# Neutral (race 0)

**Identity:** the universally available pool. Every race fields these alongside
its own hulls, so neutral stats set the floor for all six races at once. It is
also where the entire **Special (class 0) / Strafez** line lives — the fez and
dummy toolkit that drives the stack-positioning meta.

**Verdict: two rosters in one.** The conventional line (`C.`, `E.`, `F.`) is the
weakest material in the game. The Special line contains the **two highest-dpt
neutral hulls**, both well above the global median. An earlier version of this
file called Neutral "bottom-ranked on every axis"; that was an artefact of a
`class >= 1` filter that excluded all six Special hulls.

| | Median (with Special) | vs global |
|---|---|---|
| ppt | 29,760 | 39,060 |
| dpt | 12,461 | 22,694 |
| dmg/1kPR | 479 | 552 |
| EHP/1kPR | 1,745 | 1,335 |

Still the weakest race on median, but the tail matters more than the median
here — nobody fields the median neutral hull.

## Roster

Sorted by dpt. Special hulls marked **\***. Figures computed on the full
97-hull buildable pool including Special.

| Ship | Class | PR | BR | ppt | dpt | dmg/1kPR | EHP/1kPR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| **\* Small Strafez Runner** | Special | 115 | 400 | 46,000 | **44,185** | 961 | 9 |
| **\* Large Strafez Runner** | Special | 435 | 100 | 43,500 | **38,421** | 883 | 4 |
| Light fighter-drone | Fighter | 5 | 7,000 | 35,000 | 34,875 | 996 | 962 |
| **\* Strafez Queen** | Special | 896 | 40 | 35,840 | 26,895 | 750 | 31 |
| **\* Strafez King** | Special | 890 | 50 | 44,500 | 26,415 | 594 | 304 |
| E.Aurora | Fighter | 33 | 900 | 29,700 | 18,622 | 627 | 1,038 |
| E.Pulsar | Destroyer | 1,376 | 20 | 27,520 | 18,376 | 668 | 600 |
| F.Broadsword | Destroyer | 1,116 | 25 | 27,900 | 17,975 | 644 | 295 |
| C.Leo | Cruiser | 3,006 | 10 | 30,060 | 12,461 | 415 | 1,461 |
| F.Sword | Destroyer | 1,152 | 20 | 23,040 | 11,048 | 479 | 1,745 |
| E.Nova | Frigate | 850 | 30 | 25,500 | 10,023 | 393 | 1,841 |
| F.Spear | Cruiser | 1,512 | 24 | 36,288 | 8,838 | 244 | 2,660 |
| F.Axe | Frigate | 178 | 130 | 23,140 | 7,779 | 336 | 2,824 |
| C.Taurus | Destroyer | 1,488 | 20 | 29,760 | 7,668 | 258 | 2,702 |
| C.Cancer | Cruiser | 1,804 | 16 | 28,864 | 5,580 | 193 | 3,352 |
| C.Gemini | Frigate | 243 | 40 | 9,720 | 2,112 | 217 | 4,137 |
| C.Aries | Corvette | 51 | 100 | 5,100 | 1,993 | 391 | 3,942 |
| **\* Small Strafez Fodder** | Special | 55 | 800 | 44,000 | — | unarmed | 3,396 |
| **\* Large Strafez Fodder** | Special | 205 | 180 | 36,900 | — | unarmed | 3,644 |

## The Special line

Full mechanics in [Combat-Mechanics.md](Combat-Mechanics.md) §3. In short:

- **Runners, Queen, King** are armed longrange hulls with 1–200 hull. They hit
  hard per turn and evaporate to anything that reaches them.
- **Small / Large Strafez Fodder** are unarmed, high-hull, high-BR padding — the
  canonical dummy stacks.
- All six take **195% from kinetic** (Runners and Queen) and near-nothing from
  missile and chem, so kinetic is the universal answer. Strafez King is the
  exception at 115% from both energy and kinetic.

Note the class label is **Special**, and the display name omits it (the resolver
only appends the class when `class > 0`) — battle logs read "Strafez Queen".

## The C-class problem

`C.Aries` and `C.Gemini` hold the two worst ppt and dpt figures in the entire
game, by roughly a factor of two over the next worst.

| | C.Aries | C.Gemini | Global median |
|---|---|---|---|
| ppt | **5,100** | 9,720 | 39,060 |
| dpt | **1,993** | 2,112 | 22,694 |
| Hours to 100M PR | **27.2** | 14.3 | ~4.3 |

C.Aries is simultaneously **the most-fielded ship in the game** (34.2M attacker
units, 97.0M defender units across the battle sample) and the slowest thing in
it to build. Both are true because it is an *accumulation*, not a build —
nobody spends 27 hours producing it. At a fixed PR checkpoint its 3,942 EHP per
1k PR and 51 PR granularity make it excellent filler.

The two lenses disagree sharply here, and an early draft reached for a nerf on
the fixed-PR reading alone. **The build-rate reading says C.Aries is
under-powered, not over-powered.**

## Notes

- The 13 `UW.*` hulls (Endsieg, Erster Sieg, Zweiter Sieg, Vergessener Sieg)
  have **BR 0** and cannot be built by anyone. Excluded throughout.
- **A neutral buff is not race-neutral.** It was tempting to assume that, since
  everyone fields them, changing neutrals shifts the floor without shifting
  race-vs-race balance. Simulation says otherwise: buffing six neutral hulls
  moved Viral **+8.5** at equal PR while Marauder *lost* 5.8. Races lean on the
  neutral pool in inverse proportion to the strength of their own roster, so
  neutral buffs transfer power to whoever has the weakest natives. Neutrals are
  the most dangerous place to make changes, not the safest.
- Adding the Special hulls to the pool tightened **equal-PR** race spread from
  sd 9.3 to 6.2 — the fez line is a genuine equaliser, available to everyone.