Line #7 VideoGame/Halcyon6


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/halcyon_6_header.jpg]]
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3	'''''Halcyon 6''''' is a StrategyRPG developed and published by Massive Damage, Inc. The original version, ''Starbase Commander'', was released on September 9, 2016 for [[UsefulNotes/IBMPersonalComputer PC]]. An UpdatedRerelease, ''Lightspeed Edition'', was released on August 10, 2017, for PC; an [[UsefulNotes/IOSGames iOS]] port followed two months later. Both versions are packaged together when purchased through UsefulNotes/{{Steam}}. On January 31st, 2019, the game was also ported to UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch.
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5	The player takes control of a commander in the New Terran Federation, a human organization originating from Earth, as they reclaim and rebuild a derelict space station called [[TitleDrop Halcyon 6]]. It will stand as a center of operations against the Chuul, a hostile and mysterious alien force. In order to combat it, neighboring star systems must be explored for resources, alliances with other alien races be built and broken, and new technologies researched. Will the Terran Republic survive, or perish against the invaders?
6
7	!!This game utilizes the following tropes:
8	* AchillesHeel: Each race/creature type has a specific weakness to a certain status effect, increasing both the odds and damage of a matching status inducing attack.
9	* AdaptiveAbility: High-tier Collective ships have this, receiving temporary resistance buff against any status they've been afflicted with, preventing you from easily piling statuses on them.
10	* AlienBlood: The Chruul bleed orange, and space whales bleed all kinds of colours depending on their breed.
11	* AnotherDimension: The Chruul seemingly invade from one. Later in the game you actually discover a large sector of space controlled by the Chruul though it appears to be not their home space but rather a territory they captured as a foothold in our universe, and their new ships still drop from portals.
12	* ArbitraryHeadcountLimit: No more than three ships per flotilla, though multiple enemy flotillas can occupy the same location, requiring you to fight them one after another.
13	* BackFromTheBrink: The initial Chruul attack obliterates the human space fleet and devastates the human-occupied planets, causing the New Terran Federation to collapse. Now it's up to you to pick up the pieces and rebuild thanks to a Precursors' space station that can stamp out warships in matter of days.
14	* BackFromTheDead: You can bring your killed officers back via cloning, provided you build a facility for that first.
15	* BeamOWar: [[spoiler: When the Chrull Mothership arrives to Halcyon 6 and fires its destructo-beam at it the station suddenly fires its own beam back, engaging in the trope with the Mothership. You'll need to do some errands to help it win.]]
16	* BigDamnHeroes: Every race you managed to ally with will send one of their best ships and officers to join your fleet. Depending on your difficulty level and strategic abilities, those ships might even be enough to retrieve the Halcyon artifacts and destroy the Chruul mothership without any support on your part.
17	* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: The Chruul Mothership is destroyed and their invasion stops, but Halcyon 6 is also gone. The New Terran Federation is also in ruins after getting caught in a conflict they had nothing to do with, and now without Halcyon they have to slowly rebuild from scratch. Might be more or less bitter depending on your relations with other races, as those you have allied with managed to overcome their own weaknesses and transform into better societies willing to help the rest.]]
18	* {{Cap}}: [[spoiler: The Chruul bosses, including the Mothership, have a damage cap on attacks they receive - most of them can receive no more than 1000 damage per hit, with all the damage above that going to waste. Some cases however (most notably damage over time) bypass this cap.]]
19	* ClassAndLevelSystem: ''Lightspeed Edition'' expands upon it as compared with the original game. You have three officer classes which determine what kind of ships they may pilot, with each class including two variations which determine skills available to individual officers. Additionally to that there are also three prestige classes, and each officer may access a random one.
20	* {{Combos}}: Weapons either inflict a status effect, or exploit a status effect for extra damage. Setting status effects up on enemies will allow you to pull of truly disgusting amounts of damage. For example, Salvage Harpoon inflicts both Vulnerable and Hull Breach, allowing you to follow up with Portal Cannon (exploits Hull Breach) and finish off the poor schmuck with Bullseye (exploits Vulnerable).
21	* CombatMedic: Your Engineering ships make the best example, having access to the biggest amount of healing abilities and also capable of hitting hard in battle. Science ships too, to a slightly lesser degree. In fact, only Tactical vessels and officers don't get access to skills that heal others.
22	* CrapsackWorld: If you examine things closely, the game's setting is a pretty terrible place to live in. For one, the New Terran Federation is seemingly governed by a military junta with the military officer class at the top and everyone else at the bottom and treated rather callously. Their neighbours are no better, ranging from extremely militant genetically-modified paranoiacs in the state of constant revolution to a MoodSwinger AI HiveMind that forcefully converts organic creatures into its own "flesh husks", among others, and all races regularly go to war against each other. That being said, the game does not actually take its own setting seriously, so all of the above is PlayedForLaughs, which results in a lot of BlackComedy.
23	* EarthThatWas: Implied. The human civilisation in this game is a part of the ''New'' Terran Federation, with its capital world of the ''New'' Terra. Upon closer inspection it seems to be similar to Earth but judging from the name and description of other celestial bodies it's not actually Earth and it's not in the Solar System.
24	* EvilCounterpart: [[spoiler: The Chruul Mothership to Halcyon 6 - because it's actually another sentient precursor station masquerading as a biological ship.]]
25	* EvilDebtCollector: One mission involves a fleet of Yabbling vessels showing up to demand from you an exorbitant amount of Materials the Federation owed. Thankfully, a [[ReadTheFinePrint contract clause]] allows you to wiggle out of the debt altogether via TrialByCombat.
26	* EvolvingWeapon: More like Evolving Ship - the Precursor ship from the DLC starts as Tier 1 but can actually be upgraded into higher tiers up to Tier 6 using precursor artifacts obtainable from space whales.
27	* FighterMageThief: The three ship types - Tactical, Engineering, Science - correlate to these, with Tacticals as thieves (hard hitting, evasive, but fragile), Engineering as fighters (tough, powerful, but slow) and Science as mages (fast with average stats otherwise and plenty supporting and multi-hitting abilities). The names of individual ship chassis further invoke the archetypes.
28	* FightingAcrossTimeAndSpace: [[spoiler: The whole game is an episode of such battle between two colossal Progenitor artifacts - Halcyon 6 and the Chruul Mothership, with humanity and other races just collateral damage.]]
29	* FinalBossPreview: You catch a glimpse of [[spoiler: the Chruul Mothership]] at the end of the tutorial fight.
30	* FluffyTheTerrible: [[spoiler: The Space Whales progenitors, titanic in size and capable of ripping your whole flotillas apart singlehandedly if you don't bring your best ships and tactics, are given rather harmless codenames by your research team, such as "Jowles" or "Sparky". Only the final whale gets a somewhat imposing name, that being "Morbid".]]
31	* GeniusLoci: Throughout the game Halcyon 6 is gradually implied to possess a consciousness of its own, [[spoiler: and the endgame reveals it is in fact fully sentient]].
32	* GlassCannon: Tactical ships lean towards this, being the hardest hitters amidst the standard ships but having the lowest hull integrity.
33	* {{Gorn}}: Deaths in ground combat, especially deaths of your crew, can get quite graphic (though you can disable it in options).
34	* GuideDangIt: Getting friendly with the Voraash once those invade requires rather counterintuitive steps - [[spoiler: when one of their invasion fleets raids your colony you need to engage them and then immediately retreat, which will get them to finally speak to you, opening opportunities for diplomacy]].
35	* HelpfulMook: When flying in Chruul territory, a possible random encounter is a Chruul who offers you some Chruul equipment in exchange for resources without a fight. Even the your command staff is baffled at this Chruul's peculiarly non-aggressive stance.
36	* HumansAreWarriors: Despite not being a ProudWarriorRace humans are distinctly this, having achieved dominance in the galaxy prior to the game's events thanks to the skill and ingenuity of their military officers (with a dash of exploiting Precursors' artifacts).
37	* HumanResources: Literally, with one of your resources being Crew. Most of the time those are consumed for sensible things like during ship construction or repopulating destroyed installations, but cloning your deceased officers also costs you a lot of Crew in accordance with the trope.
38	* HiveMind: Played with by the Korzan, who introduce themselves as a collective greater than humans, but turn out to have a fair amount of in-fighting among themselves. Played more straight with the Collective, as it is composed of a singular AI spread across multiple cyborg bodies.
39	* ImmuneToMindControl: Later in the game the Chruul start psychically possessing fleets of other races to get them to attack Halcyon 6. Thankfully, for some reason they don't do the same to your fleets, making your officers this. [[spoiler: This is explained in one optional mission - Halcyon 6 is actually subtly altering brains of its inhabitants, making them resistant to the Chruul's psychic attacks.]]
40	* InfinityPlusOneSword: The Precursor Ship. It's an evolving vessel that has access to every skill from all specialties (though the number of active skills you can take into battle is still limited) and an increased amount of equipment slots. It also has some unique skills exclusive to it that, among other things, reduce enemy resistances which no other ship in the game, friend or foe, can do, allowing you to hit enemies with statuses they would normally be immune to. Its raw stats are also very respectable - without side upgrades it's still the best ship in its tier, and with those it's fully equal or even superior to ships from the tier directly above it. Finally, with its evolutions it can reach Tier 6, the only ship of such tier you have access to and the only ship of this tier in the game apart from the Chruul unique bosses. Barring high difficulty levels, a fully upgraded Precursor ship can solo enemy flotillas of Tier 5 ships.
41	* LastChanceHitPoint: Ships and officers that reach zero HP will stay alive in a "Critical" state, a la [[Videogame/DarkestDungeon Death's Door]]. Any further damage (including damage over time effects) will destroy/kill them permanently.
42	* LifeDrain: In space the Voraash specialise in these abilities, and your science officers can also do it via Anti-Matter Siphon. Transfusion abilities allow for this during ground fights.
43	* LivingShip: The Chruul's ships are notably organic.
44	** Zig-zagged with the [[spoiler: Chruul mothership. Breaking its outer layers will expose organic-like flesh and bones, but eventually even those will peel out to reveal a metallic starbase similar to Halcyon 6's, albeit with a literal BrainInAJar taking up the entire upper deck]].
45	* LizardFolk: The Yabblings, with green skin and red eyes (though judging from descriptions they're actually closer to amphibians).
46	* MasterOfAll: The Precursor Ship, obtainable in the ''Precursor Legacy'' DLC, has access to abilities from all three ship types, plus some unique to it.
47	* MechanicalLifeforms: The Collective, an alien group reminiscent of [[Franchise/StarTrek The Borg]].
48	* {{Precursors}}: Of course they existed in the setting, leaving after themselves plenty of artifacts, with the titular Halcyon 6 being one of them. [[spoiler: The whole game's premise is actually a backdrop of a conflict between Halcyon and its sister station]].
49	* ModularEpilogue: The final ending reveals subsequent fates of other races in the galaxy, depending on if they survived and the diplomacy rating you managed to achieve with them.
50	* MoreDakka: The Commando prestige class's special ability allows them to enter the [[StanceSystem Revved Up state]]. In this state they have only one attack available, denying them the rest of their skills. It does moderate damage but recharges very quickly, allowing you to briefly up your damage output. Not so good to stay in for the whole fight but useful when you want to focus fire and kill something ''right now''.
51	* MutualKill: [[spoiler: In the game's climax Halcyon 6 annihilates its sister station once it's stripped of its facade as the Chruul Mothership, but is also erased from reality by its own attack.]]
52	* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: The unique Chruul boss ships have names like the Behemoth, the Devastator etc.
53	* OmnidisciplinaryScientist: Your science officers are equally effective at tasks requiring scientific rating whether they are physicists or biologists.
54	* PaletteSwap: You may occasionally encounter variations of Chruul ships, like Android, Psychic or Mutant. They have additional resistances and have different colourations, but otherwise act exactly like their baseline types.
55	* PhonyPsychic: [[spoiler: A whole race of these - the Korzan have some psychic abilities but they aren't actually prescient, unlike what they keep telling you and everyone else. They finally confess to it in their good ending]].
56	* ProudMerchantRace: The Yabblings, a swamp-dwelling reptilian alien species that introduce themselves by offering to buy Halcyon 6 and flip it on the market. Similarities to [[Franchise/StarTrek the Ferengi]] are [[SarcasmMode almost certainly coincidental]], though, to be fair, they do seem to be both slightly more sincere and a fair bit more polite.
57	* ProudWarriorRace: The Xlar-Yanthu, an alien group reminiscent of [[Franchise/StarTrek the Klingons]]. Noticing a pattern here?
58	* RedShirt: "Green Shirts" is the term used for expendable crewmates, as red is reserved for officers specializing in exploration.
59	** MauveShirt: You can promote one of the Cadets after he ends up taking an experimental SuperSerum, making him able to use the Cloning Chamber in case things go south for him. He can't pilot any ship besides the Shuttle and his selection of ground combat skills is subpar, but [[UnskilledButStrong he has pretty good stats]] and is best used to respond to emergencies in the starbase proper.
60	* SequentialBoss: The Chruul Mothership battle consists out of as many as [[spoiler: four]] phases.
61	* ShoutOut: The game is heavily inspired by science fiction, particularly but not exclusively ''Franchise/StarTrek'', and references it often. Additionally, the ''Precursor Legacy'' adds some references to ''[[Literature/{{MobyDick}} Moby-Dick]]''.
62	* SortingAlgorithmOfEvil: There is a very clear sense of escalation from the Chruul threat. First there are Chruul portals that spawn their fleets. Then once you shut one down and visit New Terra Chruul spires start appearing, that spawn even more fleets and are more difficult to destroy. Once you do so, however, [[spoiler: the Chimera shows up]]. Then [[spoiler: four more ships of its tier]]. And only then [[spoiler: can you challenge the Chruul Mothership]].
63	* SpacePirate: Early on, the player can find three different factions sharing a space system, and can choose to either wipe them all out or keep one alive in exchange for benefits.
64	* SpaceWhale: These are introduced in the ''Precursor Legacy'' DLC, you will need to hunt them for artifacts to upgrade your Precursor Ship, with each as large as your high-tier vessels. [[spoiler: Their boss variations, appearing after you kill enough of their progeny, are so big they don't fit the screen]].
65	* SubsystemDamage: [[spoiler: The Space Whale bosses are so gargantuan and powerful that each consists of three parts with their own HP and arsenal of attacks. The Chruul Mothership is this several times over]].
66	* StarfishAliens:
67	** The Chruul, unlike all other aliens in the game, are notably inhuman.
68	** [[spoiler: [=NishNish=], the original inhabitants of the world that is now the Voraash's capital, were a race of sentient nanomachine colonies.]]
69	* StatusEffects: The game heavily emphasizes inflicting/protecting against these. Additionally, certain attacks exploit these status effects, dealing increased damage but removing the status effect.
70	** [[DamageOverTime Hull Breach/Bleeding]]: The ship takes 200% of the inflicting attack's base damage over 3 turns. Bleeding results in 36 damage over 3 turns for ground based combat
71	** [[TemporaryBlindness Sensors Offline/Blinded]]: The ship's/character's aim is reduced by 30%
72	** Engines Down/Shocked: The ship's/Character's speed is reduced by 25%
73	** Crew Panic/Confused: The ship's/character's evasion is reduced by 100%, making hits a near guarantee.
74	** [[TheParalyzer Ship Disable/Stunned]]: The ship/character is forced to skip its turn(s).
75	** [[DamageIncreasingDebuff Vulnerable/Exposed]]: The ship/character takes 20% more damage and threat is increased by 50%
76	** [[PowerNullifier Weapons Disruption/Afflicted]]: The ship has one of its abilities randomly locked, preventing it from being used, and damage dealt by this ship is reduced by 25%. Afflicted merely reduces damage dealt by 25%
77	* ATasteOfPower: During the first scipted battle you get to try a flotilla made of Tier 4 ships.
78	* TheUnintelligible: You will occasionally open comms to try and talk with the Chruul, but all they do is spout giberrish and drool.
79	* VeteranUnit: A variation, where ships have notable members distinguishing themselves amidst the crew as ships participate in battles, granting the ship random stat bonuses. Sadly, there's no option to transfer these people to other ships.
80	* WhoNeedsEnemies: The game's races were never that friendly to begin with, but even when the Chruul attacks start targeting the other species' space they will still send their fleets to attack one another.
81	* YouAreInCommandNow: The player becomes the commander of all the human fleets at the beginning of the game, after the rest of the terran forces gets eradicated by the Chruul, leaving you as the highest-ranking officer by default.
82	* YouRequireMoreVespeneGas: The game's resources are Materials, Dark Matter, Crew, Fuel and Satellite Drones, with the first two used for the vast majority of things. ''Precursor Legacy'' also adds Precursors' Artifacts, needed to upgrade the Precursor Ship.

Context VideoGame / Halcyon6