UltraCorps Glossary
A list of commonly-used terms in the game, both "official" and player-created slang.AT - Attacks. A unit stat: the number of attacks that unit makes in a turn. Details here.
Autobuild - Automatic queuing of units for production, without player orders, to keep inactive worlds from being too easy to conquer. Can apply to homeworlds or Nobody worlds. Details here.
Auto Fleet - A fleet that shuttles back and forth between two worlds automatically, picking up and dropping off the cargo you assign at each end of the run. A great time-saver. Details here.
Badge - An achievement award. Some are for individual games; some become part of the player's permanent profile. Details here.
Bats - The Mah-Tog race.
Bug - One of the "giant cyborg insect" units - a C.R. Org or C.R. Org II.
Bot - Any version of the MegaBot unit.
CA - Carry. A unit stat. If CA is positive, the unit can travel in space and can carry this much "weight" of non-space-traveling units. If CA is negative, the unit cannot travel in space by itself and this negative CA is the unit's "weight." If CA is 0, the unit can travel in space but cannot carry other units. Details here.
Capital unit or capital ship - A general term for very powerful units which require a lot of CPX to build. They are in a separate category on the license purchase page.
CPX - Complexity. A unit stat: how many Population it takes to build the unit. Details here.
DF - Defense. A unit stat: the % chance, for any attack that hits the unit, that the attack will be deflected. Details here.
Economy - A system for changing unit prices, turn by turn, so that popular units increase in price and unpopular ones drop in price. Not all games use the economy; in some games, prices are fixed. Details here.
EI - A world stat: the number of Pop added to that world every turn. Details here.
Factory world - A world with a high population and (probably) a variety of important licenses. Feeder worlds (below) send Ultranium there, and usually population too, allowing for efficient central production of large units. Organizing your empire into factories and feeders is an important part of the game.
Fast carry - Transport units with a speed of 100 or more: the TK PsiHauler and the Thirus All-Purpose Saucer. Technically, the Scan-O-Matic 80 is also fast carry, but it has a CA of only 1 . . .
Feeder world - A world that ships its Ultranium and/or population to a >b>factory world, rather than using them to produce units locally.
Fighter - Any small combat unit that can travel between worlds on its own.
Fighter rolling - A late-game tactic used especially in an uncontested area of Nobody or weakly defended worlds. Capture a world, produce nothing but fighters fast enough to reach the next world, repeat.
FP - Firepower. A unit stat; also applies to fleets, worlds, and empires. Firepower is an approximation of battle effectiveness. It does not take in X-factors and is not strictly additive. It is intended as a quick guideline, especially for new players. Details here.
Fodder - From "cannon fodder." A general term for units whose main tactical role is to draw fire away from vulnerable units or capital ships. Without fodder, even the most powerful units may be lost to a lucky hit. With fodder, it takes a VERY lucky hit.
Gift fleet - A fleet sent as a present to another player or to stiffen the defense of a Nobody world. Details here.
Grid units - The measure of distance in UltraCorps, more generally stated as just "units."
Hits - An imaginary unit stat, useful in predicting battle results. Multiplying OF by AT gives the expected number of hits the unit will inflict in a combat round. If your hits exceeds the defender's soak, you can expect to wipe out most of the fleet in one round (though a few stragglers will usually survive). If it's half the soak, then you can expect to kill half the fleet, and so on.
License - The factory, training center, or other production facility that lets you build a given type of unit. Details here.
Lock - In games with an economy, orders for units can be "locked in" at the current price, and then you "have a lock" on that unit even if the price goes up. Details here.
MAC - Multi-Account Cheater. Details here.
Mek - The WarMek unit. Cannon fodder.
Monk - The Zenrin War Monk unit or any of its upgrades. The Zenrin v1 is cannon fodder. The v4 is scary. See also scanner monk.
NAP - Non-Aggression Pact. Basic diplomacy: an agreement that players will not attack each other.
Nobody - The generic owner of all worlds that don't belong to a player. A "Nobody world" is an unowned world. Shown in yellow on the map. Details here.
Obdeck - The Observation Deck, where players can view games they are not in.
OF - Offense. A unit stat: the % chance, for any attack the unit makes, that that attack will hit. Details here.
Org - can refer to either of two unit types, the C.R. Org or the C.R. Org II.
PD - Population Damage. A unit stat: 10 times the number of enemy population killed by this unit every combat round that it fires. (Why 10 times? To avoid putting a decimal point in a unit stat.) Some units have no PD; some are unselective and have a LOT of PD. Details here.
Pop - Population. Your work force. Details here.
PUB Game - A "Private Universe Battle," owned by a player, for two to six empires, or up to 12 for Elite subscribers. Details here.
RER - A world stat: the number of Ult added to that world every turn. Details here.
Rim surfing - A strategy of moving to the edge of the galaxy to prey on late-starting players. Very effective in version 1.0, especially when combined with fighter rolling. Setup changes in later versions of the game have rendered rim surfing pointless. We think.
RTFM - Read The Friendly Manual. What your fellow players may say in response to a question which they feel is clearly covered in the rules.
Scanner Monk - A Zenrin War Monk unit or any of its upgrades, riding on a Scan-O-Matic 80. The combined unit has a SP of 300. A Zenrin v1 on a scanner is still cannon fodder, but very fast, and can be used to pick off an undefended world. A Zenrin Master v4 on a scanner can ruin your day from 300 units away.
Soak - An imaginary unit stat, useful in predicting battle results. A unit's soak is the number of hits it takes, on the average, to kill it. A unit with DF 50, for instance, has a 50% chance of being killed by each hit it takes, so its soak is 2. A unit with DF 99 takes, on the average, 100 hits to kill it, so its soak is 100. For fleets of moderate size and uniform composition, total soak is a pretty good indicator of how many shots it will take to kill most of the fleet. Big fleets, and fleets with some super-high-DF units, can be tougher.
SP - Speed. A unit stat: the number of units each turn the unit can travel in space. (Yes, that sentence uses unit in two senses.) A unit with SP 0 cannot travel in space and must be carried. Details here.
Sludge - in the version 1.0 story background, the bad guys who we never see. Heh. Someday you will see them, and you will FEAR.
Sludge Spawn - In version 1.0 of the game, a player race that had nothing to do with the Sludge. Retired, because the coincidence of names was confusing and the Sludge Spawn setup was poor anyway. When we create a Sludge scenario, we'll put some Sludge Spawn in it.
SOG or Soggie - a Sentinel of Garsasso.
Spawn - (1) The automatic creation of new units on a world, at no cost to the owner. Currently, only two kinds of unit are spawned: Arachnon-conquered worlds spawn Scuttlers, and Nozama Queens spawn Nozama Fighters. (2) See Sludge Spawn.
Tick - the end of each turn. The period when players can no longer give commands and the computer process all commands given for the turn. Details here.
Ult - Ultranium. Money! Details here.
Unit - (1) The measure of distance on the UltraCorps map. (2) Anything you can build.
Upgrade - To "upgrade" a unit is to turn it into an improved version by building an upgrader item. "Upgrade" as a noun can refer to an upgraded unit ("The N-class Battlestation v3 is the final upgrade of the series."). Details here.
Upgrader - An item, useless on its own, which combines with a unit and upgrades it to a better version. Details here.
Version 1.0 - The 1990s version of the game, as it appeared on the Microsoft Zone and from the original developer, VR-1. Historical details here.
VR-1 - The original developer of UltraCorps. No longer in business. Historical details here.
X-factors - Special combat rules - advantages or penalties - that apply to particular units. Details here.
Zero lock - Used in games with an economy. The technique of leaving just enough Ult or Pop on a world so that production ends with a unit exactly finished. On the next turn, if you decide to cancel the order, you don't have to throw away a partly finished unit. The term is also used for ending a turn's production with a new large order barely started. As long as 1 Ult and 1 Pop are spent on an order, its price is locked in. On the next turn, you can let the order proceed if the price went up, or cancel it and re-place it if the price has gone down.
