What counts as a weapon for the Way of Harmony Achievement?
The Way of Harmony
As Amoeba, win a game without building any ships containing weapons
If I get a defense ship from an exploration event, does that count? What if I build ships with fighters & bombers? What about anti-personnel & anti-structure bombs, or siege modules?
Things that definitely don't count as building a weapon:
- Found defense ships
Things that definitely do count as a weapon:
Constructing a ship in one of your systems that contains any of the following:
- Lasers
- Missiles
- Kinetic weapons
Things that I haven't verified (but that definitely look like weapons to me):
(Note that fighters, bombers, and bombs were added to the game after the achievement; whether they prevent the achievement or not will depend on how they were programmed.)
Constructing a ship in one of your systems that contains any of the following:
- Fighters
- Bombers
- Bombs and siege modules (And how could you even use one of these? There are going to be some defending fleets that need to be shot before you can use them, and weapons are right out. I suppose you could swoop in at an opportune moment to bomb/siege the system, but then you're going to be at war and have no warships.)
The sub-question: how to best earn the Way of Harmony achievement?
The easiest way to earn this badge is to play with non-aggressive opponents (like, say, Amoebas), and without pirates. As such, you won't have any reasons to build ships with weapons. I cannot imagine earning this badge if pirates or warmonger opponents exist in your game; relying on defense ships you find will not be sufficient to defend you from either pirates or warmongers.
I got the achievement while using Fighters and Bombers. It's still pretty difficult but it works. Since you're pretty limited with special modules they won't do much damage in battles even if specialized for it, and most battle actions are pretty useless with them. But at least you can defend yourself.
In case anyone is still checking on this, I just confirmed that on Disharmony at least, fighters, troops, and siege modules do NOT count as weapons. I did it with a huge spiral galaxy, 8 enemies, and easy difficulty.