anekdotin
5fe7c01052
Drop Apex Dynamics from the playable roster (2 races now: Inner Sphere Navy, Outer Rim Collective) to simplify the 2D art pipeline; World's race-offer logic just shuffles both remaining races instead of picking 2 of N. Also fix bullets using a constant muzzle velocity instead of adding the shooter's own velocity, and shrink the bullet hitbox/sprite. Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
4.7 KiB
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
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
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.