Rebels
The Rebels
Race Characteristics
Playing the Rebels you have almost no bitter pills to swallow (like the Feds low mining rate) and they have a whole bunch of useful abilities.
The main race characteristics that distinguish the Rebels from other races are:
- Build fighters in space:
With 3 kt Tri, 2 kt Mol and 5 kt Supply units for one fighter any rebel ship will convert this to a new fighter. You don't need 100 megacredits like other races which makes building fighters cheap. You share this ability with the Colonies and the Robots.
- 90.000 clans on ice planets:
Rebels are the only race that really can exploit ice planets. Your colonists won't grow on ice planets but they don't die either.
- Rebel Ground Attack:
Maybe the Rebels' most powerful feature. This will cause great havoc on enemy planets. It is even useful against own planets sometimes.
- Immune to attacks by planets:
Rebel ships cannot be attacked by planets.
- The Rush:
The Rush is one of the most feared ships in the universe. Only very few ships (like the Gorbie Class Carrier) can cope with it. Compared to other strong ships it is relatively cheap.
- Last not least:
One of the most useful ships in the universe is the Rebels Falcon Class Escort which allows you to transport small amounts of cargo or MCs really fast over long distances.
One drawback can be that rebel ships have few beam weapons. Especially if you need to sweep a lot of mines or if you're fighting the Crystals you will need lots of beam weapons. As a Rebel you need more ships to effectively sweep enemy mines.
Ships
Only the most useful ships will be mentioned here.
The Falcon is one of just 3 ships that can Hyperjump and the one with the biggest cargo room. This allows it to travel between 340 and 360 ly in just one turn. Since the Falcon has fuel for 3 jumps in a row it is extremely useful as a transporter for small amounts of cargo or Megacredits. The Falcon allows the Rebels to expand extremely fast in the early game phase and lets you find out who your neighbours are very early.
This is a small and cheap torpedo ship. It has not much use but in conjunction with a Patriot it is a strong weapon.
Don't laugh at this very tiny ship. The patriot is extremely cheap and with its 6 fighterbays it can definitely be a threat for your enemies. Combine this with a cheap torpedo ship (e.g. the Cygnus) that takes down the shields of your enemy first.
This is the ship you build fighters on! You can build 40 free fighters (costing just minerals and supplies) in one turn. Build some of these to fill your bases with fighters and to arm your Rushs.
This ship is partially useful. It has small cargo and it has only two tubes and is very easily captured. However it is your capital ship with the highest amount of beam weapons, so put Heavy Phasers on it and use it for sweeping mines.
Fear the Rush! With 10 fighterbays nobody can ignore this ship. Since it is relatively cheap (just 6 engines) you can build several of these.
Strategies
Expand fast
Be quick! In the starting phase build many Falcons and colonise distant planets before your neighbours even realise you're there. Build many starbases so you can fill more slots and build more ships (at least Falcons with low-tech engines) than others. These Falcons will let you settle more planets in less time. Exploring more planets also rises the probability to find the good planets faster giving you an advantage in the long term.
Be offensive
It is risky, but you might want to set your Falcons missions to "Rebel Ground Attack". Since the distance of homeworld is sometimes around 350 ly there is a chance to "accidentally" hit your neighbours homeworld. If you RGA him right in the first turns he will not be prepared for that attack and it will give you a major advantage over him. However he will be angry at you ...
Ally with cloaking races
Get cloakers! They're extremely useful for you just to check for enemy planets without capital ships in the orbit. Find these planets and hyperjump there with a Falcon and RGA.
Self-RGA
Even though Rebel Ground Attack is mainly a weapon against your enemies you can use it against yourself. It has two interesting effects that you can profit from:
- it makes your natives happy
- it destroys factories and mines (which make natives unhappy)
So if you find a good cash cow you might overtax the natives (letting their happiness drop down) and build many factories and mines (which you would normally not do in order to not annoy the natives). Then get a few LDSFs , beam up most of your clans and RGA your own planet. After the planet is cleared, let down the colonists again and send your LDSFs to the next planet and repeat the whole thing.
