Star Imperium

**Dev. Status** | Conceptual

(WIP)

Best described as a feudal kingdom in space. The Star Imperium forces are split into two forces consisting of the elite Praetorians, a mixture of amphibious cavalry, atmospheric starships, and Titans, giant amphibious (in a sense that their large enough to wade through oceans) mechas the size of buildings, and the hired Mercenaries, a mixture of infantry, aircraft, and navy. The Imperium Praetorians are capable of handling anything but their small numbers and high price means they’ll need to be initially supplemented by the Merceneries who acts as the buffer, bait, and cannon fodder to hold back the enemy while the Cataphracts come online.

## Gameplay

### Experience

The Praetorian units are rather overpriced due to dealing rather low damage, slow speed, and poor health for their price, however they can be given “armaments”, each granting a weapon or support equipment while enhancing the unit. A Cataphracts can initially hold one armament but as they rank up they’ll gain additional slots, which also replaces the heroic upgrade other factions have, and they have five veterancy ranks instead of three for a total of six armaments. But their mercenaries, like the Protectorate and Kingdom units, can’t gain veterancy.

### Units

The Cataphracts, with their giant size, are unique in that each of their sub-systems and armaments (weapons, legs, shield generator, etc) can be targeted and destroyed, with the Cataphracts being destroyed once its reactor and/or cockpit (often the head) is destroyed, but so long as a sub-system functions neither of them can’t be destroyed (though damage at a certain threshold will inflict debuffs), conversely each component can be individually repaired though destroyed armaments need to be rebought, the number of sub-systems and their high health making even the frailest Cataphracts hard to kill but can be crippled by taking out the right sub-systems. The Mercenaries, meanwhile, will drop a pickup that give back half of their cost back to the commander upon death.

### Build Mechanic

The Star Imperium builds their structures like the Empire via the use of cargo trucks that transform into prefabricated structures, making them slower to move and build but much hardier than the Empires Nanocore and paper structures, while their Praetorians are also built similarly to how the Soviets construct buildings. With the Mothership sending down the almost finished frame (or currently low powered in the case of their atmospheric ships) where the ground team would then finish installing the more fragile components and conduct safety checks, so the Cataphracts can be built anywhere but are vulnerable to being destroyed while constructing.

## Units & Buildings

### Praetorian Titan

Due to their enormous size all Titans are amphibious, by simply walking across the sea, can climb up cliffs, and can even attack aircraft but conversely anti-air units can shoot at them and enemies have increased range shooting at them. A Titan has at least six components in the arms/weapons (left and right), legs (left and right), Reactor, and Head. All of them are named after a knight (why their earth name is because that was what the humans gave them).