Every player can play a different race with different properties, and therefore different tactics and strategies. There are 11 standard races. By default, player one plays race one, and so on. However, PHost allows hosts to configure any mixture of races (like: eleven Federations, or: five Rebels vs. five Empires), completely new races, and modify the existing ones. See PlayerRace, PlayerSpecialMission, Non-standard race assignments.
The following sections describe the standard races. These races are known by different names, depending on whom you talk to; this list shows the most common informal names. Players can change their race names using the racename command.
The list describes the important parts of the common racial configurations. These depend on lots of factors. For example, the Lizard's ability to take 150% damage is configured using PlayerRace, whereas the 30x ground attack bonus is configured separately using GroundKillFactor. Follow the links to the configuration items to read more. A cross-reference table for features that depend on PlayerRace and PlayerSpecialMission can be found under Non-standard race assignments. In addition, the ship list makes a big difference between races; this list shows the common properties.
