# Marauder (race 2)

**Identity:** the efficiency race. Best damage per PR in the game (median 717,
next is Viral at 618) bought with the worst durability per PR (1,092, dead last)
and a below-average build economy. Six of its fourteen hulls are Elite
archetype — double any other race — and it has **no Growth engines at all**.

**Verdict: solid on both lenses.** With Special hulls in the pool Marauder reads
**101.3 at equal PR and 105.7 at equal turns** (average 103.5, 3rd). It reaches
about 80M PR from 2,500 turns against Guardian's ~114M, so it is still the
slowest accumulator — but its own low-PR line converts turns into *combat power*
efficiently enough that the equal-turn penalty largely washes out.

> **Corrected.** An earlier draft had Marauder 2nd at equal PR (104.4) and 5th
> at equal turns (81.5), i.e. "strong at a bracket, weak over time". That came
> from a pool excluding the six Special/Strafez hulls. With them included the
> equal-turn weakness mostly disappears.

| | Median | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| ppt | 38,016 | 6 / 7 |
| dpt | 27,424 | 3 / 7 |
| dmg/1kPR | **717** | **1 / 7** |
| EHP/1kPR | 1,092 | 7 / 7 |
| bank90 | 3.42M PR | 6 / 7 |

## Roster

| Ship | Archetype | Unit PR | BR | ppt | dpt | dmg/1kPR | EHP/1kPR | E/K/M/C |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Angel | Elite | 27,847 | 3 | 83,541 | **67,739** | 811 | 753 | 0/8400/18000/0 |
| Pyth | Elite | 22,527 | 3 | 67,581 | 54,594 | 808 | 1,040 | 7500/7500/5000/0 |
| Thresher | Elite | 12,181 | 5 | 60,905 | 47,763 | 784 | 817 | 7500/1250/1250/0 |
| Eel | Elite | 60 | 700 | 42,000 | 30,127 | 717 | 857 | 0/25/25/0 |
| Manta | Elite | 512 | 85 | 43,520 | 29,906 | 687 | 1,902 | 192/0/192/0 |
| D.Ray | Elite | 317 | 75 | 23,775 | 29,729 | **1,250** | 487 | 110/10/330/0 |
| D.Hammerhead | Glass cannon | 3,612 | 8 | 28,896 | 27,424 | 949 | 847 | 0/1500/2500/0 |
| D.Sting | Line | 1,611 | 18 | 28,998 | 19,808 | 683 | 1,367 | 0/475/475/300 |
| D.Pike | Glass cannon | 1,276 | 20 | 25,520 | 18,626 | 730 | 796 | 500/500/0/0 |
| Tiger | Glass cannon | 1,496 | 18 | 26,928 | 18,267 | 678 | 1,092 | 0/0/1200/0 |
| Bullhead | Line | 6,336 | 6 | 38,016 | 17,549 | 462 | 1,201 | 1250/0/2000/0 |
| Barracuda | Line | 2,272 | 18 | 40,896 | 13,810 | 338 | 1,397 | 600/200/0/0 |
| Piranha | Wall | 379 | 100 | 37,900 | 11,175 | 295 | 1,866 | 60/60/0/0 |
| Shark | Wall | 2,052 | 16 | 32,832 | 7,450 | 227 | 3,124 | 250/250/0/0 |

## Angel is the best hull in the game on tempo

**Angel has the highest dpt of any player ship at 67,739** — 8% clear of second
place (M.Lakko, 64,111) — while also carrying 811 damage per PR and 83,541 ppt.
It is simultaneously top-tier at a fixed bracket and top-tier per turn spent,
which almost nothing else manages.

Pyth (54,594) and Thresher (47,763) sit 3rd and 7th on the same measure. The
Marauder battleship/cruiser tier is the strongest concentration of tempo in the
game and is the reason Marauder's ppt disadvantage does not sink it entirely.

## The `D.` line is doubly protected

Marauder's four `D.` hulls — D.Ray, D.Hammerhead, D.Pike, D.Sting — sit in two
protection systems at once:

- **`capture = −100`** — capture-immune. A Collective `H.*` fleet cannot take
  them off your losses.
- **Name-substring block** — not reverse-engineerable by Viral.

Everything else Marauder builds (Angel, Pyth, Thresher, Tiger, Manta, Eel …) is
`capture = 0`, so it is both reverse-eligible **and** capturable. Marauder is one
of only three races whose hulls can be captured at all, so the non-`D.` line
pays a real tax when trading with Collective or Viral that Guardian and Neutral
fleets never pay. See [Combat-Mechanics.md](Combat-Mechanics.md) §4.

The name block removes the race's two highest damage-per-PR ships (D.Ray 1,250
and D.Hammerhead 949) from Viral's reach.

The ten hulls Viral *can* take include Angel, Pyth, Thresher, Tiger and Manta —
which is why Marauder is Viral's most-raided donor. See
[5-Viral.md](5-Viral.md).

## Notable

- **D.Ray** has the highest damage per PR in the game after Tourmaline (1,250 vs
  1,301) on 487 EHP per PR — the second-most fragile hull in the roster. At 317
  PR and BR 75 it is a pure attrition trade: it will die, and it will take more
  than it cost with it.
- **Shark and Piranha** are the race's only Walls and both are badly off-profile
  — Shark's 227 damage per PR is 4th-worst in the game. In a race whose entire
  identity is damage efficiency they read as filler that Marauder does not need,
  since neutral Walls do the same job.
- **Marauder has no Growth engine hull at all.** Every other race except Neutral
  has at least one. This is the mechanical root of its equal-turn weakness: it
  has no way to convert turns into PR quickly, only into damage.
- Earlier balance drafts nerfed Tiger and Manta on the strength of observed
  win-lift. Both look far less exceptional once build rate is included — Tiger's
  ppt (26,928) is well below the roster median and its dpt (18,267) is
  unremarkable. See `../Ship-Balance-Analysis.md`.