History VideoGame / StarWolves

*** Depending on the side of the MSF questline you choose (whether you side with Alex Trump or Viper), you gan either get the FSS-2t12, a military supply transport of the same class as the Star Wolf turned into a light carrier, OR, the Lion MK2, a SuperPrototype battlecruiser that can fight fleets head-on and win.

* ObviousBeta: The second game was infamous for its state, being light in content, very buggy and with an unstable difficulty (You get a free Stiletto and Stormcrow at ''the very beginning'', while Aliens (A fearsome endgame-level threat) are all over the empty and wreck-laden systems.) It also has serious problems running at a stable framerate in modern systems.

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: In the first game, the Star Wolves' first attempt to use the Precursor Portal fails because they have absolutely no idea on how to activate it. As it turns out, a 2500-year-old piece of alien technology doesn't really have an instruction manual.

[[quoteright:171:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/StarWolves_1515.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:171:A RagtagBunchOfMisfits and possibly the very best pilots in human space.]]

* StarKilling: The Precursors have a weapon that can destroy stars, known as the Star Hammer. Most of the final part of the first game involves the Empire and the corporations' conflicts over it, as they want its power for their own reasons. In ''Empire's Legacy'', [[spoiler:Astra and the Star Wolves decide it's too dangerous to remain in human hands and send it back to the DysonSphere it came from.]]

* FlawedPrototype: The Astarte was a prototype Imperial battlecarrier. It was meant to be a spearhead ship that would lead assaults against enemy forces and survive large amounts of firepower. While it can do the latter very well, it came at the cost of weaker engines, little maneuverability and lack of weapons. For that reason, it was never mass produced and was left in a scrapyard until the mercs that run XB-17 took it for themselves.

* AlienInvasion: Late in the first game, a race of Aliens attack the Empire in retaliation for [[spoiler:the death of their envoy.]] Humanity is quickly left in serious trouble. [[spoiler:It takes the Star Wolves and [=InoCo=] managing to communicate with them to stop them from wiping everyone out.]]

** [[spoiler:In the third game, the Berserks have built a trio of portals that connect Proserpine, Pegasus and XT-54, presumably as beachheads for when the time comes to invade the Empire. They're high above the ecliptic plane of the rest of the sector and using them is risky, as both pirates and Berserk scouts use them too.]]
* {{Precursors}}: There was a highly advanced race that was active up to at least 2,500 years before the first game, known by the humans as the Precursors. They built their own portals, [[spoiler:a DysonSphere]] and had ships with immense regenerative capabilities, which has allowed them to keep working up to this day. [[spoiler:It's implied they still survive, but have changed over the eons as the Aliens.]]

* CaptainErsatz: Berserks are commonly known AI's in many Sci-fi games which includes their needs of replicating in a mass number and urge of replacing all life with their own machinery.

* WeCannotGoOnWithoutYou: If the Star Wolf (in 1)/your Tug/ARBA/Mastiff/the Astarte/the Star Wolf (in 3) is destroyed, [[GameOver the game ends]]. Your mothership is (usually) a modified freighter that wasn't designed for heavy combat, so you shouldn't expose it too much to enemy forces, ''especially'' to ships with Plasma weapons (Designed to kill bigger ships) or lots of missiles.
* WeComeInPeaceShootToKill: Type 1. The Aliens originally tried to make peaceful contact with humanity, but the MSF ruined everything by destroying the envoy, triggering a devastating war that would've ended badly for humanity (and ended really badly for the Empire) if not for [=InoCo=] and the Star Wolves' efforts to explain to them what happened.

* ShoutOut: Kruger sector contains a space station called "Brennan's Triumph", also the name of a sector in the ''VideoGame/{{X}}-Universe'' series.

* CuttingOffTheBranches:The third game does this with some of the first's events. Canonically, the Red Corsair, Heretic and Astra were recruited (The first leads the NESF and the latter is [[spoiler:the New Empire's ruler.]]) Neither of the first game's original endings are canon, with the route added by the mod ''[[ApprovalOfGod Empire's Legacy]]'' (in which the Star Wolves TakeAThirdOption and fight both the Empire and the Corporations, [[spoiler:discover Astra's true heritage]], destroy the Imperial-Precursor superweapon/battleship Starhammer and convince the Aliens to stop their war with humanity) being the canon ending of the story.

The story of the first game begins with [[HelloInsertNameHere Hero]], a trader who gets his vessel blown up and looted by the Red Corsair and his pirates, and who swears to restart his life and get his revenge at the same time. With the aid and financial backing of a few friends, he outfits a large cargo-hauler, the Star Wolf, with armor, shields, and weapons, and throws in a few starfighters to boot. The crew and pilots of the Star Wolf become interstellar mercenaries, making their living by protecting traders, hunting pirates, taking bounty contracts, and salvaging the remains of all who oppose them.

** Ship-wise, if you follow the New Empire route, you can obtain the original and upgraded Star Wolf (Known ingame by its MSF designation "MSS-19") as your final mothership.

* KungFuProofMook: Ships with AMS and/or ECM systems are able to deflect and destroy missiles before they can hit their ships, depending on how advanced the missiles and the AMS/ECMs are and the pilot's own skills.

** A news item in the 2nd game mentions a Minister [[Literature/VorkosiganSaga Forcosigan]], and in the first game, the Empire is ruled by Emperor Ezar - the same name as that of the grandfather of the Barrayaran Emperor for most of the series (it somehow changes to Emperor Azar in the third game).* SidetrackBonus: Visiting every possible location of interest in a system, even when they have nothing to do with your actual reason for being in the system, is the best way to get jobs and/or targets to blow up and salvage.

** Berserks are most easily destroyed by quickly blasting them with heavy beam weapons, before they attack you in the same manner.

* AWinnerIsYou: The second game's ending isn't very well developed, to say the least. [[spoiler:Once the Mega-Bomb detonates at the other side of the Angoran portal, the game goes on a blurb about the end of a chapter in conflict history and ends, sending you back to the main menu.]]