GigaCorp

Founded by the enigmatic Emmet Longstreet, this massive corporate entity has managed to survive the destruction of Earth. Led by Mercedes Kelleher - a cunning and ruthless businesswoman - GigaCorp has one goal: total domination of humanity`s remnants.

GigaCorp is, as the name implies, an absolutely massive corporation that specializes in the collection and refining of Helium-3. They participated in the long siege that opposed them to the now extinct Crimson Shields on the Leonov crater (on the moon), where the Crimson Shields threatened to nuke the moon, requiring the intervention of the UN's Iron Coalition.

This faction has long been specializing in He3 collection and refining. Unlike factions such as the Iron Coalition, who basically had to create He3 collectors out of necessity after government funding essentially stopped, GigaCorp have been working on it for decades, making their economy the strongest in the game. Their collection technology is so advanced that every single miner throughout the fleet is at least an enhanced miner. This means that GigaCorp starts the game with enhanced miners. The same goes for constructors, starting as enhanced.

In addition to the best miners, GigaCorp has found another way to make incredible amounts of money. They have found a way to use the special Carbon, Silicon and Uranium asteroids to generate valuable compounds. Their engineers have designed special refinery types for each asteroid, which can be built directly on the asteroid, and results in between 1000 and 2000$ every minute. Because the refineries had become easy targets during different wars, they are now equipped with teleport reception devices, and are just as functional as a teleport receiver. As such, a GigaCorp commander can build a special refinery at home instead of a home teleport receiver, generating income as well as serving as a fully functional teleport receiver. The technology to build such refineries must be researched in a garrison. The refineries can also be used to consume the special asteroids using cheap stations and thus prevent your enemy from using them for his own technological stations. You can imagine how powerful a GigaCorp can become on resourceful settings, where every sector contains two tech rocks, allowing for a lot of special refineries to be deployed.

As any good corporation, GigaCorp saves wherever it can. Their expansion stations are cheap, but weaker. As a result, they are the only stations that are harmed by basic weaponry. However, with their strong economy, GigaCorp have no trouble replacing destroyed stations. If not attacked, GigaCorp can spread at incredible speeds. Also, if attacked, they can have financial provisions necessary to replace their weak stations by strong technological stations, which withstand the same kind of attacks as any other technological stations, although they are slightly weaker.

Their ships are also inferior in aspects such as hull strength. However, because of the astounding amounts of income generated by GigaCorp's multiple sources, a new output has been found in creating very costly but very strong ships. As such, when a ship, such as a stealth fighter, fighter or interceptor, is upgraded to the advanced level, another, higher level becomes available. The luxury series of each of these three ships have become well-known means of GigaCorp to defend its assets with great efficiency. The luxury fighter has 4 weapon slots, which are even placed on a single plane, dealing incredible damage with high accuracy. It can also deploy the same equipment as a scout, thus being able to perform TP2 drops as well as mining alephs. The luxury stealth fighter has more energy and can also use the medium shield, making it very difficult to take down, mostly from the great distances at which these crafts attack others. Finally, the luxury interceptor is the only one equipped with a ripcording device. Although it is a slow ripcord, the ship, generally limited to space surrounding stations, can now travel as much as a fighter. As a specialized station defense ship, they can even defend such stations as special refineries and teleport receivers.

Note that for balancing reasons, certain properties of the luxury versions of ships have been removed or replaced by weaker abilities. As such, luxury stealth fighters no longer mount medium shields, but carry more missiles and have more energy. Luxury fighters cannot drop anything other than mines, and all advanced fighters can also drop mines. This, however, does not hold for every core.

Although GigaCorp has the ability to develop a strong military, they begin with very little means. They are the only faction which starts with nothing more than scouts. They also are the only ones who have to research the first level of technologies such as Booster 1, Disrupter 1, Signature Cloak 1, etc. As such, their strong economy must be used to fund this research that others don't have to undertake. Also, if a Commander happens to forget to research one of these components, it can pose a serious problem to his/her fleet. For example, interceptors or fighters without boosters can have serious functioning problems, because they may be outrun by enemy fleets. Stealth Fighters without cloaking devices, although still relatively dangerous, are much easier to detect. Finally, it makes GigaCorp very vulnerable early in the game. They often have to rely on bombers to defend themselves, as scouts hardly suffice. A unique ship was developed to attempt to solve this problem: the Patroller. Unfortunately, the patroller is hardly worth its development costs, and commanders prefer to simply get bombers right away, which are not only more capable defense ships, but can also serve as the central ship in a variety of assaults.

With their strong economy, GigaCorp has no trouble resorting to capital ships when the situation requires it. Using strong luxury versions of ships and incredible income to replace countless stations and get advanced technology quickly, GigaCorp is most vulnerable early game, and is often rushed. However, they are also capable of rushing, and are thus a faction to be reckoned with.

View screenshots of this factions unique Ships & Stations

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

Giga Faction Perks Great speed(1.1) Great ship shield (1.1) Great economy, miner capacity(1.25), starting money(1.25), paydays(1.25) Cheap Lt bases and Lt carriers Enh Miners/Con's at start Lux Ships available ($500 each) Spec Mines available Patroller Research available Faction weakness Weak Ship Hull(.85) Less Accel(.9) and Agility(.8) Scout only starting ship available Basic tech must be researched (Boost1, Dis1, QF1 etc.) Lt outposts and Teleports can be damaged by any weapon Faction Specific Tech Patrollers - Because Giga starts with only scouts, this ship can be researched immediately. It mounts two weapons and serves well as an initial investment until fighters/Ints can be researched. It should not be used as a primary ship late in game. Ideal Settings Giga's miners can pull in a lot of money, they have a large capacity and rarely get filled to the brim. So high total money will allow you to pull in a wad of cash, Plentiful and Scarce + resources will allow you to spam spec refs Faction Strategies Pattie/Lt Carrier Rush - Lt Carriers cost very little with Giga, and are very easily spammed. With Giga it's almost better to spam carriers then outposts or Teleports, due to the fact they can be maneuvered more then a stagnant base, keeping an eye on your carriers they should never die. With one or two carriers you can be quite aggressive even pushing carriers through enemy sectors to their mining points. This remains an applicable strategy as long as you continue to maintain your economy. Even with Giga carriers being made light, this still is a very power strategy. TAC Rush - Giga can get it's tech up very quickly, logically the enemy will be attempting to bomb you while you get adv tech, once you get Hunter3 you are safe, get hunt 3 as soon as possible. Defending with basic Giga TAC is difficult so if you spam OP's and TP's so that the enemy is distracted, you should be able to get your tech up in time. Giga can afford to loose a few OP's or TP's, it's all acceptable as long as you replace it. If you see a bomber heading toward your sector, purchase the Con to rebuild it if you don't feel you can defend, the more stuff they have to blow up the better. Once adv tech is up your Lux SF's will be able to defend with hunt 3 fairly easy if they have half a brain and you can begin getting stealth bombers followed by a sup for AB2 if needed. This tactic is deadly in small games because the enemy cannot muster large bombing runs to take you out when your weakest, chances are they will be concentrating on defending their miners. Remember if they have their entire team bombing, their miners are candy for one SF. Lux Scout/Sup - A personal favorite for all turret gunners and scout whores. It is a great strategy against all things hidden, the Lux scout has the best scan range of any scout in the game(200 better then Bios Hvy/Adv) and is basically 700M short of being a walking pulse probe, if you are having SBA or HTT problems these little buggers are great for finding them. Plus they have a full AC turret that will eat enemy miners alive. Follow up with TP2/XRM AB runs for game end and you are in good shape. Expansion - Giga's expansion is fairly pathetic when it comes to their Ints, although the models are fairly decent the gunmounts on non-Lux Ints are fairly difficult to use. Giga has a fairly average HTT, it has a nice flat end to ram and the factions speed can make for some very quick HTT's. Also once you've finished upgrading your EXP fully, you should still have an insane amount of money left because your miners are giving so much with the he upgrades.