Glossary / Commonly used terms
This page lists commonly used terms and abbreviations used in the ES source-code and ES developer community.
| Term |
In-game meaning |
| Carried Ship |
Ship typically of a small class like Fighter or Drone that can be carried by another (larger) ship. |
| Carrier |
Ship typically of a larger class that can carry one or more (smaller) ships. |
| Depreciation |
The loss of value (in selling costs) over time of outfits and ships. |
| Deploy |
Activity where a carried ship leaves its carrier to fly independently. |
| Depart |
Start of an activity for leaving a planet by ship. Can be interrupted if there are reasons not to leave yet. |
| Launch |
Activity where a ship leaves a planet. |
| Recall |
Order from a flagship to carried ships in its fleet to return to their carriers. |
| Return |
Activity where a carried ship returns to its carrier. |
| Abbreviation |
Non-abbreviated |
| Cap |
Short for capturing. |
| Combat Rating |
A sort of reputation that measures your combat experience. Influences missions offered and which planets you can demand tribute from. |
| DPS |
Damage per Second. |
| Escort |
Can refer to either ships that are part of the player's fleet, or ships that are a part of a mission and follow the player. |
| Farming |
Taking some repeated action over a length of time in order to achieve a goal (e.g. obtaining a large number of some outfit, credits, or reputation). |
| <first> <last> |
The player character. (See text replacements) |
| FW |
Free Worlds. |
| Kiting |
Maneuvering such that you can attack your enemy while they cannot attack you. |
| Minmax |
Minimizing undesired stats or attributes while maximizing desired stats or attributes. |
| Piracy Threat |
How attractive your fleet is to raids by pirates, increased by how much cargo space you have and decreased by the total DPS of your fleet. |
| Plugin |
A collection of text files and possibly images and sounds used for expanding or modifying the base game. (See the creating plugins page) |
| RNG |
Random Number Generator. Abbreviation usually used in contexts where luck is needed to accomplish something (like capturing a ship with low odds.) |
| Save scumming |
Repeatedly reloading a save file until achieving the desired results. |
| Tiers |
A non-linear measure of strength used to compare factions. (See the story ideas page.) |
| Tribute |
Dominating a world to receive a daily amount of credits from them. |
| WS |
World-Ship. |