Weapons are your primary way of dealing damage to enemy vessels in StarMade. They can be linked to a Secondary weapons system to modify their behavior and a Tertiary effects system to modify their damage type, as well as to a light emitting block to change their color.

There are currently 3 types of normal weapons, Cannons, Beams, and Missiles. They use Reactor Power to function, which you should learn how to use first before making weapons.
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Cannons are the simplest weapon in StarMade, firing a fast moving solid projectile that has no tracking abilities and cannot be shot down. They also cause a small amount of recoil on firing and knockback on hit. Cannons have the fastest base fire rate of any weapon, and using it as a secondary increases the rate of fire of weapons at the cost of individual damage per shot and range. Cannon's base offensive effect spread is



Basic cannons are a solid weapon that sports a good range, good rate of fire, and good DPS per block and mass, which is its most standout feature from other cannons.



Cannon/Cannon has high DPS, but its short range and low damage per shot hold it back in capital ship combat, where low thrust per block causes higher ranged weapons to excel, and heavy armor can greatly reduce the effectiveness of low damage shots. Cannon/Cannon is best used for point defense against missiles, both on turrets and in a manually aimed waffle grid on the main ship. At close range against unarmored, unshielded opponents, this manual point defense grid can shred ships to pieces.



Cannon/Beam has low DPS and rate of fire, but makes up for it with high damage per shot and long range. This is a weapon that can punch through armor, cut through systems, and come back out the armor on the other side. Being outranged and unable to catch up with a Cannon/Beam ship can be a death sentence.



Cannon/Missile has incredible damage output, but also has extremely short range. It's very difficult to use this weapon effectively and is likely best used with drone swarms.

Damage Beams fire a hitscan beam which spreads its damage burst out over "ticks." Damage Beams have similar ranges to Cannons, but they suffer from damage falloff at longer ranges, and have the worst base damage of the 3 weapon types. Past their Minimum Effective Range, damage will be reduced until it reaches their Max Effective Range Value at maximum range. Their very high accuracy allows them to keep the pressure on opponents even at high ranges and speeds, however. Damage Beam's base effect spread is



Base Damage Beam lacks both range and DPS to be effective. It has very poor performance compared to Cannons and Missiles.



Beam/Cannon is completely outclassed by Cannon/Cannon. At these short ranges, it's easy to land cannon shots, and Cannon/Cannon has much greater DPS and can also shoot down incoming missiles.



Beam/Beam has incredibly poor performance. The range is not worth the extremely poor damage. We will be coming back to this combo later, because it has some hidden potential.

Finally a beam with some power! Once one of the most powerful weapons in the game, Beam/Missile has been greatly nerfed. While still strong at close range, its range is very short, and it quickly runs out of steam due to beam falloff.



Due to the way StarMade calculates partial secondary effects interacts with beams, we can access a "secret" weapon combo with better stats.

This 65% combo, often colloquially referred to as "Sabre Beams," has better DPS and DPS per Mass than every other Beam combo except for Beam/Missile, while also having greater range than everything except Beam/100%Beam. While still outclassed in damage by Cannons and Missiles at long range, this combo can provide effective accurate pinning fire at long ranges to prevent shield regeneration and punch holes in hull.

Missiles are heavy hitting weapons that fire slow, potentially tracking, projectiles that explode on impact, but can be shot down by point defense Cannons. Missile HP is based on their damage, so the more damage the more HP. Missiles are the most diverse type of weapon, with every variety functioning differently. Missile's base effect spread is



Base Missiles have high damage, but they have short range and no lock on. The lack of lock on can be easily fixed by linking a Beam computer with 0 modules. This will give lock on without modifying the stats of the weapon.



Missile/Cannon fires out a heat seeking swarm. These missiles indiscriminately target any other entity in range, including neutral rocks, shops, and your own allies.



Missile/Beam trades the massive DPS of base Missile for greatly extended range. Missile/Beam still has sizable damage output and does heavy damage to systems. This is the go-to missile combo.



Missile/Missile fires a shield ignoring bomb that has no inherent velocity and instead inherits it from the ship that launches it. Actually hitting a moving target is nearly impossible due to the low velocity and lack of tracking. AI don't know how to use this weapon either. Due to the additional percentage power cost, it's impossible to have over 20,000 modules in the system, as they would take 100% of the reactor's power output no matter how large the reactor is. The need for at least a 5.0 thrust to mass ratio also encourages using smaller bomber designs. This weapon is most useful for attacking stations, which can't dodge it. Good luck getting in range to even hit anything with this without getting smoked by a turret, though. This is also the only weapon in the game that can deal damage to the ship that launched it.

Every Missile output costs 1 Missile from Missile Capacity to fire. Missile Capacity is increased by putting Missile Capacity Modules on the ship, with less and less Missile Capacity added per block. Once the first Missile is fired, Missile Capacity will start to reload, which is 10 seconds + 0.2 seconds per Missile Capacity. Your ship should have enough Missile Capacity to fire without needing to wait for the reload to finish, but having too much will waste mass and power consumption.


Due to the exponential number of blocks needed for higher capacities, missiles are generally not launched in huge volleys. Most common volley counts for Missile/Beam are 4 missiles with 16 capacity or 12 missiles with 48 capacity. It is impractical to have a volley size of 20 or larger, and impossible to have a volley size larger than 24.


16, 48, and 72 Missile Capacity compared.

Screenshots in this section are from the blockBehaviorConfig.xml file in your Starmade\Starmade\data\config folder and are subject to change.

Effects are offensive multipliers for weapons and defensive multipliers for shields, armor, and system blocks. There are 3 types- Kinetic, Heat, and EM.


Damage from weapons is fractionally distributed among the 3 types. This is expressed in a decimal, adding up to (roughly) 1. Each weapon type has a different base damage effect distribution, which can be further modified by tertiary effects. When linked as a tertiary to a weapons system, effect modules modify the damage types of the weapon.



If a cannon deals 1000 damage per shot, it will be divided up into 500 Kinetic damage, 166.6 Heat damage, and 333 EM damage.



If we add EM tertiary to our cannon, it will modify our effects values to

This means our 1000 damage cannon will now do 333.4 Kinetic damage, 0 Heat damage, and 666 EM damage.

When damage from weapons hits a target, that damage is reduced based on the defensive effect values of what it hits. Shields, Armor, and Systems all have different defensive effect values.


The defensive effect value is a percent reduction of the damage of only that damage type. If we hit the shields of a ship with a regular Cannon, the damage will be reduced as follows.

What if we use the EM Cannon instead?

By using effects based on our target's defenses, we can deal extra damage to them that normally would have been reduced. However, effects have a second useful feature- They weigh much less per block than regular weapons. While regular weapon modules weigh 1 mass per block, effects only weigh 0.1 mass per block. This allows you to make weapons of the same size much lighter.

If you read my guide on Chambers first, you may be wondering how the +50% [Effect] Armor effect of Armor Chambers works. It simply adds that value to the base defensive effects of armor blocks. So, with level 2 of all 3 armor chambers, armor block's defensive effect stats will be
This damage reduction is applied after armor thickness bonuses, not before.

Additional Guides to help you learn more about the game.

https://psteamcommunity.yuanyoumao.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3127087336
https://psteamcommunity.yuanyoumao.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3130328662
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