You choose a faction when you found your homeworld, and you keep it. Each one builds its own twelve mechs, one for every battlefield role, and shares the support craft and defenses with everyone else.
Earth's old order never stopped building. Its foundries turn out more armor for the same alloy than anyone else, and its doctrine wins when scouts, line mechs and artillery fight as one.
Field bigger task forces, mix every archetype, and win the long war of attrition.
A union of core worlds that builds fewer machines and builds them better. Every Collective mech hits harder, holds longer behind its shields and gets there sooner.
Small, expensive task forces that trade efficiently and are hard to grind down.
Miners, haulers and deserters from the outer systems. They strike from far away, strip the battlefield clean and are gone before the counterattack lands.
Raid across systems, live off salvage fields, and never be where the enemy expects.
Every faction fields the same roles with its own machines. Every mech comes with a pilot, and the pilots of each archetype share one veterancy pool earned in battle: each rank adds 2% attack, shields and hull to every mech of that archetype, up to rank 10. Veteran Cadres research opens the higher ranks; After-Action Review and the Pilot Academy speed up learning.
| ARCHETYPE | TERRAN HEGEMONY | SOVEREIGNTY COLLECTIVE | FRONTIER LIBERATION |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scout Fast and cheap. Screens the line and soaks the first shots. | Watchdog | Phantom | Scavenger |
| Striker Light raider that hits the soft targets first. | Jackal | Specter | Hornet |
| Hunter Long-legged pursuit mech with cargo room for raids. | Sentry | Wraith | Viper |
| Line The backbone of every task force. | Legionnaire | Paladin | Rebel |
| Fire Support Shoots over the line at whatever it is fighting. | Centurion | Crusader | Raider |
| Vanguard Leads the push into the next defense zone. | Praetorian | Templar | Stalker |
| Guardian Heavy shields that keep the rest of the wave standing. | Warden | Sovereign | Warlord |
| Breaker Built to tear through turrets and batteries. | Gladiator | Executor | Marauder |
| Artillery Huge damage from the back of the formation. | Basilisk | Arbiter | Liberator |
| Command Heavy command mech that anchors a task force. | Imperator | Regent | Revolution |
| Siege Assault-class machine for breaking fortified worlds. | Colossus | Nemesis | Vengeance |
| Flagship One per player. The strongest machine your faction builds. | Devastator | Apex | Freedom |
On top of the 63 research lines everyone shares, each faction has 49 techs nobody else can research: five branches of nine, in three tiers, plus four unique capstones. Each tier opens once the tech before it reaches level 3, and every level adds a little more to the mechs, defenses and supply lines it covers.
Capstones: Legion Protocol, Industrial Supremacy, Devastator Program, Overwhelming Force.
Capstones: Corporate Elite, Energy Supremacy, Apex Program, Perfect Strike.
Capstones: Liberation, Guerrilla Mastery, Freedom Program, People's Army.