Sytherian Cartel
STC · Steal
"Nothing in space belongs to anyone… unless you can take it."
Overview
The Sytherian Cartel was not born as an empire. It was born in chaos.
When their homeworld collapsed in a war between rival clans and megacorporations, the surviving pirates, smugglers, and warlords filled the vacuum. From that chaos grew something unexpected: a network. The Cartel.
The Cartel is not an empire. It's a web of criminal dynasties, pirate fleets, mercenary companies, and smuggling routes held together by one shared philosophy: profit. They don't fight for ideology. They fight for ships.
STC is the only race in Orbitarion that can steal enemy ships mid-battle. Their fighters, corvettes, and frigates carry boarding hardware instead of standard weapons. When they overpower an enemy vessel, the crew is captured, the systems are rebooted under Cartel control, and the ship joins your side — for the rest of that battle and forever after.
This is the defining identity. STC doesn't kill what it can take.
Race bonuses
| Bonus | Value |
|---|---|
| Ship-steal mechanic | Cutlass, Raider, and Black Frigate hijack enemy ships instead of killing them |
| +5% agility on steal-ships | Steal-ships are inherently harder to hit |
| +10% scan success | Cartel scouts are inherently better at finding orbitals |
That's it. No production speed bonus. No scan cost discount. No initiation discount. The Cartel doesn't get easier economy — they get a way to compound enemy strength into their own fleet.
Combat identity
STC fields three categories of ship. They are NOT a uniform "punch-up" race — each class plays a distinct role.
Steal-ships (Fighter, Corvette, Frigate)
Three classes carry boarding equipment. They roll like normal ships — initiative, agility, weapon speed — but on a successful hit, they capture the target instead of destroying it. Captured ships immediately join your side in _bu (the active battle pool) and fight on your behalf for the remainder of the engagement.
Captured ships fight with their original stats — your stolen ATH Volt frigates keep their EMP capability, your stolen UEC Sentinels keep their heavy armor, your stolen Aetherian Celestials keep their first-strike initiative. You become the fleet you were attacked by.
| Steal-ship | Class | Targets (T1 → T2 → T3) | Identity |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cutlass | Fighter | Fi → Co | Cheap, fast, swarms enemy fighters |
| Raider | Corvette | Fr → De → Co | Punches up — boards frigates and destroyers |
| Black Frigate | Frigate | Cr → Bs → Fr | Punches up hard — boards cruisers and battleships |
Kill-ships (Destroyer, Cruiser, Battleship)
The three heavy classes are conventional damage dealers. They destroy, they don't capture. Each has its own targeting role:
| Kill-ship | Class | Targets (T1 → T2 → T3) | Identity |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ravager | Destroyer | Fi → Co → Fr | Anti-swarm — Cartel's answer to fighter masses |
| Corsair | Cruiser | Fr → De → Cr | Fleet anchor — clears frigates and destroyers |
| Dread Corsair | Battleship | Cr → Bs → De | Flagship hunter |
The Ravager targeting Fighters as T1 is unique among destroyers — only STC and UEC have a Fighter-targeting destroyer, and Ravager's smaller gun count (6 vs UEC Pegasus' 14) is offset by higher damage per gun (18 vs 8).
Capture-ships (Fighter, Frigate)
| Capture-ship | Class | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Orbital Pod | Fighter | Cheap orbital theft. No combat capability |
| Infiltrator | Frigate | Heavier orbital theft. No combat capability |
STC has full orbital-theft capability. Capture-ships function identically to other races' capture-ships — they need escorts, they can't fight, and only surviving capture-ships contribute to orbital theft after a winning battle.
Ship-stealing in detail
Steal-ships replace damage with capture. Mechanically:
| Step | What happens |
|---|---|
| Targeting | Steal-ship picks T1 class. If empty, falls back to T2, then T3. Capture-ships and recon-ships in the target's fleet cannot be stolen |
| Hit chance | Standard formula: (25 + weapon_speed − target_agility) / 100, clamped 5%–95% |
| Steal attempts | Each steal-ship attempts one capture per round — guns is ignored on steal-ships |
| Distribution | Potential captures distributed across enemy ship types in the target class, proportional to each type's share of that class |
| Captures | floor(active × hit_chance × luck × share) ships captured per type. Capped by enemy quantity and your active steal-ship count |
| Immediate | Captured ships join your side in the current battle. Their stats — armor, damage, initiative — come from the defender's ships. They fight for you next round |
| After battle | Surviving captured ships are added to your fleet permanently. They appear as new entries in fleet_ships |
NPC immunity
NPC fleets — Void Raiders in nebulae and Dominion sectors — cannot have their ships stolen. The engine detects NPC defenders and disables the steal mechanic for that battle. This prevents farming nebula and Dominion garrisons for free units.
Against NPCs, STC's steal-ships behave like normal kill-ships (using the same targeting chains) and still deal damage. They just don't capture.
Targeting rotation across rounds
Like all combat ships, steal-ships rotate their targeting priority over the 3-round battle:
| Round | Priority order |
|---|---|
| Round 1 | T1 → T2 → T3 |
| Round 2 | T2 → T1 → T3 |
| Round 3 | T3 → T2 → T1 |
So a Raider that goes for Frigates in round 1 will hunt Destroyers in round 2, then Corvettes in round 3 if either of the higher priorities is depleted.
Steal-ship agility bonus
All steal-ships receive a permanent +5% agility bonus in combat. This is applied during battle setup and means stolen ships are slightly harder for the enemy to hit than the same hull on any other race. This compensates for the fact that steal-ships replace their guns with boarding hardware — they're slightly less protected in the kill phase.
How to play STC
Early game: STC no longer gets a scanning or initiation discount, so your early game economy looks like everyone else's — except your scans succeed +10% more often, giving you a steady advantage on orbital growth. Prioritize silicon to fuel that scanning.
First combat ships: Cutlass and Raider are your first steal capability. A small Cutlass + Raider fleet against a neighbor with a standard fighter screen will return with captured fighters and corvettes attached. Build a stealing fleet, raid weaker neighbors, snowball.
Mid game: Add Black Frigates as soon as Frigate Engineering completes. The Black Frigate's "Cr → Bs → Fr" targeting means it goes straight for capital ships. Even one successful capture of an enemy cruiser is a 720+ resource swing in your favor.
Stealing creates compound advantage: Each captured ship is both a loss to your enemy AND a gain to you. While other races trade resources for kills, you trade nothing for assets that fight again next time.
Heavy ships clean up: Ravager, Corsair, and Dread Corsair don't steal. They kill. Use them to finish off enemies that your steal-ships couldn't capture (because their target class was depleted), or to engage NPCs where stealing is disabled.
Don't send steal-ships alone: Steal-ships ignore guns — they only attempt one capture per round per ship. A fleet of pure Cutlasses fighting a fighter swarm captures slowly. Mix in kill-ships to clear ships your steal-ships can't reach efficiently.
Capture-ship orbital theft is normal: Unlike v1 STC, you have actual orbital pods now. Send them with escorts to steal orbitals after a winning battle, exactly like UEC, ODO, and ATH.
Matchups
vs UEC — UEC has the highest armor in the game. Steal-ships need hit-chance × kill — so high-armor targets are worse hit chances but better captures (you take their armor). A Raider boarding a Sentinel walks away with a 180-armor frigate added to your fleet. Slow grind, high reward.
vs ODO — ODO is your best matchup. Cheap, fragile, and fast — perfect to steal. Cutlass and Raider can rapidly capture Stingers and Reavers. ODO's cloaking means you don't see them coming, but once the fight is engaged, every ship you capture is one they can't afford to lose.
vs ATH — ATH freezes your steal-ships with EMP, but frozen ships can still be captured if their fleet is overrun. ATH's heavy ships (Tempest/Aether/Celestial) have 30-40% EMP resistance and high initiative — they fire first, freeze your steal-ships, then their kill-ships clean up. You need fleet mass and capture-ship escorts to survive. Engage ATH only with a sized advantage.
vs other STC — Mirror matchup. Each side tries to steal from the other. Capture-ships are the dividing line — the side with more surviving Orbital Pods and Infiltrators wins the orbital theft, even on a marginal combat victory.
Lore
The Sytherian Cartel emerged from the wreckage of a homeworld that destroyed itself.
When the planetary governments collapsed in a war between rival corporations and clan-states, the survivors weren't soldiers or diplomats. They were pirates, smugglers, black market operators, and warlords. Out of necessity, they built something new — not an empire, but a network. A cartel.
The Cartel has no ideology. It has interests. It doesn't seek territory for its own sake. It seeks resources, leverage, and ships. If an alliance is profitable, they'll make one. If breaking it is more profitable, they'll do that instead.
When the four great powers collided in the rich sector at the edge of known space, the Cartel arrived the way they always arrive: with boarding hardware bolted to their fighters, with capture systems retrofitted to their corvettes, and with a very clear philosophy about whose ships those out there really belong to.
The other races destroy what they can't keep. The Cartel keeps what they can take.
Documentation reflects Orbitarion v2.0. Last updated: 2026-05-19.