History VideoGame / UrbanAssault

* Old-SchoolDogfight: The majority of units in the game consists of various types of aircraft and flying vehicles. Feel free to jump into your own helicopters, fighter jets, or bombers at any time and blast out the other enemy aircraft during a high-altitude dogfight.

* ApocalypseCult: Taerkasten Order and the Black Sect. Both have profound historical and religious origins.
** In the case of Taerkasten Order -- whose design and concepts are chiefly inspired by the medieval Teutonic Order, they have a theocratic system and wish to purge all the other unholy human and alien beings from the Earth for corrupting and polluting the environment. So that they alone shall rightfully rule over the holy planet.

* BigBad: Downplayed. There are a total of 6 factions in the Single player game including yours: The Resistance, Ghorkovs, Taerkastens, Mykonians, Sulgogars, and the Black Sect. There is no one opposing faction that is significantly above all other factions - Most of the levels had each faction struggling for supremacy. This is somewhat different on a narrative basis.
** In the original Resistance campaign, the Mykonians are [[InformedAbility presented as the]] BigBad in that they operate the world-threatening Parasite machine in the final level. Every other faction showed up in the final level with one host station each but the Mykonians had two host stations, one of them with maximum 15000 hit points, rivalling that of the Black Sect.

** The Black Sect's Flak Station had a noticeably short attack range, but reloads quickly and hits hard.

** From a faction-perspective, the Sulgogars somewhat fulfills this too, but their weakness is not so much physical but rather in terms of overall capability. The Sulgogars has one of the strongest attacks in the game, eclipsing even the Mykonians in many cases. However, they are heavily crippled by their lack of versatility: They cannot create their own power source, they only had a total of 3 different attacking units with their 2 heavy hitters (Slime Lord, Mean Green) easily defeated by anti-air tanks. The only other attacking Sulgogarian unit is the Blue Spore, whose anti-tank capabilities mitigate that glaring weakness to some extent. However, given its low flight altitude under AI-control, the Blue Spore is in turn mostly useless against air units - Even with the powerful machine gun particle as its support, the Blue Spore barely scratches the moderately high flying units. With the right tactics and units the Sulgogars are not too difficult to kill, in fact a seasoned player might arguably find them the easiest faction to beat.

** The game had received official localizations with full text translation and audio (voice) support in the following four languages: English, French, German, and Japanese. Among these different versions, some unit names are different or even retain their old script/beta names. This is most noticeable in the German (the original developer's language) version of the game. To give an example, the Ghorkov and Taerkasten scout units, the Ghor-Scout and the Ormu-Scout, are instead known in German as Ormu and Otschko, respectively.

** The Resistance Wasp, Falcon, Warhammer, Weasel, Marauder, Rhino, and Rock Sled had above average speed but pretty weak armor, especially the Rhino which starts out with the lowest possible 1% armor. The Resistance Firefly kind of sets itself apart from the other Resistance examples, in that when fully upgraded it will get pretty good armor, but its low hit points means that many vehicles with strong weaponry can still take it down in 1-2 hits.

** From a faction-perspective, the Mykonians fall into this category. Mykonian units generally have the strongest attacks in the game, but had extremely weak armor. An attack squad of Myko X01 Quaddas is capable of obliterating a full-health Resistance Host Station in seconds. On the other hand, a non-upgraded Falcon can take down practically any Mykonian air unit in 1-2 hits.
** Individual units are notably the Resistance's Rhino and Rock Sled, along with the Taerkasten's Bronsteijn. All three units had high hit points but their armor is underwhelming, especially that of the Rhino. Any standard heavy tank easily destroys either the Rhino or Rock Sled with just two hits. The Bronsteijn is an exception to the general rule that Taerkasten units are heavily armored. In terms of firepower: The Rhino's rocket weapon does 3400 damage, which can one-hit-kill almost any vehicle that isn't a host station. The Rock Sled is a suicide unit with a blast radius one sector wide, with the center of the blast dealing the biggest damage at 15000 damage - if unlucky enough to be caught at or near the center of the blast, it can one-hit-kill virtually any vehicle in the game that's not a host station, or sometimes even that. The Bronsteijn does 1200 damage per shot, the shot can travel more than a sector wide and has greater than average blast radius.
** The Black Sect's Flak Station stands out among all factions' flak stations, in the sense that it is the hardest-hitting with a fast reload rate. On the other hand, its blasts are pretty short-ranged and had even lower durability than the Mykonian Flak Station.

** The Resistance faction had the most variety of units to choose from (Besides the Black Sect), it has a mix of both heavily-armored and lightly-armored units. It has a good range of tanks, helicopters, and planes, which with the player's guidance, can even be used outside of their intended specialization. When all units for the Resistance are unlocked, the player will usually be able to find a suitable unit to use for any particular task at hand.

** The only true LightningBruiser in the whole game is the Taerkasten Phantom: It is the most durable airplane with 80% armor, but yet still possessing above average speed AND strong firepower. However, it has several drawbacks that prevented it from unbalancing the game - Compared to other "heavy aircraft" such as the Resistance Warhammer and Mykonian Air Stick, it is significantly slower, has poorer maneuverability, and its missiles had relatively weaker homing capability. The drawbacks makes it more or less "equals" with its counterparts in other factions, and its overall capability remained chiefly of anti-aircraft as well as a moderately fast and durable unit to attract fire from the enemies.

* LongRangeFighter: There are a few vehicles with weapons that had a long enough range that allow it (if player-controlled) to play the role of a sniper where it can attack the enemy from a long distance away while the enemy can't retaliate immediately.

** The Taerkasten Bronsteijn's ion cannon burst not only does 1200 damage in one shot with a big blast radius, its projectile also travels more than 2 sectors wide. While its range is below that of the Rhino, its still barely enough for the Bronsteijn to play the role of a sniper.

** The Mykonians' X01 Quadda is the faction's most durable aircraft with 58% armor and fires rapid powerful energy blasts. At a first glance this seems balanced out with the X01 Quadda's poor speed and maneuverability especially considering its an aircraft. However, the poor speed and maneuverability seems to be an intentional design to further aid the X01 Quadda in being more adept at attacking slower aircraft - Faster aircraft risk exposing more vulnerability when they had to spend time circling a slower target in order to find a good shot. Overall, this makes the X01 Quadda deadly against both Host Stations and slow aircraft which is why the X01 Quadda overshadows all other Mykonian units in terms of both threat level and frequency of appearances.

*** The Rhino and the Rock Sled (single-player only) can be acquired in the later levels and it made the game a lot easier. In the case of the Rhino, the player only had to create 1 Rhino and some chaff units to distract the enemy while the player controls the Rhino to kill the enemy host station from a safe distance. In the case of the Rock Sled, its speed and firepower allows the player to directly approach and kill the enemy host station (mostly) smoothly. Seemingly recognizing how gamebreaking the Rhino and Rock Sled can be, most of the preliminary final levels and the final level itself (Parasite City) features big maps with the enemy host stations located far away, surrounded by lots of obstacles and/or located in hills which made it difficult for the player to create land units (the Rhino and Rock Sled are land units) to attack the enemy host stations. Not only that, some of the enemy host stations had a higher floating height, which greatly hampered the Rock Sled's destructive capability - The 15,000 damage only occurs right at the center of the suicide blast zone, and the damage dissipates rapidly when the target is located further away from the center.

* RememberTheNewGuy: The Black Sect and Sulgogars seems to be a somewhat afterthought added to the original Resistance campaign in order to add variety and increase the difficulty levels - These two factions only appeared in the later levels, the Sulgogars only had a grand total of 4 units with the Slime Lord and Sulgogar Queen sharing virtually the same design, the Black Sect only uses the other factions' units, and both factions are not available in the multiplayer. Additionally, the Black Sect is never even mentioned in both the game's help files and the physical manual that arrived with the Game CD's Jewel Case. While it is more likely a case of the game developers continuing their work after the reading materials were finalized, one can also argue that the Black Sect is supposed to be treated as a mysterious faction.

** Invoked in the mission "Command and Taerkast". In this level, the Taerkastens are said to be experimenting with their new Bronsteijn helicopter, and you have a chance to create some for yourself - but only in this level itself. Notably, this Bronsteijn had a higher creation cost and higher hit points as compared to the regular Bronsteijn used by their original creator Taerkastens.
** The aforementioned prototype Bronsteijn and also the trio of Gigants stolen by the Resistance had higher hit points compared to their regular counterparts for whatever reason.

** Averted in the Ghorkov and Taerkasten campaigns in Metropolis Dawn: Perhaps as a CallBack to the original Resistance Campaign, the Resistance faction (Who are now the foes) will also upgrade their vehicles in the later levels. This is in contrast to the original Resistance Campaign, where the foes usually don't maintain any upgrades they get - if they had any for a particular level.

* AWinnerIsYou: Partly due to GameplayAndStorySegregation, completing the game doesn't result in any new revelation or solid conclusion in the story line. Upon completion of the original campaign, a short video was played congratulating the player for destroying the Parasite.

** In the unreleased Metropolis expansion pack, there doesn't seem to be a BigBad on a narrative basis, quite unlike that of the Resistance campaign. However gameplay wise:

* BlackAndGrayMorality: The Mykonians, the Sulgogars, and the Black Sect were consistently portrayed as the bad guys, while for the terran factions (the Resistance, the Kyternesians/Ghorkovs and the Taerkastens), it was somewhat ambiguous. The Resistance's mission briefings includes a guilty admission that they did try to sell out the Ghorkovs to the Mykonians. Also, depending on which campaign you are playing (Resistance, Ghorkovs or Taerkastens), the terran faction you are playing for will frequently demonize the other two terran factions.

* CallBack: In the unreleased Metropolis Dawn expansion, there is a mission named Dejavu in the Taerkasten campaign, which allows you to revisit the region of Pedestal Mountain of the original Resistance campaign. But this time, you are the one who guards the Pedestal Mountain from the attacks of the various enemies surrounding the area.

* EnemyMine: Completely averted. None of the 6 factions ever teamed up in any level and the game doesn't program them for that. As the in-game guide states: "Diplomacy has failed". The game itself also acknowledges that the only reason why the Mykonians (And Sulgogars) were able to threaten Earth was because the human factions are not united.

** The Resistance Wasp, Falcon, Warhammer, Weasel, Marauder, Rhino, and Rock Sled had above average speed but pretty weak armor, especially the Rhino which starts out with the lowest possible 1% armor. The Resistance Firefly kind of sets itself apart from the other Resistance examples, in that when fully upgraded it would get pretty good armor, but its low hit points means that many vehicles with strong weaponry can still take it down in 1-2 hits.

* GameplayAndStorySegregation: Lots of, in both the original campaign and the unreleased Metropolis Dawn expansion.

** The Parasite (Which made an appearance in both the original campaign and the unreleased Ghorkov campaign) plays a big role in the story, where you are requested to destroy it. In actual gameplay it only means that you need to take control of a Stoudson Bomb before its countdown reaches 0, hence eliminating you and all other enemies in the region.

** The Black Sect's Flak Station stood out among all factions' flak stations, in the sense that it is the hardest-hitting with a fast reload rate. On the other hand, its blasts are pretty short-ranged and had even lower durability than the Mykonian Flak Station.

** The mission Stoudson's Bastion of the Taerkasten Campaign (Unreleased Metropolis Dawn expansion) plays out similarly as that of Hamburger Hill. The sole Taerkasten Flying Fortress must survive the combined might of three Resistance Host Stations. Except that its also possible to win relatively quickly via a Hetzel ZergRush attack if given enough time and energy to create a swarm of them.
* {{Hypocrite}}: Interestingly, the Taerkastens' disdain for modern technology and concurrent embracing of plasma formation technology wasn't really addressed for the in-game story.

* KeystoneArmy: Destroying an enemy host station would automatically destroy all the vehicles it is connected to. If the enemy host station is the only host station of an enemy faction left in the region, all the territories belonging to this enemy faction will be given to the faction that destroyed it.

** The human-controlled Resistance Rhino is the best sniper in the game. Its rocket weapon reloads very slowly, but deals 3400 damage per shot and the rocket can travel several sectors. The range allows the Rhino to attack from a distance long enough such that the AI-controlled enemy would sometimes dally in its response until its too late (This is because an enemy unit only reacts immediately if your unit is in the next sector).

* MercyInvincibility: If the unit you're controlling is destroyed and there's still a surviving unit in the same squad you can transfer to, they will become immune to damage for a couple of seconds. This can make quite a difference if it was a wing of strong yet flimsy units like the Falcon.

** From a faction-perspective, the Taerkastens fall into this category. The Taerkasten Leonid tank is just one example. The Leonid tank not only hits hard, but of all standard heavy tanks it has the strongest armor (86% versus non-upgraded Resistance Tiger's 75%) and has the highest hit points too (280 versus non-upgraded Resistance Tiger's 220). Using math, the Leonid can survive more than twice the punishment the Tiger can take. In the unreleased Metropolis Dawn campaign, where you get to play as the Taerkastens, a fully upgraded Leonid at full-health is even capable of surviving a shot from a standard Resistance Rhino.

** The Resistance owns the heavy-duty helicopter Dragonfly. It is the bulkiest and one of the slowest helicopters in the game, rendering it highly vulnerable to anti-air planes. However, it makes up for that with sheer rapid-firing rockets, ridiculous machine gun damage output, good armor at 75%, and high health at 400. The player-controlled Dragonfly in particular makes the slow speed and poor evasion almost irrelevant since the player would have better accuracy at mowing down its opposition while still enduring hits better than an average helicopter could. A fully upgraded Dragonfly's damage output per second exceeds that of a weapon-upgraded Rhino, which theoretically mean it can take down an enemy host station faster than a Rhino could, assuming it can survive an enemy host station's self-defense weapons (In practice, most host stations' self-defense weapons are strong enough to obliterate even a player-controlled Dragonfly before it can score a host station kill, unless the host station in question is low on health).

* NextTierPowerUp: Perhaps unintentional. In the original Resistance Campaign, the Falcon is a "medium" plane that is usually outclassed by the more powerful (and more expensive) Warhammer in one-on-one comparison. A tech upgrade in the late mission "Sibuna" will upgrade the Falcon to fire two missiles at once, effectively doubling its firepower. Before the upgrade a Falcon ZergRush was considered pretty ineffective against host stations. Its doubled firepower makes the Falcon ZergRush tactic a lot more viable albeit still relatively expensive. Many players would actually see more general use for the fully-upgraded Falcon and instead relegate the Warhammer to a dogfight specialized role instead.

* NonIndicativeName: For the English version. Without playing the game, you would not have realized that:

* NoRecycling: Destroyed vehicles and flak stations leave a plasma residue. Driving through it adds a small amount of energy to the Host Station's reserves, and heals the unit itself.

* ReinventingTheWheel: Thankfully averted. All research upgrades stay with you for the entire game. This was intended, as the player obtains more powerful schematics as they travel to the east to counter more powerful enemies.
* RememberTheNewGuy: The Black Sect and Sulgogars seems to be a somewhat afterthought added to the original Resistance campaign in order to add variety and increase the difficulty levels - These two factions only appeared in the later levels, the Sulgogars only had a grand total of 4 units with the Slime Lord and Sulgogar Queen sharing virtually the same design, the Black Sect only uses the other factions' units, and both factions are not available in the multiplayer. Additionally, the Black Sect was never even mentioned in both the game's help files and the physical manual that arrived with the Game CD's Jewel Case. While it is more likely a case of the game developers continuing their work after the reading materials were finalized, one can also argue that the Black Sect is supposed to be treated as a mysterious faction.

** The Anvil Class Host Station, which was supposed to be yours, has an energy flak cannon, and the abilities to cloak all drones under its command and copy the drones of the enemy forces in the battlefield it's in. Unfortunately for you, the Black Sect stole it and mass-produced it. And [[SarcasmMode of course]], [[NoPlansNoPrototypeNoBackup thanks to this theft the Resistance no longer own the Anvil Class Host Station]].
** Invoked in the mission "Command and Taerkast". In this level, the Taerkastens were said to be experimenting with their new Bronsteijn helicopter, and you have a chance to create some for yourself - but only in this level itself. Notably, this Bronsteijn had a higher creation cost and higher hit points as compared to the regular Bronsteijn used by their original creator Taerkastens.

*** The weakness of the Specials seems to depend on whether its an airborne or land unit. If its an airborne unit, anti-air tanks and/or planes would be effective against it. If it's a land unit, bombers and helicopters would be effective instead.

* TookALevelInJerkass: In the unreleased Metropolis Dawn expansion pack, the Resistance was portrayed as an arch-enemy for the Ghorkovs and the Taerkastens in many of the missions, displacing the Mykonians in that role. The Ghorkovs had further painted the Resistance as evil and brutal in robbing people of their humanity by connecting them to host stations and become their controllers, which wasn't completely untrue even if we think that the Ghorkovs were just villifying their enemies.

*** If you attempted the late (and tougher) levels on one path and returned to an earlier path where you have yet to tackle the easier levels - The opponents' choice of vehicles and starting energy remained the same as the level was designed for.

* WetwareCPU: The Resistance's Synaptic Donor Units (or [=SDUs=] for short) are humans that were cybernetically modified and permanently connected to a Host Station. That includes [=SDU7=] the player.