Belters

ALLEGOPEDIA
About	History
FACTIONS
Belters	Bios
Dreghklar	Ga'Taraan
GigaCorp	Iron Coalition
Omicron Hive	Rixian Unity
Technoflux	Draconium
Phoenix	Valkyrie
SHIPS
Buying Ships
Small Class
Eject Pod	Interceptor
Fighter	Scout
Stealth Fighter	Other Small Ships
Medium Class
Bomber	Fighter Bomber
Gunship	Stealth Bomber
Troop Transport	Other Medium Ships
Capital Class
Assault Ship	Attack Carrier
Battlecruiser	Battleship
Corvette	Cruiser
Destroyer	Devastator
Freighter	Frigate
	Other Capital Ships
Ship Equipment
Dispenser Items	Missiles
Weapons	Other Equipment
AI Drone Ships
Carrier	Caltrop
Constructor	Miner
Tower	Other Drones
BASES
Buying Bases
Minor Bases
Outpost	Refinery
Teleport Receiver	Other Minor Bases
Special Bases
Garrison	Shipyard
Technology Bases
Expansion Complex	Supremacy Center
Tactical Laboratory	Other Tech Bases

The Belters - a loose collection of independent traders, prospectors, pirates, and privateers - share a common belief: that freedom from tyranny is the right of all humanity. Belters are a rough-hewn, unruly bunch of borderline anarchists. Led by unlikely hero Orion Sholes, the Belters pilot an odd mix of captured and jury-rigged equipment: the "Junkyard Armada."

The Belters' junkyard orientations give them most of their unique qualities. At the technological level the Belters have the ability to use technology in ways that other factions cannot; namely, without requiring a technological base. This means that any Mk-II and Mk-III technology picked up in space or previously researched can be used by Belters pilots at any time regardless of whether the corresponding techbase is available. If an Iron Coalition were to stumble upon SRM Anti-Base 2 he would pick it up and return it to base as would any good pilot. However his team requires a Supremacy Center to make use of the technology and the IC team will be stuck with SRM AB1 until one was built. The Belters, however, can replicate the missiles right away and for the rest of the game.

Only Mk-III level ships (those that require an advanced station to research in the first place) require that they possess a technological station (however Mk-II ships remain available). As such, adversaries of the Belters are particularly careful about not letting technology into their enemy's hands regardless of the Belters' chosen technological pathway, because chances are it'll be used against them.

This is compensated for by the Belters' slow research time (240 seconds) and by the high cost of researching weapons and equipment. For example, technological research priced at 5000$ for the Coalition is priced at 6250$ for the Belters. This impairs the Belters financially and temporally. Conversely, researching their ships costs less and thus many commanders concentrate on researching ships and rely on their pilots to scavenge the weapons to equip them with.

The low prices are also a characteristic of their technological stations. Where others like GigaCorp can spread quickly with cheap, weak minor stations, the Belters can spread quickly with cheap yet solid technological stations. Coupled with their ability to maintain technology from lost technological stations and incredible versatility in ship loadout, Belter pilots generally have a very large array of choice for their ships and equipment.

The Belters are extremely flexible in terms of equipment, missiles and weaponry. All small class ships (and some medium class) can mount weapons & equipment that are normally only available to a single small class ships. Of these the most useful is the ability to equip nanite repair systems on nearly every small class ship, and boosters available on nearly every ship. This leads to strategies like heavy interceptor nanites and boosting stealth bombers, which are particularly deadly.

The Belters are the least sophisticated faction. They are utilitarian. As such, they have never bothered to enable their small-class ships to mount any kind of shielding and are completely devoid of small shield technology. Although this leaves the small ships with a lower signature, it also makes them slightly less durable. On the other hand the ships are given strong, dense hulls; and they can rely on most teammates carrying a spare nan. However this extra armor means the ships are particularly bulky, being a collection of ship parts fused together, and they maneuver particularly poorly, having a hard time accelerating. These drawbacks are the main reason why pilots don't enjoy flying them.

After finding rescue probe technology in Coalition space, they attempted to replicate the technology. They succeeded and pilots in eject pods can indeed use those probes to be quickly sent back to the nearest station. However Belter scientists did not succeed in creating specificity in the probe and thus belter rescue probes work for every other faction. This means Belter pilots are instructed to be particularly careful in laying them around, hiding them to be sure that the enemy cannot take advantage of them. The religious beliefs of the Belters led them to name this technology a "sanctuary".

Note The following "Faction Perk" post was written by Shizoku, with minor edits.

Belters

Faction Perks

• Strongest Hulls (1.05)
• High Speed (1.15)
• Miners have great yield (1.25)
• Bases are cheaper (20%)
• Cheaper research for ship types
• Dumbfires can be mounted on ints
• Ships can carry a variety of weapons and equipment normally only available to certain ships. For example the belter fighter can mount miniguns in its secondary and tertiary gun mounts.
• Scouts, stealth fighters, stealth bombers, fighter bombers carry booster. Bombers can mount light booster.
• Can use all tech researched/secured, despite not having the requisite tech base
• The only faction to retain it's Level II tech after a tech base is destroyed. (Like all other factions, research that is not completed is not kept.)
• Lower cost ships

Faction weakness

• 4 minute research time
• Higher cost for equipment and weapon research (1.25)
• High mass (not always a bad thing, offset by (1.05) turn rate(1.1) turn torque to help with the mass)
• Poor miner capacity (.8), slow mining speed (.8), smaller paydays (-.25)
• Lack of shields scare off new players

Faction Specific Tech

• Omni Fighters - A cloakable fighter, capable of mounting any weapon available for a small ship, as well as any missile for a small ship. Requires Starbase and one of the following: Adv. SF - Adv Fighter - Heavy Int

Ideal Settings

• Like Bios, Belt's can survive on low amounts of money quite easily. Ideal settings are Med/Med, plentiful can be helpful for techbase spam as long as your not against Giga.

Faction Strategies

• Heavy Bombers - The Belter heavy bomber is the tank among bombers, also with the Sup hull (GA) upgrades and AC 2/3, these bombers can take on heavy interceptors. One of the key items for Belter bombing is Nan 2, it is absolutely crucial. With Belters, always encourage your team to pick up all floating tech. The Belter bomber can load light booster, which when it is being properly rammed, can get up to speeds of 170 MPS. These bombers are fun and fairly cost effective.
• Missile frigate (MF) rush - Purchase a tech base for 8K, then immediately get a Shipyard (SY). One relatively cheap medium class payment away and you have a missile frigate that can use nerve gas to capture a base.
• HTT rush- With good Belter settings, and a proper econ, you can get HTTs by the 15 minute mark. The Belter Int is not the best dogfighter due to it's large mass, but the hvy int does load Nan making it an excellent rammer. Belter HTTs can go over 200 MPS with proper ramming. The key to getting the HTT so quickly to partial invest TT, Adv EXP, Int and Sig 1 GA all at the same time. Belters have a 240 second research time, so it doesn't need to finish research off immediately start with cheaper tech first, and put little increments into expensive tech. Belters is sort of like Giga, in that once you have your Adv EXP, you should be getting enormous amounts of cash due to the yield. Due to this fact and the defensive fact of your Ints, EXP is a great tech to up first with Belters.
• Multi-Teching - Belters Tech bases are so incredibly cheap that with a good Belter commander, the only time he loses is when there are no tech rocks left on the map. The cheap tech bases makes going dual or Omni tech very easy, even if you don't plan on getting anything from the base aside from the GA's, it is almost still worth it. The key that will make or break Belters, is the amount of tech your team picks up. If items like DF2, Nan2, Boost2, Mini2 and Gatt2 are brought in, you will save a lot of time and money. Belters should never have to buy Mark II tech.