History VideoGame / Starsector

** The Astral-class Carrier is a downplayed example. A unique High Tech capital ship that is not designed for direct combat due to it’s pathetically fragile armour and hull, it instead makes use of its ''six'' fighter wings to provide the main bulk of its offense, with unique Recall Device system that allows it to teleport any fighters it has deployed to back to the ship for rapid re-arming. For example, if paired with an all-bomber squad, watch as the bombers go forth and deploy their payloads, teleport back to the Astral right after playload deployment to re-arm, then watch them go forth and deploy another payload in a matter of seconds, with a 30 second cooldown after use.

* TheDreadedDreadnought: The 0.96a update introduced the Invictus-class Dreadnought that PlaysWith this trope. It boasts enormous ballistic firepower with four fixed point large ballistics slots at its front with a Lidar Array system that greatly increases the range, rate of fire and accuracy of hardpoint weapons while temporarily standing down turrets and all beam weapons while providing a smaller passive boost to range of all weapons when not in use. Additionally, six large ballistic slots cover around the vessel with Heavy Ballistics Integration to offset the ordnance cost with an additional two large missile slots on its port side. This is paired the largest armour, hull and flux capacity of any available ship in the game with the potential to act as a carrier thanks to its Vast Hangar hullmod, which will negate the penalties of Converted Hangar if installed as well as add a second hangar. However, it's costly to field and maintain with the crew requirements alone to be in the thousands, it has no shield, is very slow with top speed of 35, its Flux dissipation lower than the Onslaught’s, and despite its massive amount of armour, its other built-in hullmod Ablative Armor reduces the effective armor strength to 10%, which means the ship will still be very sturdy, but not impossible to damage though functionally this means that armor will last significantly longer for any given level of protection.

** Other battleships and battlecruisers can also take on an improvised version of the "battlecarrier" role with the Converted Hangar, which gives ships that don't have proper hangars a single hangar, albeit with penalties compared to proper hangars.

*** The Tri-Tachyon Corporation is sky blue.

*** The Player's created faction is sky blue.

* ElephantInTheRoom: An in-universe one: the fact that the Sector is now in the third century of Gate discontinuity and there ''hasn't'' been any word from the Domain government. The only formal element of the Domain government to show up in the Persean Sector was the [=XIVth=] Battlegroup, which had already been in transit across the Orion-Persean Abyss and had to make part of the journey via hyperspace rather than Gate transit; this was about 150 years ago, as the game opens. However, it's clear that a more organized, dedicated exploratory mission ''could'' have reached the Sector by now, to at least see if it has survived and to inform the colonists of the state of the Domain and try to offer some relief and guidance. That there's been nothing but complete, stony silence for a century and a half since the [=XIVth=] showed up and that the nominally far more advanced, far more mature and organized heart of the Domain in the Orion Spur seemingly hasn't been able to do a thing with the Gates for more than two hundred years has multiple, extremely grim implications for the fate of the central Domain, and is something that even characters who ''have'' to consider it (like [[spoiler:Hegemon Daud]]) don't enjoy thinking too deeply about. [[spoiler:The currently-implemented first part of the story adds several equally-grim clues about what might have happened.]]

* ElephantInTheRoom: An in-universe one: the fact that the Sector is now in the third century of Gate discontinuity and there ''hasn't'' been any word from the Domain government. The only formal element of the Domain government to show up in the Persean Sector was the [=XIVth=] Battlegroup, which had already been in transit across the Orion-Persean Abyss and had to make part of the journey via hyperspace rather than Gate transit; this was about 150 years ago, as the game opens. However, it's clear that a more organized, dedicated exploratory mission ''could'' have reached the Sector by now, to at least see if it has survived and to inform the colonists of the state of the Domain and try to offer some relief and guidance. That there's been nothing but complete, stony silence for a century and a half since the [=XIVth=] showed up and that the nominally far more advanced, far more mature and organized heart of the Domain in the Orion Spur seemingly hasn't been able to do a thing with the Gates for more than two hundred years has multiple, extremely grim implications for the fate of the central Domain, and is something even characters who ''have'' to consider it (like [[spoiler:Hegemon Daud]] don't enjoy thinking too deeply about. [[spoiler:The currently-implemented first part of the story adds several equally-grim clues about what might have happened.]]

* BalanceBuff: Patch 0.95.1 made a major buff to the utility of the Burn Drive system common on low-tech and midline ships - it can now be terminated mid-burn, allowing for much finer control of aggression and flexibility when applying pressure against high-tech fleets.

** 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 fighters, since they rarely have much defense). There are also EMP weapons, which easily disable weapons and flameout engines but do minimal damage otherwise.

* TakingYouWithMe: A ship exploding will damage any other ship close to it, though tend to be negligible for those in the same class. As such, a capital exploding next to an unprotected frigate will probably destroy it as well. The Atlas superfreighter and Prometheus supertanker are probably the most liable to cause this, as they're fairly easy to kill yet detonate ''very'' violently.

* TheInspectorIsComing: The Hegemony will send inspection fleets if you use AI Cores on your own planets or operate a freeport. They can be bribed to keep them away, but if you don't and refuse to let them take the cores, they will turn hostile against your faction.

* KineticWeaponsAreJustBetter: Ballistic weapons generally have far superior flux efficiency and/or range compared to energy weapons. The tradeoff is fact that most ballistics are far more specialized than energy weapons. With the exception of the Mjolnir Cannon, ballistic weapons either deal kinetic damage which is only effective against shields but weak against armor, high explosive damage which is vice versa, or fragmentation damage which is weak against everything except for exposed hull.

** 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 easily disable ship systems but do minimal damage otherwise.
** Phase ships trade one layer of defense for the ability to be intangible for as long as their flux capacity can hold. However, prolonged cloaking affects the ship's ability to phase, and has to rely on its armor when outside of p-space.

** Midline: Midline ships generally have a balance between armor and shields, as well as between energy and ballistic weapons and middling handling. They mostly also have relatively straightforward abilities. Visually, they're olive drab and usually have an optionally-pronged wedge shape and yellow exhaust, though their shields are a similar blue to High Tech ships.

** The Dragonfire DEM torpedo, on paper they are fairly impressive weapons, capable of unleashing a quick and intense beam that can easily cut through heavy armor from beyond the range of most point defense weapons. However, it's far less effective against shields. It also carries a pitiful amount of ammunition compared to most other conventional torpedo launchers that not only comes with more than twice the ammo but also costs fewer ordnance points to mount.

* KineticWeaponsAreJustBetter: Ballistic weapons generally have far superior flux efficiency and/or range compared to energy weapons. The tradeoff is fact that the low-tech ships that mount ballistics are otherwise weaker than the high-tech ships that mount energy weapons, as well as that except for the Mjolnir Cannon, ballistic weapons generally do specialized damage types.

** Energy weapons. They bypass the TacticalRockPaperScissors used by other damage types entirely, dealing flat 100% damage to shields, armor, and hull alike. They tend to have decent range, and there are multiple cheap hull mods to boost this further. The only real downside is that they tend to be less flux efficient than ballistic weapons.

** Ox tugs are purely utility ships and can't meaningfully haul crew, fuel, or cargo, but each one in your fleet increases its maximum burn by one point.
** Civilian ships in a military fleet. They're not going to hold up well in a fight beyond maybe screening some missiles, but most military ships have short legs on their own. Otherwise, mostly-defenseless civilian ships give your fleet the fuel and cargo capacity it needs to do long patrols and the crew space to colonize new worlds or invade existing ones.

** You can refit your ships with a wide variety of weapons, depending on what type of mounts they have (using a slot system reminiscent of ''[[VideoGame/MechWarrior MechWarrior 4]]''). You can use leftover build points to upgrade ship subsystems or flux capacity/venting speed if you have leftover build points.

* ChargedAttack: "Interdiction Pulse" campaign skill has your fleet stop for a few seconds while charging an engine-disrupting shockwave. Downplayed somewhat in that it doesn't actually do any damage - it merely stops and prevents the usage of movement-based skills by affected fleets for some time. Especially small fleets may be unable to interdict larger fleets too.

*** The Tri-Tachyon Corporation is teal blue. [[spoiler:also applies to the Remnants and Omega.]]

** Several missile weapons work this way. The Hurricane MIRV Launcher fires a projectile that splits into smaller ones to pelt a target with a widespread salvo, the Annihilator Rocket Pod launches two missiles a second making it an excellent pressure weapon, especially when multiple are mounted on the same ship. The Locust SRM Launcher rapidly fires forty small highly maneuverable missiles in a single salvo which shreds fighters, frigates, and any armourless destroyers.

** The 0.96 update has the Persean League use the new midline Pegasus-class Battleship, which is designed entirely around this strategy.

* OverclockingAttack: The defining trait of combat in the game. Ships have a stat called 'flux', which raises when they use certain weapons, take shield damage, are hit by ion cannons, use certain subsystems, etc, and drains slowly over time. If the flux hits capacity your ship overloads, leaving you to drift helplessly while very slowly venting flux. At any time you can vent it manually, causing it to drain several times faster than normal but disabling your weapons and shield for the duration. One-on-one combat against shielded enemies usually deals kinetic damage to their shields to force them to either drop shields, vent flux, or cause an overload, leaving you free to unload everything you have into the now helpless ship. Venting speed borders on a OneStatToRuleThemAll since it affects combat so drastically.

* RegeneratingShieldStaticHealth: Shields run off flux, which declines when not being generated and thus regenerates their durability. Armor does not regenerate at all in battle and hull only regenerates under certain limited circumstances. This means overcoming shields is extremely important since if you can drop your enemy's shields, you can do actual, lasting damage. Of course, this is also somewhat complicated by the fact that shields aren't the only thing that runs off flux - weapons, strikecraft, and certain active abilities ''also'' generate flux.

* SpaceFriction: On the one hand, ships don't slow down if you let go of the 'forward' key. On the other hand, they do have a strictly limited top speed, which is sharply cut if you start firing weapons or raising shields. [[FridgeLogic How exactly that works is anyone's guess]].

** The factions are associated with their own colors, which also shows on ships that certain factions have specifically modified to suit their purposes:

*** The Sindrian Diktat is purple.
*** The Tri-Tachyon Corporation is blue.
*** The Luddic Church and Luddic Path are different shades of green.
*** The Independents are grey.
*** The Pirates are red.
*** The Player's created faction is teal.

* CrapsackWorld: Constant war, loads of piracy, religious fanatic terrorists, and planets that can't survive without trade (which tends to get disrupted by the previous). Not a fun place to live. Even ignoring the immediate threats, the entire sector is in a downward spiral due to the gradual decline of technology as irreplaceable manufacturing bases are lost or destroyed to deny them to another power, remaining poorly-understood technology breaks down, and new technology is viewed skeptically at best by the largest religion in the Sector.

* HouseInspection: The Hegemony will send inspection fleets if you use AI Cores on your own planets or operate a freeport. They can be bribed to keep them away, but if you don't and refuse to let them take the cores, they will turn hostile against your faction.

* HitSoHardTheCalendarFeltIt: Due to the Collapse, those who live in the Persean sector consider the year it happened as the new Year Zero and use it to measure the time that's passed since the Gates shut down. By the time the player starts the game, it's been 206 years since the Collapse happened.

* AllThereInTheManual: There's an in-game Codex that gives a good level of detail on (almost) every ship, class, and variant in the game, down to individual weapon systems, ship stats, and even the in-universe history of that particular ship or weapon. It's missing a few entries in the current version that the campaign fleet overview shows, but nothing major. Just about the only combat-relevant information, it doesn't tell you are the firing arcs of a ship's weapons. Those you learn from experience. Painful, painful experience.
** Notably, much Spoiler material is also hidden from the Codex (for obvious reasons).
* AntiArmor: High-explosive weapons specialize in ablating away armor plates and doing double damage to it. A special case is the Breach Missile, which is a moderately powerful high-explosive missile that also does a flat 200 points of damage to armor regardless of the strength of the armor in addition to its regular damage, allowing a salvo to rip through even the heaviest armor.

* ArbitraryHeadcountLimit:You can have a maximum of 30 ships in your fleet of any size without editing config files or installing mods to change the limit. There is also a limit on the total deployment points worth of ships you can deploy simultaneously, which is normally half the battle size chosen in the settings menu, with some variation based on objectives captured and officers present skewing it as far as 60/40 in the favor of the side with more officers (in theory, by taking objectives, a battle can have up to 120% of its nominal maximum deployment points fielded).

** Sometimes the range of a ship's weapons will be barely more than the length of the ship itself.

* ArbitraryHeadcountLimit: You can have a maximum of 30 ships in your fleet of any size without editing config files or installing mods to change the limit. There is also a limit on the total deployment points worth of ships you can deploy simultaneously, which is normally half the battle size chosen in the settings menu, with some variation based on objectives captured and officers present skewing it as far as 60/40 in the favor of the side with more officers (in theory, by taking objectives, a battle can have up to 120% of its nominal maximum deployment points fielded).
* ArbitraryWeaponRange: Sometimes the range of a ship's weapons will be barely more than the length of the ship itself.
** The Tachyon Lance [[JustifiedTrope justifies this]] by saying that, despite the weapon's theoretically unlimited maximum range, the projectile is 'hardcoded' to disintegrate and become harmless beyond a certain distance in order to reduce the chances of severe collateral damage. Several projectiles remain dangerous beyond their listed range -- missiles in particular can still damage anything they collide with even after they run out of fuel. Although they may just bounce off anything they hit.
* ArmorPiercingAttack: As a general rule, EMP weapons will send arcs through shields if the target ship's flux level is high enough. While these arcs don't do do armor or hull damage, they can knock out weapons and engines.
* ArtificialBrilliance: The space combat has been the focus of development so far, and it really, really shows. Enemies flank, micromanage flux and shields, viciously take advantage of any momentary weaknesses, and otherwise perform well in combat. You can also set your own ship to autopilot and reap the benefits of flawless precision - it's actually recommended for large scale fights. However...
* ArtificialStupidity: ...while the AI is very precise and gifted with nearly superpowered reflexes, it's also prone to extreme incompetence which will often make you [[FacePalm slap your forehead in frustration]]. Among most common offences are reckless overextending with total disregard for ship's own safety, chasing faster ships that they have no chance of catching to the edge of the battlefield, blocking friendly ships' line of fire, completely ignoring and running into friendly phase mines, wasting limited ammunition for inappropriate targets (like firing torpedoes at fighters or wasting their entire supply of anti-shield Squall missiles at a lone Hound, which is a small frigate with ''no shields'' and way too agile to be hit by those missiles). You will be constantly reminded how painful it is to lose a ship when one of your flimsy carriers suicidally and needlessly rushes into firing range of enemy battlecruisers, [[TooDumbToLive or when your phase cruiser decides, for no particular reason, to uncloak in the middle of enemy armada and in front of their hot cannons, only to be torn to shreds within two seconds]].
* AsteroidThicket: Battlefields contain asteroids in surprising quantities. Unusually, they do next to nothing to your ships, so you can simply ram them and continue on your merry way, although they can deal significant damage if struck during the initial "burn" phase. (Collision damage is based on relative mass, and the largest asteroids are only about the size of the smallest frigates, and they also do kinetic damage which is greatly reduced against armor.) Asteroid belts are even downright useful for smugglers, as they'll interfere with your ship's transponders and make it more difficult for patrols to notice and try to stop you for inspections of illegal cargo.

** Antimatter blasters have terrifying firepower and only use a small energy mount, but they're very short-ranged, use more OP than any other small weapon, and unusually for non-missile weapons, have non-regenerating ammo, and unlike missiles, antimatter blasters generate a lot of flux.

* BlackBox: A core conceit of the CrapsackWorld setting is that pretty much ''everything'' is functionally one of these and impossible to replicate or reverse-engineer, from a whole array of LostTechnology terraforming equipment to the blueprint packages that make heavy industry function. Without a blueprint, you can't construct new ships, and blueprints are both impossible to copy and ''very'' jealously guarded by those who have them. There ''have'' been attempts to modify existing ships to new standards in-universe, often by outlaw factions, and these are shown to generally be... questionably safe to use. Later lore has walked this back a ''little'' bit (as, among other things, it's been pointed out that people would be able to figure out how to make and maintain at least industrial levels of technology without that much difficulty, assuming they had ''any'' education and reference material on physics, chemistry et al.) and that even starships ''can'' be slapped together without the use of "nano-forging," but the end products are decidedly substandard and the player has to discover LostTechnology on the frontier if they want their enterprises to compete with established Sector powers (who have some of this technology, still).