Ships have a friendly code. This code may trigger special actions. The friendly code also selects the ship's battle order, and is used for access control with matching friendly codes.
Each ship can perform one mission at a time. There are standard missions (those already offered by the original HOST program) as well as extended missions. See Missions for details.
A ship can have a primary enemy which is a standing order to attack units belonging to that race. Ships that do not have a primary enemy and not the Kill mission will not attack others, but they will defend themselves when attacked. In addition, you can set an empire-wide attack order for all your ships. See Order of Battle.
Ships have a movement order, consisting of a waypoint and a warp factor. The ship will attempt to move towards its waypoint at the given speed. You can move towards any point in space you wish: to a planet, or to a point in open space. The fuel required for the move depends on the distance covered, and the total mass of the ship. If a ship is towing another ship, the towee's mass affects the fuel consumption as well. The number of engines does not affect fuel consumption. Instead of specifying the target coordinates, you can also intercept another ship. Intercept is a mission, so you cannot cloak or tow or do other interesting things while intercepting. See Movement Formulas.
