As the name suggests, you play as a nameless force of opression attempting to conquer the galaxy. Standing in your way is the Senate, the galaxy's legitemate government.
You must take command of three factions to realize your goal:
- The Hoplite Empire
- The Bzzerk Union
- The Techno-Slug Party
Space Tyrant provides examples of:
- Action Bomb: Hoplite Destroyers can be upgraded to ram into enemies and explode at 10% health (Kamikaze I and II, respectively).
- The Aesthetics of Technology:
- The Hoplites build their ships around (and sometimes mostly out of) asteroids.
- The Bzzerk use green, angular ships with honeycomb-shaped solar panels and weapon emitters
- Techno-Slugs use seashell-shaped vessels with weapons that fire rainbow-colored bolts.
- The Astron Union have Raygun Gothic ships with the tesla coil looking weapons popular in early sci-fi.
- The Senate use ships borrowed from whoever is the local group, just with a coat of red and gold paint.
- Affably Evil: You can be immensely sanguine in exploration events, prone to diplomacy and Pragmatic Villainy. You may even be titled the Duke of Forgiveness for a level where you were a relatively friendly overlord.
- And Your Reward Is Clothes: Winning a level grants you a new hat, cloak, or scepter.
- Anti-Frustration Features:
- During Capture missions, Cores will never ally with the senate.
- On the mission select screen, winning a mission in a territory removes up to two Senate control counters from it.
- Anti-Hero: The Senate shows signs of not being as benevolent as they appear. If they successfully unite an entire system against you, the planets' forces are entirely replaced with blatantly brainwashed soldiers who mindlessly drone on about "the Great Leader" and mindlessly throw themselves at you, even if they stand no chance, all for "the glory of the cause".
- Asteroid Miners: A Hoplite scheme and a Bzzerk perk both increase your credits income for owning the otherwise mostly useless asteroids.
- Beast Man: The Hoplites, a race of rabbit-like aliens.
- Card-Carrying Villain: You make no secret that you're the bad guy.
- Colony Drop: The Bzzerk have a card that destroys a friendly ship to deal two damage to a Besieged world.
- Converging-Stream Weapon: The special ability of the Hoplite Dreadnought fires several beams at a point... which then fires several beams at multiple targets.
- A Commander Is You:
- Hoplites are Balanced; have middle-of-the-road ships. Neither exceptionally powerful, durable, or cheap. They have two 2X2 ships available through special cards.
- The Bzzerk are Spammers, having relatively cheap, disposable 1X1 ships not even intended to last much more than a single battle. Instead of cards that add huge ships, they have the card "Saviour of the Hive," which summons a temporary level 4 fleet with a pair of huge ships.
- The Techno-Slugs are Powerhouse, fielding expensive ships that fire weaponized lightshows.
- The Astron Union is Brutalist, having Stone Wall ships.
- The Senate is also Spammer, while also being quite Gimmicky. The Senate tries to crowd you off the map with free fleets launched by Special Projects, and has several annoying tactics like sabotaging your Science production through Hacking and instantly capturing Neutral worlds (which of course, spawns Another Bloody free fleet).
- Cthulhumanoid: The Tyrant himself is of the same species as Shocktopus.
- Bee People: The Bzzerk.
- Death-Activated Superpower: All factions Destroyers have some sort of Nasty Surprise(tm) that activates upon their deaths.
- Death Ray: Useable on the galaxy map. A psychic weapon that works by chanelling the galaxy's hate and fear towards you into a laser beam.
- Deflector Shields: All Space Slug ships and some ships from the Astron and Bzzerk factions have these. Unlike normal hit points they slowly recharge during combat until they are knocked out fully and are automatically refill at the start of combat.
- Double Meaning:
- The Techno-Slugs are not a *political* party, they're a nomadic, species-wide rave, similar to The Party from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
- The Hoplites are humanoid rabbits. However, "Hoplites" were what the ancient Greeks called their soldiers. To that end, they're a Proud Warrior Race.
- The Dragon: It's implied that the character you choose at the start of a mission is your leutennant.
- Escape Pod: Weaponized by the Bzzerk. Their Destroyers have an upgrade that allows their crews to launch a swarm of fighters when destroyed.
- Face Ship:
- Several Hoplite ships look like rabbit heads.
- In the Victory screen, the Tyrant's personal ship is seen. It resembles a skull with an exposed brain.
- Fight Like a Card Player: You gain one card per turn. These can be things like adding some free ships to a fleet or attacking a world your fleets failed to capture again.
- Galactic Conquerer: Guess who?
- No Campaign for the Wicked: Inverted. The Senate and Astron Federation have no campaigns.
- No Name Given: Militia admirals are never named.
- Macross Missile Massacre:
- The armaments of the Hoplite Cruiser is a brace of missile launchers. Their very first upgrade goes from three tubes to six.
- Hoplite Destroyers are also armed with missile racks, and have a Volley ability.
- The Bzzerk Dreadnaught launches a massive volley of missiles at random targets as its ability.
- Orbiting Particle Shield:
- An upgrade for the Hoplite Battleship. However, they simply scramble targeting sensors, giving it an increased dodge chance.
- The Hoplite Milita's commander ability is to bestow one of these to a single ship.
- Planet of Hats: Each faction has their own schtick.
- Hoplites are a Proud Warrior Race.
- Techno Slugs are hard-partying.
- The Bzzerk are Insectoid Aliens concerned with the survival of the Hive at the expense of individual bugs.
- Planet Spaceship: Downplayed. Hoplites utilize nickel/iron asteroids as ship hulls. This can range from the heat sinks on their frigates, to hulls for their Large and Collossal ships. In fact, the only ship to not incorporate asteroids (except, perhaps, as raw materials) is their destroyers.
- Psychic Powers: The upgrades "Misery Weave" and "Networked Targeting" (available only at random) work by feeding off the enemy crew's despair to regenerate the attacking ship and inducing a Hive Mind to increase weapon accuracy, respectively.
- Shout-Out:
- The Astron Militia cameo looks exactly like The Rocketeer.
- The Techno-Slug Party is a huge nomadic rave, going on since goodness knows with no signs of stopping.
- One battle quote is "Tonight we dine in Space Hell!"
- Spam Attack: All Frigates and Destroyers have the ability "Volley," which fires their main armaments once for one Energy. The Hoplite Frigate can be upgraded to "Tactical Volley," which has a chance to make an adjacent Frigate fire as well, and further with "Combined Arms'' which causes two adjacent frigates to volley.
- Standard Sci-Fi Fleet: Each faction has one.
- Frigates: The cheapest ships, generally a Glass Cannon with high firepower but low HP
- Destroyers: The other small ship, they are tougher than frigates but with less firepower making them mostly useful for screening frigates and capital ships.
- Cruisers: A Jack of All Stats that combine reasonable toughness with good firepower at a moderate cost. For Hoplites and Space Slugs these tend to form the backbone of their fleets (the Bzzerk prefer carriers).
- Carriers: A carrier that launches fighters to attack the enemy fleet, these tend to be the main fighting unit in the Bzzerk fleet. Hoplite carriers are equipped with Boarding Pods while Space Slug carriers are The Battlestar carrying heavy blasters alongside the fighters.
- Battleships: Basically a larger, more expensive version of the cruisers. Good toughness and firepower but a bit to expensive to build in bulk.
- Dreadnoughts: A Mighty Glacier that combines heavy firepower with extreme toughness. The downside is that their high cost limits your ability to use them and makes losing one very painful.
- Command Ship: An unarmed ship that carries the fleet's admiral and can activate their special ability.
- Support Power:
- Each admiral (including the various races' Militas) has a different activable ability that gives some manner of advantage.
- Also, before each battle, you choose a single-use Tactic from three randomly selected from a pool of 20 or so.
- Try to Fit That on a Business Card: Every time you win, you gain a new title based on your actions in the game.
- The Unintelligible: Shocktopus comunicates only through gargling.
- Villain Protagonist: It's in the name.
- Wave-Motion Gun: The armaments of the Bzzerk Frigate and Cruiser are a single beam cannon that fires very slowly. The Cruiser version causes the entire front half to violently recoil.
- Zeerust: The Astron Unions ships and costumes look like they're right out of Buck Rogers.
- Zerg Rush: The Senate's main tactic is to squeeze you out with huge amounts of fleets conjured by the use of the Deploy Militia Special Project.
