Several player races fight differently than others, with advantages that impact the flow of individual battles. These are detailed below. Some of these advantages are optional in Campaign settings.
The Federation employs disciplined, well-trained, highly-skilled crews on their vessels. Their galactic training academy is second to none. As a result, all Federation ships will resist damage as though they had an extra 50 KT of combat mass. All Federation carriers will fight as if they have 3 extra fighter bays , which makes the light carriers of other races quite effective and which makes heavy carriers extremely deadly. Additionally, all Federation ships which begin an engagement with any damage will ignore it, always fighting with every one of their weapons. Finally, 25% of any shield loss is recovered between fights.
All starships with a Lizard crew can withstand 150% damage before exploding when in combat against any enemy ship. The Lizard crew can not do the same when fighting an enemy planet. The planetary tidal forces are too great for the crew to prevent the hull from breaking up.
NOTE: This advantage is not active in Classic settings.
The Fury are highly skilled at using all beam weapons. Both ships and planets belonging to The Hordes of Fury can recharge their weapons at twice the speed as normal, which means they can fire approximately twice as often over a long engagement. This makes The Fury far more effective against enemy starbases and carriers.
Privateers have the unique ability to fine-tune their beam weapons to do 3X the normal damage to the enemy crew while still doing normal damage to the enemy's hull. This makes them very skilled at capturing enemy ships by killing off the crew.