Star Conflict is a Free-to-Play Sci-fi Flight-Sim MMO. It is being developed by Gaijin Entertainment, who are also behind the popular War Thunder, and was first released on February 27th, 2013.
The game is based on Player versus Player battles between two teams. There are various PvP game modes, including Team Deathmatch, Domination (3 beacons; capture and hold them), Beacon Hunt (king of the hill style), Combat Recon, where one player is designated captain, and the other players can respawn an unlimited number of times as long as he is still alive. The game also offers PvE missions, pitting four players against waves of enemies to complete missions across three rounds (with the exception of Fire Support and Defense Contract; those only have one) per map. Open Space/ Invasion, the third mode, is an open world sandbox where players can complete assigned missions, gather resources for crafting, or pursue a career as a law abiding citizen / lawless pirate. Finally, there is a "Custom Battle" mode which provides players with tremendous opportunities for choosing the type of gameplay that suits them best.
The game has four ship classes as of Season 3: light and fast interceptors, powerful fighters, well-defended frigates, and slow but deadly destroyers. Each class has three roles - they can be fitted with various modules appropriate for said roles: ECM, Recon, and Covert Ops for interceptors, Gunship, Tackler, and Command for fighters, and Long Range, Engineering, and Guard for frigates. Destroyers only have one role, named Suppressor. In addition, each role has a unique special ability that provides benefits, making it easier for players to determine what course of action they want to choose on the battlefield.
The official website can be visited here
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Star Conflict contains examples of:
- Always Accurate Attack: The Thi'Lith Beam, an alien weapon for fighters, fires auto-aim hitscan bolts at whatever is in its (very large) line of sight.
- Ambushing Enemy: The Tackler class ships can cloak themselves, rendering them invisible both visually and on radar. Combined with its faster than average speed, a tackler can destroy Interceptors in the blink of an eye and easily destroy unaware fighters or Long Range frigates.
- Arbitrary Weapon Range: All weapons have this. Non-explosive projectiles disappear at their maximum range, laser weapons terminate suddenly, and explosive projectiles and missiles detonate upon reaching their maximum range.
- Asteroid Thicket: Most of the battlefields and Invasion sectors are these. Larger asteroids are static and define the stage, but some smaller rocks can be bumped by players and moved around.
- Attack Drone: Engineers have two of these orbiting their ship, and can equip a more aggressive version in their missile slot. Tacklers can deploy static drones that will attack any enemy that gets close.
- Beam Spam: Any Long Range Frigate equipped with either the Beam Cannon or the Heavy Blaster on their 6 main turrets. Destroyers with the Meson Cannon equipped also qualify.
- Beef Gate: Predators in Invasion/ Open Space can feel like this at times. They have an insane amount of health, do a lot of damage, and are difficult to defeat even for players with a Rank 15 ship specially built to fight aliens. And they can appear in sectors that are supposedly suitable for Rank 7 ships... More generally, any high level enemy in Open Space is essentially a beef gate for ships that stray more than one or two systems from the starting point.
- Cap: Ships can only move up to 700 m/s due to hardware/server limitations. Weapons have a 300 RPM limit.
- Character Class System: Not counting Special type ships, there are 4 ship classes, with 10 ship sub classes
- Interceptors are the Fragile Speedster Glass Cannon, Critical Hit Class and the Fleet's Scout. Small in size, they can move extremely quickly,can dish out high damage, despite having only 2 weapon turrets, and have extended sensor ranges compared to other ships. However, as expected of a ship of their size, they're rather frail, and all it takes is a couple stray shots to turn them into space junk.
- Recons are the fastest interceptors, and excel at finding other ships for the team, and capture beacon or bomb objectives faster than all other ship classes. Their special ability is Microwarp Engine, which after a brief delay, sends them flying off extremely quickly, offering unparalleled mobility.
- ECM Ships focus on spreading debuffs to enemies, and have increased durability compared to Recons and Covet Ops. Two of their class specific modules prevents the enemy from shooting or using their own modules, and their special ability is the Metastable Energy Field Generator, which grants temporary invincibility for 6 seconds. After the 6 seconds, a paralyzing wave is unleashed, which prevents hostiles from doing anything, and instantly stops any modules that are active and kills summoned units (i.e guard or attack drones)
- Interceptors are the Fragile Speedster Glass Cannon, Critical Hit Class and the Fleet's Scout. Small in size, they can move extremely quickly,can dish out high damage, despite having only 2 weapon turrets, and have extended sensor ranges compared to other ships. However, as expected of a ship of their size, they're rather frail, and all it takes is a couple stray shots to turn them into space junk.
- Close-Range Combatant: Covert Ops interceptors with their short range Plasma Arc. Interceptor weapons in general have a shorter range than other ships weaponry.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: The damage types; blue for EM, red for thermal, and yellow for kinetic.
- Computer Voice: A female computer will helpfully chime in to inform you when enemy ship's are destroyed, when shields are down, when beacons are captured and so on.
- Conspiracy Theorist: The writing board on the official forums has more than a few conspiracy theories about the game's lore.
- Critical Hit Class: Covert Ops ships often receive an innate 30% boot to their weapon's critical hit chance.
- Curse Cut Short: This can happen if a player or NPC is killed partway through an audio clip.
- Cyborg: Those part of the Jericho faction start early as childhood and those that aren't are viewed with suspicion.
- Difficult, but Awesome: Interceptors are fragile, one wrong move or run into a tackler and it's all over, but their sheer maneuverability and surprising amount of damage can let them take down most frigates and fly rings around destroyers in the hands of a skilled player. In the case of destroyers, interceptors are small enough that they can actually fit through the personal shields of one, and damage hull directly at point blank range!
- Dramatic Space Drifting: Blown up ships leave behind debris that can be bumped around and can cause collision damage if run into at high speed.
- Deflector Shields: All ships have them, but Empire ships have weaker ones, Jericho ships have stronger ones, and Command fighters have an additional shield they can use.
- The Empire: Exactly What It Says on the Tin. Their ships are the slowest of the three factions and have weak shields, but have strong hulls.
- Energy Weapon: Most laser weapons are hitscan, dealing damage every second. Played straight with the Heavy Blaster and Meson Cannon.
- Everyone Has a Special Move: Each ship class and role has unique activated abilities and a special skill.
- Fragile Speedster: Interceptors and any ship that fits a lot of Sub-Matter Shields and Lightweight Hulls. Fighters, or even frigates can also become fragile speedsters by focusing on engines and speed-boosting modules, rather than armor. Federation ships in general are Fragile Speedsters compared to other factions.
- Glass Cannon: Certain builds can stray into this, but the Eagle-B (a rank 9 Federation premium interceptor) is pretty much always a glass cannon. It is one of the few mid-tier Interceptors that has no capacitor slot, meaning it cannot fit an Emergency Barrier - a device that gives you about one second of invincibility when your health drops critically low. Combined with generally low health, the Eagle-B can dish out a lot of damage, but is always vulnerable to being blown up by a lucky torpedo or Disintegrator shot.
- Healing Shiv: The "Eclipse" Launcher for Engineering frigates repairs allied hulls upon hit.
- Item Crafting: Introduced with the new Invasion/Open Space mode. The items can even be used to craft custom ships.
- Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better: Zig-zagged. Kinetic weapons are the strongest weapons against ship hulls, but the weakest against shields.
- Lead the Target: For most non-laser weapons. The Phaser is an exception.
- Lightning Bruiser: Empire Gunships when built for hull tankiness and using their mobility and firerate boosting Overdrive ability. Also, destroyers of the Federation can be built to exceed 400 m/s. As a result, you get a ship that is faster than some interceptors, has more than 100,000 survivability, and is fitted with exceedingly deadly weapons.
- Macross Missile Massacre: The Octopus missiles for frigates, and the Firestorm rockets for Gunships. Both of these shoot five missiles rapidly, as opposed to one. The "Tempest" Launcher for destroyers also counts, firing twenty homing missiles when activated.
- The Medic: Engineer frigates with their shield and hull restoring auras and static, deployable stations.
- More Dakka: The Gunship's Overdrive ability increases the rate of fire of its weapons by 50%. Equipping multiple Iridium Heatsinks can achieve a similar effect. For even more dakka, install 3 Iridium Heatsinks and an Assault Railgun onto a Gunship.
- Organic Technology: The fourth season, "Evolution" is based around this, with the ability to grow your own ships out of live crystals.
- Player-Guided Missile: The Guided Torpedo special module for Jericho Long Range frigates.
- Player Versus Player: One of the modes of the game.
- Prestigious Player Title: Can be unlocked via achievements or participating in events.
- Ramming Always Works: Well, it always inflicts damage anyway. The damage ignores shields.
- Roboteching: Mostly averted. Almost all weapons travel in a straight line, and missiles must travel in arcs to reach their targets. Played straight with the Phaser weapon, which shoots a ball of energy that follows the player's cursor.
- Shoot the Medic First: Engineering frigates are naturally a priority target in PVP.
- Shout-Out: One of the medals is named Tis But a Scratch.
- Sniper Rifle: The Disintegrator special module for Empire Long Range frigates.
- Space Friction: Ships will gradually lose speed in space if not accelerating.
- Space Is Noisy: Nearby ships sound like jets when they pass nearby.
- Straight for the Commander: The Combat Recon game mode. Averted, in that killing the captain only stops a team from respawning.
- Wave-Motion Gun: The Pyro Emitter module for destroyers.
- We Will Spend Credits in the Future: Credits act as the game's main currency. Averted with faction-specific "Loyalty vouchers", which functions as a currency, and "Galactic Standards", which appear to be actual gold coins and act as the game's premium currency.
