Sins of Solar Empire

Plot Summary

The three races in the game are the TEC (Trader Emergency Coalition), the Advent, and the Vasari.[4]

TEC (Trader Emergency Coalition)

The Trade Emergency Coalition goes back a thousand years on their homeworld, Earth, prior to the appearance of the Advent, where human colonized worlds grouped together to create the Trade Order. The order was led by a strict code of economic, moral and behavioral principles, thus sending all planets part of the order into a "Golden Age", where their economy society flourished and grew. At one point in history the Trade Worlds cast out the Advent, a religious sect that the Traders despised (see below).

With a beginning, an end must come for the golden age of the traders. It came in the shape of the Vasari, who entered the scene as they fled from their unknown enemy. To defend against the Vasari, the Traders formed the TEC, mobilized their economy into a military economy and managed to hold the Vasari off by converting their merchant vessels and colony ships into warships, and with repurposing of factories came the Kol Battleship- being the first battleship design in 750 years.

The Advent then returned being much more powerful and started a two-front war. This forced the TEC to have veterans return to the navy to fight back the Advent.

The TEC tends to have heavily armored units and mostly focus on ballistic weapons (missiles and gauss guns) and less on lasers. They have a mixed close-to-long range arsenal but mostly focused on the latter. Their preferred planets are terran planets. Due to the past focus on trade and resource gathering, the TEC is able to produce ships and structures cheaper and faster in their tech tree. The TEC's late game researches, Pervasive Economy and Foreign Sabotage, gives the faction income from all enemy expenditures and drastically decreases enemy empires' ship production rates. They also have the ability to initiate rebel insurgency strikes on enemy empires (and even pirates) when appropriate research has been conducted.

Most of TEC ship abilities are single target and direct action. The fleet is disadvantaged numerically against the Advent and technologically against the Vasari. Still, with upgrades, TEC vessels will boast increasingly higher hit points, and the highest researchable armor class in the game. This, combined with the Hoshiko Cruiser's dedicated repair function, makes the TEC tough and stubborn opponents in a battle of attrition.

Advent

The Advent was originally a collectivist religious sect of desert-dwelling humans that made significant advances in psionic technique through neurochemicals and implants. Their society is collectively known as "The Unity". Exiled from Trader space for their differences a thousand years before, they have now returned to exact vengeance on the TEC and unite the human species under the Unity's banner. The Advent tend to favor cheap, lightly-armored ships, preferring the elegance of shielding systems to clothing themselves in iron. Their weapons are almost exclusively energy-based; lasers and plasma rule the field, though certain units have psionic special abilities. Their units are very sleek and clean in shape, unlike the more industrial-military designs favored by the TEC. They prefer desert planets due to their history. Being missionary-minded, they can research culture-spreading buildings ("Temples of Communion" in Advent parlance) before either of the other two races.

The faction's key strength lies in its abilities. Almost every Advent ship class has an ability of some kind, and the specialized cruisers and all capital ships have abilities focused on enhancing or protecting the fleet as a whole. With the Halcyon Carrier's ability to reduce weapon cooldown (and hence increase Damage per second) for the fleet, and the Progenitor Mothership's ability to create damage propagation in a cluster of enemies, an Advent fleet can reach an almost unmatchable rate of damage.

The Advent frigate fleet is notable for their relatively low cost. Unfortunately, this comes at the expense of durability and firepower. Only with sufficiently high numbers can a fleet reach a formidable damage potential; and this potential would be quickly lost if relatively fragile ships cannot be properly protected. To this end, their Guardian Cruiser's Extends Shield (area shield umbrella) and Radiance Battleship's Animosity (force enemies to attack battleship) abilities provide the critical support for the fleet.

Vasari

The Vasari are the only alien race in the game. The Vasari Empire was once the strongest in the galaxy, formed by peacefully assimilating primitive races and brutally crushing more advanced ones, turning the populations of both into "valued citizens". However, at some point they started losing contact with their worlds. At first, it was believed to be acts of rebellion, or the work of traitors, but as more worlds were lost, it became clear the situation was very serious. Fleets were sent to deal with the problem, but none of them ever returned, and the Vasari still had no clue as to the identity of the attacker. Finally, the Vasari recalled all of the available ships of their conquering fleet, the Dark Fleet, and sent them all to the last planet they lost contact with. Only one battleship returned, literally falling apart, with its crew driven completely insane with fear. It was then that the Vasari Empire as a whole began to flee, leaving their home systems behind, stopping only to harvest resources, rebuild their population, and to drop warning beacons in order to determine how close behind the unknown enemy was. As they fled, the beacons fell silent one by one, prompting the Vasari to continue their journey. Arriving in TEC space, the Vasari began their routine of conquering in order to collect resources. The campaign went smoothly at first, with the TEC having forgotten all the ways of war, but the TEC recovered and after 10 years, the Vasari are in a complete deadlock, with still more and more of their warning beacons going dark. It is never really mentioned who or what the Vasari's unknown enemies are, only a rumor that they actually created it.

The Vasari tend to have fewer, but more expensive units that have extremely hardened hulls. Their ships utilize technology beyond that of other factions. An example is the Phase Missile technology boasted by many ship classes, missiles with a possibility of entirely bypassing defensive shields. Another, more important advantage is the Phase Stabilizing Node. Once constructed, a Vasari ship may travel directly between any two Nodes in one phase jump. This completely eliminates the need for time-consuming sublight voyages required to enter and exit a celestial object's gravity well during transit involving multiple jumps. Ultimately, this gives unparalleled versatility for a Vasari fleet to quickly reinforce or harass planets along its border.

Being an alien species that expands its influence through forced slavery, Vasari culture is not prone to passive expansion through media broadcast centers. Instead, Vasari's Shock and Awe upgrades give their capital ships the intimidation required in converting allegiance with their mere presence. While the presence of capital ships gives cultural influence for all factions, the Vasari is particularly adept.

Compared with the Advent, Vasari special abilities focus on dominating or incapacitating enemy ships rather than inflicting direct damage. Though their ships are more durable than those of the TEC, their durability/resource ratio is surpassed late game due to TEC upgrades. Nevertheless, Vasari fleet's technological superiority gives them numerous tactical and strategic options no other faction is capable of, making it capable of utterly crushing a force ill prepared to counter its versatility.