History Characters / FTLFasterThanLight

* BonusBoss: [[spoiler:A second Rebel Flagship that's under construction]] can be encountered in the Rebel Stronghold. [[spoiler:It has the same layout as the normal Flagship on Hard difficulty phase 3, but without the benefit of its [[LimitBreak power surge]]. Defeating it delays Rebel encroachment for two turns, gives out a lot of material rewards, and the Federation cruiser if it has not been unlocked yet.]]

* BonusBoss: A second Rebel Flagship that's under construction can be encountered in the Rebel Stronghold. It has the same layout as the normal Flagship on Hard difficulty phase 3, but without the benefit of its [[LimitBreak power surge]]. Defeating it delays Rebel encroachment for two turns, gives out a lot of material rewards, and the Federation cruiser if it has not been unlocked yet.

* LightningBruiser: The Auto-Assault drones, particularly in later sectors, tend to have very dangerous weapons, very high evasion rates, and on Normal and Hard, up to [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard five layers of shields]].

* LightningBruiser: The Auto-Assault drones, particularly in later sectors, tend to have very dangerous weapons and also very high evasion rates.

* FragileSpeedster: The Nesasio starts with four levels of engine power. With a pilot and zero-rank engine officer in place, that bumps up the evade rate to 30%, which is pretty high for a starting ship, but the ship has no shields.

* MacrossMissileMassacre: The Flagship can fire ''three'' missiles per volley, unlike any other ship in the game.

* WhatAPieceOfJunk: She may not look like much, but [[Series/{{Firefly}} she'll fool ya]]. The Engi A starts with the Ion Burst II, a rapid-firing ion weapon capable of disabling any amount of shields on its own, and a drone to deal damage. This makes it [[LethalJokeCharacter capable of defeating the flagship using only default weaponry]].

* PrecisionFStrike: Both Rock ships have an exclusive blue option for the "Mantis ship with Rockman remains slathered all over them" event, labeled "Ram the ''bastards''."

* RammingAlwaysWorks: In response to the previously mentioned gory sight if you have Rock plating you can retaliate by ramming them, [[PrecisionFStrike with some of the rare use of foul language]] doing damage and disabling their engines permanently.

Of course, the place where the vast majority of Slugs reside is within nebulae. The Slugs, despite being telepathic, are not very empathic, and will use their abilities to manipulate, deceive and steal from other beings whenever possible, resulting in them being shunned within the Federation. They are also hedonistic, and their goals are essentially to acquire wealth (typically by deceit) and spend it on pleasureful activities. While Slugs are unexceptional fighters (being equivalent to humans in hand-to-hand combat), they are pragmatists. They will try to take ships with intact hulls to maximize profit - eliminating the crew not by boarding and fighting, but by using indirect methods such as hacking, mind control and fire weapons. This trait can be seen in their playable ships, with the type A "Man of War" featuring an Anti-Bio Beam to snipe enemy crew members and the type C "Ariolimax" featuring both a hacking module and mind control. The type B "Stormwalker" is a singular exception, as it passes up manipulation for conventional boarding.

* BoardingParty: The Slug B cruiser is initially designed for this role, though in a very odd way; it has an Artemis missile launcher, a Healing Burst, a crew teleporter and ''no medbay or clone bay.'' You basically spend ammunition to heal your crew.

* KungFuProofMook: Boarding is the preferred method to deal with enemy ships, since it gives increased rewards. Boarding a Lanius ship is generally a bad idea, unless you sport Lanius boarders yourself or don't mind pitching waves of clones at them. Furthermore, while fire does technically damage them, it will get put out almost instantly since there's no oxygen.

Crystals are the secret race and very difficult to obtain, accessible only as part of a tricky sidequest. They possess high HP (125% of the Human default), take half damage from oxygen deprivation, move slowly (80% of default), and possess a unique "Lockdown" ability that lets them seal off the room they are in with a crystalline barrier, equivalent in strength to high-level blast doors.

Unless you have unlocked the Crystal ships already, or unlocked the Rock Cruiser type C in ''Advanced Edition'', the only way to acquire a Crystal crew member is to acquire a 'damaged stasis pod' from a random event involving searching an asteroid field, then having the Crystal contained within the pod revived by Zoltan scientists. Having a Crystal crew member is necessary in order to reactivate the portal in Rock Homeworlds to take you to the Hidden Crystal Sector.

* WalkingSpoiler: Their existence is intended to be a secret.

* HumansAreBastards: The Rebels like to heavy-handedly [[DeadlyEuphemism "keep the peace"]] over any and all alien settlements in sectors they've captured.

* PurposelyOverpowered: Crystals and their ships are very powerful, in return for being hellishly difficult to obtain. To put it this way: The Type A layout has weapons that ignore one layer of shielding, and the Type B combines the best parts of the Stealth ships (cloaking system is pre-installed, and ''un''like the Stealth ships it has a shield system too) and the Mantis B ship (four-member teleporter).

* PurposelyOverpowered: Crystals and their ships are very powerful, in return for being hellishly difficult to obtain.

* ArrangedMarriage: On occasion you'll find one in the Rock Homeworlds, and are asked to escort the fiancé of a major Rock figure, the Grand Basilisk of Numa V.

Humans have average ability in all areas, but possess almost no special abilities and only a single special event. Their only benefit is that they learn skills slightly faster. Humans were the only race with multiple sprites (male and female) before the Advanced Edition, and can found in both TheFederation and as the only member species of the human-supremacist Rebels. For tropes relating to human-crewed ships, see the pages of those factions.

* CrutchCharacter: Finished maxing out the skill(s) on a Human? They no longer have a special ability and most other races can fulfill a role better. Indeed, humans tend to be the first character kicked out of a full ship.
* HumansAreAverage: As the description notes, humans are [[JackOfAllStats competent at everything]] but have [[MasterOfNone no special attributes, nor any special events]]. The Kestrel fits too, being the default ship with no special attributes, and only human crew.

Humans have average ability in all areas, but possess no special abilities or events, their only benefit being they learn skills slightly faster. Humans were the only race with multiple sprites (male and female) before the Advanced Edition, and can found in both TheFederation and as the only member species of the human-supremacist Rebels. For tropes relating to human-crewed ships, see the pages of those factions.

* AchillesHeel: The Stealth Cruisers are ''especially'' vulnerable to beam weapons, due to having no shields and beams being [[AlwaysAccurateAttack 100% accurate]]. Activating the cloak will only delay the firing of beam weapons instead of making them miss. Beam drones are even worse, since they ''constantly fire''; seeing one in the first sector may as well summon the GameOver screen.

* WeaksauceWeakness: The Rock B cruiser is the only playable ship to have no airlocks, something that cannot be remedied in any way. This means the only way to create an isolated lack of oxygen (to deal with boarders or flames in a manner that doesn't directly involve crew) is to [[ViolationOfCommonSense drop a Breach Bomb in the target room]].

* LuckBasedMission: Reaching the Crystal sector requires no fewer than three randomly-generated elements: an Augment only found in some sectors, then a random event also only found in some sectors, then getting to a specific sector that only appears once per playthrough where the beacon to jump to the Crystal sector is located.

* LuckBasedMission: Reaching the Crystal sector requires no fewer than three randomly-generated elements.

* SuspiciousVideoGameGenerosity: Right as you reach the Last Stand, they give you a major hull repair and restock some of your resources, and there are repair nodes throughout the sector that will give you supplies and repairs free of charge. You will likely need all of this help, because this sector has you fight the [[FinalBoss Rebel Flagship]].