The Interface (new window)The interface is comprised of the ship systems on the left, the battle map in the center and the command controls on the right.
Ship SystemsStarting from the top:
- Shields: Made up of 4 section (fore, aft, port and starboard) and multiple layers. These regenerating energy fields absorb damage and stop enemy boarding parties from being ported to your ship
- Engines: Provide propulsion and power to the ship. These have three bars: Health, Power Consumption and Damage. If the power consumption is too high for tooo long, your engine will start to take damage.
- Portals: Opens a portal that allows instantaneous access to another point in space. Used for sending boarding parties to take over enemy ships or to transfer your control to a friendly ship.
- Weapons: All major weapon systems on the ship.
- Support: Life support. Without this your crew members will die at an astonishing rate.
Repairs to all ship systems are continuously happening, but you can focus all damage control to a particular system by clicking the damage control button next to it. However, any other systems will not be repaired during that time.
The mapThe map is your current view of the battle. You can zoom in and out with buttons at the bottom of the screen or by pressing the '+' and '-' keys.
Your ship will always be at the center of the map. Surrounding your ship are 3 circles, the grey filled circle is your navigation interface. Clicking on it will set your ship's heading and speed. The further from the ship you click, the faster it will go.
The other two circles are your beam range indicator and the guide that displays the range of your boarding parties.
Clicking on an enemy ship will lock an attack indicator on that ship. Shift-clicking other ships will add additional attack indicators.
Once locked on, your various attack options will be displayed:
- Send boarding party: sends a compliment of crew members that will attempt to take over the ship. (If in range of the enemy ship and their shields are low enough)
- Fire Plasma Cannon: fires a quick moving ball of plasma.
- Launch Missile: fires a semi intelligent missile. This missile will lock onto the target but can be redirected to others.
- Fire Energy Beam: fires a powerful energy beam at the enemy ship. (If in range)
All attacks require recharging. A dark attack icon indicates that the weapon isn't ready or is out of range. If, for example, you have more than one missile launcher the icon will not go dark until all launchers are expended.
Clicking on a friendly ship will lock a command indicator on that ship. This will show their current attack and movement targets as icons.
Command ControlsCommand Controls are comprised of two parts: The ship summons control on the bottom right of the screen and the command controls for the currently selected ships just above that.
The Summon Ship control allows you to instantly summon ally ships to battle. Each ship costs a certain number of resource points. In the interest of scoring a better goal, it's best to summon the least number of ships you think you'll need to achieve victory.
The command controls appear whenever one or more friendly ship is selected. Any commands issued will be sent to all selected ships.
The available commands:
- Toggle Missile Defense - Commands ships to focus their energy beams on incoming enemy projectiles.
- Toggle Boarding Parties - Will either stop or allow the selected ships to send boarding parties.
- Choose Primary Strategy - Command the selected ships to either
- Stay at maximum range and focus on long range attacks.
- Stay at medium range and focus on a balance of long and short range attacks.
- Get into close range and try to stay there. Focusing on short range attacks.
- Take command - Transfers your command presence to that ship.
There's a more thorough Command Tutorialw available.Hotkeys
- A : Command selected ships and missiles to attack
- M : Command selected ships and missiles to move to target
- T : Take Command of the selected ship.
- - : Zoom in
- + : Zoom out
- space : hide interface
- ctrl-1 : set command group 1
- ctrl-2 : set command group 2
- ctrl-3 : set command group 3
- 1 : select/deselect command group 1
- 2 : select/deselect command group 2
- 3 : select/deselect command group 3
- / : begin a chat message
- enter: (while in chat) send chat message
