What’s your favorite race, and why?
0 voters
What is your favorite race, and why?
I’ll go first…
The Order, for I made a challenge that makes the Order practically invincible with the current anomalies.
and, of course, for the radiation guns and the nuclear missiles
And, my favorite, the firefly rockets 
I voted the Empire primarily for their aesthetic–and plus, I like shield tanking. Of course, they’re not particularly effective in my hands, for reasons that I’m not yet sure of.
If I could vote a second time, I’d put one in for the Federation. I like their look too, plus their balance. Also, they don’t have the problem the Empire does–their ships are long and thin, so I can park point-defense frigates in between them and it still works.
in this post i will state why i did not vote for the other races mainly because i forgot to >.<
Tribe – They’re really cool with their autocannons and howitzers (which are not appropriately named, for they are very short ranged, but their need to get close to the enemy and THEN blast without proper protection with shields and armor, they just don’t do the job for some missions.
Federation – I love the extra hull integrity bonus, but they’re the only race, apart from the rebels, that don’t have a race-specific weapon!
Rebels – Unless I’m using a fighter swarm (I hardly do that anymore, it used to make my game crash), their speed bonus doesn’t seem effective to me. Plus, no race-specific weapon?! NO.
Alliance – They look awesome with their bug-like ships, but the only reason I use them is to make it seem like there are alien invaders out there with guns humans haven’t even invented yet, like Guns that shoot pure Lightning, or some other weapon of destruction
Empire – Ships, again, look cool, but they lack the difference of the look, and hull output, of their ships unlike the other races. Plus their ridiculously large ships make it extremely hard to protect them from fighter attack, and a worse aspect of it is that they are must vulnerably to fighter attack because the people building them mostly use shields on empire ships, and the fighters can shoot inside a shield bubble.
remember, those are just my opinions, it doesn’t mean you have to go SHUT UP YA **** THE EMPIRE ROCKS!!!
uhhhh… ok, maybe that was a bit much there :S
Federation and Rebels have unique fusion beam variants.
I voted Tribe last time, partially because of the novelty and because their ships are spiffy-looking.
This time, though, I went function over form and voted Federation. Seems like (for me) anything the others can do, the Feds can do better. Probably just has to do with my play style or whatever, but my survival scores are all currently from Fed fleets, and it seems like if I have trouble on some particular mission, I just switch to Feds and blow everything away.
Hell, my current “practice fleet” - challenge I sent to myself - is a fairly tight-knit GP Fed fleet that I have yet to actually beat (although I haven’t worked out against it a huge amount).
Federation still, but the Tribe and the Order are not that far behind in my list…
My favorite are the rebels, the speed boost comes in handy for fighters and cruiser laser ships. Both of those fit into my favorite strategy of defeating shields and armor in a fast and efficient manner, then getting huge damage in on the hull. Also, the Valhalla is probably my favorite hull in the game, and the wide range of frigates make for versatile fleets.
My thoughts on the other races:
Empire: Yeah, they have big hulls, but throw on a couple of sheets of armor, and they can survive against fighters long enough to get the job done. The hull size does mean that they have a low concentration of firepower, but that only really effects cruiser lasers. The Imperial weapons platform also allows for a great firepower/cost ratio. They are a great race for a frontline tank + backline damage strategy. I used them a lot early on for missile spam fleets, now I find that Imperators with cruiser lasers and beam weapon glass cannons behind them are the best small map fleet I can make.
Alliance: I haven’t used them too much, mostly just as a test of the armor tank strategy. The Python hull allows for great concentration of firepower, and was the hull I got my highest score on the new Order challenge with. The armor bonus is pretty useful when facing many fighters, but that’s about the only place I have found a use for it. The racial weapons are nice in the sense that they have similar ranges to cruiser lasers and both armor and shield penetration, but the DPS on them is pretty low. I still prefer proton beams as my obligatory armor piercing weapon when using cruiser lasers. Overall, a pretty niche race, but it has its uses.
Federation: Good fusion beam, but the HP hull bonus doesn’t really interest me.
Tribe: simple and possibly OP, so I try not use them much.
Order: I love their backstory and the way they look, first of all. Their hulls make for an interesting mix of low HP/armor + normal speed and high HP/armor + low speed, all with high power, which may lead to some interesting fleets. I love beam lasers, so I think this may become one of my favorite races in the future. The firefly rockets and limpet mines are amazing. Radiation guns are solid, although they seem to be less useful than a cruiser laser in the same spot for everything but tribe. I’m not sold on nukes as opposed to fast missiles, but they aren’t horrible.
I am torn between The Order and The Empire. Both have very appealing aesthetic designs, and both are capable of creating massively powerful warships.
Suppose your opponent is doing the shield tank thing with the Empire (as many are wont to do). Then radiation guns are absolutely terrifying–my usual fleet of Imperial supercruisers was torn to pieces through the shields before they could bring down even a single Order cruiser on The Rockwall Nebula.
they do? i thought all races had the fusion beam, but then i began to notice that the federation was the only race to have it. seeing that it’s basically a beam laser, i ended up forgetting about it in that post >.< but i never knew about the rebel one… EVER.
Dang, I was only fighting the order with cruisers with armor and repair systems. They’re pretty devastating against anything without those 2 things. This may actually be a bug, according to Cliffski, check out the radiation gun thread http://positech.co.uk/forums/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=4395. I hope so, otherwise this is a very brutal counter to shield heavy fleets, as if laser fighters weren’t enough 
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There are a lot of very brutal counters to shield-heavy fleets. 
.>
bump
The Order rulez!
But the Empire is a close second.
I like the Alliance as they are the only race with a 9-hardpoint cruiser hull.
The Tribe and Order seem like the most powerful races. That Order rad-gun is brutal.
I went with the Rebels simply for the cool looking ships, but also since I quite like my all beam laser setup for cruisers 
Aesthetic appeal-
Alliance
Federation
Gameplay-
Order
Tribe
Federation
I chose the Rebels before, but I’m using the Empire more often in Challenges. The Tribe is amusing with their smoldering hulks in the battlefield.
I’ve only played with Feds so far (I want to beat every challenge with them before moving on), so I can’t really comment gameplay-wise. That said, I tend to favour survivability and all-rounder builds in games anyway, so the Feds are well suited to me. They feel like a comfortable slipper now.
As for aesthetics, I like the look of every race (I’m not so keen on Alliance, but they’re very distinctive, so I wouldn’t change them), but in particularly I like the Tribe and most of all I LOVE the Empire. Those huge circular platforms are so cool. (They also look kinda like dalek motherships - bonus!) I used to find the Feds ugly, but they’ve grown on me. They sort of resemble modern day battleships with their grey-blue colouration and their shape.
I picked tribe but haven’t got order yet so i don’t know but tribe is awwersome if you can repair at least and if you can’t then they suck a lot