History VideoGame / MasterOfOrion

* NonStandardGameOver: If you reject the Council vote, you end up in a final, non-negotiable war against everyone else. Even worse (and weirder), you can get this if you reject ''your own coronation'' as ruler of the galaxy.

* NegativeSpaceWedgie: In ''Master Of Orion 2'', some of the one-time random events screw with hyperspace to impair or outright deny[[hottip:*:save for races with the Transdimensional trait]] space travel.

** FishPeople[=/=]{{Cthulhumanoid}}: Trilarians, the aquatic race. In [=MoO2=], where they first appeared, they were aquatic humanoids with fins and small tentacles, and in [=MoO3=] their appearance was changed to look more like eels.

** Planet/system names are frequently drawn from various sci-fi works, including [[{{Babylon 5}} Narn, Zhadoom]], and [[HPLovecraft Rlyeh]] (The game cannot handle punctuated names).

* SpaceFighter: ''Master Of Orion II'' has Interceptors[=/=]Bombers[=/=]Heavy Fighters carried by ships and planetary bases.

* SpiritualSuccessor: Arguably, Galactic Civilizations.

* ArmorPiercingAttack: In ''[=MoO 2=]'', some weapons can be made in armor-piercing variants (and some in shield-piercing, for that matter) so that damage that passes through armor/shields is applied to the target ship's internals immediately.
** The piercing effects of guns with the Armor Piercing mod can be negated by heavy and Xentronium armor, but neither can protect against an attacker equipped with an Achilles Targeting Unit device. Shield piercing weapons can be stopped from bypassing existing shields with the Hard Shields device.

* CommandAndConquerEconomy: The original game abstracted management enough to avert the trope. ''[=MoO3=]'' was a deliberate experiment to subvert the trope by forcing players to only give high-level orders and rely on AI subordinates. For most, the experiment failed.

** But since Death Ray is never miniaturized, it eventually becomes worse than Disrupter or Mauler Device, if you put enough research into their Tech Tree - see {{BoringButPractical}} entry above.

** Some energy weapons, when sufficiently advanced, can gain shield-piercing abilities. Particle Beam is always shield-piercing, but it's artifact (cannot be researched normally). However, shield piercing abilities can be countered by the shield tech Hard Shields.

* TheGreys: Psilons. They're actually rather nice, [[BewareTheNiceOnes but don't get on their bad side.]] They would rather sit back and do research... and have the advantage of gaining ''all'' the technologies in a given category (instead of one to two of them). So, if you go to war against them thinking your new Battleship is going to wipe them out, they roll out a '''[[strike:Death Star]] [[OhCrap Doomstar]]''' and [[DisproportionateRetribution blow up a few planets.]]. BewareTheNiceOnes indeed...
** The [=MoOII=] AI randomly selects various races attitudes, with the pre-existing races weighted toward having specific attitudes nearly every time. Psilons are normally Pacifistic Technologists. But on occasion they'll end up Erratic or Ruthless, in which case they're more terrifying then the Antarans.
** However, if the Psilons have enough of a technological edge over other races (which they usually do if left unchecked), even a "pacifistic" Psilon leader [[BitchInSheepsClothing will eventually start a campaign of genocide against all other races]].

* HomingProjectile: Uses traditional missiles to track targets. A research upgrade makes them dauntless, where the missile switches to a different enemy if the original target was destroyed.

* MagneticWeapons: ''Master Of Orion 2'' has [[KineticWeaponsAreJustBetter quite efficient]] rail guns (called mass drivers) and coil guns (called gauss cannons).

* {{Mutants}}: In ''Master Of Orion II'', there's a tech called Evolutionary Mutation, which, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin as the name says]], allows a one-time change to statistics of the race that discovers it, resulting in the second kind of mutant.

* OurWormholesAreDifferent: In the second game, some planets are connected by a wormhole that allows a ship to travel between the systems in a single turn regardless of the race's propulsion tech. The wormholes can span distances anywhere from a few parsecs to going from one side of the galactic map to the other.

** LizardFolk: the Sakkra from the first game.
*** See also ReptilesAreAbhorrent. Far more often than not, when they're not player-controlled, they're usually quite ready to attack other races, including yours. Basically, you can't live with them, and if you slacked off on building a big fleet you can't kill them.
*** On the other hand, from the perspective of a player that conquers the Sakkra, they're a god-send. Their subterranian trait raises the population cap of any planet they live on. That combined with their high population growth and farming expertise makes it a good idea to ship colonists from any Sakkra world you control to other worlds around your empire.

* ProudWarriorRace : Alkaris and Mrrshans in space, Bulrathis on world.

* ShoutOut: And how! [[Franchise/StarTrek Merculite missiles, transporters, phasors, tritanium armor, food replicators]], [[BattleBeyondTheStars stellar converters]], [[StarWars ion pulse cannons, proton torpedos, hyper drive, doom stars]], [[Creator/IsaacAsimov positronic computers]], [[LensMan inertial nullifiers]] - and possibly more.

* SpaceMarine: [[BoardingParty Boarding / Abti-boarding]]. Troop Pods double the amount of troops on board; some weapons kill marines in addition to normal damage. A rather obvious, but interesting twist is that in space Low Gravity penalty does not apply.

* StarfishAliens: [[InformedAbility Supposedly]], the Antarans. Some of the [[SpaceWhale space monsters]], while looking fairly smart, are likewise unable to communicate with other races. [=MoO3=] tried to make all the aliens more alien.

** Even toxic planets can be terraformed, if your enemies colonize them: [[EarthShatteringKaboom just blow them up]], then rebuild the planet from the resulting asteroid belt, then get a'forming.

* VideoGameCrueltyPotential: In [=MoO2=], you can eliminate a planet's population after conquering it in a ground battle. Or just blow them all to bits from orbit, which is much faster than assimilating or eliminating large populations. On the other hand, conquest can give you new technology and averts the need to build everything from scratch.

* ShoutOut: And how! [[StarTrek Merculite missiles, transporters, phasors, tritanium armor, food replicators]], [[BattleBeyondTheStars stellar converters]], [[StarWars ion pulse cannons, proton torpedos, hyper drive, doom stars]], [[Creator/IsaacAsimov positronic computers]], [[LensMan inertial nullifiers]] - and possibly more.

* BoardingParty: Enemy ships and space stations that have had their shields and engines disabled can be boarded and captured. Transporters and assault shuttles can be used to board at a distance. Like captured colonies, captured enemy ships can give you access to technology you either chose not to research or have not researched yet, when you scrap them at one of your systems.

* ShoutOut: And how! [[StarTrek Merculite missiles, transporters, phasors, tritanium armor, food replicators]], [[BattleBeyondTheStars stellar converters]], [[StarWars ion pulse cannons, proton torpedos, hyper drive, doom stars]], [[Creator/IsaacAsimov positronic computers]], [[LensMan powered armor, inertial nullifiers, space marines]] - and possibly more.

* SpaceFighter: ''Master Of Orion II'' has Interceptors[=/=]Bombers[=/=]Heavy Fighters carried by ships and planetary bases.

* StarfishAliens: [[InformedAbility Supposedly]], the Antarans. Some of the [[SpaceWhale space monsters]] are likewise unable to communicate with other races. [=MoO3=] tried to make all the aliens more alien.

* ShoutOut: And how! [[StarTrek Merculite missiles, transporters, phasors, tritanium armor, food replicators]], [[BattleBeyondTheStars stellar converters]], [[StarWars ion pulse cannons, proton torpedos, hyper drive, doom stars]], [[IsaacAsimov positronic computers]], [[LensMan powered armor, inertial nullifiers, space marines]] - and possibly more.

** The second game plays this straight (in the style of {{Civilization}}). You have to give orders to construct any particular building (from barracks to space station). On the other hand, you could let the AI handle construction... in which case you end up with a planet full of farmers trying to build a Doomstar.

* EnemyExchangeProgram:

* HomingProjectile: Uses traditional missiles to track targets. A research upgrade makes them dauntless, where the missile switches to a different enemy if the original target was destroyed.

----

** In ''[=MoO 2=]'' the only mass-based weapon that can pierce shields is the particle beam, and that's only available if dropped from defeating the Guardian or [[ImportedAlienPhlebotinum salvaged from captured Antaran vessels]]. Also, some energy weapons, when sufficiently advanced, can gain shield-piercing abilities. However, shield piercing abilities can be countered by the shield tech Hard Shields.

** In the prototype version of the game, called ''Star Lords'' the Psilons were called [[{{Dune}} Mentats]] and the Darloks [[LordofTheRings Nazguls.]] This is why their homeworlds are Mentar and Nazin, respectively, in the actual game and it's sequels. And the font for the title of that 1992 prototype bears a striking similarity to the title font for StarControl.

** The Meklar's hatred of all organic life, from the third game, sounds similar to the Daleks from ''Series/DoctorWho''.

* {{Precursors}}

* TechnicalPacifist : None of the AIs have any more problem with Planetocide. But they are [[EvenEvilHasStandards shocked, SHOCKED]] when the player carries out said Planetocide with biological weapons. That, of course, [[MoralMyopia does not always]] stop AI players from using biologicals themselves.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfRaces: Obviously.
** In the second and third games, if you conquer territory from another race, that race's citizens can be assimilated into your empire. It's not impossible to have a Psilon empire where, aside from your (research-heavy, of course) homeworld, all your citizens are actually Meklar.

* TranshumanAliens: Play as Humans. Take a walk down the Biology tree and pick up Evolutionary Mutation (along with a host of other technologies like Heightened Intelligence). Humanity may now ''look'' human enough, but it sure doesn't have much in common with the beings that flew into space (aside from their Charismatic Democracy).

** Want the free tech and buildings but don't want the expense and hassle of troop transports? No problem! Just drop biological weapons on 'em. Population and defending ground forces are wiped out, while all the pretty pretty buildings remain intact. (However, you will take a major diplomatic hit, since all the [=AI=] players now regard you as a CompleteMonster.)

* NewTechIsNotCheap: Tech discoveries start out at their maximum cost, which in some cases can be a bank-breaker if you're short on funds, but as the tech tree continues, the older discoveries become cheaper over time to eventually become BoringButPractical.

* ArmorPiercing: In ''[=MoO 2=]'', some weapons can be made in armor-piercing variants (and some in shield-piercing, for that matter) so that damage that passes through armor/shields is applied to the target ship's internals immediately.

* GameBreaker: Arguably the [[CrystalSpiresAndTogas Psilons]], at least in [=MoO=] 2. They have huge bonuses to scientific research speed, and gain automatic access to every technology in the game rather than having to pick and choose useful techs from a catalogue of options based on the situations they encounter. As a result, by the middle of a long game an unmolested Psilon empire can expect to be unambiguously more powerful than any rival empire, and by late in that same game, the Psilons can expect to have grown so overwhelmingly powerful that they can effortlessly defeat even alliances of all their rivals.

* [[YourMileageMayVary YMMV]] GameBreaker: Arguably the [[CrystalSpiresAndTogas Psilons]], at least in [=MoO=] 2. They have huge bonuses to scientific research speed, and gain automatic access to every technology in the game rather than having to pick and choose useful techs from a catalogue of options based on the situations they encounter. As a result, by the middle of a long game an unmolested Psilon empire can expect to be unambiguously more powerful than any rival empire, and by late in that same game, the Psilons can expect to have grown so overwhelmingly powerful that they can effortlessly defeat even alliances of all their rivals.
** For instance, being able to use all types of androids and all types of industrial technologies in conjunction allows them to produce single planets populated entirely by industrial androids that can have the economic output of dozens of normal planets combined. Moreover, speedy miniaturisation and production-cost-reduction of already known technologies by pouring more research into them can allow a Psilon empire by late game to build custom Doomstars stacked with dozens of [[EarthShatteringKaboom planet killer]] stellar converter weapons, [[ExtraTurn time manipulation devices]], and various other awesome techs, and then spew out hundreds of them very quickly from one of their various android industry planets. Needless to say, nothing in the game stands up against this, though at this point it's also more of a show of ostentatious novelty, as the game had been won effectively ages ago.

** The Meklar's hatred of all organic life, from the third game, sounds similar to the Daleks from ''DoctorWho''.

** FishPeople[=/=]{{Cthulhumanoid}}: Trilarian, the aquatic race. It isn't clear when they debut but ''[=MoO3=] declares them to be fish.
*** They debuted in [=MoO2=]

[[quoterigght:300:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Masteroforion.jpg]]

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Masteroforion.jpg

MasterOfOrion is a turn-based [[FourX 4X]] (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate) strategy game set in space. Players select a race and make decisions that would spell either the supremacy of their race or its destruction. They are not alone in the [[SpaceIsAnOcean vast ocean of space]], with other races controlled by the AI (or other players) attempting to do the same.

* ArbitraryMaximumRange: In ''[=MoO 2=]'', lasers and almost all other energy weapons have range-based damage penalties due to bloom, but mass drivers, gauss guns, Disruptors, and the [[WaveMotionGun Stellar Converter]] do not. However, all weapons in the MasterOfOrion series do have a maximum range that's not a direct function of ship's hit probability.

* MagneticWeapons: ''MasterOfOrion 2'' has [[KineticWeaponsAreJustBetter quite efficient]] rail guns (called mass drivers) and coil guns (called gauss cannons).

* {{Mutants}}: In ''MasterOfOrion II'', there's a tech called Evolutionary Mutation, which, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin as the name says]], allows a one-time change to statistics of the race that discovers it, resulting in the second kind of mutant.
* NegativeSpaceWedgie: In ''MasterOfOrion 2'', some of the one-time random events screw with hyperspace to impair or outright deny[[hottip:*:save for races with the Transdimensional trait]] space travel.