History VideoGame / Starfarer

** The Burn Drive system is this trope taken to an extreme. It disables shields and steering while active, but allows the normally glacier-slow Onslaught to outrun most non-frigates in the game. You never forget the first time you run into a Hegemony Defense Fleet and [[OhCrap see two or three Onslaughts come screaming in]].

** When a ship is in extreme danger, it can go into 'panic fire' mode, where it launches most of its missiles
in quick succession. The Buffalo Mk II, which was in previous versions something of a JokeCharacter, has become fairly dangerous due to this change (as lacking shields, it almost always registers as in mortal danger).

** The Burn Drive system is this taken to an extreme. It disables shields and steering while active, but allows the normally glacier-slow Onslaught to outrun most non-frigates in the game.

** The Tachyon Lance, which is basically a sniper rifle [[RecycledInSpace IN SPACE]]. First, the downsides: it's a large weapon, costs 30,000 credits[[hottip:*:a third the cost of just the empty hull of the cheapest capital ship]], and requires an astounding 32 build points. That said, it's a borderline GameBreaker if used properly. It does very high damage (1,500, with an extra 500 EMP on top of that, so it is also likely to cripple anything it hits), though the rate of fire is somewhat low (six and a half seconds between shots). Each shot is enough to destroy a single ship in a squadron, or cause massive flux buildup in a frigate. It has a range of 5,000 su (half that of a LRM, and more than quintuple the range of most other weapons), and this can be boosted to 7,500 with a single hull mod. As it's a beam weapon, it has perfect accuracy, infinite ammo, and virtually instant travel time, negating every disadvantage most other long range weapons have. If fitted to a turret and set to autofire, the AI will be able to snipe at ships with pinpoint accuracy from across the entire map, usually hitting them several times before they get close enough to retaliate. Did we mention that the Odyssey has ''three'' large energy turrets?
*** An Odyssey set up this way is still vulnerable to other capital ships (which have the flux stats to absorb the beams harmlessly). The primary GameBreaker aspect of an Odyssey fitted with Tachyon Lances is that it makes all other fire support ships obsolete - often outperforming several lesser ships at once. It can destroy most squadrons from across the map in two broadsides, meaning the enemy never gets to capture a single control point, which in turn means they can't bring in any larger ships that could stand a chance of countering the Odyssey.

** Ships with 360 degree shield coverage are worse, since they're immune to flanking. Have fun trying to take down that [[ThatOneBoss Paragon]] before it wipes out half of your fleet![[hottip:*:The Paragon has an exceptionally efficient 360-degree shield emitter that only takes 60% flux from incoming attacks, a 25,000 point flux pool, and dissipates 1,250 points of flux per second. It's also an omni-shield, so if it goes down, it can immediately be raised again to confront directional threats. Even if you manage to get past the shield, it's only slightly less durable physically than the Onslaught. Not to mention it has ''twenty-three weapon mounts'', so you're taking a beating the entire time you're trying to get past its defenses. To top it all off, in the next update it will acquire a ship system allowing it to temporarily increase its shield efficiency tenfold, while still being able to drain soft flux. This will be fun...]]

* ForMassiveDamage: Reaper torpedoes, at 4,000 high explosive damage a pop. For reference: the Onslaught, the most durable ship in the game, only has 1,750 armor (and high explosive does 200% damage to armor). Nothing in the game even comes remotely close in terms of pure per-shot damage (runners up are the Tachyon Lance at 1500, or the Plasma Cannon at 750x3; and both of those are large weapons). It has a variant for each mount size, from a single torpedo for small mounts to twenty torpedoes fired in pairs for the large one. They are also one of only three missiles with a travel speed described as 'very fast', so they aren't easy to shoot down or avoid either. There's a squadron that mounts these, the Dagger-class, which consists of three ships armed with a single torpedo each. They are somewhat fragile, but the ability to do 12,000 damage in one run (and being able to rearm at a carrier to do so again) makes them amazingly devastating strike craft.

* GuideDangIt: Some mechanics are very poorly explained in-game, and many aren't even mentioned in the manual. The most frequently cited example is the concept of hard flux vs soft flux. Normal (soft) flux is generated by firing weapons and will dissipate over time, even if shields are active. However, damage against a ship's shields creates hard flux that will never drain as long as the shields are active (represented by a vertical line in the flux bar). This prevents shielded ships with high venting speeds from being completely invincible, but is never explained in-game.

** Ironically, the pirates are the ''least'' technologically stagnant of the factions, having several unique ships that are crudely refitted combat versions of the cargo haulers they steal from traders.

* StarterEquipment: Other than the armaments of the frigate you start with, none. You buy ships as empty hulls, then have to track down the weapons separately. If you want the good stuff this means a trip to the hidden pirate base.

** Ironically, the pirates are the ''least'' technologically stagnant of the factions, having several unique ships that are crudely refitted versions of the cargo haulers they steal from traders.

** Ships with 360 degree shield coverage are worse, since they're immune to flanking. Have fun trying to take down that [[ThatOneBoss Paragon]] before it wipes out half of your fleet![[hottip:*:The Paragon has an exceptionally efficient 360-degree shield emitter that only takes 60% flux from incoming attacks, a 25,000 point flux pool, and dissipates 1,250 points of flux per second. Even if you manage to get past the shield, it's only slightly less durable physically than the Onslaught. Not to mention it has ''twenty-three weapon mounts'', so you're taking a beating the entire time you're trying to get past its defenses.]]

* DemonicSpiders: Some squadrons rival frigates in terms of durability and firepower. Since they also have the ability to be replaced during battle if a carrier is present, they don't have to worry as much about damage or ammo limits. As counter-intuitive as it seems, if there's a nearly depleted squadron nearby, ignore all other threats to finish them off.
** Wasps are this trope to a frigate due to their high speed, large squadron size, and decent weapon (you're being targeted by what amounts to six shorter-ranged Tactical Lasers). They also have a tendency to fly right through your shields and disable half of your weapons in a single pass. A design that can handle several squadrons of Talons simultaneously can be shredded in seconds by a single Wasp group.

* GoddamnedBats: Interceptor squadrons. They are usually rather weak, but their high speed and maneuverability makes them excel at flanking. Ignore them at your peril.
** Pilum [=LRMs=]. These missiles do a decent amount of damage, but are slow and have terrible tracking. They remain a threat because they fire in salvoes of three every five seconds, the missiles fly for almost a minute before burning out, and most ships carrying them have multiple launchers. If you spend any time piloting a fast frigate, you quickly get used to the sight of twelve or more of these on your tail.
** For the very early portions of the game, the GoddamnedBats would be anything with omni-shields, since it takes a significant investment in firepower to max their flux meter. Not to mention that they tend to drop their shields for a few moments to recharge, undoing a portion of your damage. On the other hand, it's a harsh lesson for newbies on why flanking is so important.

* GoddamnedBats: [[invoked]] An intentional example, and a rare case where they are just as useful on your own side: squadrons, several identical tiny ships fighting in formation. They are usually rather weak, but their high speed and maneuverability makes them excel at flanking. Not to mention the low crew requirement means it's very easy for them to have Elite status. ItGetsWorse if there is a carrier in the enemy fleet, as if even one member of the squadron survives to make it back to the carrier, the entire squadron is rebuilt and rearmed. This is the main trait that makes the otherwise pathetic [[MiniMook Talon interceptors and Wasp drones]] a threat, as their large squadron size and lightning fast speed mean it's very likely that at least one fighter will survive to resurrect the entire squadron. As counter-intuitive as it seems, if there's a nearly depleted squadron nearby, ignore all other threats to finish them off.

* GuideDangIt: Some mechanics are very poorly explained in-game, and many aren't even mentioned in the manual. For instance, flux buildup from beam weapons against shields drains over time, unlike any other weapon damage in the game (which require the shields to be lowered before the flux will dissipate).

* PointDefenseless: ''Strongly'' averted. A good point defense system can usually take out the majority of missiles in a salvo, as well as wreak havoc against fighter squadrons. Most capital ships have several of them. With a certain hull mod, even small weapons not tagged as point defense can auto-target missiles. This includes tactical lasers, whose long range, high accuracy, and decent damage make them very useful for this purpose.
** Crew level has a noticeable effect on point defense. Since crew experience affects accuracy[[hottip:*:more specifically, the ability to accurately lead a target, so crew level mostly affects ballistic weapons, and beams are completely exempt (being nigh-instantaneous)]], and missiles are small and hard to hit, an unskilled crew is very vulnerable to missile strikes. And since large ships have crew requirements an order of magnitude higher than frigates, they tend to be staffed with cheap rookies. This makes assigning point defense frigates as escorts very useful.
** Played straight with certain point defense weapons like the [[MoreDakka Vulcan Cannon]]. Sure, it spews a ton of bullets at targets, but the accuracy is so terrible that it's actually less effective than systems rated at half the DPS.

* TacticalRockPaperScissors: Ships have up to three layers of defense: [[{{Hitpoints}} hull]], armor plating, and [[DeflectorShields shields]]. Only hull damage affects the ship, so most of a fight is spent breaching the other ship's defenses to get to the vulnerable crew inside. There are four types of weapons to help with this: [[ArmorPiercingAttack high explosive]], which is excellent against armor but very weak against shields; [[KineticWeaponsAreJustBetter kinetic]], which is the opposite; [[EnergyWeapons energy]], which is [[JackofAllStats somewhat effective against all types of defense]], and fragmentation, which does little damage against any defense, but will tear hulls to shreds once those defenses are gone (and is also good against missiles and squadrons, since they rarely have much defense). There are also EMP weapons, which raise the target's flux levels and can disable ship systems, but do minimal damage.

* {{DRM}}: None attached to the game, thankfully, but in-universe it is largely responsible for why everything has gone to hell. The only remaining way to produce advanced technology is with an autofactory, and they can only function if a Universal Access Chip containing the relevant blueprints is inserted. The ancient corporations that produced these chips included specialized code and circuits that made unauthorized duplication next to impossible, and very few were shipped into the sector before the Collapse. The end result is that required technology like ''tractors'' became increasingly rare, and every autofactory or UAC lost is a permanent blow to the sector's [[TechnologyLevels tech level]].

** Ships with 360 degree shield coverage are worse, since they're immune to flanking. Have fun trying to take down that [[ThatOneBoss Paragon]] before it wipes out half of your fleet![[hottip:*:The Paragon has an exceptionally efficient 360-degree shield emitter that only takes 60% flux from incoming attacks, a 25,000 point flux pool, and dissipates 1,250 points of flux per second. Even if you manage to get past the shield, it's only slightly less durable physically than the Onslaught. Not to mention it has ''[[MoreDakka twenty-three weapon mounts]]'', so you're taking a beating the entire time you're trying to get past its defenses.]]

** The Tachyon Lance, which is basically a sniper rifle [[RecycledInSpace IN SPACE]]. First, the downsides: it's a large weapon, costs 30,000 credits[[hottip:*:a third the cost of just the empty hull of the cheapest capital ship]], and requires an astounding 32 build points. That said, it's a borderline GameBreaker if used properly. It does very high damage (1,500, with an extra 500 EMP on top of that, so it's even good against shields), though the rate of fire is somewhat low (six and a half seconds between shots). Each shot is enough to destroy a single ship in a squadron, or cause massive flux buildup in a frigate. It has a range of 5,000 su (half that of a LRM, and more than quintuple the range of most other weapons), and this can be boosted to 7,500 with a single hull mod. As it's a beam weapon, it has perfect accuracy, infinite ammo, and virtually instant travel time, negating every disadvantage most other long range weapons have. If fitted to a turret and set to autofire, the AI will be able to snipe at ships with pinpoint accuracy from across the entire map, usually hitting them several times before they get close enough to retaliate. Did we mention that the Odyssey has ''three'' large energy turrets?

* ForMassiveDamage: Reaper torpedoes, at 4,000 high explosive damage a pop. For reference: the Onslaught, the most durable ship in the game, only has 1,750 armor (and high explosive does 150% damage to armor). Nothing in the game even comes remotely close in terms of pure per-shot damage (runners up are the Tachyon Lance at 1500+500 emp, or the Plasma Cannon at 750x3; and both of those are large weapons). It has a variant for each mount size, from a single torpedo for small mounts to twenty torpedoes fired in pairs for the large one. They are also one of only three missiles with a travel speed described as 'very fast', so they aren't easy to shoot down or avoid either. There's a squadron that mounts these, the Dagger-class, which consists of three ships armed with a single torpedo each. They are somewhat fragile, but the ability to do 12,000 damage in one run (and being able to rearm at a carrier to do so again) makes them amazingly devastating strike craft.

* TacticalRockPaperScissors: Ships have up to three layers of defense: [[{{Hitpoints}} hull]], armor plating, and [[DeflectorShields shields]]. Only hull damage affects the ship, so most of a fight is spent breaching the other ship's defenses to get to the vulnerable crew inside. There are four types of weapons to help with this: [[ArmorPiercingAttack high explosive]], which is excellent against armor but very weak against shields; [[KineticWeaponsAreJustBetter kinetic]], which is the opposite; [[EnergyWeapons energy]], which is [[JackofAllStats somewhat effective against all types of defense]], and fragmentation, which does little damage against any defense, but will tear hulls to shreds once those defenses are gone (and is also good against missiles and squadrons, since they rarely have much defense). There are also ion weapons, which greatly raise the target's flux levels but do minimal damage.

* PointDefenseless: ''Strongly'' averted. A good point defense system can usually take out the majority of missiles in a salvo, as well as wreak havoc against fighter squadrons. Most capital ships have several of them. With a certain hull mod, even small weapons not tagged as point defense can auto-target missiles. This includes tactical lasers, whose long range, high accuracy, and decent damage make them [[{{Understatement}} very useful]] for this purpose.

* LethalJokeCharacter: The Hound. It's one of the pirate faction's basic frigates, and is so ridiculously easy to kill that most players never even consider piloting one themselves. Just looking at the stats paints a pretty bleak picture: it has a flux pool a third the size of the average frigate, one small ballistic turret with a massive blind spot[[hottip:*:before a balance patch, the turret only covered a third of the ship; now it's a tolerable 290 degree arc]], a single medium ballistic forward facing mount that will max out your flux meter in about seven seconds of sustained firing, two very large and easy to hit engines, and to top it all off, it's completely unshielded. But then you realize it's tied for the top speed of any pilotable ship in the game - with the 'augmented engines' hull mod, it [[BeyondTheImpossible outruns interceptor squadrons]]. The AI just doesn't know how to play to the Hound's strengths; it's pretty much built for kiting ([[FragileSpeedster being made of paper doesn't matter when the enemy can't hit you in the first place]]). It really shines when you rip out the default assault chaingun and install a long range, slow firing weapon such as a Hypervelocity Cannon or a Heavy Mauler, both of which deal significant amounts of damage and come with plenty of ammunition. The Hound is fast and maneuverable enough to run ahead of a target, spin around to fire a shot, then turn and keep running, and your high speed means the single turret has plenty of time to take out any missiles they send your way. It takes a while, but you can eventually whittle down even destroyers [[OneManArmy singlehandedly]] with this tactic.

** Next to nothing meaning about [[ScratchDamage 2-20 damage]]. They really are almost harmless.

* GuideDangIt: Some mechanics are very poorly explained in-game, and many aren't even mentioned in the manual. For instance, flux buildup from beam weapons against shields will not drain over time, unlike any other weapon damage in the game (which require the shields to be lowered before the flux will dissipate).

** The Tachyon Lance, which is basically a sniper rifle [[RecycledInSpace IN SPACE]]. First, the downsides: it's a large weapon, costs 30,000 credits, and requires an astounding 32 build points. That said, it's a borderline GameBreaker if used properly. It does very high damage (1,500, with an extra 500 EMP on top of that, so it's even good against shields), though the rate of fire is somewhat low (six and a half seconds between shots). Each shot is enough to destroy a single ship in a squadron, or cause massive flux buildup in a frigate. It has a range of 5,000 su (half that of a LRM, and more than quintuple the range of most other weapons), and this can be boosted to 7,500 with a single hull mod. As it's a beam weapon, it has perfect accuracy, infinite ammo, and virtually instant travel time, negating every disadvantage most other long range weapons have. If fitted to a turret and set to autofire, the AI will be able to snipe at ships with pinpoint accuracy from across the entire map, usually hitting them several times before they get close enough to retaliate. Did we mention that the Odyssey has ''three'' large energy turrets?

** The Tachyon Lance, which is basically a sniper rifle [[RecycledInSpace IN SPACE]]. First, the downsides: it's a large weapon, costs 30,000 credits, and requires an astounding 32 build points. That said, it's a borderline GameBreaker if used properly. It does very high damage (1,500, with an extra 500 EMP on top of that, so it's even good against shields), though the rate of fire is very low. Each shot is enough to destroy a single ship in a squadron, or cause massive flux buildup in a frigate. It has a range of 5,000 su (half that of a LRM, and more than quintuple the range of most other weapons), and this can be boosted to 7,500 with a single hull mod. As it's a beam weapon, it has perfect accuracy, infinite ammo, and virtually instant travel time, negating every disadvantage most other long range weapons have. If fitted to a turret and set to autofire, the AI will be able to snipe at ships with pinpoint accuracy from across the entire map, usually hitting them several times before they get into range for their own weapons. Did we mention that the Odyssey has ''three'' large energy turrets?
*** The primary GameBreaker aspect of an Odyssey fitted with Tachyon Lances is that it can destroy most squadrons from across the map in two broadsides, meaning the enemy never gets to capture a single control point, which in turn means they can't bring in any larger ships that could stand a chance of breaking the Odyssey's control of the map.

** Not nearly as annoying after the introduction of the Abandoned Storage Facility in version .52a. Now when you wipe, you just need to make your way to Corvus I and grab whatever supplies and ships you have mothballed there (provided, of course, that you ever reached a fleet size where you needed to store some of your ships in the first place).

* BoringButPractical: Energy weapons. They bypass the TacticalRockPaperScissors used by other damage types entirely. They tend to have decent range, and there are multiple cheap hull mods to boost this further. Most energy weapons don't use ammo or recharge over time, making them very useful for protracted engagements. The only real downsides are that they generate more flux and are somewhat micromanagement-heavy due to the gameplay mechanic mentioned under ChargedAttack below.

** The Tachyon Lance, which is basically a sniper rifle [[RecycledInSpace IN SPACE]]. First, the downsides: it's a large weapon, costs 30,000 credits, and requires an astounding 32 build points. That said, it's a borderline GameBreaker if used properly. It does very high damage (1,500, with an extra 500 EMP on top of that, so it's even good against shields), though the rate of fire is very low. Each shot is enough to destroy a single ship in a squadron, or cause massive flux buildup in a frigate. It has a range of 5,000 su (half that of a LRM, and more than quintuple the range of most other weapons), and this can be boosted to 7,500 with a single hull mod. As it's a beam weapon, it has perfect accuracy, infinite ammo, and virtually instant travel time, negating every disadvantage most other long range weapons have. If fitted to a turret and set to autofire, the AI will be able to snipe at ships with pinpoint accuracy from across the entire map. Did we mention that the Odyssey has three large energy turrets?