Empires and Ships
From BeginWiki
There are four nations. Federation, Klingon, Orion, and Romulan. Each has different technology and specialties. The Romulans have Plasma torpedoes that track your ship and explode fiercely. This is apparently modeled after the weapon the Romulans use in 'Balance of Terror'. The Orions have phasers that charge a turn faster then everyone else. The photon torpedoes for each race have different anti-matter yields, different phaser ranges and damage outputs, and different shield efficiencies and regeneration rates. Each nation also has different warp technologies, different probe types (probes are very slow but heavy yield bombs), and different reactor types.
| United Federation of Planets
Starfleet captains obey orders and show good tactical sense when fighting autonomously. There are times when you need a ship to throw its damaged carcass at an enemy ship just long enough to bring heavier guns around, and these are times when you have to explicitly order the AI commanders to do what you need, but once you do, they'll follow your orders and salute as the enemy rips their ship to shreds around them. |
| Klingon Empire
Klingons fight very well as a fleet and show good initiative. Much like Starfleet, the Klingon ships take orders well and use good judgment... usually. A Klingon commander is more likely to stick to a fight then a Federation captain and this can make managing your fleet resources difficult if winning the battle requires that your ships know when to disengage and repair. A Klingon will casually kamikaze, but they will occasionally bring a phaser to a torpedo fight. This can be managed by explicitly ordering the damaged ship to disengage, but doing so may cost you turns you cannot afford to spend on fleet discipline. |
| Romulan Star Empire
Romulans are, in general, poor decision makers in this game. If you go up against a Romulan fleet of any size, there's a statistically significant chance that at least one of the commanders will set off his scuttling charges. This decision often touches others in the fleet as the shockwave of his matter/antimatter bomb might take out three or four other friendly ships. Once past the opening stages of battle, the remaining ships can be quite dangerous. Even though their ships are slow in comparison to the other races, the Romulan fleet has two great equalizers: The cloaking device and the Plasma family of torpedoes. The advantages of the cloaking device are self evident. There are two classes of plasma torpedoes, the Plasma and the XPlasma. Both are homing weapons, and both carry large warheads. The XPlasma is slightly faster then the Plasma and carries a smaller warhead. |
| Orion Syndicate
All Orion vessels have suicide charges to prevent capture. These can be triggered by setting a self destruct. All ships in the game have a self destruct, but the Orion and Romulan ships have an extra bite when they blow. When commanding a fleet of Orions, be prepared for severe insubordination. This may manifest itself by having allied ships ignoring your orders and fleeing when you need them to stick their ground. |
