History XUniverse / TropesMToR

* OpeningNarration:

** One Teladi sector mentions how the capital city on a planet is made largely of recycled ship hulls, and travel is done through [[RevelationSpace cable cars that use arms to swing between different cables.]] Another describes the ring around a planet in the background as being made up of thousands of small space stations, called the [[Literature/ThePrefect Rust Belt]].

* MenAreTheExpendableGender: {{Inverted|Trope}}. The vast majority of Teladi flying in space are female and, as a result, their deaths, whether untimely or not, tend to be more common and not as dramatic.

* MoreCriminalsThanTargets: Oddly averted. While there are a ''lot'' of Pirates and Yaki, they are far outnumbered by just the civilian traders of a single race. However, Pirates are usually heavily concentrated in a couple sectors that they own, so in those sectors, they usually outnumber traders 5 to 1 or even higher (like 100:1), in the case of the Pirate home area, Mercenaries' Rift.

* NamedAfterTheirPlanet: Mostly averted. The Boron homeworld is Nishala, and the Teladi homeworld is Ianamus Zura (although Seizewell is their de facto capital and their second homeworld). The Argon capital is Argon Prime, but that's a case of the planet being named after the faction rather than the other way around: the Argon renamed Sonra-4 after their then-leader Nathan R. Gunne. The Terran homeworld is Earth, [[CaptainObvious obviously]]. According to legend the Split are from a world called Hodie, which they apparently destroyed in a nuclear war. The Paranid play the trope straight: their homeworld is Paranid Prime. Nobody knows the name of the Kha'ak homeworld, and the Xenon homeworld is technically Earth since they're an entire race of insane terraforming drones first built by the Terrans back in the 22nd century.

* NoBiochemicalBarriers: Averted according to FlavorText. Boron can live on a nugget of [=BoFu=] for a week but nobody else can digest it.

** If you fail to complete a "Retrieve derelict ship" mission in [=X3TC=] and you still have the ship in your possession, a squad of police heavy fighters or pirates will warp in, blow the ship to bits and then warp out. It's thus impossible to make any use of the ship except for selling it first.\\
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Or, at least, [[SubvertedTrope it's supposed to be]]. The cops aren't invincible, so you can actually destroy them. There's even a couple ways to do it that will avoid reputation hits; it requires a spare jumpdrive and a good supply of energy cells. You see, the SpacePolice will only spawn once. See the trick in EnemyMine above, or failing that, jump it to one side of a Xenon sector, wait for the police to spawn, and jump it to the sector on the other side of the Xenon sector. The police will follow and be attacked by the Xenon. On the off chance they survive, jump the ship back to the first sector.

* [[OneProductPlanet One Product System]]: Mostly averted, but some systems specialize in producing only one or two types of goods. Asteroid Belt in ''Terran Conflict'' mostly produces just different types of minerals, for example.

** Averted with the Paranids, whose religion permeates every aspect of their lives. They see themselves as the chosen people of an unknown god they believe to be "the highest expression of spacetime itself within the three visible dimensions." [[StarfishAliens Whatever that means.]]

* PerfectPacifistPeople: Subverted with the Goners. They're normally {{Actual Pacifist}}s espousing peaceful coexistence, and their ships don't have any weapons mounts at all, in contrast to every other ship in the game apart from cargo drones. If pressed hard enough as a society, however, they ''will'' fight back with lethal force: the climax of the Goner plot in ''TC'' consists of [[spoiler:smuggling a bomb onto a SpacePirate station whose denizens have been beating the crap out of the supply lines to the new Goner Temple]].

* PointDefenseless:
** Partially averted. Most ships (even some fighters) have at least one turret theoretically capable of shooting down incoming missiles. Some get through, some don't, depending on the loadout of the ship in question.
*** Kha'ak capships avert this with their (almost) HitScan Kyon emitters. They can rapidly cut through the shielding of even an M2 and are murderously effective at destroying fighters and non-swarm missiles.
** With the bonus pack scripts in X3, it may be almost completely averted ... for player-owned ships. One of the scripts in question is "Mosquito Missile Defense," which uses the fast, accurate, very weak Mosquito Missile to automatically intercept incoming missiles and [[AttackDrone fighter drones]]. It doesn't work on ships that can't equip Mosquito Missiles, however, making it annoyingly useless to the Terrans in ''Terran Conflict'' - in ''Albion Prelude'', ''every'' ship in the game can fire Mosquito Missiles.
** The Split M2 Python, one of the best destroyers in ''Reunion'', became this in ''Terran Conflict'' because its ability to mount Flak Artillery Arrays was removed. It now has to rely on comparatively ineffective corvette weapons for fighter defense.

** Ramming is the fastest way to kill enemies; just make sure you have more shields than they do. (Though you REALLY shouldn't do it at full speed, unless the target ship is a lot smaller than your ship.)
** Actually, as long as you don't try to ram anything ''too'' big, the faster you're going, the less damage you take. In X2, a kitted out Split heavy transport could crush a Paranid battleship without taking a scratch.

** Inverted in the case of M5 scouts, wherein it is the fastest way to kill ''yourself''. In particular, ''never'' fly a fully upgraded Kestrel on autopilot, as the ship is actually too fast for the AI. The "auto-pillock" is all but guaranteed to splatter you all over the vicinity.

* RidiculouslyFastConstruction:
** '''HYPER''' averted. If you decided to build a ship at the PlayerHeadquarters instead of buying it, you have to wait as your headquarters puts it together. Capital ships like the Argon Colossus can take ''twenty hours'' in ''real time'' to build.
** Played straight for building stations. They basically pop fully-formed out of your TL's cargo hold. Which enables the [[ColonyDrop station]]-[[WeaponizedTeleportation bombing]] combat trick.

* MegaCorp: Several of them exist in the series ([=OTAS=], Strong Arms, [=NMMC=], etc.) and they're self-sufficient enough to have their own [[SpaceNavy Space Navies]]. While they generally protect their assets from SpacePirates, the [[AIIsACrapshoot Xenon]], the [[BeePeople Kha'ak]], and other rival governments, they do occasionally have rivalries with one another which generally leads to CorporateWarfare in order to prove whose assets are larger. The [[ProudMerchantRace Teladi as a whole have their society organized as one]] (well, for the spacefaring ones anyway). The Plutarch Mining Corporation from ''X3: Terran Conflict'' becomes a full-on OneNationUnderCopyright in ''Videogame/XRebirth'' following the jumpgate network collapse.

* MasterOfNone: Boron fighters. Pathetic energy reserves, shielding equal to [[FragileSpeedster Split]] ships but with less speed, and very limited weapon selection - ironically, despite their tiny energy reserves, all their race-specific weapons require huge amounts of energy to fire (such as the Ion Disruptor). [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking Oh, and all Boron ships can't be cosmetically repainted at the Player Headquarters thanks to their organic construction.]]
** Their size also makes them very good targets for fighter-jock-type players.

* MegaCorp: Several of them exist in the series ([=OTAS=], Strong Arms, [=NMMC=], etc.) and they're self-sufficient enough to have their own [[SpaceNavy Space Navies]]. While they generally protect their assets from SpacePirates, the [[AIIsACrapshoot Xenon]], the [[BeePeople Kha'ak]], and other rival governments, they do occasionally have rivalries with one another which generally leads to CorporateWarfare in order to prove whose assets are larger. The [[ProudMerchantRace Teladi as a whole have their society organized as one]] (well, for the spacefaring ones anyway).

* MegaCorp: Several of them exist in the series ([=OTAS=], Strong Arms, [=NMMC=], etc.) and they're self-sufficient enough to have their own [[SpaceNavy Space Navies]]. While they generally protect their assets from SpacePirates, the [[AIIsACrapshoot Xenon]], the [[BeePeople Kha'ak]], and other rival governments, they do occasionally have rivalries with one another which generally leads to CorporateWarfare in order to prove whose assets are larger. The [[ProudMerchantRace Teladi as a whole have their society organized into one]] (well, for the spacefaring ones anyway).

* MegaCorp: Several of them exist in the series ([=OTAS=], Strong Arms, [=NMMC=], etc.) and they're self-sufficient enough to have their own [[SpaceNavy Space Navies]]. While they generally protect their assets from SpacePirates, the [[AIIsACrapshoot Xenon]], the [[BeePeople Kha'ak]], and other rival governments, they do occasionally have rivalries with one another which generally leads to CorporateWarfare in order to prove whose assets are larger. The [[ProudMerchantRace Teladi as a whole have their society organized into one]] (well for the spacefaring ones anyway).

* MegaCorp: Several of them exist in the series ([=OTAS=], Strong Arms, [=NMMC=], etc.) and they're self-sufficient enough to have their own [[SpaceNavy Space Navies]]. While they generally protect their assets from SpacePirates, the [[AIIsACrapshoot Xenon]], the [[BeePeople Kha'ak]], and other rival governments, they do occasionally have rivalries with one another which generally leads to CorporateWarfare in order to prove whose assets are larger.

* MegaCorp: Several of them exist in the series ([=OTAS=], Strong Arms, [=NMMC=], etc.) and they're self-sufficient enough to have their own [[SpaceNavy Space Navies]]. They have rivalries with one another which generally leads to CorporateWarfare in order to prove whose assets are larger.

* MacrossMissileMassacre: '''AND HOW!!'''

* PompousPoliticalPundit: ''Xtended Terran Conflict'' adds news services for each race. The Terran version, Terran Morning News, is a satire of {{Fox News|Channel}} as a whole and Radio/GlennBeck's and Radio/AlexJones's shows in particular, what with rampant paranoia, conspiracy theories, and subtle or not-so-subtle discrimination (Muslims in post-9/11 Fox News have been replaced by Aldrinites in Terran Morning News, for example).

* MasterOfNone: Boron fighters. Pathetic energy reserves, shielding equal to [[FragileSpeedster Split]] ships but with less speed, and very limited weapon selection - ironically, despite their tiny energy reserves, all their race-specific weapons require huge amounts of energy to fire (such as the Ion Disruptor).

* MeaningfulName: Retroactively. FlavorText for the Mars sector, named for the [[RomanMythology Roman god of war]], says that the [[SpaceNavy United Space Command]] is headquartered there.

** The Split M2 Raptor was among the best destroyers in ''X3: Reunion''. In ''Terran Conflict'', it has since been relegated to an M1 carrier (due to the introduction of the new M2 destroyer Python) and its ability to mount flak weapons was removed, reducing it to using comparatively ineffective corvette guns for fighter defense.

** The Split M2 Raptor was among the best destroyers in ''X3: Reunion''. In ''Terran Conflict'', its ability to mount flak weapons was removed, reducing it to using comparatively ineffective corvette guns for fighter defense.

** This gets brought up a lot, and Egosoft has always said no, it's not product placement. Cynics just say they're trying not to alienate ATI fans. However, it's worth pointing out that, although the second game way "The way it's meant to be played" branded, Nividium is not spelled the same as Nvidia, and was also in the first game, released in 1999. The second point especially reduces this to conspiracy theory levels.

* ProperlyParanoid: The Terrans are deathly afraid of artificially intelligent ships, because their own Terraformer ships were [[ColonyDrop throwing asteroids at Earth because of a programming error.]]

* PurposelyOverpowered: AGI Task Force ships are ridiculously good, even better than standard Terran ships. However, their capital ships require a huge amount of work to [[BoardingParty acquire]] (which will permanently soil your reputation with the ATF), and about as much effort to equip because the Terran economy is in a [[ArtisticLicenseEconomics perpetual state of implosion]]. The only real disadvantage to an ATF ship is their fighter weapons' [[PainfullySlowProjectile slow projectiles]], which makes them have a lower hit rate than other ships.

** The Terrans were wary of Commonwealth races for this exact reason, along with guarding other Terran-exclusive advanced technology. The Balance of Power plot in 'Terran Conflict' and the Argon use of reverse-engineered AGI warships in the Second Terraformer War [[WhatTheHellHero proves that their fears are completely correct]].

** M7s, M1s, and M2s naturally and justifiably have enormous cargo bays to stuff missiles in, even more so if it's a [[BiggerIsBetter Teladi ship]]. The [[RecursiveAmmo Typhoon Missile]] can be crammed into these ships at bulk and is able to be [[SpamAttack spammed at the hundreds]] against other capital ships beside fighters due to being [[JackOfAllStats well-rounded in its stats]] and, albeit without the ability to re-acquire targets, has a tracking ability. This makes the Typhoon a poor man's anti-capital ship version of the Flail Barrage missile (commonly used in [=M7Ms=]), [[AwesomeYetPractical as well as the best general-purpose swarm missile due to better availability]]. Its only drawback is that it cannot pursue [=M5s=] because of its slow speed.

** The M2+ introduced in ''Albion Prelude'' typically include a gimmick in addition to being even bigger, tougher, and slower than normal M2. The ATF Valhalla and Terran Kyoto are [[TheBattlestar Battlestars]] that can dock ships of up to M6 size, for instance (M1 can only dock up to M3, and M2 can't dock anything), while the Xenon I has a pair of missile turrets that can use [=M7M=] ammunition.

* MilitaryMashupMachine: Of the Mobile Factory/Carrier variety. The ''Xtended Terran Conflict'' mod for ''Terran Conflict'' has the [=M7D=] Drone Frigate class of ships, which will build high-powered combat drones equivalent to a M4-class interceptor. Losses are quickly replaced by building more drones. The frigates are fairly fast, but have [[MobileFactory mediocre shielding and firepower. Other factory ships exist, such as the Goner Aran, a mobile shipyard which can build a wide variety of ships, plus the standard civilian factory ships which produce weapons/shields/ore/energy/crystals/food.]]