What is with the carbo's that you can buy at SD? Are they a real threat to a shielded ship? Is there some way to calculate the damage from them.?
thanks

They can be a threat to any ship.
It's an explosive that goes off when your ship is destroyed, damaging the attacker. Read what it says at SD for how much damage it does. Each ship holds a different amount.

Very serious threat, and cheap at the price. Costs 20 credits worth of corbo to take out one enemy shield or fig. The downside is, if the attacker wears down your figs and shields and captures your ship, he can sell the ship and gets a good price for the corbo.

As an example, with standard unedited Starship taking on a standard Scout, Scout maxfigs/max shields/max corbo; ISS max figs and shields:

Trader Name    : Civilian Two
Rank and Exp   : 0 points, Alignment=0 Neutral
Ship Name      : Scout
Ship Info      : AldenShrike Scout Marauder Ported=0 Kills=0
Date Built     : 12:55:31 PM Tue Jan 08, 2019
Turns to Warp : 2
Current Sector : 1520
Turns left     : Unlimited
Total Holds    : 10 - Empty=10
Fighters       : 250
Shield points : 100
Corbomite Level: 1500
Credits        : 25,000

Trader Name    : Civilian One
Rank and Exp   : 0 points, Alignment=1,000,333 Saintly
Ship Name      : ISS
Ship Info      : IonStream Imperial StarShip Ported=4 Kills=0
Date Built     : 12:49:47 PM Tue Jan 08, 2019
Turns to Warp : 4
Current Sector : 1520
Turns left     : Unlimited
Total Holds    : 40 - Empty=40
Fighters       : 50,000
Shield points : 2,000
Credits        : 5,230,425

Command [TL=00:00:00]:[1520] (?=Help)? : A
<Attack>
Attack Two's Scout Marauder (50,000-250) (Y/N) [N]? Yes
How many fighters do you wish to use (0 to 10,000) [0]? 10000
Your fighters encounter a powerful force-shield around the enemy ship!

You lost 486 fighter(s), 49,514 remain.
The other ship was booby trapped with Corbomite devices!
The console reports damages of 30000 battle points!
28000 K3-A Fighters destroyed by the blast!
Excellent, you have obliterated the target!
...In fact, TOO excellent! You can't salvage anything from it!

Command [TL=00:00:00]:[1520] (?=Help)? : I
<Info>

Trader Name    : Civilian One
Rank and Exp   : 0 points, Alignment=1,000,333 Saintly
Ship Name      : ISS
Ship Info      : IonStream Imperial StarShip Ported=4 Kills=1
Date Built     : 12:49:47 PM Tue Jan 08, 2019
Turns to Warp : 4
Current Sector : 1520
Turns left     : Unlimited
Total Holds    : 40 - Empty=40
Fighters       : 21,514
Credits        : 5,230,425


- 30K damage from the Scout corbomite, wiped out 2K Starship shields and 28K Starship fighters.

Well, more to the point.

The damage is between 20 and 30 per. If you cap the ship instead of killing it (can't do this if it's podless) then it won't blow up on you, instead the new corb'd ship becomes yours to sell for cash. Corbo does not trigger a self-torp.

From a purely financial perspective sure, 30k damage for cheap.

In most games that's not the worry, however. If your 2 ships are fairly well matched and they manage to destroy you, your corbs could be enough to destroy them as well... evening the odds in a firefight. The extreme version of this being a lot of corb and an over-eager attacker in a ship w/ less than 100k figs finding out the hard way... =)

Hmmmm, thank you all for the infos.
So, if I have some podless ships and stuff them with carbo I would have a possible way to screw up the Grids and then take the attacker down with me?
I really hate grids and never use them- except in a small level to misled the hunters.
I will be opening a server and try to manipulate the Settings so, that intensiv gridding will not be an advantage in the Game.
What about Gold aliens and Ferrengies? Can I get them to mess with the grid's?

Well, it won't stop them from torping you. And if it's an unlim, it surely won't stop them from killing you anyway as resources are moot compared to a kill.

Your fig trail would not mislead me. I know where I am going when I am hunting and will exhaust those areas before I follow a fig trail.

               / Promethius / Enigma / Wolfen /

"A man who has no skills can be taught, a man who has no honor has nothing."

Heh, if you're worried about turn cost just probe first. That eliminates the doubt, to h*** w/ the misdirection.

All of the cheap tricks in the game won't solve a problem w/ the fundementals.

Corbo, fine... it may (MAY) work once against a smart opponent. Then they'll just cap you instead from there on out. You: 1, Them: All the rest.

Wierd "mis-gridding" ... again, may work against an inexperienced player for a small time. Eventually you get found, and without a grid you have no way to know how close they really are to finding you. You're now stuck, unable to seriously put up a defense as a coordinated enemy assault floods into your base and makes you dead. The best defense of your base is done far, far, FAR away from your base... like @ the enemy's base for example.