Transhuman Empire is a massively multiplayer action roleplaying game set in a future solar system where humans have broken the bonds of Earth and have colonized the thousands of rocks all the way out to the black of the Oort Cloud. Propelled by gates capable of FTL travel, jumps across the solar system take only hours along standard routes...or faster, if you are willing to delve into illicit jump markets. Humans themselves have slipped the bonds of normal, upgrading their physical bodies beyond what was once possible through the emerging sciences of cybernetics, genetics and psionics. The system has been divided between several key factions: the United States of Earth, the Martian Coalition, the Saturn Ring Alliance and the Oort Republic, each vying for control of the system's most valuable resources: water, air and fuel.
The game is noted for three main mechanics: a rich, cinematic, diverging story based on player choice; a classless RPG system based on skill trees, and; an action-heavy gameplay focus inspired by fast-paced FPSes. The game is focused on exploration, player choice and a "never-ending" adventure.
The game comes from groundbreaking programmers at Mighty Software in Port Gray. Servers are supported by Heron and Gecko.
Gameplay
Player characters ("toons") are designed by players with a rich character creator with fluid options for creating the "transhuman entity" that the player desires. This goes beyond just visual appearance. As opposed to many other RPGs, which utilize a class-based system of character advancement, TE uses a skill-based system, wherein the player earns skill points which they can spend freely across several ability trees representing the key "professions" of the system: the scout tree focuses on mobility and perception, with abilities that allow for freedom of movement through freerunning or in zero gravity, and visual abilites that allow for tracking enemies, determining weaknesses, etc., as well as stealth skills for both ground and space combat; the marine tree focuses on enchancing basic combat skills, with abilities that augment the use of firearms and melee skills, including reducing recoil, damage buffs and tank abilities and weapons upgrades for space combat; the hacker tree focuses on electronics in the game world, including debuffing enemy equipment, enhancing ships and ally equipment and out-of-combat engineering skills, as well as battlefield manipulation and combat mechanic skills such as turrets, as well as acting as ship repair and buff specialists; the psikik tree uses long-range PSI abilities to damage enemies and control the battlefield, especially through devestating area of effect attacks, as well as combat healing capabilites and a focus on ship shield and engine buffs; the pilot tree focuses almost entirely on ship-to-ship combat and maneuverability, allowing for special maneuvers in ship-to-ship and more precise controls, as well as enabling AoE abilites on the ground in the form of airstrikes and teleportative abilities, and; the exo tree, which focuses on combat in zero gravity, high maneuverability and boarding actions, as well as damage to ships when not utilizing a ship of their own, plus exterior healing to ships. Due to specific caps on level, high level abilities may be out of reach for those who use multiple trees, while those who specialize in only one tree may lose out on versatile abilities that require skills from multiple trees to unlock.
Enemies in TE are rarely animal or alien: the enemies are frequently human or robotic, from other groups in the system. Alliances are not cut and dry, and one might find themselves teaming up with a member of a different faction one day only to face them in PvP the next. There are no PvE servers, so PvP is available everywhere except safe zones, but massive PvE threats still exist which may require many sides working together to defeat.
Gameplay is action-oriented, mixing elements of TPS, FPS and RPG to try and create dynamic combat situations which can be conquered through a variety of methods utilizing many different abilities. No encounter has just one way of facing it.
Story is dynamic and branching in TE, with player choices influencing consequences in unexpected ways. Everything from dialogue choices to actions taken in-game during questlines may have an effect on the story experienced by each player.
There are three main gearsets a player has to keep track of at any time. Equipment represents what they are wearing and carrying, from armour to weapons. It constitutes several main slots: head, body, arms, hands, legs and feet, plus one or two weapons depending in build. Equipment is not locked to any class, any player can use any equipment, but certain equipment needs certain levels or abilities to function properly, or may cause bonuses or penalties to specific stats, especially high level equipment. Equipment is dropped when you are killed, plus any carried items in inventory, and can be picked up by other players after a certain length of time depending on zone.
Transhuman modifications represent what physical upgrades a person has done to their body. They are separated into two groups: genetic and technology. If you choose to use one genetic modification, all your modifications must be genetic. If you choose to use one technological modification, all your modifications must be technological. There are also wildcard modifications, which can be used with either set. You can swap from genetic to technological or vice versa by removing your mods at a surgeon NPC or a player with a relevant ability and replacing the removed mods with new ones. Mods are not dropped when killed, and are also not locked to class. There are slots for mods: head, body, arms and legs.
Finally, your ship gearset represents your personal space vehicle. This is formed by a main body, plus a varied number of slots for upgrades, weapons and engineering tweaks depending on class. Ships range from personal, one-man fighters to massive capital ships that require multiple players to control. Larger ships cost more transport chits to warp through gates, require coordinated teams to run, and are large targets, but often have the best possible weapons and upgrades.
There are a few main currencies in the game. The first is the basic credit. Credits are the currency by which players buy equipment at vendors or auction. They are generally dropped by mobs or as quest rewards, or can be made by selling equipment and gear. They are very valuable early game. The second main currency is the transport chit. In order to warp between zones through gates with ships, a player must spend a certain number of transport chits to the Navigator Guild (or a player guild that has captured that gate, in some situations). Smaller chips cost less too transport, and larger ships cost more. Transport chits represent the largest bulk of the mid- to late-game economy, and can be bought and sold for credits or real game money in the auction house, or for real currency from the in-game shop. They are also rewarded for certain tasks or as drops from specific mobs. The final currency is guild rep. Guild rep is not used by individuals, but by guilds, and is earned by completing guild actions, such as major PvP contests, PvE raids, controlling gates and zones, etc. Guild rep can be used to purchase specific gear for the guild, especially, high level, multi-player ships and equipment for guild spacestations and ground bases.
OOC
This is sort of a tricky way of allowing FT and sci-fi into our region while remaining canon. I want this RP to be experiential, liberating and free, with everyone exploring and developing the universe in the game together and not particularly limtied by a specific goal for a story. If we decide to egnerate a story-arc, cool. Otherwise, I just want us to have fun in an MMO-styled sci fi world.
