Lesser racial traits

Note: After 4 LRTs each LRT is increasingly expensive until even negative LRTs begin costing you RW points. There is also a cost for having all LRTs positive or negative.

Positive LRTs

Improved Fuel Efficiency (IFE)

• Ships burn 15% less fuel
• Fuel Mizer and Galaxy Scoop available
• Increases starting Prop tech 1 level

Total Terraforming (TT)

• Begin game able to adjust planetary hab values +/- 3%
• Up to +/- 30% terraforming available in game (with heavy Biotechnology research)
• Terraforming costs 30% less

Advanced Remote Mining (ARM)

• 3 additional mining hulls, 2 additional robots available
• Start with 2 Midget Miners

Improved Starbases (ISB)

• 2 new designs - Space Dock, capable of building small to medium ships, and Ultra Station, a larger weapons platform
• Starbases cloaked by 20%
• Starbases cost 20% less

Generalized Research (GR)

• Half of total resources devoted to research applied to current field, 15% applied to each other field (totaling 125%)

Ultimate Recycling (UR)

• Scrapping fleets at starbases gives 90% of minerals, some resources
• Scrapping at planets gives 45% of minerals, fewer resources

Not strictly additive

Mineral Alchemy (MA)

• Mineral alchemy costs 25 resources, produced 1 kT of each mineral

Negative LRTs

No Ramscoop Engines (NRSE)

• Engines which travel faster than Warp 4 for free unavailable
• Interspace-10 available, earliest Warp 10-safe engine on the tech tree

Cheap Engines (CE)

• Engines cost 50% less
• At speeds over Warp 6, there is a 10% chance engines won't engage
• Starting Prop tech increased by 1

Only Basic Remote Mining (OBRM)

• Only Mini-Miner hull and Robo-Mini-Miner available
• Maximum planetary population increased 10%
• Over-rides ARM

No Advanced Scanners (NAS)

• Penetrating scanners unavailable
• All conventional scanners have double range

Low Starting Population (LSP)

• Starting population is 30% lower than normal

Bleeding Edge Technology (BET)

• New tech initially costs twice as much
• Cost normal when all tech exceeded by 1 level
• Miniaturization is 5% per level, up to 80% instead of 4% up to 75%

Regenerating Shields (RS)

• All shields 40% stronger than listed
• Shields regenerate 10% after each round of battle
• Armor at 50% of listed strength

Combinations

• IFE+NRSE

This is by far the most common combination as this gives access to the efficient Fuel Mizer engine while offsetting the cost of IFE.

• ISB+RS

This combination is especially effective for Horde strategies - many small ships in a single stack utilising the fact that shields stack together and with RS self-repair during combat.

Library articles

• Basic Race Design by Art Lathrop - Revised: 1st Aug 1999
• Article Library#Lesser Racial Trails