History Main / SpaceRangers

* AsteroidThicket: In the intro. Averted in the game.
* BigRedButton: A quest involves delivering an entire shipment of them. It seems that Maloqs don't appreciate how one's supposed to gently push the {{Big Red Button}}s and smash them every time they use them.
* BilingualBonus: Judging by the amount of puns and such in the original Russian translation, it should seem like there should be a lot of these. For example, a "Mentoshoop" - a sort of a radar used by dominators can be read as "A mental probe" or as "The one who gropes cops".
* BackFromTheBrink: The game starts this way, with the Klissans or Dominators having taken most of the galaxy and the player being a part of taking it back. On the higher difficulties, might end up with the enemy finishing it for good.

* CosmeticAward: most common awards for completing quests are medals.

* DigitizedSprites

* EnemyMine: Once Klissans/Dominators enter the system, everyone will stop fighting and will attack them. [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere Or escape]].

* FissionMailed: One of the text quests in second game have this. Very noticeable, though, because is happens at the second location, and you don't have much choice in first.

* GameWithinAGame: One of the text quests. An important person is stuck playing an MMORPG. You need to get him back from his addiction. The solution? Beat him at the game!
** Most text-quests can be considered to be games within the game, since they are almost entirely disconnected from the main game (having their own, fully self-contained plots). But one quest that stands out in this regard is one where you are hired to pay ransom for the release of some guy who got into debt with a local crime gang. This text quest plays out as a miniature game of Space Rangers - except in multiple choice form. You get a truck which you drive around between locations on the map, buying and selling goods, avoiding motor gangs, upgrading your equipment and running into all sorts of random encounters and mini-quests.
*** In another quest you play as a space ranger from past, which is even better. You do the same thing you did in main game.
* GlobalCurrency[=/=]WeWillSpendCreditsInTheFuture: Galactic Credit is human currency, and they managed to convince others to use it. Averted in some text quests.
* GoodIsNotNice: Gaalians give their share of assassination missions. They tend to mourn their targets though, and treat this mission as very traumatic experience.
* GroundhogDayLoop: Arguable, text quests. If you failed it, you can get back in time and try again. And again. [[ThatOneLevel And again]].
* HurlItIntoTheSun: Klissans and Dominators are easily tricked to fly into the sun. [[spoiler:One of the ways of dealing with Terron is to give him a program of transforming the star. Scientists say that he will probably melt in an year]].

* HumansAreAverage: Their technology is better that Maloq and Peleng, but worse that Faeyan and Gaalian.
* HumansAreDiplomats: Sort of. Coalition uses their currency and time system for a reason.
* IrrelevantSidequest: All missions that planet governments give you will affect only your bank account. Except maybe assassination missions - your target is a randomly chosen ship which might've done something useful in the quadrant if you hadn't taken it down.
* KineticWeaponsAreJustBetter: In the beginning to mid-game, rocket launchers rule. They are light, shoot far and deliver appreciable damage. Late-game, however, more exotic weapons like "Vertix" and "Turbo-Gravire" take the lead.

* MentalTimeTravel: One of the text quests sends your mind back in XXII century.
* MiniGame: Lots of. Text quests? Check. Arcade battles? Check. A 3D strategy game with an element of third-person shooter (you can take personal control of your units)? Check.
* MistookTheDominantLifeform: [[spoiler:Makhpella thinks that your ships are sentient, and pilots are just the organic disease. He is just trying to stop the infection]]

* OneManArmy: Every ranger is. In fact, rangers were created to be this.

* PoliceAreUseless: They are non-existant in space, which is why you often get missions to patrol a system against pirates for a few months. The military will sometimes fill this role by scrambling some battleships to take down wanted pirates, but most of the time they stay on a planet and there is no way to call for their assistance.

* OurWormholesAreDifferent[=/=]BlindJump: Black holes. May be not so blind, if you read news.

** Other rangers do that [[DirtyCoward all the time]], even those who you got hired to accompany you, making them effectively worthless.

** One space-disease causes the player to hallucinate spaceships/bases/etc that are not there. Don't be surprised if you see {{Babylon5}} or the [[StarWars Death Star]] hanging around in a star system you just entered.
** Astrodroids from ''StarWars'' are back and explicitly named droids, even though they look differently.

* SpacePirates: Two kinds, the actual unit and characters called pirates, plus some of the Rangers. The player can be a pirate too.
* SpiritualSuccessor: to ''Star Wars'' (not the behemoth franchise, but a small indie game no one but the developers heard about) - the enemies were going to be named Klings like there, but this was changed to avoid StarTrek similarities.

* StormingTheCastle: One of the ways to dispose of [[PlanetEater Terron]] is deploying a small army of robots on it surface and destroying its core. Amusingly, it well can be done [[OneManArmy with a single robot]] via manual control.

* TakeThat: A quest involves a human computer system being infected by a virus called “Windows,” and the company providing antivirus software is called "[[ShoutOut Maloqsoft]]".

* TemporalSickness[=/=]LaserGuidedAmnesia: A quest in the first game involves using experimental gaalian TimeTravel tech. It is explained that the shock of time travel scrambles the conscious memories of the rewinded period in the displaced individual, but leaves the subconscious memories intact, which manifest in constant strong ''deja vu''. This is known as Temporal Amnesia.
* TimedMission: Due to the way the game's AI works, it is entirely possible for the villains to completely destroy your side if you don't pay attention and/or take too long with the main quest.

** Even Hyperspace is in 2D, although it's a flat surface of a 3D sphere - making navigation utterly confusing.
* UniversalUniverseTime: One of the most notable human success (the other being Galactic Credit).
* UnusableEnemyEquipment: When you destroy another ship, only a few items will be dropped -- others will be LostForever. There's even an artifact that makes destroyed ships drop more items. Klissans/Dominators will also often drop equipment that is only useful to them (like parts from their computer systems or inner workings) and largely useless for player. Fortunately, these items can still be sold -- and science stations pay extremely well for them.

* [[spoiler:WeCouldHaveAvoidedAllThis]]: In the first game, [[spoiler:Klissans think that spaceship pilots are viruses that infected ships. If they were able to understand you, there would be no war]].

* AliensSpeakingEnglish: Averted with Klissans and Dominators, you need special program to talk with them. Played straight with Coalition.
** Justified, if they have same currency and time system, they can have same language as well.

* UnusableEnemyEquipment: When you destroy another ship, only a few items will be dropped - others will be LostForever. There's even an artifact to make destoryed ship drop more items. Klissans/Dominators will also often drop equipment that is only useful to them (like parts from their computer systems or inner workings) and largely useless for player. Fortunately, these items can still be sold - and science stations pay extremely well for them.

* UniversalUniverseTime: One of the most notable human success (the other being Galactic Credit).

* UniversalUniverseTime: One of the most notable human success (the other being Galactic Credit)

* ShoutOut: Lots of.

* [[spoiler:WeCouldHaveAvoidedAllThis]]: In the first game, [[spoiler:Klissans think that spaceship pilots are viruses that infected ships. If they were able to understand you, there would be no war]].

* ConvenientlyClosePlanet.

** Most text-quests can be considered to be games within the game, since they are almost entirely disconnected from the main game (having their own, fully self-contained plots). But one quest that stands out in this regard is one where you are hired to pay ransom for the release of some guy who got into debt with a local crime gang. This text quest plays out as a miniature game of Space Rangers - except in multiple choice form. You get a [[strike: spaceship]] truck which you [[strike: fly]] drive around between [[strike: star systems]] locations on the map, buying and selling goods, avoiding [[strike: pirates and dominators]] motor gangs, upgrading your equipment and running into all sorts of random encounters and mini-quests.

* GlobalCurrency / WeWillSpendCreditsInTheFuture: Galactic Credit is human currency, and they managed to convince others to use it. Averted in some text quests.

* HurlItIntoTheSun: Klissans and Dominators are easily tricked to fly into the sun. [[spoiler: One of the ways of dealing with Terron is to give him a program of transforming the star. Scientists say that he will probably melt in an year]].

* HumansAreTraders.

* MistookTheDominantLifeform: [[spoiler: Makhpella thinks that your ships are sentient, and pilots are just the organic disease. He is just trying to stop the infection]]

* ObviousRulePatch / AntiGrinding: Using a [[SummonBiggerFish Transfactor Beacon]] now gives you radiation sickness. It's an incurable disease that lasts a couple months (likely the more you use those the longer it lasts) and dramatically reduces any [[ExperiencePoints experience]] you receive. This change came as a response to an exploit where, once you get a cool enough ship, you can load it with [[HerdHittingAttack vertixes, IMHO-9000s and resonators]] and destroy entire crowds of enemies very quickly. Getting a load of Transfactor Beacons and summoning huge clouds of enemies used to be an insanely effective way of [[LevelGrinding experience farming]].

* {{Proud Warrior Race Guy}}s: The Maloqs ''are'' this trope. Trading or killing pirates might end up with you being very unpopular with Maloqs - they do not appreciate activities that don't involve war and they think of piracy as an honorable career. The Maloqs' way of greeting is to punch the other person in the face. Maloqs despise any luxury, and ban any trading in luxurious items on their planets. In fact, the only luxury items they allow for themselves are stools.
* OurWormholesAreDifferent / BlindJump: Black holes. May be not so blind, if you read news.

** Makhpella is also this, until you [[spoiler: manage to talk to it. As it turns out, Makhpella believed our spaceships were intelligent, and that we (the humanoids flying them) were a disease. It simply tried to eradicate the disease in order to help the spaceships. Once you explain this, Makhpella actually apologizes.]]

** Maloqsoft is a software company that produces really crappy software
** Linux is the name of a planet, as well as the name for superior software
** One space-disease causes the player to hallucinate spaceships/bases/etc that are not there. Don't be surprised if you see [[Babylon5]] or the [[StarWars Death Star]] hanging around in a star system you just entered.

* SpacePirates: Two kinds, the actual unit and characters called pirates, plus some of the Rangers (the player can be a pirate too.)

* SubspaceOrHyperspace: There's a typical {{Elite}}-like hyperspace jump. There's also a different kind of hyperspace, accessible near black holes and leading to a… [[ShootEmUp]] arcade mini-game.

* TakeThat: A quest involves a human computer system being infected by a virus called “Windows,” and the company providing antivirus software is called “[[IncrediblyLamePun Maloqsoft]].”

* TemporalSickness / LaserGuidedAmnesia: A quest in the first game involves using experimental gaalian TimeTravel tech. It is explained that the shock of time travel scrambles the conscious memories of the rewinded period in the displaced individual, but leaves the subconscious memories intact, which manifest in constant strong ''deja vu''. This is known as Temporal Amnesia.
* {{Two-D Space}}
** Even Hyperspace is in 2D, except it's the flat surface of a 3D sphere - making navigation utterly confusing.

* [[spoiler: WeCouldHaveAvoidedAllThis]]: In the first game, [[spoiler:Klissans think that spaceship pilots are viruses that infected ships. If they were able to understand you, there would be no war]].
* WesternRPG. Mostly follows Western conventions. Interestingly, the developers used to live in Vladivostok, which is as close to Japan as you can get without actually living in the country itself - thus geographically making it an EasternRPG.

* GoodIsNotNice: Gaalians give their share of assassination missions. They tend to mourn their targets though, and treat this mission as very traumatic experience.
* GroundhogDayLoop: If you failed text quest, you can get back in time and try again. And again. [[ThatOneLevel And again]].

* SpaceIsNoisy.

* EnemyCivilWar: The Dominators. They are divided into 3 factions that are as hostile to each other as they are to the Coalition.

* SpaceIsNoisy

* SubspaceOrHyperspace: There's a typical {{Elite}}-like hyperspace jump. There's also a different kind of hyperspace, accessible near black holes and leading to a... ShootEmUp arcade mini-game.

* TwoDSpace
** Even Hyperspace is in 2D, except it's a flat surface of a 3D sphere - making navigation utterly confusing.
* UnusableEnemyEquipment: When you destroy another ship, only a few items will be dropped - others will be LostForever. Klissans/Dominators will also often drop equipment that is only useful to them (like parts from their computer systems or inner workings) and largely useless for player. Fortunately, these items can still be sold - and science stations pay extremely well for them.

* GroundhogDayLoop: If you failed text quest, you can get back in time and try again. And again. [[ThatOneLevel And again]].

* SpaceIsNoisy.

* SubspaceOrHyperspace: There's a typical {{Elite}}-like hyperspace jump. There's also a different kind of hyperspace, accessible near black holes and leading to a… [[ShootEmUp]] arcade mini-game.

* {{Two-D Space}}
** Even Hyperspace is in 2D, except it's the flat surface of a 3D sphere - making navigation utterly confusing.

* AbusivePrecursors: The five races of the galaxy, to Dominators. Quoting a certain pirate: "If you were carpet-bombed with nukes and radiation-roasted for a couple hundred years, wouldn't you be royally pissed about that?"
* AIIsACrapshoot: The second game is about defeating results of that.

* AllCrimesAreEqual: Mugged couple traders for their cargo and money? Four months in prison! Sold too much drugs at once? Four months in prison! Attacked and destroyed entire military fleet, leaving planet defenseless against killer robots? Four months in prison!
** That is, of course, if you manage to reach a planet. Otherwise the system military will simply blast you of the sky.

* BackFromTheBrink: The game starts this way, with the Klissans or Dominators having taken most of the galaxy and the player being a part of taking it back. On the higher difficulties, might end up in enemy finishing it for good.
* BadassBystander: All traders, diplomats and passenger liners are armed and tend to help each other. Unfortunate pirate will sometimes find himself fleeing from the ship he tried to mug constantly hailing him and offering money for leaving him alone.
* CallARabbitASmeerp: In one text quest you must figure out how to feed "Desert Ship" from Mars. Its name derives from English, but is written in Russian letters. In Russian "ship" means "thorn", so Russian players are tricked to think they are dealing with "Desert Thorn". Its description is intentionally confusing. In the end it is revealed that player was dealing with a simple camel. Ferriferous No-Oodles is telephone wire.
** That zoo quest in general consists of these. There are five animals and five types of food, all named in insane ways, and the point is to figure out what that actually means.
* ComedicSociopathy: Pelengs' hat. They think space pirates are good role models, don't see anything wrong with selling drugs in schools and order hits on garbage transports just to piss off Gaalians.

* EnemyCivilWar: Dominators, there are 3 factions of them who are hostile to each other just like to Coalition.
* ExtremeOmnivore: Maloqs have a fair part of this too. To a larger extent, Terron Dominators. "The final goal is to absorb all the matter in the universe into my species." One of the ways of defeating the Terron boss is to tell him to go eat a star, out of all things.
* FantasticRacism: Played for laugh, most of the times. Maloqs see themselves as a superior beings because they are so strong and dream of galactic domination. But they are the stupidest race of the five and it's unlikely they'll ever try to achieve their goals, few superweapon projects aside.
* TheFederation: Coalition.

* GameWithinAGame: An important person is stuck playing an MMORPG. You need to get him back from his addiction. Solution? Beat him at the game! (One of the text quests).

* GoodIsNotNice: Gaalians have their share of assassination missions. They tend to mourn their targets though and treat this mission as very traumatic experience.

* IrrelevantSidequest: All missions that planet governments give you will affect only your bank account. Except maybe assassination missions - your target is randomly chosen ship which could do something useful if you didn't take it down.

** Shrapnel weapons are quite effective mid to lategame. Fragment cannon hits hard and scales excellently with tech levels while being cheaper, then you get flow blasters with their awesome range and multi resonators with splash damage - both very effective in hyperspace too. After that there's only energy weapons left.
* MadScientist: Keller. His way of researching things is to take them apart and see what they are made of. Humans can't reassemble themselves after the process? Not his problem!
* MiniGame: Lots of. Text quests? Check. Arcade battles? Check. A 3D strategy game with an element of third-person shooter (You can take personal control of your units)? Check.

* PlanetOfHats: All five sentient races are quite widespread across the galaxy, so you'll encounter many planets with the same hat. Maloqs' hat is being the Proud Warrior Race (see below), Gaalians are wise and patient, Faeyans are awesome scientists and Pelengs are the slimy spies, villains and backstabbers. Humans are an average race in both attitudes and technology, while apparently being superior businessmen (After all, the galactic currency is the human-originated "Galactic Credit").
** Subverted in text quests where you may encounter smart maloqs and heroic pelengs.
* PoliceAreUseless: They are non-existing in space. Military will sometimes fill their role by taking down pirates, but most of the time they stay on a planet and there is no way to get their help.
* ObviousRulePatch: Using a [[SummonBiggerFish beacon]] gives you radiation sickness - it's an uncurable disease that lasts a couple months (likely the more you use those the longer it lasts) and cuts experience received dramatically. That's due to the fact that, once you get a cool enough ship, you can load it with [[HerdHittingAttack vertixes, IMHO-9000s and resonators]] and destroy crowds of enemies quite fast. Thus getting a load of beacons and summoning hugec clouds of enemies used to be an insanely effective way of experience farming.

* {{Proud Warrior Race Guy}}s: The Maloqs ''are'' this trope. Trading or killing pirates might end up with you being very unpopular with Maloqs - they do not appreciate activities that don't involve war and they think of piracy as an honorable career. Maloqs' way of greeting is to punch the other person in the face. Maloqs despise any luxury and ban any trading in luxurious items on their planets. In fact, the only luxury items they allow for themselves are stools.
* ScaryDogmaticAliens: Dominators in the second game.
** Makhpella is also this, until you [[spoiler: manage to talk to it. As it turns out, Makhpella believed our spaceships were intelligent, and we (the humanoids flying them) were a disease. It simply tried to eradicate the disease in order to help the spaceships. Once you explain this, Makhpella actually apologizes.]]
* ShoutOut: Lots of. Maloqsoft software company that produces really crappy software, Linux - the name of a planet, as well as the name for superior software, and a lot more. For example, there is a disease that causes the player to hallucinate spaceships/bases/etc that are not there - don't be surprised if you see Babylon-5 or the Death Star hanging around in the system you just entered.

* SpiritualSuccessor: to ''Star Wars'' (not the behemoth franchise, but a small indie game no one but the developers heard about) - the enemies were going to be named klings like there but changed to avoid StarTrek similarities. More notably, to ''StarControl'' and ''{{Elite}}''.
* StarfishAliens: Makhpella and Klissans.
* SubspaceOrHyperspace: There's a typical {{Elite}}-like hyperspace jump. There's also a different kind of hyperspace, accessible near black holes and leading to an… {{Asteroids}}-like arcade minigame.

** In the sequel, Transfactor Beacon summons an army of enemies, usually Kelleroids. Since they are broken into three factions at war with each other, it is possible to summon them upon a system infested by another faction.

** In the sequel, Maloqsoft seemingly switched to military research.

* UnusableEnemyEquipment: When you destroy another ship only a few items will be dropped - other will be LostForever. Your main enemies will also drop things that are useful for them (like part of their computer system) but useless for player. These items can only be sold (although they give excellent money if handed over at the science stations)
** In text adventures PC will often kill mooks with guns, but player rarely get an option to pick up said guns. When writers bother to explain this, they mention fingerprint scanners on the trigger.
* WesternRPG. Mostly follows Western conventions. Interestingly, developers used to live in Vladivostok, which is as close to Japan as you can get without actually living in the country itself, thus geographically making it an EasternRPG - fixed later when they moved to Europe.
* {{Whoring}}: Since it is or used to be essentially a competitive game (with a table of records, tournaments and such) you have to do that at times. Many exploits have been fixed, though beacons are still quite effective if you need lots of money and enemies to kill (even though the game isn't "farm lots of beacons and kill enemies, rinse, repeat" anymore). A classic one that still remains as a newbie freebie: one of the two planets in your system when you start has cheap technics for sale, another one offers nice sums for it, thus your only activity that makes sense when you start is to trade it for a couple of ingame months.

* ExtremeOmnivore: Maloqs have a fair part of this too. To a larger extent, Terron Dominators. "The final goal is to absorb all the matter in the universe into my species." One of the ways of defeating the Terron boss is to tell him to go eat a star, out of all things.
* FromASingleCell: The Dominators consist of autonomous microscopic nodes, and thus can easily replicate themselves.

* SpiritualSuccessor: to ''Star Wars'' (not the behemoth franchise, but a small indie game no one but the developers heard about) - the enemies were going to be named klings like there but changed to avoid StarTrek similarities. More notably, to ''StarControl''.

* WesternRPG. Mostly follows Western conventions. Interestingly, developers used to live in Vladivostok, which is as close to Japan as you can get without actually living in the country itself, thus geographically making it an EasternRPG - fixed later when they moved to Europe.

* UnusableEnemyEquipment: When you destroy another ship only a few items will be dropped - other will be LostForever. Your main enemies will also drop things that are useful for them (like part of their computer system) but useless for player. This items can only be sold.

* CallARabbitASmeerp: In one text quest you must figure out how to feed "Desert Ship" from Mars. Its name derives from English, but is written in Russian letters. In Russian "ship" means "thorn", so Russian players are tricked to think they are dealing with "Desert Thorn". Its description is intentionally confusing. In the end it is revealed that player was dealing with a simple camel.

* SpiritualSuccessor: to ''Star Wars'' (not the behemoth franchise, a small indie game no one but the developers heard about) - the enemies were going to be named klings like there but changed to avoid StarTrek similarities. More notably, to ''StarControl''.

* AbusivePrecursors: The five races of the galaxy, to Dominators. Quoting a certain pirate: "If you were carpet-bombed with nukes and then left alone to deal with Klissans, wouldn't you be royally pissed about that?"

** In text adventures PC will often kill mooks with guns, but player rarely get an option to pick up said guns. When writers bother to explain this, they mention fingerprint scanners on the trigger.