New Player Manual:Planet

So... Which Buttons Are The Important Ones?

While this is very much a "play and learn" game, there are some things that almost every player does when they start their planet.

The First 72 Hours: Under Protection

During the first 72 ticks of the game your planet is under protection. During this time, get used to the game, and as often as possible visit the mining page to initiate asteroids, the research page to start new researches and the construction page to start new constructions.

However, it's advisable to have some ships built by tick 82, as that's when the first attacks will be able to reach your planet. In the beginning of the game it is nearly impossible to stop any attacks, so it is prefereble to build pods only and send them out to attack others.

Engineering

A good starting setup is Research (1st), Mining (2nd) and Construction (3rd). Make sure you set your Engineering Priorities before starting a Research or Construction.

Research

The almost undisputed first choice is Improved Resource Handling, so please click the initate button next to this research.

This technology branch allows you to mine more of the asteroids than you have collected around your planet. All of the more experienced players spend the first 60 or so ticks initiating asteroids in the Mining screen, but shortly after protection ends it is far more cost-effective to attack other players to gain roids (this also gets you XP - see combat for more information).

Starting Research

1. Improved Resource Handling - 16 Ticks to complete
2. Heavy Cargo Transfers II - 24
3. Fighter Class Hulls - 24
4. Jumpgate - 16
5. **End of Protection**
6. Infrastructure Upgrade - 16
7. Heavy Cargo Transfers III - 24
8. Warpgate - 32
9. Advanced Core Extraction - 24
10. Heavy Cargo Transfers IV - 48

Then, about this time you'll need to try and get as much Scan technology as you can whilst keeping up with your roids (at least untill Unit scans)

The things to research least (?), especially for a free account, are probably the Surface Analysis (waves that allow you to see information on other planets) and the Underground Network Charting (Covert_Ops: causing damage without attacking with ships). There are heavy research limitations on unpaid planets.

Construction

The most beneficial construction is the Research lab. This increases your research speed by up to 20% when 1/5 of your constructions are research labs. To build ships you need a light factory.

Starting Constructions

1. Research Lab - 12 ticks
2. Refinery - 12 (the number of which Refinery depends on your race. If you are Terran, focus on Metal Refineries as your ships cost alot of Metal. Cathaar = Crystal and Zikonian = Eonium. Eonium is no longer fuel, but is as important as Metal and Crystal - so keep it in mind ).
3. Refinery - 12
4. Refinery - 12
5. Light Factory - 12
6. Research Lab - 12
7. **End of Protection**
8. Refinery - 12
9. Refinery - 12
10. Amplifier - 12
11. Refinery - 12
12. Research Lab - 12
13. Medium Factory - 12

Mining

Mining is one of the important screens (together with research and construction) at the beginning of the round.

When you first sign up, you have 5000 of each resource. This is enough to buy 3 of each type of asteroid in the "Mining" screen. Paid accounts have 10000 of each resource, and so can afford 6 of each roid type.

To initiate asteroids, put the numbers in the corresponding boxes beside the three different resource types and click initiate.

Note: You want to be the biggest planet you can be. You initiate asteroids at the beginning of the game as that's the most cost effective way of gaining asteroids, and you need asteroids to give you more resources. However, after 150-200 initiated asteroids the most cost effective way to gain more is by building ships that can steal asteroids and attacking other planets (you also gain XP for doing this, which adds to your planets score). Therefore, while you use this page a lot in the first 5-10 days, afterwards you won't need it much unless exchanging resources with others.

Troubleshooting

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Exceptions

If you play from the same place as someone else in your family, it is strongly recommended you apply for an exception.