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There are several factions in Starsector which the player can interact with. By default, all factions are neutral to the player except the pirates and the Luddic Path, who start as hostiles.

Gameplay[]

Each faction operates one or more markets, which can be a planet, a station, or a planet with associated station. Markets spawn fleets and allow trading with the player or other factions.

Relationship tiers[]

Each faction has a defined relationship with the player and other factions. The default, neutral stance allows basic interactions such as trade with the faction. A more positive relationship will give a range of bonuses including reduced customs tolls, reduced chances of investigations into criminal activity, and access to military markets. Conversely, increasingly negative relations will result in hostile behaviour. The breakpoints values need to be exceeded; e.g. a relation of 51 to be Friendly. The relationship tiers are:

  • (75) Cooperative
  • (50) Friendly
  • (25) Welcoming
  • (10) Favorable
  • (-9 to 9) Neutral
  • (-10) Suspicious
  • (-25) Inhospitable: The faction's markets will not permit the player fleet to dock, although players can still trade with the local black market by sneaking in with the transponder off.
  • (-50) Hostile: Faction fleets will attack the player or affected faction.
  • (-75) Vengeful

Modifying reputation[]

The following player actions will raise reputation:

  • Trading with the faction
  • Joining ongoing battles on the faction's side
  • Completing faction missions (e.g. world survey, domain-era probe scan)
  • Fulfilling faction bounties (includes commission 'standing' bounties, as detailed below)
  • Turning over AI Cores (only for factions that will accept them)

The following player actions will lower reputation:

  • Smuggling
  • Trading with the faction's enemies, in systems where the faction has a presence (exception: pirates, you can trade with enemies of the pirates without penalty)
  • Being caught with the transponder off in faction space
  • Being caught tampering with a Comm Relay
  • Seizing or destroying any faction-owned equipment such as Comm Relays, Nav Buoys, or Sensor Arrays, if the faction has an active presence in the same system as that equipment
  • Destroying faction ships, harrying their fleets, or raiding their markets (causes instant hostile status if player identity is known)
  • Interdiction pulses
  • Bombardments
  • Faction Expeditions or AI Inspections failing due to colony defenses or player intervention (though destroying the individual fleets will not incur reputation loss)
  • Inflicting non-insignifiant damage through friendly-fire during a battle you joined.

Note that most actions will not modify the player's reputation beyond a certain point.

Commissions[]

The Hegemony, Tri-Tachyon, Luddic Church, Persean League, and Sindrian Diktat offer faction commissions.

Commissions will be cancelled by the faction if player relations with them drop to Suspicious or lower reputation level, and may be Resigned which partially restores reputation with hostile factions and drops reputation with the now former commissioned faction. The reputation penalty for resigning is lower if done in person via station contacts.

Factions that do not issue commissions do not require one to make purchases on the military submarket.

Perks:

  • Immediate +5 Reputation bonus
  • You get monthly stipends of 20,000 + (player level*1,500) credits
  • Your commissioning faction has a permanent 'standing bounty' that awards credits for destroying ships that belong to their enemies
    • The amount multiplies for larger vessels (2x for destroyer, 3x for cruisers, 5x for capitals and stations)
    • This includes pirates, and can stack with system pirate bounties
  • Access to that factions' military submarkets, with more valuable ships and equipment becoming available at higher relation levels
    • Includes "no questions asked" buyback program, which allows you to sell illegal/banned goods (e.g. Recreational Drugs) to the military market

Drawbacks:

  • All of the faction's enemies will become hostile at a maximum -50 rep you whenever they are at war
  • When hostilities end, reputation will return to its previous value but with additional -20 rep penalty
  • Eventually, your reputation with the other faction will drop to a -50 rep limit even when not at war
  • Most rival factions will no longer allow you to dock in their shipyard due to this

Faction hostilities[]

At times, factions will declare war on each other for six months to a year, attacking each others' fleets. If the player holds a commission with either faction, they will be automatically made hostile to the other faction; their reputation with the enemy will be restored to the original value minus 20 once hostilities end.

Major factions[]


Domain

Flag of the Domain

The Domain of Man[]

The Domain was a galaxy-spanning polity which also ruled the Sector, until contact was lost when the gates shut down during the Collapse. All technology – ships, weapons, etc. – are just modifications of what it left behind.

The Domain as a faction doesn't appear in the game, as it's extinct in the Persean Sector.


Hegemony-1

Hegemony[]

Main article: Hegemony

The Hegemony is a militarized polity that arose after the Collapse, considering itself the successor to the Domain. They use primarily low-tech ships.


Luddic church

Luddic Church[]

Main article: Luddic Church

The religious movement of the Luddic Church blame technology for humanity's ills and thus their most hated enemy is the technologically advanced Tri-Tachyon Corporation.


Luddic path

Luddic Path[]

Main article: Luddic Path

A radical Luddic splinter group that views the mainstream Church as too weak and compromising, and seeks to destroy ungodly technology through violent force. They attack almost anyone else they cross, using their specially modified ships.


Persean league-0

Persean League[]

Main article: Persean League

A large alliance of planets opposed to the Hegemony. They use primarily midline ships.


Sindrian diktat

Sindrian Diktat[]

Main article: Sindrian Diktat

The Sindrian Diktat is a military dictatorship in the Askonia Star System, and a major producer of fuel.


Tritachyon

Tri-Tachyon[]

Main article: Tri-Tachyon

The Tri-Tachyon Corporation is a small but technologically sophisticated faction. It is heavily involved in AI research, leading to conflicts with the Hegemony and the Luddic Church.


Neutral traders

Independent[]

Main article: Independent

The independents are a loose collection of neutral planets and stations scattered across the Sector. Their ranks include smugglers, independent trade convoys, and mercenary patrols.


Pirates

Pirates[]

Main article: Pirates

The Pirates are an enemy to the player and all other factions, and will attack whenever they get the opportunity. They hold several planets and stations across various star systems in the Sector.

Minor Factions[]

Corporations[]

Midline

Altair Exotech

Altair Exotech[]

Competitive shipwrights, Designed the "Cruiser School" ships like the Pegasus, Champion, Gryphon, Heron and Vigilance. Also licensed the Odyssey to frontier companies including Eridani-Utopia. Destroyed after the Collapse.

Altair is a medieval abbreviation for an Arabic phrase meaning the "flying eagle", and the name of the twelfth brightest star in the night sky.

Bhilai Astra Group[]

Domain-era manufacturer of heavy weapons and a key supplier to the 200th Legion. They were the original designers of the Ion Pulser and its enhanced sibling, the Ion Beam. Also known as the Bhilai Space Group or Bhilai Exospace. Survived the Collapse as a fragment serving the Hegemony Navy.

Bhilai is a city in eastern central India and is a major industrial center. Astra is the accusative plural of Astrum meaning star in Latin.


Eridani utopia

Eridani Utopia

Eridani-Utopia Terraforming Corporation[]

A Domain-era megacorporation dedicated to surveying and terraforming planets to support human colonization. Designers of the Stellar Mirrors and Stellar Shades. Creators of Autonomous Mantle Bore and Soil Nanites. Used the Odyssey as headquarters in mobile survey expeditions. Defunct after the collapse, stranded elements of the corporation terraformed Qaras.

Known planets that Eridani-Utopia was developing/developed:

  • Barad, Garnir Extraction Depot (Corvus). Built mass drivers to export volatiles to feed terraforming efforts on Asharu.
  • Asharu (Corvus). In the process of terraforming before the Collapse using ice from Barad for water and Stellar Shades negate the heat.
  • Kapteyn Starworks (Isirah). Built to serve the corporation's needs.
  • Gilead (Canann). Successfully stabilized the climate and ecological processes after initial spore ship seeding. Was occupied by the Luddic Church after the Collapse.
  • Ithca (Penelope's Star). Intended to be terraformed before the Collapse threw the sector into chaos.
  • Ogygia (Penelope's Star). Was to be terraformed with it's sibling Ithca.
  • Yama (Naraka). Was terraformed and colonized to support Nachiketa fuel refinement.
  • Qaras (Yma). Terraformed Post-Collapse by remnants of the corporation.

Eridanus is a constellation in the southern hemisphere, often depicted as a flowing river in ancient star maps. Its Greek name may have originated from the Kengir/Sumerian city of Nunki/Eridu, one of the earliest Mesopotamian cities. Utopia is a phrase coined by English writer Thomas Moore from Greek meaning "no place", and is commonly now used when describing impossibly perfect societies.

Exodyne Biotech[]

Domain-era corporation who created the Biofactory Embryo. Post-Collapse status unknown.

Fabrique Orbitale[]

Domain-era corporation and an old rival of Tri-Tachyon. Creators of the Kite shuttle, the Orbital Fusion Lamp, the Fullerene Spool, the Plasma Dynamo, and designers of the Terminator Drone's chassis and systems. Destroyed after the Collapse.

Fabrique is French and means a place where things are manufactured.

GA-X Industries[]

Manufacturers of the Assault Chaingun. Post-Collapse status unknown.

Interstellar Dynamics[]

Domain-era corporation, only mentioned in the Timeline. Destroyed after the Collapse.

Ko combine2

Ko-Combine

Ko Combine[]

Domain-era industrial corporation with a post-collapse presence. Creators of the civilian drone tender Shepherd, the experimental Monitor frigate, the Catalytic Core, and the Combat Drone Replicators. The Free Star Combine, a subsidiary of the Ko Combine, purchased the rediscovered Mark IX Autocannon blueprints and built a prototype. Purchased the administration rights to barren world Agreus in the Arcadia Star System, rebuilding their fortune on shipbreaking and reconstruction.

Mbaye-gogol

Mbaye-Gogol

Mbaye-Gogol Autofab (MGA)[]

Creators of the Dealmaker Holosuite and designers of the MGA-440 Starliner, the MGA-430 Nebula and the MGA-220 Pegasus/Mudskipper. Also known for creating two models of Explorarium drones, the Defender and the Bastillon. A portion of its directorate survived the Collapse in uncertain ways and rule over Nomios, in the Arcadia system.

Mbaye is a Senegalese given name that can also be a family name. Gogol was the last name of Nikolai Gogol, a Russian novelist of Ukrainian descent and was one of the first to use the technique of the grotesque.

Known in pre-0.95.1 versions as Huan-Gogel Autofab (HGA)

Lowtech

Orion Shipyards

Orion Shipyards[]

Traditional builders of the heavier Armada ships of the Domain navy. Designers of the Drover. Had a rivalry with Altair Exotech in naval procurement. Post-Collapse status unknown.

Orion is a prominent constellation, named after the giant huntsman of Greek legend who was venerated as a hero.

Administrations[]

Askonian Polity[]

The original nation that ruled Askonia. Their capital was Opis. The polity collapsed in Cycle 182 during the Askonia Crisis, when Opis was destroyed with a Planet Killer by an unknown assailant while the Hegemony was trying to annex the system. The remnants formed the Askonian Revolutionary Council that governs Umbra, while the Hegemony admiral Philip Andrada turned rogue and took over Askonia, forming the Sindrian Diktat. Called ARCists or Antis (A catch-all term used by the Hegemony to refer to rebellious polities) by the Sindrian Diktat.

Maxios Charter[]

The original government of the Magec system. It ceased to exist five years after the Collapse, when Maxios' terraforming failed and the planet became a barren rock. The survivors fled to a mining station in the Guayota Disk and re-organized as Nova Maxios.

Mayasuran Terraforming Cabal[]

A once powerful polity that originally ruled the Mayasura system. It collapsed in Cycle 82, when the Luddic Path devastated Mairaath and the Hegemony temporarily annexed them. Currently part of the Persean League.

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