History YMMV / Starsector

* ComeForTheGameStayForTheMods: The game has a very active modding scene, most of which expand on the game by adding factions, ships, NPCs, quests, portraits, flags, AntiFrustrationFeatures, even battle dialogues and other utilities. There also megamods that new add gameplay features that is compatible to the base game the most famous being Nexerlin. Then there is the Archaen Order, a total conversion mod that drastically change how the game looks and plays, and are incompatible with other mods (with the exception of library and utility mods).

* DemonicSpiders: Some fighter wings 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.
** While other fighters might be more damaging, Thunders are probably the most annoying to fight. They are the fastest and have twice as much range as other strike craft, meaning a carrier can engage you with them from much farther away, and their combination of light machine guns and ion cannons means they both severely pressure your shields, and any ship with partial-coverage shields will rapidly get its weapons and engines disabled. They are widely regarded by the community as the most OP fighters for this reason.

** The Radiant-class Battleship was already one of the best possible ships to have in your fleet even with the restriction that it could only be operated by an AI core, and thus was not under direct player control, as the Radiant has great hull, armor, OP capacity, hardpoints, flux characteristics, shields, and a powerful mobility subsystem that lets it teleport short distances. Patch 0.95.1 made it possible for the player to control one directly, and even at the cost of a staggering 50 OP for the hullmod that allows direct control of the ship (and the hullmod cannot be built in to remove its massive OP cost), it's still by most accounts even better than the Paragon.
** The Doom-class phase cruiser is a perennial favorite flagship due to its ability to drop powerful mines on top of ships while still phase cloaked. A single mine run can cripple a capital ship without even having to drop its shields. Three or four of them working together can take out multiple enemy capital ships without taking a single hit in return.

** Fighters. Carriers are commonly used throughout most of the stages of the game and while fighters are easily dispatched individually, they're always deployed in swarms which can quickly overwhelm and cripple even large warships. In extreme situations fighter swarms are easily capable of tearing apart heaviest of capital ships, like a Paragon or the Onslaught, and can seriously choke defenses of the space stations. AI is good enough at managing their fighter replacement rate that unless you deal with the source, enemy fighters will never stop coming at you.

** 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.
** Ships with any sort of phase cloak or the Temporal Shell system are generally a pain in the ass to hit, as they can zip around much faster than anything else, and ships with phase cloak can do that while also actually invulnerable and can uncloak in highly inconvenient places like right behind your shields.

** The [EXTREMELY REDACTED] [[spoiler:Omega]] are often referred to as "Doritos" due to their triangular ship designs.

* GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff: The game has a quite strong Chinese community. They're mainly found in Baidu and the fan website [[https://www.fossic.org/ Fossic]]. They're well known for developing high-quality and impressive mods like [=ApproLight=], Polaris Prime, Gudalanmu and the 0.9x port of Sundog's [=ICE=] mod.

** Domain-Era Cryosleepers completely trivialize getting colonies large enough to be productive, provided you can supply 10 organics. They allow any colony within 10 light-years to build a cryorevival facility, which gives colonial growth rate equal to the colony size times ten times what percentage of the range remains (so a colony 5 light years away only gets half the growth of a colony in the same system).

** On the campaign side of things, selling Volturnian Lobster is this. They are cheap, legal, huge in numbers, and often sell for four times their base price in other systems. They render drug smuggling rather pointless as the return is almost as high for none of the risks.

* FanNickname: The [EXTREMELY REDACTED] [[spoiler: Omega]] are often referred to as "Doritos" due to their triangular ship designs.

** Interceptor fighters. They are usually rather weak, but their high speed and maneuverability makes them excel at flanking. Ignore them at your peril.

* GameBreaker: The Paragon-class is a deadly foe, but the standard layout has poor damage output and lacks all but three out of fifty potential extra flux vents. By fully utilizing four Tachyon Lances, and with kinetic weapons to support disabling a ship's weaponry with ease, the Paragon can retain immense firepower combined with maximum flux capacity and hullmods that allow it to vent hard flux with shields raised. This allows the Paragon to go toe-to-toe with multiple Onslaught-class ships at once, hitting them hard with plasma cannons and tanking anything they can throw at it with good tactical use of the Fortress Shield.

* GameBreaker: A couple of ships that the A.I uses in a suboptimal fashion can be utterly terrifying once the player gets their hands on them.
** The Hyperion-class Frigate has an extremely long-range teleportation ability that generates minimal flux when used and also has two Medium energy hardpoints. The default loadout fits these with Pulse Lasers, which are entirely decent weapons for light engagements. However, the player can rip these out and replace them with either Heavy or Antimatter Blasters, giving it incredible damage potential with the drawback of running out of flux capacity extremely fast. Even Onslaught-Class battleships can be taken down quickly and easily via hit-and-run tactics that abuse the generous teleporting ability and insane speed of the Hyperion to consistently hit it in the unprotected rear and teleport away before it can retaliate. The ability to mount four Atropos or two Reaper torpedoes only makes this ship even more of a threat.
** The Paragon-class is a deadly foe, but the standard layout has poor damage output and lacks all but three out of fifty potential extra flux vents. By fully utilizing four Tachyon Lances, and with kinetic weapons to support disabling a ship's weaponry with ease, the Paragon can retain immense firepower combined with maximum flux capacity and hullmods that allow it to vent hard flux with shields raised. This allows the Paragon to go toe-to-toe with multiple Onslaught-class ships at once, hitting them hard with plasma cannons and tanking anything they can throw at it with good tactical use of the Fortress Shield.

* ScrappyMechanic: The mission scoring system, where the only way to get 100% is by destroying every ship in the enemy fleet without taking any casualties on your own side. Prepare to restart the mission over and over because a single survivor from a fighter squadron managed to reach the edge of the map and escape, ruining your perfect score. The most frustrating aspect is that any enemy ships that weren't fielded (meaning you were able to take all the control points on the map, quite a feat in itself) count ''against'' your score. What's that? You managed to capture 3/4 of the enemy fleet intact without losing a single ship? I think a 19% score sounds fair!

* 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.

** The Hyperion-class Frigate has an extremely long-range teleportation ability that generates minimal flux when used, and also has two Medium energy hardpoints. The default loadout fits these with Pulse Lasers, which are entirely decent weapons for light engagements. However, the player can rip these out and replace them with either Heavy or Antimatter Blasters, giving it incredible damage potential with the drawback of running out of flux capacity extremely fast. Even Onslaught-Class battleships can be taken down quickly and easily via hit-and-run tactics that abuse the generous teleporting ability and insane speed of the Hyperion to consistently hit it in the unprotected rear and teleport away before it can retaliate. The ability to mount four Atropos or two Reaper torpedoes only makes this ship even more of a threat.
** The Paragon-class is a deadly foe, but the standard layout has poor damage output (Autopulse Lasers and Tachyon Lances) and lacks all but three out of fifty potential extra flux vents. By replacing the Tachyon Lances with Plasma Cannons, ripping out the missile hardpoints and cutting back on the small hardpoints, the Paragon can retain immense firepower combined with maximum flux capacity (50 vents, 100 capacitors) and hullmods that allow it to vent hard flux with shields raised. This allows the Paragon to go toe-to-toe with multiple Onslaught-class ships at once, hitting them hard with plasma cannons and tanking anything they can throw at it with good tactical use of the fortress shield. Putting flak cannons on the universal hardpoints also allows the Paragon to swat aside the massive missile barrages that is the Onslaught's main method of damage production.
* GoddamnedBats: Interceptor squadrons. They are usually rather weak, but their high speed and maneuverability makes them excel at flanking. Ignore them at your peril.

** 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.

* JustForFun/XMeetsY: The developers describe it as ''VideoGame/StarControl'' meets ''VideoGame/MasterOfOrion 2'' meets ''VideoGame/MechWarrior''. With the .50 beta campaign release, it adds a touch of ''[[VideoGame/MountAndBlade Mount & Blade]]'' as well.