Secondary weapons were added to the game on October 10th, 2017
They were a direct upgrade from mining pods, the only secondary weapons obtainable to the player previously.
Secondary weapons can be bought with Crystals in Survival and Team mode, and found by destroying Asteroids in Invasion mode. Secondary weapons can really turn a game on its head, and tend to be very explosive.
When secondary weapons are obtained, they go in slots on the right side of the screen. What tier Ship you have determines how many slots you have. Buying secondary weapons really depends what mode you are in. Currently, there are only two modes they can be bought in, survival and Team Mode. In survival, you need full shields to access the shop. Press 'w' while your shield is full and it will pop up. With it, you can convert your crystals to credits. You buy secondary weapons with these credits. In team mode, you simply go in to your station. The weapons page will pop up, and converting crystals to credits upgrades your station. Buying weapons with your credits doesn't take crystals away from your station.
Dying will not affect the amount of credits you have. It will however make you lose any secondary weapons you have bought.
Types
There are currently three types of secondary weapons: Pods, propelled weapons, and mines. Propelled explosives and mines are deployed by pressing 'alt'.
Pods:
Pods are small objects that orbit your ship and serve different kinds of functions. They will just sit there in space while not serving their function unless you are in combat or mining, depending on the use of the pod. They tend to stay near the back of your ship, especially while you are moving. Pods are destroyable. They do not drop anything when they are destroyed. There are currently three kinds of pods.
Mining Pods: These pods always stay near the back of your ship, and face forward with your ship. When your ship fire, they fire, and make your damage per second go up a lot and make mining a lot easier. They do not damage other ships, so they are useless in combat, except maybe as tiny little weak shields at the back of your ship. They are common and helpful in Team Mode, especially while trying to upgrade the station.
Attack Pods: Attack pods are similar to mining pods. They stay near the back of your ship, and fire lasers, but that is where the similarities stop. The sole purpose of attack pods is to attack other ships. They will fire at any enemy ships in range, no matter if you are aiming or firing at the enemy ship. having a bunch of these will not help people teaming with you in Survival Mode.
Defense Pods: Defense pods are very different from the first two. They hover around your ship, and as soon as they register an enemy ship shooting at you, they will move in between you and the other ship, blocking their shots, and not yours. Defense pods have more health than other pods, and they will not protect you from running into asteroids. Explosive damage will go through them, so if your defense pod is hit by a rocket, missile, or torpedo, you will be affected by it, but not as bad as being directly hit. Defense pods only sense an enemy and block when they are close enough, so it is possible to shoot people and be hit when you are far apart. If you ram into someone with defense pods, your ship's front will go through their defense pods, allowing you to shoot them for a brief second.
It takes 120 gems to buy one pod. If a ship is destroyed while its pods are active, they drop and are collectable.
Propelled Weapons
There are also three kinds of propelled weapons, namely rockets, missiles, and torpedos. You have to launch them from your ship by pressing 'alt'. If you have multiple loaded, you can switch between them using the scroll wheel. They also do knockback depending on their damage. These weapons also have a cool down time. Rockets have the smallest, missiles the largest, and seeing how their is only one torpedo per pack, they have no cool down. This can be gotten around if you have multiple packs by using the scroll wheel to switch between loaded weapons.
Based on their speed, these weapons will loosely follow enemy ships.
Rockets: These are the fastest but also the weakest propelled weapon. They do 50 damage, and you buy them in packs of 4. They cost 200 credits.
Missiles: These do 150 damage, they come on packs of 2, and cost 300 credits.
Torpedos: These things are extremely slow, you can only buy one at a time, and do 500 damage. You buy one for 750 credits. Use these wisely, because at range it is easy to miss. However, they do such extreme splash that even hitting an astroid near a player will do extreme damage to them. Torpedos are useful for destroying large groups of people in team mode.
Mines
Mines are stationary secondaries in Starblast.io. There are currently 2 types of mines you can purchase: Space mines and Heavy mines. Space mines cost 250 credits, and come in packs of 8. Each space mine does 50 damage per mine. They have a relatively small blast radius, due to their lower damage. Heavy mines, however, do 200 damage per mine, and they cost 500 credits for 4 heavy mines. Having 4x the damage of space mines, heavy mines have a much larger blast radius, and are harder to shoot down as well.It is useful to place mines behind you when running from someone, as the mine's blast will knock your opponent back and damage them.
Capacity:
Each tier can only hold a limited amount of secondary weapons. This mirrors the tier number, with the lone exception being tier 7.
| Tier | Capacity |
|---|---|
| Tier 1 | 1 Capacity |
| Tier 2 | 2 Capacity |
| Tier 3 | 3 Capacity |
| Tier 4 | 4 Capacity |
| Tier 5 | 5 Capacity |
| Tier 6 | 6 Capacity |
| Tier 7 | 6 Capacity |