Event Horizon has sixteen factions, each with their own unique ships, technology, research, armament design, and overarching theme. Factions can spawn in color coded regions of space centered around a solar system with a starbase. The starbase has a powerful defense fleet based on its power rating which can be lowered by capturing stars within the faction's region.
Free Stars[]
(Grey star)
Spawns at 0 Light Years (LY) onwards.
They use weapons from all factions, and have various fighting styles. All solar systems in between faction regions is occupied by this faction. Unlike other factions they do not occupy an enclosed region outside of a single starbase. This makes starbases from this faction always have the highest threat level for their given distance. Capturing these bases is worth it though because they drop a large variety of research stars.
Veniri[]
Spawns at 0 Light Years (LY) onwards.
Veniri ships have a winged design with a greenish blue colour, and mostly favour pulse weapons.
Players start a new game with one Scout ship that belongs to this faction.
The Veniri are one of the first factions the player encounters and as a result they tend to be one of the most straightforward factions to fight. Their larger ships favor direct assaults with heavy firepower, while their scouts use hit and run tactics. Outside of their rather fast Scout Mk2 this faction overall shouldn't be too much of a cause for grief for new players.
Bushrak[]
Spawns at 0 Light Years (LY) onwards.
Bushrak ships favour heat weapons such as missiles and lasers, and their ships are predominantly red in color.
Players start a new game with one Spectrum ship that belongs to this faction.
The Bushrak are also one of the first factions the player will encounter. The larger Bushrak ships tend to avoid direct combat, hanging back and using missiles to pelt at distant opponents. The smaller ones will get closer to use beam weapons or short ranged missiles. Outranging them is a viable strategy. Flares are also a good option.
Korerans[]
Spawns at 20 Light Years (LY) onwards.
Koreran ships share an aesthetic with the Veniri faction but they have a deep navy blue color and favour torpedoes over pulse weapons. This faction also uses drones for stronger ships like its Capital ship.
Players start a new game with one Raven ship that belongs to this faction.
Koreran ships will charge at the player and unleash torpedo barrages at anything in range before attempting to retreat. The larger ships will almost always be accompanied with Torpedo Drones. Their Capital ship Thor is known for being very punishing to new players. Their research tree contains multiple useful modules though including the game changing repair bot so the fight is worth it. Flares are recommended for distracting drones.
Taraniak[]
Spawns at 30 Light Years (LY) onwards.
Taraniak ships are organic with a pincer design that resembles arthropods. They use a warp drive to jump short distances and whittle down opponents with lightning weapons.
The Taraniak are easily the most obnoxious faction to fight, as they will constantly use their warp drives to teleport away from attacks. Their drone units and all of their veteran units use this drive. Fortunately, they will teleport automatically when you fire near them, even if doing so will teleport them into your weapons fire instead of away from it. They are one of the three factions with all living ships, being able to regenerate lost hit points without the use of repair bots, giving them an edge over others.
Their basic weapon revolves around the use of lightning-based weapons, but veterans (especially Tarantula which uses varieties of other weapons) and higher grade ones show other types of weapons too.
Sayjix[]
Spawns at 50 Light Years (LY) onwards.
Sayjix ships are shaped like flying saucers. They use a wide variety of weapons and all of their ships starting with Destroyers are notable for their impeccable accuracy, able to fire in any direction and track your ships almost flawlessly. Most of their ships have drones equipped, but these do little damage, just the rocket drones are a pain.
Sayjix ships will try to stay within weapons range, as their accuracy lets them do a lot of damage. They are best killed quickly. When possible, drop flares as their weapons sometimes aim for these due to their auto target behavior.
Jurgans[]
Spawns at 0 Light Years (LY) onwards.
Jurgan ships are pod-like in design. With the exception of the Beholder, they are universally slow. All ships are well-armed. The lighter ships supplement their speed with rear-mounted mass drivers, using the recoil to propel themselves away from their foes while simultaneously firing upon them. Their ships belong in the living ship category being able to replenish their lost health points passively although this is counteracted by the fact that they can't equip repair bots. One strategy to counter this is to use continuous damage weaponry such as the L-weapons and the acid cannon.
This is by far one of the easiest factions to fight, as they have trouble retaliating against faster ships or distant attacks. Still, care should be taken not to stay within their weapons range for too long.
Zumbalari[]
Spawns at 40 Light Years (LY) onwards.
Zumbalari ships have a uniform brown colouring. They are typically fast and well-armed, but with thinner armour. It is worth noting that every single one of their non-capital ships uses short to medium-range weapons. Speaking of their Captital, it has a bundle of resistances but it is slow and very vulnerable to being outflanked resulting in a fairly easy fight.
Zumbalari ships favour hit and run tactics.
Neganari[]
Spawns at 30 Light Years (LY) onwards.
Neganari ships have a pointy, bone-like design. With the exception of the Spike, they feature side-mounted weapon ports which can equip nearly any type of weapon. Like the Zumbalari, they trade armour for speed. They are essentially Veniri but with a better variety of weapons. They are fast and annoying, with the exception of the Freighter which opts for the drone carrier approach.
Due to their weapon placement, most Neganari ships will try to strafe opponents.
They also have several very useful techs in their research tree. Most notably targeting units, mass dampers, and barrel satellites.
Daazen[]
Spawns at 60 Light Years (LY) onwards.
The Daazen use fast dark grey ships with powerful weapons. Their various ray weapons can lock onto a target and follow it anywhere, even behind the ship. They also use the powerful Black Hole Generator, a torpedo that creates a temporary black hole. Unlike the other factions, their ships also appear at abandoned stations.
Daazen ships have a wide variety of strategies, appropriate to their load-outs. Because of this they can be dangerous for new players. However, they also have the very powerful antimatter reactors in their research tree.
Unknowns[]
Spawns at 150 Light Years (LY) onwards.
The Violet faction. The Unknown ships have barrel-like designs. They have unique charging weapons that increase in damage, range or area-of-effect depending on the time of charging.
They usually try and avoid you until their weapon is fully charged, but will fire at you no matter the charge if you get too close.
They are one of the most dangerous factions in Frontier.
Empire[]
Spawns at 100 Light Years (LY) onwards.
The Empire is a powerful late game faction. They use plasma webs, rockets and ion cannons in their incredibly varied ships.
Imperial ships are unpredictable and vary substantially, meaning if fighting them you should be ready to counter anything thrown at you- should it be webs, missiles, or a swarm of drones. Most of their attacks are almost impossible to dodge so its best to outrange them with weapons like missiles and railguns.
They usually favour slow hit-run tactics and brute DPS head-ons.
Swarm[]
Spawns at 250 Light Years (LY) onwards.
The Swarm is an incredibly powerful, albeit rare faction comprised of the two Wormships, Bug, and Crab.
They prefer, appropriate to their name, swarm tactics, with their ships preferring to charge at you, relying on health, speed, overwhelming firepower, or some combination thereof to ensure survival. The smaller vessels will typically start circling after their preliminary charge, while the Capital ship will most likely kill you by the time it gets to point-blank, so it is unknown what it would do next. (tip: guys, for the first time, defeat the "swarm" faction with Leviathan with holy guns, it's easy)
Syndicate[]
Spawns at 80 Light Years (LY) onwards.
The Syndicate uses hybrid ships using C and M weapons on each side, larger in every ship from frigate to capital. They also use Heavy Railgun which is just heavier, bigger and more powerful version of the railgun, and stalker missiles, which are bigger and have less damage than HMLM2, however, they have over 6 times longer range. They all have built in 50% energy resistance so energy weapons are a poor weapon choice.
Scavengers[]
(No Star)
Unlocked by completing Jan Salo's quest.
Scavengers are a secret faction added in the update 0.17.0. This faction can be encountered by moving into normal nodes, as an event will randomly pop-up telling you "We found a group of weird-looking ships". You must have an ancient translator to communicate with them. They offer the most powerful armour in the game and use a combination of L and other types of weaponry. Their ships also offer numerous green/blue slots allowing the player to make extensive customization of them. They are the only faction without a territory.
Contagion[]
Spawns at 300 Light Years (LY) and spreads out from 30 Light years onwards. (Or Where a rescue mission to stop invasion in one system are failed )
The Contagion are a new faction added in the 1.9.0 update. Contagion ships resemble cells and other microorganisms, and are all living ships. Their lower tier ships are slightly underwhelming and tend to use weaker kinetic weapons, while on their battleship COVID-6019 they use the Oblivion Cannon which has the ability to immobilize ships. All Contagion ships also have built in targeting units.
All Contagion ships also use "Cloning Centers", which have the effect of producing an identical clone to the ship using it, which is controlled by an AI. Some of their other tech includes the Infinity Stone, which when activated restores a ship to full HP and has a 2 minute cooldown.
Contagion bases are very rare. Their tech can be gathered from "hives" which can appear at any node. The Contagion are also currently the only faction without a capital ship. (after a while, your clones will beat you because they will consider you an enemy, awesome ...)
Renegades[]
A faction compromising of many multi role vessels focusing on torpedos and cannons. It is a pirate faction so in order to access its tech their base must be captured. Beware their pixie torpedos and pirate cannons!
Nocturnix[]
A faction mainly equipped with energy wave. They are quite strong considering their energy waves either stops or slows down enemy ships and has large hit area. The factions main ship colors are violet/purple.