Star Conquest is a text-based Multi-User Dungeon developed and operated by SquidSoft. The game has had players since 1998 onward. The setting is pulp science fiction Space Opera for an ever shifting ensemble cast of players.
Players advance their characters through accumulation of points in various categories. Ground combat points are earned on missions where battlesuits are deployed. Space Combat points are earned by direct action against the enemies of humanity, or at least the enemies of the state. Exploration points are earned by collecting potentially useful or informative pieces of alien debris from battle sites, surveying planets, probing systems, and capturing space images of interesting things. Industry points are earned by collecting raw resources, engaging in interplanetary trade, and facilitating exploitation of asteroid resources. Ships, improved battlesuits, and upgrades are locked behind point requirements, so the majority of possible progression is tied to the points system.
Tropes found in Star Conquest:
- Combining Mecha: The specific case of combining vehicles applies to base block ships, which are able to combine with smaller ships to achieve various configurations. The ASS-E7 Allied Starships Modular Tactical Platform and ASS-C4 Allied Starships Budget-Constrained Modular Terroreroticism Vessel are the most prominent examples, though other craft with the capability exist. Tactical Exploration Platforms, Budget Cargo Vessels, Hyperion Warfare Platforms, and the amusingly nick-named Mega Micro-Citadel Platform are among the options possible.
- Cool Starship: Many of the exploration craft players gain access to collect enough upgrades, side-grades, special capabilities, and decorations to qualify as a Cool Starship.
- Faster-Than-Light Travel: Point to point wormhole jumps are the default method used in civilized space between different networks of wormhole beacons. Other types of FTL travel that depend on infrastructure are jumpgates, quantum skim accelerators, and rift inserters. Phased wormhole drives allow for skimming through deep space without a beacon network at rates of around 40 to 80 light-years per hour, while rift drives open a wormhole to an alternate hyperspace dimension inhabited by Alien Fair Folk where ships may travel at rates that vary depending on both local weather and the depth of the ship's dive into the rift. Unbeaconed jumps are possible, though they are only done by the desperate, the foolhardy, or very experienced NPCs.
- Long-Runners: Re-launched in February 2009 and still active today.
- Robinsonade: Prominent NPC Peter Feinstein was marooned in the rift for years. Eventually he was rescued and presented the world with the Fienstein Rift Drive Mk1, a more reliable way to navigate the rift than begging favors from rift entities.
- Powered Armor: Added in the 2009 re-launch, players have access to several starter options for battlesuits for fighting dangerous self-replicating robots, spaceborne lifeforms, enemy aliens, and even some missions against human enemies. More advanced suits can be bought, bartered for, or stolen from enemies.
- Sonic Stunner: Hand weapons in this game tend to be stunners of this sort. Canonically projectile weapons are held to be barbaric and are illegal in civilized space.
- Space Fighter: Humans in particular excel at using small fighting craft and have over twelve models available for players to choose from, including the venerable JD-0343-XIV United Nations Jumpship Defender XIV, the standard CFY-39-III Coalition Space Superiority Fighter Mk III, and the high end T1-14 Telex Defense Inc. Bastille-Class Mobile Micro-Citadel. Other species in the game vary with the Children of the Sun using Adapa class fighters as support weapons, the Outsiders using their villein class light fighters in much the same way humans use fighters, and the Interstellar Federation of Species eschewing small craft entirely in favor of destroyers.
- Space People: Several varieties exist, from semi-nomadic unregs in Coreward and Spinward space, to station dwellers in the Feng Wo Trading Collective in the space Anti-Spinward of Earth, or the Mutuality of Disparate Freemen in the Ring Nebula, to the home grown Children of Lagrange 5 (who live permanently in free fall in the station at the Lagrange 5 point in the Earth-Luna system).
- Space Station: A few major stations in the game are regular set pieces, from briefings on the Accord of Free Worlds Command, playing the slots on Lagrange 5, trading at Famous Andy's, buying ships at Helios station, partying on Nouveau Quebec, or just talking to people at DeMargas, a number of stations are noteworthy and interesting role-play venues.
- Space Whale: Various sorts of spaceborne lifeforms exist, including space whales (if you explore in the right regions).
- The Mothership: Many groups use variations of these, with the Outsiders using their magistrate class ships to invade and subjugate entire multi-planet civilizations. More modest examples include human colonization ships rebuilt into mobile bases by unregistered persons, and the reliable CMY-96 Coalition Light Carrier which many players use for short exploration and resource exploitation trips.
- Wave-Motion Gun: The Outsiders use their phased destabilizing beams to lance stations like boils and destroy entire planets.
