# Races & Ship Classes

## Setting

Two factions fight inside the massive shielding, pipes, and superstructure of
refineries, shipyards, and mining stations — not open void. Grounded, blue-collar
sci-fi in the vein of *The Expanse* (disciplined inner-planet military vs. gritty
outer-belt miners), but built as a fast, arcade 2D tactical arena shooter rather
than a hard-sci-fi sim. Tight factory corridors and choke points are the map
language — see `multiplayer.md`.

> **Status:** This replaces the previous 10-alien-race concept pool and the
> Terran Republic / Mechanos Sovereignty / Vorg Swarm roster. A third faction,
> Apex Dynamics (The Corporate Syndicate), was cut entirely to simplify the art
> pipeline — no code or docs should reference it going forward.

---

## The 2 Factions

### Inner Sphere Navy (ISN) — The Military
**Weapon type:** Standard-issue ballistics / ordnance
**Visual:** Gunmetal-gray, wedge-shaped hulls with hard militaristic angles, dense
protective plating, and prominent forward-facing gun turrets.
**Feel:** Disciplined, heavy, frontal. Wins by tanking a choke point and forcing
the fight.
**Tactical ability:** **Overcharged Aegis** — see [Faction Abilities](#faction-abilities-universal-system)

### Outer Rim Collective (ORC) — The Belters
**Weapon type:** Kinetic / repurposed mining hardware
**Visual:** Blocky, gritty patchwork of mismatched metal plating and exposed
hydraulic wiring, dominated by external fuel tanks and heavy industrial hardware
bolted onto the hull.
**Feel:** Scrappy and improvised. Wins by controlling terrain and denying space.
**Tactical ability:** **Proximity Scrap-Mine** — see [Faction Abilities](#faction-abilities-universal-system)

---

## Ship Classes

Every faction fields the same 3-ship structure, re-skinned to its own theme:

| Class | Role |
|-------|------|
| **Fighter** | Single, high-precision, high-damage shot |
| **Gunner** | Rapid-fire spray/burst, more shots for less damage each |
| **Tank** | Bigger and slower; fires both bullets and missiles |

### Inner Sphere Navy (ISN)

| Ship | Class | Weapon |
|------|-------|--------|
| **Patriot** | Fighter | A single, hard-hitting high-caliber explosive shell |
| **Barrage** | Gunner | A relentless quad-barrel spray of fast, low-damage light bullets |
| **Behemoth** | Tank | Heavy tracking torpedoes plus massive physical deck-guns |

### Outer Rim Collective (ORC)

| Ship | Class | Weapon |
|------|-------|--------|
| **Rail-Jack** | Fighter | A single, heavy magnetic railgun slug |
| **Scrap-Spitter** | Gunner | A rotary scrap-cannon spraying rapid, low-damage metal shrapnel |
| **Iron-Clad** | Tank | Unguided explosive rockets plus continuous vulcan machine-gun fire |

---

## Faction Abilities (Universal System)

Each faction has exactly one tactical ability. Every ship in that faction gets
it — what changes per class is scale, not kind, so the ability reads instantly
off a ship's faction regardless of which of the 2 hulls it's flying. Same energy
cost and cooldown across factions; duration/impact scales with the hull:

| Class | Scaling rule |
|-------|--------------|
| Fighter | Fast cooldown, short/light effect |
| Gunner | Baseline cooldown and effect |
| Tank | Long cooldown, largest/heaviest effect |

### Inner Sphere Navy — Overcharged Aegis
A frontal hard-light barrier absorbs 100% of incoming damage from the front for
a few seconds. Sides and rear stay exposed, turn rate drops, and the ship can't
fire while it's up. Tank's barrier is wide enough to shield teammates trailing
behind it; Fighter's is a narrow, quick poke.
**Use:** Push straight through a defended choke point, soaking fire so teammates
can follow.

### Outer Rim Collective — Proximity Scrap-Mine
Ejects a magnetized mine that arms after ~1 second and goes dark on radar.
Detonates on enemy proximity for heavy damage in a small radius plus knockback;
alert enemies can shoot it from a distance to trigger it safely. Only one mine
per ship at a time — dropping a second detonates the first. Tank's mine has a
larger blast radius; Fighter's arms faster but hits smaller.
**Use:** Cover a retreat down a corridor, or seed a choke point/objective before
a push.

### Faction Interaction

With only 2 factions, the abilities form a single counter rather than a loop:

- **ISN shield counters ORC mines** — the frontal barrier absorbs a mine
  detonation, clearing the path for the team behind it.
- **ORC mines punish a shield push once it drops** — the shield can't fire and
  loses turn rate while up, so a mine dropped in its path (or behind it, once
  the barrier expires) still threatens the push.

No ability wins a fight by itself — it depends on the map and the moment it's
used, same as a smoke/flash/molotov in CS:GO.