Stormgate developer Frost Giant just unveiled the third faction for its upcoming RTS, the Celestial Armada. This unusual, highly mobile race of technologically advanced aliens will be joining the Vanguard and Infernals, and if you've not had a chance to check out the betas, don't worry: Stormgate is coming to early access on August 13.
Ahead of its arrival, here's everything you need to know about the Celestial Armada, including its playstyle, units and buildings. You can also read about my experience playing as the faction alongside a pair of RTS pros, PartinG and TheoRy.
Background
An ancient and advanced civilisation, the Celestial Armada flits around the universe in huge world-ships ruled by immortal beings known as Sovereigns. These space nomads have a scholarly bent, exploring the universe and unravelling its mysteries, but they aren't strangers to war, establishing themselves as protectors determined to eradicate the Infernal Host.
While they appear to be divine and magical, they are ultimately the product of incredible technological development. Nanotechnology, mechanical automation, cybernetics—all of this has contributed to the civilisation's transformation into a society of, essentially, space angels.
Developer Frost Giant was inspired by the famous Arthur C. Clarke quote, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic", and that's most apparent when it comes to the Biosynths. Biosynths are the most overtly angelic half of the Celestial Armada, and the faction's originators. They merged with nanotechnology, replacing themselves with tech, and now each individual's consciousness is passed on through new manufactured bodies—all beautiful and otherworldly.
The Biosynths are assisted by the Mechas: unthinking machines dedicated to warfare, sent to worlds to utterly destroy the Armada's enemies in a flurry of slashing claws and explosive assaults. A bit of divine retribution.
Playstyle
Appropriately for a bunch of angelic space nomads, the Celestials are an extremely mobile faction, emphasised by the Arcship, a flying, armed HQ that can be deployed anywhere on the map to assist in the creation of new bases. By projecting a cascade field, the Arcship allows buildings to be constructed on the ground around it, which materialise rather than requiring builder units. These buildings then project their own cascade field, making it easy to spread all over the battlefield.
This mobility extends to how the faction harvests. Collection Arrays gobble up luminite passively, and can be redeployed when the mine runs dry. Floating Prism workers, meanwhile, can be sent to augment the Collection Array's harvesting rate, or to harvest therium, which they then deposit in Therium Purifiers. Thanks to the Arcship, it's easy to establish these harvesting bases far from your starting point.
Supply is not a concern for the Celestials. Instead of plonking down buildings to increase the supply cap, and thus bring in more units, Celestials start with the maximum cap of 300. If you've got the resources, you can recruit to your heart's content. This is balanced out by the fact that the faction's real strength lies in its buildings, not its armies, and those buildings need power.
If you have lots of buildings demanding power and not enough power-generating structures, your power grid will end up at capacity, reducing your effectiveness and your ability to deploy the faction's unique abilities. These are known as Astral Interventions, which consume power while they are on cooldown. These cooldowns are longer than those of the other factions, but you can quickly use all of your abilities when they end—at the risk of a power deficit when they all go on cooldown together. These Astral Interventions can refresh a unit's energy supply, letting them use their own abilities more frequently, while also reducing enemy energy; scan an area of the map, pushing back the fog of war; clear out creep camps; and give buildings the ability to attack temporarily.
As well as being able to turn everything you build into a defensive structure, some buildings have handy abilities that can buff friendly and debuff enemies. This makes up for Celestial units not being quite as strong as their opponents—and because you can spread out so quickly, you can ensure that your units are frequently fighting near friendly structures.
The Celestial Armada is an unusual faction, then, but this mobility and dynamism make them really stand out from the usual RTS armies.
Units
Basic
Argent: The faction's basic ranged unit, the Argent has a powerful gun that uses energy to beef up its attacks temporarily.
Kri: The basic melee unit, the Kri has a high-damage potential thanks to its unlockable ability to roll into a ball, increasing movement speed and adding an AoE attack. It also explodes when it takes fatal damage.
Prism: The Celestial worker unit, this floating crystal augments the Collection Array's harvesting rate and can harvest therium.
Scanner: Used for scouting, the Scanner also comes with the handy ability to climb up trees where it can tag passing enemies and track them.
Advanced
Shrike: This speedy ranged unit can teleport to a different location to spit out a missile salvo before blinking back to the safety of its original location.
Scythe: A fast-moving flying unit, the Scythe is designed for harassment and dishes out more damage the closer it is to its opponent. It also boasts temporary invulnerability.
Saber: This slow-moving tank packs a punch, and it can use its special abilities to briefly increase its speed and repair damage.
Cabal: A physics-warping caster, the Cabal can lift up enemies, or ground them, and can even take permanent control over its foes, though it's sacrificed in the process.
Animancer: Another caster, the Animancer can steal enemy health and energy and distribute it to friendlies, cloak units and structures, and summon a singularity field that damages all units and some terrain features, as well as slowing everything in its field down.
Buildings
Arcship: A mobile HQ that can be moved to anywhere on the battlefield, where it allows new buildings to be placed. It also constructs Prisms and can be used defensively, since it's armed.
Collection Array: A harvester building, the Collection Array gobbles up luminite from mines passively, and can be redeployed when the mine runs dry. Prisms can increase the rate at which it harvests the resource.
Therium Purifier: When Prisms harvest therium directly from therium fields, they bring it to the Therium Purifier for storage.
Power Bank: The Celestials are power hungry, so you'll need a lot of Power Banks. Not only do they provide more power, they can also restore energy to nearby buildings and units.
Bastion: This is where you'll recruit Biosynth units like the Argent.
Mainframe: This is where you'll recruit Mecha units like the Kri.
Haven: Caster units like the Animancer are recruited here.
Link Node: When you need to expand the cascade field beyond what your buildings and HQ provide, you can place a Link Node. It also doubles up as a defensive structure.
Force Projector: Upgrades for basic units from the Mainframe and Bastion can be unlocked in the Force Projector, which also has an ability that decreases the attack and movement speed of nearby enemy ground units.
Guardian Nexus: Upgrades for advanced units from the Bastion and Haven can be researched in the Guardian Nexus, which can also repair and buff nearby friendly ground units.
