Space Dragon

Common Name: Dragon

Scientific Name: Draconis Colligator

Description on Science Screen: "A very tough and dangerous creature known to hoard items found in deep space, including entire vessels and their crews. Some dragons have shown signs of intelligence."

The creature colorfully referred to as the "Space Dragon" is a dangerous predator that is feared by Transport vessels. It is not known if the Dragon feeds on metals, but it quite clearly has an instinctive attraction to metal, and will be drawn to bright or shiny metallic objects. The Dragon will clamp down on the object with its massive jaws, and then drag it back to its lair. This behavior, so similar to the hoarding of gold and treasure by dragons of legend, is where this creature gets its name. Spaceships are particularly attractive to the Space Dragon, so much so that many Transport captains paint their ships in dark and dreary colors so they won't attract the attention of a Dragon.

As with all monsters, it appears on the LRS as a purple dot, and on Science as a purple asterisk. It must be scanned to identify it as a Space Dragon. Once identified, its classification "DRAGON" will appear on the Science display.

Behavior and Stats:

The Space Dragon is extremely powerful, and nearly always aggressive, as it particularly prizes spaceships. Like the Typhon, it may be baited into attacking enemy ships, although this is risky to the TSN captain as well, of course. You should be on your guard when approaching a Space Dragon, as it can close in quickly, and it takes at least a half dozen hits from a Nuke to destroy it. Even if you hit it with a Nuke as it attacks, should the Space Dragon sink its teeth into you, you will be trapped in its jaws, and you can't fire a second Nuke without getting caught in the blast yourself. So use caution, and be prepared to use beam fire to finish the Dragon off, while taking evasive action to avoid being caught.

The fan-like "wings" to either side of the Space Dragon propel it with remarkable speed for something so big. It cannot achieve Warp speeds, but it can keep up with a TSN Light Cruiser with 300% power to Impulse. Its jaws do a great deal of damage, (enough to drop a Light Cruiser's shields and seriously damage a Dreadnought or Battleship) but it will not typically continue to attack after it grasps a ship, as it wants to drag it along with it. Fortunately, once a ship's shields are down, a Dragon will only do one point of system damage per bite, so a player ship can survive as long as an enemy ship is not around to take advantage of the situation.

The Dragon can be evaded, and if enough distance is put between itself and the ship, it may lose interest. Be careful, though, that it does not decide to change targets to a friendly vessel or a base station. With its increased power, it can be incredibly destructive to bases and allied ships.

As of Artemis 2.7, the Space Dragon has an in-game lair, and it can be looted if found, for various rewards. More investigation is needed, but the Dragon will likely have torpedoes and energy, similar to the items a Pirate can raid from surrendered enemies. The Dragon is also much more dangerous in 2.7, biting for greater damage, and healing rapidly from attack. Ancient Dragons are much larger and tougher than Young Dragons, but this doesn't effect their damage or speed.

When killed, the Space Dragon will drop lots of anomalies, at least four, each giving the usual rewards. Due to its high health and regeneration rate, it may take several ships firing nukes at the same time to actually kill a Dragon, particularly an Ancient one.

Quick Stats