The main use of an assault pod is to land troops on a planet`s surface to set up new ground base or to reinforce an existing base. This is usually done after star ships have clear the sky over the planet of any enemy threats.

The assault pod is three times more difficult for scanners to detect than other pods due to its special stealth design. It can be used to board and take over enemy ships, but doing so is very risky. The pod can not defend itself from enemy weapons fire and has no armor or shielding. If it is attempting to board an enemy ship you better be sure that the target ship has no working weapons or the assault pod will be destroyed by even the weakest weapon.

The construction pod carries metals, money and ship plans. These are all the things that are needed to build a new ship. Because all the cargo types that the construction pod carries may also be carried by a star ship you can transfer any of it to your ship directly from the pod. The pod will transfer as much as possible, until all of the selected item has been transferred or the ship has no more cargo room.

If a pod attempts to dock with a ship, but the dock fails the pod will transfer its cargo to the ship anyway if the transfer control switch is on. The plans will only be transferred to the ship the pod is docked with if the ship`s data bank is empty.

Life pods are used to move your colonists, crew, troops and high guard rangers between planets. The personnel can be frozen to reduce pod mass. Life pods can also be used to transport enemy prisoners from planet to planet.

If you capture an enemy life pod you can command the pod to drop into one of your bases, making them your new prisoners.

The outfit pod holds all the parts a ship can have, including weapons, engines, armor, shields, and generators. Used to refit ships with better parts or just transports the parts to another base.

The outfit pod is divided into two parts, the old parts area and the new parts area. When you upgrade a ship the parts that are in the new parts area will be placed on the ship. The old parts from the ship will be placed in the pod`s old parts storage area.

To use you need to dock the pod to the target ship for outfitting to work. This may seem to rule out outfitting for ships without pod bays. However if you set the pod to Dock with the target ship, it does dock momentarily and then undocks before Host finishes its run. So to Refit a ship, use the "Dock With [target ship]" and "Upgrade Ship" buttons on the Outfit pod. You must also switch on "Transfer To Ship" in Pod Command/Main.

Collection of wreckage that is being held together by an energy field so that it can be towed or moved around in a ship`s cargo bay. If the salvage switch is turned on the wreckage will be transformed into an outfit pod, a resupply pod, and a construction pod.

Once the pod is captured the pod should have a "Salvage" switch: the following turn you will get some new goodies. A captured pod will automatically try to dock with the ship that captured it.

Pods Pads are base structures that can send pods into space at a cost of 25 mc each. The speed that a pod travels varies from race to race. A pod can be launched at any target object and will travel to the (X,Y) of where the object was at the time of launch. The course of a pod can not be changed once the pod has been launched. The pod will not change course if the object it was launched at moves. Pods are easy targets for enemy ships to pick off.

You can choose to have the pod simply go into orbit around the planet it was launched from and wait to be picked up by a friendly ship.

Once the Launch Pod button has been pushed you can cancel the launch order from the pending orders window.

Does not tie up ships or use fuel. Can be done automatically by Ministers, saving much time.

Slow (depends on race but typically 20 light years / turn unless you use Exotic Techs)

Targeting info: enemies can see where they are going to (your homeworld?) or coming from

Lone pods are quite easy to capture, so do not fling 400,000 colonists into space in a free pod!

Sometimes useful when capturing a pod in a hit-and-run raid.

Many ships do not have the Tow Power to drag a full (1000kT) Pod. (You can "carbon freeze" Life Pods so they are one quarter the mass.)

Burns lots of fuel.

Requires ships messing about with Intercepts or other rendezvousing techniques, which delays them (ship is ready to go, but pod needs to be launched and visible first).

Docked pods do not count for fuel consumption purposes.

At Pod Launch time you can say "Dock with ship 643" and simultaneously set ship 643 to move. The pod should be docked with the ship before ship movement (not completely reliable) and so next move it's already on its way.

If you set the Drop Target of the pod to a planet / Base the ship will pass, the ship doesn't even need to stop at that planet. As long as one of its waypoints is this planet, and it's moving at less than about 100 LY / turn, the pod will automatically detach from the ship, and land on the planet as the ship passes by.

Not all ships are able to dock with pods