage formula is brutally simple: damage = mass × relative speed. A small (tier-1) asteroid at low speed barely scratches your shields. A tier-9 asteroid at high speed will one-shot you.

The implication: slow down when entering rock fields. Coasting through at low velocity is safe. Plowing through at full thrust is suicide. Most new players learn this the hard way during their first session.

Asteroids deal damage to enemies too, including their own faction's structures. A heavy enough asteroid being towed under harpoon tension into an enemy base will destroy the structure before the asteroid stops. Some pilots specialize in this — they're called "rock truckers." Towing a tier-8 rock through a Concordium patrol formation is a viable opening move.

Claimed asteroids are protected from fragmentation. Bullets and lasers can damage them, but they won't shatter into smaller pieces. This is important when you've built a base on a tier-5 rock — an attacker can't simply break the rock apart to neutralize your turrets.

Every 90 seconds, the top scorer in the galaxy becomes the Hit List Target. A gold ring marks their position on the galaxy map, visible to every ship in the field. Killing the hit-list target earns double XP.

If you're the target, every faction wants you dead — including your own teammates, since hit-list kills don't care about faction loyalty. The hit list is the great equalizer. The leaderboard's top player has the biggest reward on their head, which slows their continued climb and gives mid-tier players a route to catch up.

If you're the target: hide. Move to a low-density part of the galaxy. Don't fight unless you have to. The crown is heavy. After about 90 seconds (or after you die), the target rotates to the new top scorer.

If you're hunting the target: the gold ring shows their last-known position. They will be running. Cut off escape routes. Don't engage until you have advantage — they likely have full shields, full fuel, and high level, otherwise they wouldn't be the top scorer.

Death in Out to the Black is not the end. The galaxy is persistent. Your character — name, level, stats, structures — survives. What you lose is your immediate inventory and your in-progress mining/combat momentum.

• You drop 50% of your fuel and 50% of your materials at the location you died. Anyone can scoop them.
• Your structures stay built on their claimed asteroids. They remain operational while you're respawned and offline.
• Your stats persist. Level, XP, allocated ability points — all retained. You respawn at full health and shield with the same loadout.
• You choose a faction on respawn. Stay with your current side or switch. Switching destroys all your structures on the old faction.

The death drop is a real economic loss. If you were mining a profitable circuit, you've just paid 50% of that run to the player who killed you (or to whoever scavenges next). High-value pilots think hard about whether each fight is worth the potential drop.

• Factions — what your harpoon does depends on which side you're flying for
• Leveling & Stats — which stats matter most for combat
• Galaxy Events — how gravity storms and Blood Moon purges affect fights
• Survival Tips — small habits that keep you alive