"Superior gunners"? "Enchanced factory controls?" "Terrific ground fighters?"

What do these words mean?



To give you a clear answer, you'll need to learn about all the gameplay mechanics affected, of which I'll give a short description and some pointers as well. This guide will run you through not only what do these unclear abilities entail, but also in what other hidden ways do these races differ, including technology and relations and how to overcome your disadvantages!

As you can see, there are ten races available total, each with a separate unique ability. Unlike the sequel, there are no custom races, but I've never found it an issue. Choosing a race also makes it impossible for that race to be chosen by the AI. This can make the game significantly easier or harder, depending on your luck.

Other than their special abilities, each race also has a proficiency (or deficiency) in certain technology fields. Which fields a race is good at often significantly affects their game plan.

Also each race has a different attitude towards the other which affects their initial relations and the median value they tend to drift towards. This does not mean that they cannot become friends or enemies, but poor relations often tend to spiral into conflicts, while good ones often prevent warring for long enough for trade deals to blossom into a non-aggression pact or an alliance even!

Another factor that's only relevant when playing against the AI is their personality. Each AI race will receive one of the six possible personalities and strategies. Each race has one primary for both personality and strategy, along with two alternatives for each. This affects their expected behaviour. We'll detail that in just a moment.

If you are only interested in a specific race, feel free to skip ahead a few sections. I'll have everything summarized for each entry, but all of them will contain useful information about relevant gameplay mechanisms that you might be interested in as a new player.

For technology, the available ratings for each race are: excellent, good, normal and poor. Excellent means -40% tech costs in that field. Good means -20% tech costs. Bad means +25% tech costs. Normal is the default, it won't be mentioned from now on.

You'll notice that if you don't change the default sliders, you'll often run ahead in one or two fields, while you keep chugging along in others. This is due to this "hidden" modifier that affects various races.

As some of them get really nice bonuses, while others have painful disadvantages, I'll take note of these values in each case. Knowing which fields is a race good at can make or break the game. No field can be ignored and if you fail to make up for your lackluster fields, you'll be severely left behind.

Here's a table with each speciality listed. Normal values are left out.


As you can see, these affinities can have severe implications on strategy, but more on that later.

Another factor to consider is the relations. This affects the initial relations, as mentioned, along with the value that races tend to drift towards after periods of inactivity. As there's not much else to it, I'll just put the table in here and you may study it at your leisure. A few things to note:

• The Humans start at 'relaxed' with everyone, which usually enough to start trading right away. This also means that your opponents are more likely to forgive after wars.
  
• The Darkloks have 'unease' with everyone sans the Humans. It's hard to overcome and will lead to conflicts down the line, if you fail to secure trade or give tributes.
  
• The Bulrathi and the Psilons are quite neutral with almost everyone. For the Psilons it usually means they can tech in peace, which is bad for all of their opponents.
  
• The Meklars and the Silicoids have 'relaxed' relations with each other, probably owning to their common inorganic nature. Other than the humans, they are the only races not neutral or hostile to each other by default.
  
• The Mrrshans have quite a 'restless' rivalry with the Alkari, but they also start at 'wary' with the Sakkra even! It's all but guaranteed that they'd be among the first ones to fight and even if you play as them, you are bound to find some rivals in most galaxies.
  
• Most other races have 'unease' with many others, which is sometimes enough to spark an early war, but it's nothing that you should worry about too much. Longer term, it tends to make the said two races unfriendly, but it's not impossible to still make them like you.

Finally, a word about AI personalities and behaviour.

There are six personalities:

• Ruthless: opportunist and often suicidal, lacks the ability to plan longer term
  
• Erratic: random and quirky, tends to randomly declare war or make peace
  
• Aggressive: the default, attacks whenever it's favorable, has a tendency to backstab weaker allies
  
• Pacifistic: forgiving and peaceful, tends to focus inwards unless provoked
  
• Honorable: keeps their word, does not take kindly to backstabbers and spies
  
• Xenophobic: impossible to please and does not care, they are likely to end up at war with everyone at point

And likewise six strategies:

• Diplomat: the default, trades with friends, spies more on enemies than the usual, balanced economy
  
• Militarist: prioritizes fleet and weaponry, tends to be aggressive and fights for neutral planets
  
• Technologist: focuses on technology, often leaving fleet and defenses underdeveloped
  
• Ecologist: high priority on economy and building up colonies, often content with the planets they have
  
• Industrialist: builds up factories quickly and focuses on improving their potential, then they may switch to aggression
  
• Expansionist: tries to colonize as many planets as possible before consolidating their holdings

Each race has a primary choice for both of them, then two-two secondaries with 20-20% chance of each occuring.


These do not have as large of an effect on the gameplay as it seems, but tends to nudge the AI towards optimal strategies for their race. The most interesting are the Erratic and Honorable personalities which can be relied upon to either lead to firm alliances or inevitable suicidal wars, no matter how hard you work for good relations with them.

Also if a race has too many revolts or if they lose badly, they may have a revolution that rerolls their leader's personality and strategy, which also resets their relations and treaties with everyone. This is a rare occurrence and typically does not change their trajectory significantly, although the new rulers might be more willing to sign peace, thus normalizing relationships and ending pointless wars.

Now, let's begin by going through each of the races, in alphabetical order.

• +3 beam defense, +3 missile defense, +3 initiative for each ship
  
• Excellent at propulsion, poor at force fields
  
• Restless with the Mrrshans, Unease with the Klackons, Sakkra (Darloks and Humans will not be mentioned)
  
• Honorable and Militarist AI by default
  
• (Subjective) tier: C

Starting off, let me explain how attack and defense works in space combat. Each time a weapon fires, a number is rolled from 1 to 100 inclusive. If this value is at least 50, the weapon hits the target and deals damage. For each level of attack for the attacker and each level of either beam and missile defense for the defender, the given level will be multiplied by ten and added to or subtracted from this roll.

So if you have +3 attack due to Battle Computers III, but the opponent has +3 beam defense due to them being Alkari, the advantages nullify each other, so each hit will have the default 50% chance of landing. What happens when a weapon hits is another topic, but you get the idea. Each weapon has a minimum of 5% chance to hit, so even if your opponent has far superior defense, some attacks may still hit them, urging them to attack back quickly or get away.

As with most things in this game, having a slight advantage is good, having a significant one is exponentially better. If you have five more defense than your opponent, only 5% of their hits are expected to land, down from the default 50%! That's often around 90% less damage on average! If you have an advantage in one field, it's often beneficial to push it to the most you can.

Initiative affects the turn order in which ships may attack. Higher ones come first and fire first when in range, which is essential for oneshotting doomstacks. It's not a very significant thing until late game though. Many things affect it, most notably targeting computers, manouver and battle scanners, yet it's not really something to build your core strategy around. There are some tricks to make the most of turn order, but they are outside the scope of this guide.

With that cleared up, let's talk about the Alkari. I consider them one of the better warlike races. Ideal for beginners diving into ship design, as they are good all-rounders. The extra defense tends to make their fleet feel sturdier, especially early on and has an indirect effect on their economy. Less ships destroyed means less production spent on your fleet. Smaller ships also have a major defensive bonus that you could make a great use of! Six defense with retro drives is nothing to scoof at! As the AI also tends to lag behind in drive tech and you have an natural advantage in it, it's feasible to reach such a high level in defense that most of their shots will miss! This also comes useful when sieging enemy planets, giving you a decent shot at withstanding the onslaught of rockets from their bases without advanced jammers present.

I'll explain the attack rolls later on, but it's good to know that the Alkari receive around 60% less hits on average early on, although the average damage reduction is a bit lower than that. Design your ships well and prioritize the first two smaller classes if you can, then you'll soon notice that your natural trait allows you to overcome vastly overpowered adversaries, turning even dire situations around. This allows you to win wars without too many losses, often allowing you to keep the momentum and attack the next opponent available. Try to prioritize enemies with poor computers to hold the advantage and research better armor to increase your survivability even further.

Fighting the Alkari can be annoying. They are only really vulnerable to missiles early on, but as they have no other economic advantages to speak of, eventually you should be able to overcome their natural advantage. Their smaller ships deceptively strong, but eventually they'll become outdated. Try to outpace them in other fields instead, especially computers and avoid unnecessary fights. Their poor force fields technology in particular makes them really vulnerable to bombing and with strong enough battle computers and numerous small weapons, their natural abilities can be overcome usually by the time the first larger ships come rolling in. They also tend to have the honorable personality, which makes them loyal allies, should you wish to avoid fighting them.

• +25 to ground combat
  
• Good at the construction and weapons, poor at the computers
  
• Unease with the Mrrshans
  
• Aggressive and Ecologist AI by default
  
• (Subjective) tier: D

Ground combat works in a similar way to space combat. Each turn, both sides roll a number between 1 and 100, then they add whatever bonuses they have. The higher number wins. The defender gets +5. In practice, an advantage of 5 points tends to translate to a 3:4 kill ratio, 10 points around to 2:3, while the Bulrathi's insane 25 points bonus leads to absolutely lopsided fights, often winning with at 1:5 ratios.

What does that mean in practice for a Bulrathi player? Well, they can capture colonies if even a fraction of their transports get through. They are nigh-impossible to invade, so they have a highly defensive side. Should they manage to sneak upon the enemy, they can take over whole planets with very few troops, easily giving boatloads of tech through conquests. If you bother timing your transports right by starting from the further planet, then moving on to the closer ones so that they'll all reach your opponent at the same time, it's likely that they'll get through their defenses and win easily.

It all sounds good on paper, but I still have to consider them a quite mediocre, as their natural advantage only comes up in a select few scenarios. Typically when you control the skies of a hostile planet, you can take your sweet time to gather enough troops from all across your empire for an invasion. Exceptions apply, but once you decisively destroy the enemy fleet and manage to get through their base defenses, you have already won, no matter whether it takes 5 or 50 troops to do so. Their ability is the most useful for stealing techs and early invasions against new enemy colonies.

The same thing also applies on defense. Although they are painful to invade, a savvy opponent might just as well bomb them instead, completely bypassing their combat potential. This usually destroy factories as well, losing the potential of acquiring key techs, but then again, you are still being bombed, you have nothing to be happy about. If it comes to the point where the only saving grace you have is that at least your technology wasn't stolen, you've probably already lost. Getting planetary shields is even more essential with them, but you can't rely on neither shields nor efficient troops completely.

There's also one more disadvantage that comes up: poor computers technology. Spying is a bit complex to fully explain here, but it works with rolls between 1-100, just like most things in the game. For spying, the current level of computers is used both offensively and defensively. If it's higher than your opponent's, the difference is added to the roll, increasing the chances of enemy spies getting caught or your spies successfully completing their mission. A difference of around 20 is enough to makes spies terrifying weapons, hard to catch and very likely to steal or blow up most of your defenses, not to mention others being framed. As the Bulrathi tend to lag behind in this field, they have to be extra careful about enemy spies and do not let themselves be pushed around.

Yet the Bulrathi start with neutral relationships with almost everyone. This allows them to build up and if lucky, strike at their own leisure. They are warlike in nature, but they do not have to pick unnecessary fights. Pick your opponents well, then damage enemy fleets and defenses as much as you can before invading your targets. Prioritize enemy capitals rather than borderlands to increase the chances of finding good technology. If you manage to knock one or two opponents out early on, you have probably already won the game.

Another slight advantage is that they are essentially not bound by ground combat technologies. This means you can safely forego those techs, probably bombs even, then focus on getting your ships better armed and armored, which the construction and weapon fields will assist you with greatly. You have to time it right, but the Bulrathi are sturdy, ideal for these kinds of risky "Hail Mary" attacks. Just don't put all your eggs into them and play smart. Better on higher difficulties where grabbing technologies by conquest is essential and you are bound to be always behind in ground combat tech, so your bonus comes in really useful.

• +30 to offensive spy rolls, +20 to defensive spy rolls
  
• Spies cost half as much, so only 12.5 BC instead of 25 BC
  
• Good at the computers
  
• Unease with the everyone, except for the Humans
  
• Aggressive and Diplomat AI by default
  
• (Subjective) tier: C

The Darloks are one of the hardest, but most fun races to play. Their relations are terrible, almost enough for everyone to declare war on sight. It's not surprising that the first time your spies fail, you are bound to go to war with whatever you have. As they have no other advantages, you have to make the most out of your ability and this has an inherent risk factor. But should you manage to defend yourself and stay afloat, you have a distinct way to control the game the way nobody else can...

I consider the Darloks the greatest skill-gate race to play, that is that once you manage to win with them, you can consider playing a difficulty higher. They are not as insane to play as the Mrrshans or cheesy as the Bulrathi, so bar the poor starting relationships, you are completely average both at combat and economy, at complete mercy of your abilities. This is where your spying affinity comes in to even the field, especially with their talent for computers!

A few more words on spying then. Each turn, you may send spies to foreign empires. Each spy costs 25 BC by default, each further spy costing double the previous' cost. This is halved for Darloks, allowing for earlier troublemaking. Only you have allocated the necessary amount, you may send a spy to the enemy. The opponent where your spies are makes a roll for each agent. They may identify or stop them, but have around 30% of not even finding them. After that, every spy who was not stopped in some way makes an attempt to infiltrate, most of them will however fail with around 85% chance. Infiltration means stealing a tech or a successfuly sabotage action. Failing means they'll hang around for another opportunity. Spies hiding are less likely to be caught, but they'll do nothing in return. I wouldn't really bother "building up" to be honest.

We can also speak of "critical failures and successes" when it comes to spy rolls, both offensively and defensively. Offensively, you may frame another race, which can only happen if you have a major advantage, either naturally or due to advanced computers. Framing another race ruins the relations between the two races, potentially breaking alliances and leading to war. Defensively, there's a chance that a spy may confess, stopping every other spy in your empire, effectively halting any infiltration that could happen in that turn. This means that it can be dangerous to spend too many spies to a more advanced opponent, as it's likely that they'll just fumble around and all get caught.

The Darloks are however not amateurs. They have a huge advantage in espionage and their gameplan extensively relies on well-timed tech steals, missile base sabotage and diplomatic awareness. By turning opponents against each other, you can take your time to strike at the best moment possible. Being at war with an opponent allows you to spy on them with impunity, allowing you to gather all the technologies you might have missed. Sabotage allows you to open up new fronts, while inciting rebellions allows you to neutralize populous planets, potentially giving you time to overtake weaker colonies while your opponent has to put down the rebellion. Their amazing bonus not only allows they to have around twice as many successful infiltrations as others, even more so with their cheap spies, but also it allows them to frame others surprisingly often.

With that said, there are many instances where things just don't go right. If you fail to expand and build up defenses quickly enough, you might get overrun by a more warlike race. If you get too aggressive with spying, you might find yourself in a multi-front war, something even the strongest should avoid. The Darloks are all about game sense. If you understand the rules and the situation well enough, you can thrive and fulfill all your Machiavellian tendencies. If not, you should pick some easier races to improve with first. The Darloks are terrifying in the hands of an expert player, especially on impossible difficulty, but need to have lady luck on their side. A great equalizer to the overwhelmingly strong AI on high difficulties.

• Trade deals are shifted +25%, which means they start off better and give you more when completely setup
  
• Excellent at force fields, good at planetology and propulsion
  
• Relaxed with the everyone
  
• Honorable and Diplomat AI by default
  
• (Subjective) tier: B

The Humans are one of the easier races to play. The high relations ensure that you'll make many friends and allows you to focus inwards. They have specialization in multiple technology fields, most notably force fields, allowing them to create great battleships, even relatively early on.

Let's talk about trade deals first. They are quite simple. You may trade for 25% of the smaller empire's yearly production. So if you produce 400 BC and the other player produces 200 BC, you may trade for 50 BC at most. When you sign a deal, it starts off at -30% percent return. Yeah, that's a negative. The 50 BC deal would give you -15 BC malus at first. Each turn, this return value increases by 0% to 5%, stopping at 100% naturally. Once it reaches that, you'll often receive a message from their ambassador and have your relations increase. Each deal takes on average around 50 turns to pay off completely, but most will break even at around 25 turns. Signing new deals averages out the initial -30% and the current return rate, then continues as such with the new value used at 100%. Breaking trades of course resets it. The current value is distributed across all your planets, depending on how much they produce.

With that said, the Human bonus is easy to understand. Their new deals start at only -5%, while the final return value is 125% of what is said in the agreement. This encourages the Humans to stay at peace and makes them surprisingly strong if they have at least 2-3 trades ongoing. If you are the weaker peer, trading with one other race can increase your income by over a third, while trading with two players can increase it by 75% over your actual producition! Trade is not to be underestimated and is essential when you are weaker than your opponents.

While trade can give you a surprisingly robust economy, but you have to keep in mind that alliances are fickle things and may swift any day, especially with your erratic peers. Never look at it as a guarantee, rather use these peaceful periods to build up and always try to have a few allies at your back. Humans tend to make good friends and have a honorable personality, but they usually benefit more from friendships than you do. The greatest danger of warring them is how many allies they can have. As they have no innate combat or significant economic bonuses, you have to hope they make a poor alliance with someone that drags them into a war of which they won't be able to recover from.

The Galatic Council is also extraordinarily kind to them. It's not uncommon that they win the first vote even! The Council is formed when 2/3rds of the galaxy has been colonized. They meet every 25 turns and win with again 2/3rds of the votes. Each race gets 1 vote for per 100 population. If you refuse the ruling, either if an opponent gets voted in or you do, the other races will unite and you'll have to defeat them all by force, which usually means either a certain defeat. The AI is infamously spiteful and they are more than happy to vote for your opponent, as long as they hate you more than them. Never go against the Humans on a vote, as the AI is more than happy to vote for them.

If an AI race can be voted on, abstaining or voting for the other candidate lowers your relations. As you vote last, if you are quick, you can calculate whether your vote would make them reach 2/3rds or not. If it would reach that threshold, obviously don't vote for any of them and abstain. It doesn't matter whether you vote for yourself or not, your relations will be harmed. On the other hand however, voting for them in a way that still does not lead to victory makes them grateful and significantly improves your relations. Use this to your advantage for building up trust with powerful allies. Also if your vote for yourself would cause you to win, you may abstain, if you want to keep on playing. Voting for yourself, then refusing the council vote makes everyone and you'll be stuck in a permanent war against them! A great way to end the game and try out exotic late-game techs...

• Colonists produce 1 BC instead of 0.5 BC
  
• Excellent at construction, poor at propulsion
  
• Unease with most, neutral with only the Bulrathi, Meklars and Psilons
  
• Xenophobic and Industrialist AI by default
  
• (Subjective) tier: A

The Klackons are recommended by the manual for your first game and I agree; you should start with either them or the Psilons until you get comfortable with the game. Their bonus is deceptively simple, but is among the best. Let's talk about production in detail to understand.

You have seen 'BC' come up often in this guide so far. It stands for "billions of credits", your income, the base unit of production and research. Each planet has a separate income that is shown in the 'PLANETS' window. These values are distributed in a way set by their sliders. If a planet is producing 350 BC and your sliders are set 40% ships, 20% cleanup, 40% research, you would invest 140 BC into shipbuilding and research, 70 BC into cleanup. You'll produce as many ships as you can each turn, with the remainder put into the next one's production. You can check the exact costs in the 'DESIGN' screen. Research is aggregated globally across your empire and is put into the common pool that can be seen at the 'TECH' screen. There's a bit of an oddity with 'interests' that are supposed to encourage steady investments over burst ones, but more on that later.

With the mystery of 'BC' answered, let's see how are they produced. Each colonist generates 0.5 BC by themselves. Each factory produces another 1.0 BC. A colonist may control up to 2 factories, which is further increased by your robotic controls tech. This means that initially, your planets will build enough factories (at the cost of 10 BC each, reduced further by tech) that each colonist may have two factories under their control, producing 2.5 BC per head. Part of it is spent on cleanup. Each factory produces a unit of waste and initially you can clean up two for every BC invested. This means that it's likely that half of your factories will work on cleanup, greatly wasting their potential until you invest into better planetology techs!

The Klackons may overcome this with their higher innate manual production, each colonist working twice as hard, giving you double the production per head. Only factories produce pollution, therefore your bonus remains unaffected and does not has to be cleaned up! On hard difficulty for example, each race begins the game with 40 population and 30 factories. Other races would have 50 BC income, 40 effective with cleanup included. The Klackons start out with 70 BC and have a net 60 after cleanup! This gives you a 50% production advantage from the first turn on!

Although the exact value differs between difficulty levels, the Klackons have a bonus that shines well early game. More production means more research, faster expansion, earlier defenses! With no significant research maluses, this bonus also carries you until mid-game, where given equal populations and resources, the Klackons have a comfortable production advantage over other races, which they can turn into research, defense or larger fleets. Later on as computer control improves and factories become very efficient at cleaning up waste, this bonus for manual labor tends to dissipate and they'll be overcome by more advanced races, should they fail to make a significant advantage, but don't count on it happening.

The best way to overcome Klackons as such is realizing how generic their bonus is and working your best to make the most out of your own advantage. The Klackon ships have no innate advantages, only numbers, therefore good ship design can decimate their mediocre hordes. Not to mention that their poor propulsion often leaves them hanging with retro engines and lame fuel cells for quite some time. Their economy is robust, but if they fail to defend their colonists, bombardments and invasions seal their fate. Fight fiercely until you manage to overcome their production advantage. They are a powerhouse, but fighting them will teach you how to make the most of your abilities.

• Each colonist may control up to 2 extra factories
  
• Refitting factories costs nothing
  
• Excellent at computers, poor at planetology
  
• Unease with the Sakkra, relaxed with the Silicoids
  
• Erratic and Industrialist AI by default
  
• (Subjective) tier: B

Now that I explained how production works, have a look at the most industrialist race, the Meklars. Their advantage lies in the fact that each population unit may control 4 factories from the start, allowing you to build double the usual amount. This translates to huge production, almost the double the normal, but pollution severely reduces it, leading to around a "mere" 25% advantage with the cleanup included. Therefore to make the most out of your abilities, you have to research, steal or conquer in order to eliminate pollution at all costs, while also prioritizing cheaper factory construction, as you'll have lots of construction to do. I consider them a really powerful race, but you need to be aware of the rules to play them efficiently.

Factory refitting means that once you research new computer controls or you conquer a colony with worse ones installed, you'll have to spend some BCs to install the new control computers to existing factories. Each level of controls after the initial II increases the cost of factories by 50%! The refit cost is as if you had "reconstructed" factories, being discounted with the cost already invested. If you have controls II, then research III, a non-Meklar planet would have to spend 5 BCs per factory with no lowered construction techs researched. If you went straight to controls IV, you'd have to pay 10 BCs instead. After that, you'll still have to build the new factories themselves before taking advantage of the improved controls, each unit costing that much more, 15 BCs and 20 BC for controls III and IV respectively. This is a costly process and while it surely pays off, it's often not viable to do so during intense wars. No refitting also means that the Meklars can instantly make use of their opponents' intact factories after an invasion, something to keep in mind.

Despite of their advantages, the Meklars are incredibly vulnerable to invasions; probably more so than most other races. Never under any circumstances allow an enemy to take over your well-developed core colonies. Technology is more likely to be stolen if you have many factories. Each 25 factories captured allows up to one technology to be stolen with up to 50% chance. Therefore having more than 200 factories intact could allow the enemy to steal potentially up to 8 techs from you (but it's possible that none will be stolen, although it only has a 0.39% chance of occuring), not to mention having a large part of your factories used against you! Always keep your worlds well defended and research scanners (easy with your computers affinity) to know where your enemy is moving. Having a mobile defensive fleet is essential to stop any serious intrusion and this is especially important for this race.

There is something interest about the Meklars in hands of the AI. Their default personality is erratic which means they act pretty much completely random. They can break deals, attack or make peace at whim. Do not rely on them for anything! This tends to make them more forgiving than others however, but keep in mind that the Meklars are the strongest when they are allowed to build up and as such, they are extremely vulnerable to bombardment. They are a race that peaks around mid-game, they are likely among the strongest there, but once other races also research better computers, they tend to lose their greatest advantage, while early on, there's simply too much pollution to bear. Time it right, survive until you have your defenses up and you'll notice how awesome their ability can be, if given the opportunity to shine.

• +4 attack levels, +4 initiative for all ships and missile bases
  
• Excellent at weapons, poor at construction
  
• Restless with the Alkari, wary with the Sakkra (both bad enough for war!), unease with many others
  
• Ruthless and Militarist AI by default
  
• (Subjective) tier: D

On the flip side of the Alkari, there are their aggressive rivals: the Mrrshans. Infamous for their poor performance record, they are a great race for players looking for a challenge. While on paper there is nothing particularly wrong with their abilities or their technology, their weakness lies in their extremely poor relations. They have worse than unease with not one, but two races, enough to lock them in a permanent war with both the Alkari and the Sakkra. Should they want to win, they have to hope for the best and pray for neither of their rivals appearing, as most likely they won't be able to afford two or three front wars, especially with no economic advantages to speak of.

Let's talk about their benefits first. The extra attack levels are enough to have their shots hit 90% of the time as a baseline instead of 50%, a solid 80% increase! In practice the damage dealt is a bit lower than 80% due to how damage roll works, but the minimum damage is consistently increased. When a roll is made between 1 and 100, this value is also used for determining the amount of damage dealt. The damage is interpolated between the minimum amount and the maximum, depending on your roll. With higher attack level, you are not only expected to hit most of time, but the minimum damage is increased as well, as the to-hit roll can be negative, down to -50 at the lowest, making not only every attack hit obviously, but also increasing their damage on average.

The mathematics involved for this average, minimum and maximum damage are more involved. Let's see a race with no innate bonuses first, having 0 attack level, while their opponent also has 0 defense as well. Each attack has 50% chance to hit this way, needing a roll of at least 50 to hit at all, the others dealing 0 damage essentially. In case of a hit, if you roll exactly 50, the minimum amount of damage is dealt. If you roll exactly 100, the maximum amount of damage is dealt in all cases. The values inbetween interpolate linearly. Therefore you'd have to roll 75 to deal exactly the average of the two extremes. In this scenario, the average damage dealt per attack is 25% of the maximum damage times the number of guns, including misses. The actual value may be a bit higher if the minimum damage is high enough, but it is reduced further by shields, often quite extremely so. There's no minimum damage dealt and shields can completely block weaker weapons.

The Mrrshan fare much better in this regard. As mentioned, the higher attack level translates to 90% of the shots hitting, each potentially dealing some harm. The average damage per shot is lower on average, but the vast amount of hits always translates to higher damage dealt. Around 45% of the maximum damage is done with each attack, multiplied by the number of guns, if no shields are involved. The effective increase is lower than expected, but still almost double of all the other races. This also affects missiles, both on your ships and on your bases, greatly improving their potential, along with initiative so that you are likely to move and fire first!

Still, the advantage is not that enormous as it may seem. If your ships fail to reach their targets, you might as well have no bonus at all. Shields cancel out most of the extra damage dealt, offset somewhat by your excellent affinity with weapons, making the Mrrshans likely to be at the top at all times in that field. Luckily, neither of your rivals are proficient in force fields, the Alkari are outright poor even, therefore you have to make the most of your ability to overcome your peers. Try to focus on the highest amount of damage possible, something that large ships are the most efficient at. Not having to necessarily install battle computers also helps, but you should still invest into some for larger ships to increase your damage potential even further and overcome faster drives and those pesky inertial stabilizers.

On average, a Mrrshan fleet can be around twice as efficient as another race's, but they often get destroyed in the process and have no way to replenish the losses quickly. The poor construction tech makes it even more likely that they won't have the industry to pull it off, nor good enough armor to help their ships to survive. The cold relations and ruthless personality also encourages exactly this kind of behaviour for the AI, the Mrrshan often ruining a poor opponent's day, leading both of them to a devastating war with no clear winners. This kingmaker role can come useful for the other races which plan on attacking either the Mrrshans or their rivals, something to be aware of...

Luckily, you the player can avoid this fate. The Mrsshans can fare well if played defensively. Shields don't do too much against the super damaging missiles, making their bases around twice as good as their peers'; getting scatter packs makes them even better so. If you are careful and aware of the diplomatic landscape, you can predict which opponents you have to be careful with and which planets you need to defend well. Don't get too greedy and hope your blood rivals get stuck, then strike when the opportunity comes. A smart Mrrshan player can overcome the challenges, but it won't be an easy ride. If the Darloks are a skill-gate race, the Mrrshans are for those who don't like being bored. It's guaranteed that every Mrrshan game will be interesting due to all the warring involved. Just pay attention to the galactic vote...

• Each technology has 75% of appearing instead of the default 50%
  
• An extra +50% to research, meaning they gain half a research point extra for each BC invested
  
• Good at all the tech fields, each technology costing -20% less, leading to an effective increase of 87.5% for research rate with the bonus above!
  
• Neutral with everyone other than Humans and Darloks
  
• Pacifistic and Technologist AI by default
  
• (Subjective) tier: A

Often considered the best race and for a good reason: despite of their meek nature and appearance, the Psilons are extremely dangerous if left alone. With almost double the research and more options, they can reliably overcome whatever the enemy throws at them, often outshining most of their opponents by mid-game. Let's see how their bonus works and what details are there to know about research.

Each technology field is divided up into tiers every five levels. For each tier, every technology in it only has 50% chance of appearing, but each tier will always have at least one technology present. To unlock a new tier, you have to research at least one technology from the previous tier. Once you unlock a tier, you'll see everything that can be researched in it. That's it. To obtain missing technologies, you'll have to trade for them, steal them or acquire them from conquest.

You might notice some percentages appearing when the light bulb fills up in the tech screen. Once you have managed to gather enough research points for the tech, you'll need to make a breakthrough to actually research it. This value is scaled as such: each breakthrough percentage is awarded for twice the tech's cost invested in extra. So if a tech were to cost 100 RP and you invested 150 RP already, the breakthrough chance would be 25%. This is calculated each turn for each field. If you stop investing too much into a technology at that point, you'll eventually research it, but investing more increases this chance. If you stop completely no breakthrough will occur (although no progress will be lost)!

There's also a relatively unknown "interest" mechanism that's worth clearing up for an advanced player. If you are not interested, feel free to skip the next three paragraphs. Now, each turn you receive an interest on your research for each field. This value is either 15% of the total amount invested so far in that tech or the amount of research points invested this turn, whichever is lower, as long as you make any investment in research. This value is added directly towards your progress, in addition to what you would normally invest from your income.

This mechanism has unclear implications at first sight. Let's think about it. Each turn when there's some minimal amount of research going on, you'll likely get double the usual amount due to this interest once you have some invested. If you were to invest more than 15% of the total investment so far into research, all this extra interest would be lost and you wouldn't get around double research as expected. Likewise, if you trickle invest equally into every field, but total amount is still far too low, you'll also lose out on potential interest, lowering your effective scientific output. The best way to make the most of your research is "crash funding" until 15% is done, then investing around 15% of your total income into research one or more fields each every turn. That's four clicks on the slider or around 1/6th of your income. Anything more or less can be considered less effective.

The golden rule is to always have around 1/6th of your global income put into each field you are actively researching and as low as you are comfortable with once you reach the breakthrough stage. Also try to put all your income you can afford very early on when starting to research a new technology for a kickstart. This is unviable once you colonize many planets, but helpful very early on. However if you don't feel like fiddling with sliders to such a degree, that's okay as well, especially for difficulties below impossible. The effect becomes less pronounced as you progress and the extra micromanagement is often not worth your comfort. Once the factories have been built, put rich planets exclusively to ship production, poor planets to research, unless some extra defense is needed. Balance the rest until you find the correct ratio. This is the optimal way.

Now back to the Psilons. For most races, only around half of the techs are present in each game, forcing them to make up for the missing ones. There are very few guaranteed techs and some are considered so essential that their absence can feel crippling. The Psilons however have the freedom to research mostly everything themselves, allowing them to take their times and ignore the galactical politics. This gives them some flexibility, but keep in mind that they have around 50% more things to spend research on! To make the most of their ability, do not research lower tier techs if you can help it. No need to research construction 8 when there's construction 6 available. Know which techs are expected to have a better alternative soon and plan ahead accordingly.

The Psilons also have an unsaid advantage that helps them tremendously. They have the best relations in the galaxy other than the Humans. Being neutral with almost everyone and having a tendency of being a pacifist means they'll usually be able to develop at their own leisure, not bothered by the petty bickerings of the other races. If you encounter an AI Psilon opponent, be aware that the time is on their side. Try to deny valuable planets from them and if you feel you cannot take on them head on, conquer some weaker opponents first to have the production to meet them on the field. If they manage to expand peacefully or overtake an opponent or two, it's most likely that they've already won the game. Prevent this at all costs, even funding their opponents if you have to. Isolating them is often essential to defeat them and when you are at war, make the best use of your spies and troops by robbing them blind!

• +100% population growth, additive with planetary bonuses
  
• Excellent at planetology
  
• Unease with around half of the races, wary with the Mrrshans!
  
• Aggressive and Expansionist AI by default
  
• (Subjective) tier: C

The Sakkra are quite unique in the sense that the usefulness of their bonus depends exactly how well you can time your expansion. Population growth has an interesting curve. It's highest when the population is at half of the maximum, it grows by around 10% per turn at that case, falling of slowly at both ends. If you wish to grow your population, you should have around 50% population at all planets, which might require some shuffling around. Reaching the maximum population means that it's time to expand and colonize or conquer new planets, all potential growth is wasted in that case otherwise.

With an expansionist personality, the Sakkra AI is encouraged to expand far and wide, moving huge populations around the galaxy to their new colonies, turning them into productive settlement with haste. As their planets will reach the maximum population extremely quick, this also leads to a distinct advantage with ground combat, as they can easily flood their opponents with countless troops, eventually wearing them down even with subpar tech. Once the Sakkra can get the expansion going on, they can be hard to stop and expect war once they run out of space. Nothing is more terrifying than seeing hundreds of Sakkra troop pods travelling towards your new colonies!

Their greatest weakness however is clear: once they reach the maximum population available and they have no room to expand to, they'll essentially lose their bonus. If they fail to colonize fast enough and do not have a numerical advantage over their opponents, they might find themselves in a cruel uphill battle against opponents which have natural advantages either in combat or economy. The Sakkra are a bit luck-dependant as such and thrive in larger galaxies where there's space to expand to. As a Sakkra player, do not be afraid to start fighting early for ground, as you have both a technology and production advantage early on due to your high population, along with the ability to overcome enemy ground troops with sheer numbers. As you have rather poor relations with most of the galaxy, you can't expect to stay at peace for too long anyways.

The excellent affinity with planetology also makes all of their planets significantly better to live on, improving both their capacity and their industry. This means that even a few extra planets colonized can significantly improve their edge over their opponents. Their proficiency also means that they are likely the first ones to grab the necessary techs for colonizing hostile environments, increasing their size even further. Their lack of any clear specialization otherwise makes them suitable for advanced and aggressive players, as their lack of any other bonus makes them dependant on the present situation that requires a game sense to recognize. I do not consider them bad and they can often snowball well, but they require finesse and luck to make the most of their ability. Unlucky starts can severely weaken them with often no recourse possible. Their relations are also less than stellar, pushing them towards a warpath that they are not particularly good at.

• Can inhabit all hostile planets from the start
  
• Waste is ignored, no production has to be spent on cleanup
  
• Halved population growth
  
• No benefits or disadvantages from fertile, gaia or hostile environments
  
• Good at computers, poor at everything else
  
• Relaxed with the Meklars
  
• Xenophobic and Expansionist AI by default
  
• (Subjective) tier: B

One of the most unique races, the Silicoids both have extreme advantages and disadvantages, making them suitable for expert players. First, they do not have to research anything to colonize all planets, meaning they can settle even on radiated planets from the start. This does not mean that they should necessarily prioritize them, rather it means the once all the other planets have been settled, they will still have room to expand to. These planets are often rich in minerals, making them ideal for major shipyards and as the others are scrambling to get the necessary techs, you'll likely gob these lands up. It's typical for them to control half of the galaxy by the time settling is done.

Their other advantage of not having to clean waste which means that their industry is working at higher efficiency than most other races'. Normally one third of your factories has to be kept for cleaning up exclusively, a huge amount. Thus they have around 25% advantage initially on hard difficulty for example, but it can increase higher once all the factories have been built, especially with better robotic controls. This advantage eventually deprecates as other races research better cleanup techs, but it gives you a major production edge in the first half of the game. Being able to expand everywhere and have no waste to cleanup also means that you won't have to research the relevant techs, saving you some research down the line, although this is offset by the increased costs.

However you'll have a hard time making the most of your abilities if you are not perceptive. Slower growth means that you'll have to be careful with invasions and defense against bombers. The higher tech costs for almost everything also ensures that you'll often chug along on par with the other races technology-wise. These deceptive disadvantages can be worked around and once you hit the maximum population, you are no longer harmed by them, but achieving that requires care and attention, especially on newly colonized planets. As land invasions from your opponents require technology for them to control the given planet, your hostile planets can be quite safe for some time, but do not take it as a sign that you won't need to protect them at all.

Despite of their unusual nature, the Silicoids are not particularly hostile to anyone and are neutral with most other races. This can allow you to expand safely and make the most out of your abilities. High proficiency with computers also makes them great at espionage, while also improving both your industry and your targeting computers. This combined with their tolerance to pollution makes them quite great industrialists and the holes in their tech trees can be patched with their decent spies. Flexible and once properly setup, the world is their oyster.

When fighting the Silicoids, keep in mind that they tend to have xenophobic personality, which makes them hostile to everyone else as well. They often get entangled with other races and you can use this as an opportunity to invade or bomb them, as they are extremely vulnerable to both. Once they have the defenses ready however, they are often very hard to defeat. Your best hope is going down on the path of research, slowly overcoming their natural advantages. By mid-game, most races should have production on par, if not better than the Silicoids, not to mention the ability to inhabit mostly the same planets as them. Wait long enough and you'll see they can become pushovers if they fail to make the most of their abilities early on. Soil enrichment coming rolling in for the others in particular is the point where they have likely already lost.

I consider the tiers only suggestive, as the game is not badly balanced in general and I've seen the majority of the races winning many times. Should the Mrrshans had slightly better relations, the insane +50% Psilon research bonus was removed (20% cheaper techs is more than enough) and the Klackons had their advantage halved, I think the game would be almost perfectly balanced. Better starting positions to ensure that every match is viable and we are golden. A testament of the game's brilliant simplicity.

So with that note, we can finish here. I hope I managed to clear up everything that's worth knowing. I hope you find as much joy in this game as I do. It's almost old enough to be a president, yet I still find that nearly nothing comes close to it. Not even the sequel (which is good, but it missed the point of what made the first one great), nor the accursed reboot.

Enjoy this classic.