Characters / TerraTech

The Player Character

In the campaign, you play as a prospector carrying out a survey mission for the GSO who crash-landed on an alien planet.

Tropes:

• The Engineer: The player has complete freedom to build custom techs with their block stash, and will design and build most of their vehicles and bases during the game.
• Universal Driver's License: Not only can the player build anything, they can also pilot anything as long as it has propulsion. Cars, tanks, aeroplanes, hovercrafts and helicopters are all fair game.

Campaign NPCs

Crafty Mike

A con man who knows his way around GSO crafting systems. In the Crafty Business questline, he teaches the player how to refine, sell, process and otherwise manipulate resource chunks. His real name is Michael Croft.

Tropes:

• Feeling Their Age: His excuse for getting the player to build him several small crafting bases is that he "can't move the way he used to".
• Lovable Rogue: Mike always seems to have dubiously-legal "business" to take care of, so he ropes the player into doing minor tasks around his bases. The loveableness comes into play because he lets the player keep the bases, including crafting equipment that can't be found anywhere else unless the player gets lucky with invaders.
• The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Crafty Mike is described in-game as a Con Man, but we never get to see him con anybody in person.

Agent Pow

A fierce warrior in charge of local peacekeeping for the GSO. Dealing with useless prospectors has left her cynical and given her a bad habit of mumbling insults at people. During the campaign, she enlists the player's help in dealing with bandits.

Tropes:

• Boyish Short Hair: She has a short sideswept haircut, leaving room for her radio aerial.
• Cynical Mentor: While she puts on a cheerful facade and pretends to give the player encouragement, Pow can be heard muttering that they're an idiot with no chance of completing her missions. She even expresses disappointment when they triumph over the SAM emplacement because she wanted to see their tech blow up.
• Heroic Build: She is, or her tech is modelled after, a woman with the broad shoulders and heavy arms you'd expect of anybody with "pow" in their name.
• Robot Hair: Although clearly made of metal, Pow has her distinctive silky red hair.

Suzie Vroom

A friendly woman shaped like a racing car. As head of recruitment for Venture, she challenges the player to prove their worth against a variety of race courses, some of her own design, and introduces them to powered flight. Word of Former Social Content Producer posits that she's thicc.

Tropes:

• Genki Girl: She has a lot of enthusiasm for racing and stunt driving, reacting with pure delight just to see the player buy a small rocket-assisted car.
• Preppy Name: Her full name is Suzannah Vroomingdale.
• Verbal Tic: Suzie's dialogue is sprinkled liberally with engine noises ("Vroom, vroom!"). Considering her surname, this may also count as Pokémon Speak.

Whimpey

A tech/person made primarily from Venture parts. He isn't much use in a fight and was captured at one point by Gruntle, needing the player's intervention to save him.

Tropes:

• Distressed Dude: The player has to save him during the rescue mission on Mine Island.
• Gag Nose: His altimeter certainly resembles a big pointy one.
• Phrase Catcher: Gets "Shut up, Whimpey!" several times from Gruntle.

Repulsor

A misanthropic turret who wields sonic lances and uses them to push people away.

Tropes:

• Catchphrase: He says "repulsive" a lot.
• Hidden Depths: The Flavour Text for Whimpey's unique cosmetic hull piece notes that it looks like Repulsor's parts and speculates that he may have been trying to help the player. Indeed, while it calls for precise timing, the player can use Repulsor's sonic blasts to throw their tech onto Mine Island and rescue Whimpey.

Ice Crawler Brothers

Vana, the red brother. Zozo looks pretty much the same, except blue and with earmuffs.

Two brothers, Zozo and Vana, who build extreme obstacle courses to challenge tech racers.

Tropes:

• Awesome Ego: They have high opinions of themselves and their race courses, readily assuming the player is too awestruck to speak to them.
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Zozo has a colour-inverted version of the Venture skin, making him mostly blue. Vana is mostly red.
• Jive Turkey: The brothers constantly speak in slang.

Big Pete

GeoCorp's quest NPC who gives the player their license. Pete is a fat, jolly chap whose work ethic is not as great as it first appears.

Tropes:

• Big Eater: He has a great appetite for resource chunks. It is unknown whether Big Pete is actually the big yellow tech we see or just a normal person piloting it, but either way, the chunks seem to disappear inside his "mouth" pretty fast.
• Blatant Lies: Pete claims to be GeoCorp's hardest-working employee mere moments before he tasks the player with fetching him a bunch of resources so he can meet his quota.
• Eating Machine: If Pete is a sentient tech, he and his appetite would definitely count.

Mighty / the Almighty Leader

A big, strong ne'er-do-well who challenges players to destroy his creation, the Almighty Cube, and tries to sell them GSO cannons at a huge mark-up if they fail. He is arrogant, vain and obsessed with the Cube, but prefers to leave any fighting to his minions.

Tropes:

• Berserk Button: People who successfully destroy his cube. Expect him to order his minions to take revenge if you ever succeed.
• Large and in Charge: He leads a handful of smaller Mighty Minions who copy his style.
• Manly Facial Hair: He has an impressive horseshoe "moustache" made of bumper blocks, evoking the image of a rugged martial arts guru.
• Sore Loser: See above.

Mighty Minions

The servitors of the Almighty Leader. They are identical groupies who copy his moustachioed cyclops aesthetic, follow his martial philosophy and pay him hefty membership fees.

Tropes:

• Mecha-Mooks: They most likely are. Mighty tries to spawn a couple the way the player spawns their own techs at one point, only to discover he's run out of parts.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: A couple of minions decide to run away after watching the player defeat the third-generation Almighty Cube.

Sergeant Smash

The tough, bullish Hawkeye sergeant who becomes the player's SO when they join Hawkeye. He tasks them with destroying enemy turrets in addition to any tech that so much as looks at them.

Tropes:

• Captain Smooth and Sergeant Rough: The Sergeant Rough to Bomber Command's Captain Smooth.
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: A milder example than many, but he rarely misses a chance to call the player a maggot. As the player rises through the license grades in Hawkeye, so Sergeant Smash's respect for them grows.

Bomber Command

An officer in Hawkeye's air force who enlists the player's help for a bombing mission. He has the voice and the moustache of a dashing fighter pilot and the physique of a sentient air traffic control tower.

Tropes:

• Captain Smooth and Sergeant Rough: Although not an actual captain, he acts as the Captain Smooth to Sergeant Smash's Sergeant Rough.
• Officer and a Gentleman: Bomber Command is always polite and well-spoken, and also a leading figure in Hawkeye's air force. For bonus points, he calls the player "old chap".

Groundhog

The agent initially sent by Hawkeye to confront the Spider King.

Tropes:

Watch this space.

hubl

Technically not one individual but a type of sales robot sent out by Better Future, from which you can buy a reasonably priced Better Future license. Various hubl units teach the player how to pilot hovercrafts and anti-gravity airships, basic models of which they sell at excellent value.

Tropes:

• all lowercase letters
• Cyber Cyclops: Seemingly, although their "eye" is actually part of a large adjustment thruster.
• Hover Bot: hubl units are equipped with Better Future's trademark hover rings, as well as an anchor to keep them from drifting away.

Atom

Reticule Research's quest NPC, styled after a mad scientist.

Tropes:

• A.I.-cronym: Towards the end of his full name, "Reticule Research Science Officer AT-0M-RRv1313".
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: He has four arms, allowing him to wield two fireworks launchers and still carry his Hawkeye radars.

Guardians and Bosses

Please note that "guardian" is the word used for any pre-defined enemy guaranteed to appear in the campaign; for example, Little Thief, the tech the player has to destroy in order to get their radar. They do not have to actually guard anything.

Big Tony

A rival prospector who ambushes the player after their crash-landing.

Tropes:

• Warm-Up Boss: Big Tony is pretty easy, even with the player's beaten-up starter tech.

Little Thief

A weaponless tech that swipes the player's lost radar block after the crash.

Tropes:

• "Get Back Here!" Boss: Constantly flees from the player

Trader Troll

The first boss, who must be defeated to unlock trading stations. She/he shows up in a random tech using level 2 GSO parts.

Tropes:

• Wake-Up Call Boss: Although the chosen tech may vary, the Trader Troll is generally tougher than the random spawns the player will have faced up to that point.

Wing-Nut

A large, arrogant tech who likes to throw his weight around. The player comes into conflict with him after he claims ownership of Rook Creek Bridge.

Tropes:

• Bribing Your Way to Victory: Instead of fighting Wing-Nut, the player can just pay his 100,000BB bridge toll and complete the mission.
• Early-Bird Boss: A boss wielding Hawkeye HG Cannon Turrets and several Mk3 Battleship Cannons at a point where you're likely to not even have a Hawkeye license, let alone the high-level weaponry he sports.
• Skippable Boss: You can pay his toll to just skip him altogether, or alternatively drive off the bridge, causing him to follow and self-destruct. Doing this deprives you of his loot, though.

The Spider King

A spider-shaped tech with his own fortress and some agile hovering minions.

Tropes:

• Faux Affably Evil: During his boss mission, he makes a show of being polite and promises to stop harassing passers-by, only to drop the act, summon a horde of minions and leap into the frey.
• Flunky Boss: He has several hovering Fly drones to protect him and fight intruders.

Gruntle

A kidnapper who takes over Mine Island during the Mine Island rescue mission.

Tropes:

• Breather Boss: Unlike Wing-Nut and the Spider King, Gruntle is very much weak. While his flamethrowers are intimidating, he has the durability of a paper towel.

Almighty Cube

The cube's smallest version

An armoured cube built by the Almighty Leader to challenge prospectors and embarrass them into buying expensive cannons. Each version of the Cube can take quite a beating.

Tropes:

• Con Man: Not the Cube itself, but the Leader. He's the ringleader of a con where he offers blatantly overpriced parts to people who fail his challenge. Fittingly, the way he's built makes him look like he has a mustache.
• Recurring Boss: You are challenged to destroy the Almighty Cube three times, facing a stronger version each time.
• Stone Wall: Exaggerated in that the cube doesn't attack the player at all. Breaking through its shields within the time limit is still a challenge.
• Took a Level in Badass: After the player destroys it, Mighty and his minions rebuild the cube bigger and stronger than ever.

Corporations

Galactic Survey Organisation (GSO)

A government-run mining company created to help new prospectors build their techs and get into off-world mining. The default starting corporation, the GSO offer a bit of everything, from caterpillar tracks to wings to crafting machines to heavy cannons to cute little ploughs. They are nevertheless outclassed in at least one area by every other corporation.

Tropes:

• Government Agency of Fiction: The GSO is run by the government, although which government is never specified.
• Jack of All Stats: The GSO doesn't excel in any field, but they have the widest range of parts in the game and are currently the only corporation with a full set of crafting machinery.

Team Venture

The extreme sports organisation dedicated to setting up race tracks and stunt ramps on distant planets. They offer rocket boosters, aeroplane parts, the speediest wheels in the game and silos that can hang onto resource chunks at high speeds.

Tropes:

• Fragile Speedster: Venture's blocks are lightweight, their wheels and propellers built for speed, their weapons geared towards tracking fast targets, and none of them have much HP.
• Glass Cannon: Venture weapons may be fragile, but they can dish out plenty of damage. Special mention must go to the double-barrelled Rapid cannon, which was the most powerful weapon in the game until Hawkeye came up with a much larger triple-barrelled cannon.

GeoCorp

A mining company which specialises in massive yellow techs and huge, rugged wheels to carry them. Their drills and plasma cutters are the game's strongest melee weapons. They offer the biggest repair bubble, but no shields; GeoCorp techs aren't technically meant for combat.

Tropes:

• Mighty Glacier: GeoCorp parts are all tough and heavy, geared towards slow mining rigs and armoured cars.
• Pile Bunker: GeoCorp has two; the straight and angled jackhammers offer devastating rhythmic bashes with some of the highest DPS in the game. Getting them to hit anything can be a challenge.
• This Is a Drill: GeoCorp's iconic fixed diamond drill is a drill, as is the articulated variant.
• Weapons of Their Trade: All of GeoCorp's "weapons"- drills, buzzsaws, jackhammers, dynamite catapults and plasma cutters- are actually mining equipment, and they don't sell any "real" weaponry. As it turns out, though, when all you have is a bunch of heavy digging equipment, every enemy tech starts to look like a rich mineral seam.

Hawkeye PMC

A private military contractor specialising in powerful weapons and heavy armour, available in black or desert camo. The organisation is run like a paramilitary; the player answers to Sergeant Smash after they join. Hawkeye currently offers the most powerful cannon and missile launcher in the game.

Tropes:

• Lightning Bruiser: The smaller Hawkeye wheels are fast enough and their weapons deadly enough to build this sort of tech.
• Master of All: Overall, Hawkeye's blocks are the best for fighting. All their parts are durable, their weapons pack a serious punch, their wheels can bear some weight at a decent speed and they have enough variety to make interesting techs. However, their parts aren't geared very well for resource gathering.
• Private Military Contractors: Founded by "ex-military meat heads", Hawkeye is a mercenary company focused on powerful weaponry and strong techs.

Better Future

A dynamic new startup disrupting the tech industry with ultra-sleek, ultra-modern solutions. They specialise in hovercrafts and powerful laser weaponry, plus useful devices such as anti-gravity engines and off switches for shields. Just make sure you have your rent put aside before you buy anything from them.

Tropes:

• Everything Is An I Pod In The Future: Almost all external parts have at least one surface that has a shiny white covering, it's clearer than the other corporation parts, that they are made to slot together better with each other, without any other colour schemes, it's hard to make a tech that doesn't look frankensteined.
• Lightning Bruiser: Although not as durable as Hawkeye blocks, Better Future parts are geared towards speed and damage with a focus on agile hovercrafts.
• We Will Use Lasers in the Future: Part and Parcel of the Aesthetic, they have no actual kinetic ranged weapons, while they tear through most techs, they are notably fragile.

Reticule Research

An experimental technology company which offers a mix of powerful and almost useless experimental weaponry, most of which was designed by mad scientists. Aside from their specialised chassis blocks, they have orange trim and pleasingly round wheels to choose from.

Tropes:

• Awesome, but Impractical: As befits a company of mad scientists, some of Reticule Research's weapons offer more style than substance.
  • The GIGA PLASMA, while extremely strong, takes several seconds to charge up, as do the HIVE missile launcher and energy arc cutter.
  • The tesla coil deals huge damage at the expense of battery power, the same battery power that keeps your shields and repair bubbles up.
  • The fireworks launcher can do solid damage at close range, but it takes ages to recharge between shots.
  • The Talon Laser, while intimidatingly powerful, also takes up a lot of space and has a short range.
• Research, Inc.: It's even in their name. Reticule Research develops weapons for other corporations, and players who have the R&D DLC can test them out early. See below.
• Serendipity Writes the Plot: TerraTech has allowed players with the R&D DLC to try out experimental blocks since early in its development, with Reticule Research retroactively receiving responsibility for these blocks as the company "developing" them.
• Super-Scream: In a weird way, their Sonic Blaster. This is largely an Informed Attribute, however, as the shots act more like laser energy and subvert the usual tropes asssociated with it, especially it having long range.
• Wetware CPU: In the Flavor Text of their HIVE Missile Launcher, it's stated that each missile has an actual hornet inside to guide it. This technically makes it a Bee-Bee Gun... though when you craft it, you don't actually use any hornets.