Contents
Basics
Starting a new game
When you start a new game the galaxy needs to generate. This includes all the stars. The planets, the asteroid belts, and spacestations that orbit the stars. Individual asteroids in each belt. Spacestation price lists, items for sale, and jobs.
Please allow time for the new game to generate. This can take five mintues or longer on older phones. You will see progress as you wait. If you don’t see the progress bar moving for quite a while (more than 15 seconds) something might have gone wrong (the game is still in Beta), in which case please close the game and start again.
Flight controls
When in space you are sitting in the cockpit of your spacecraft. To move forward simply tap and hold anywhere on the screen. To turn tap and hold, sliding in the direction you wish to turn. Letting go of the screen stops movement.
Asteroid mining
When in an asteroid field, fly up to an asteroid. You will need to be close to one. Then simply tap on the asteroid and hold. A laser will shoot out from your ship and hit the asteroid. Once sufficent damage to the astorid has been delived it will produce a unit of ore, which will be placed in your cargo hold. Once the asteroid has been stripped of all it’s ore it will implode.
Please note your mining laser heats up. Once the maximum heat level is reached you will need to pause and let it cool down. This is indicated on the screens inside the cockpit.
Cockpit Screens
Inside you cockpit you will notice two screens, the left screen indicates where you are. The top line in yellow indicates what star system you are currently in. The second line, in white, indicates where in the star system you are. Which could be a spacestation, asteroid belt, or warp gate.
The right screen gives you four indicators in different colors. Going from left to right; the left most red indicator shows laser heat status, when it’s full you cannot use your mining laser. Next in blue we see cargo capacity status, when this is full your cargo hold is full and you need to visit a station to sell or process your cargo. Next in green is the fuel indicator, you may refuel at any station. And finaly the right most yellow indicator is current speed.
When you tap the screens you go into your flight computer interface which we will go over in a later section.
Warp
You ship is able to warp between locations in a solar system. This is done via your flight computer in your spacecraft’s cockpit. To move between star systems you will need to travel via Warp Gate. From any where in a star system you will need to travel to a neighbouring star system’s warp gate and fly into it. Once you fly into the warp gate an interstellar warp will begin and you will arive in the new star system at the warp gate connecting to the system you just arrived from.
Spacestations
Most solar systems have at least one spacestation you are able to dock with. To dock with the spacestation simply fly into it. Once at sufficent distance from the spacestation the automated docking procedure will begin. Once complete you will see the spacestation interface, more on that later. You may undock from the spacestation by taping the undock button in the bottom left of the spacestation menu.
Ship Upgrades
The ship has 5 different slots which you can place upgraded items into. Namely:
- Laser - upgrades the lasers capacity to deal damage to asteroids and reduces how much heat per firing it generates
- Laser cooling - increases the coolers heat capacity and increases cooling rate
- Storage - increases the cargo hold and fuel tank capacities
- Engine - increases the speed of conventional movement in space and reduces fuel usesage
- Warp Drive - decresesas the duration of warp and fuel usage of warp
Cockpit Interface
To enter the ships computer interface you must be undocked, in space. In your cockput tap on the two screens you see near the center. You will see a menu on the left with the following buttons:
- (Cog) - Setting menu
- NAV - Solar system navigation
- GAL - Galactic navigation
- INV - Inventory
- JOB - Jobs (Missions)
- IND - Industry work orders
- « - Return to cockpit
Solar system navigation
On the left you will see a representation of the solar system, on the right you will see a list of locations. You may select a location by either tapping on it’s icon on the left or it’s name on the right. Once selected, you will see more details about the location on the right. If you wish to travel to the location tap the warp button. You may continue selecting another location by tapping it’s location on the left or you may deselect the currect selection by tapping the X on the right.
Galactic navigation
Here you will see a map of the galaxy. On the right you may zoom in and out by pressing + and - respectivly. You may select a star system by taping on the yellow dot that represents it on this map. Once selected a window will show with more details about the selected system will show. Here you will see two buttons; the View button will show you the solor system in the Solar System navigation screen previously discussed. The Set Destination button will set this star system to be the Nav system’s destination. Note you may use the Solar System navigation screen to set a specific location in the target star system to be the Nav system’s target destination rathen then just the star system itself.
Once a Nav system destination has been set a window in the Galactic navigation screen will show to indicate this. It shows the target, the fuel cost to get there. A button to Enable the Autopilot and another button to clear the Nav system target. Please note once you enable the autopilot flight controls are disabled untill you reach the destination.
Inventory
This screen will show you what is currently in your cargo hold. It will also how how much of it’s capacity is being used and how much currency you hold.
Jobs
Here you will see a list of jobs you have accepted from spacestations. You may select from the list on the left and you will see details on the right. On the botton of the details section you will see a button that lets you set the destination of the job similar to how you may select destinations on the Galactic navigation screen.
Industry work orders
Here you will see a list of refining and crafting work being carried out at various spacestations. You can tap the name of the spacestation to set it as a Nav system target. You can also see what is being processed and how long untill it is completed.
Spacestation Interface
When you first dock with a spacestation you will see the main menu on the left. Note this will slide to the left once you select something, to open this menu again tap the left side of the screen. You will notice that the panel does not slide in all the way, a part of it remains exposed. This is what you need to tap to open the menu again. The following items are available in the menu:
- Trade - Here you can buy and sell items
- Industry - Here you can processes ore or craft items
- Jobs - Here you can view what jobs the station has on offer.
- Ship - Here you can swap out ship parts and refuel your ship.
- Undock - This lets you undock from the spacestation and return to space in your ship.
When the menu is not showing you will see you ships status. Namely a cargo capacity indicator, a fuel capacity indicator, and how many credits you own.
Trade
On the right you will see the modes the interface can be set to. Yellow indicates the current selected mode. Firstly you can either be in Buy or Sell mode. Next the list can be broken down into the type of item you wish to view. Namely; raw is ingots and ores, trade is trade items, comp is componets used to construct ships parts, and finally ‘parts’ which are ship parts.
You will see a list of item in the center. Each item shows its icon and name, the amount in the station’s or your ship’s inventory (depending on sell or buy mode) and the cost of a single item. You may select an item by taping it.
Once selected you will see the trade interface. You will see the name of the item, it’s icon, the cost of single item and how many are held in the station’s inventory (in buy mode), or your ship’s inventory (in sell mode). Below that you will see a slider that lets you select the amount you wish to trade. Below the slider you will see the total cost of the trade, and aboce the slider you will see the amount that is being traded. On the right you will see a Buy or Sell button, and a cancel button.
Industry
On the industry screen you will see two sections, one for the refinery and one for the factory. On each section you will see an icon and a status at the bottom of the section. If the section is ready you will see “Ready” at the bottom and an icon representing weather it’s the factory or refinery.
If an item is being processed you will see an icon and name of the item being processed and at the bottom you will see a countdown (in real time) to it’s completion.
If an item is complete you will see an icon and it’s name, as well as the word “complete” at the bottom. You may tap the section to collect the items.
To start processing new items the section needs to be ready. Tap on the relevent section. The refinery processes ores into ingots, while the factory is used to craft all other items.
Once selected you will see a list of items the section can process. Items in gray indicate that you don’t have enough of that item or enough credits to process the item. In the right you will see a list of items required to construct the the item, how much it cost and how long it will take. You may use the slider to select how many items you are looking to create. On the right you have the refine/build button and a cancel button. Note the procesing times are in real time. You don’t need to be playing the game for the process to continue. If something takes an hour you may stop playing, close the game and come back an hour later to see your items have been processed.
Jobs
Here you will see a list of jobs. On the right you may select which mode you are in. Station shows which items are from the particluar station you are docked with. Local Accepted shows a list of jobs which are either from this spacestation or are a delivery to this spacestation. All Accepted shows all your accepted jobs.
Once you select a job you will see more details about the job, including the reward you recieve from completing the job. On the right you will see an “Accept” or “Complete” button, depending on context, as well as a cancel button.
Ship
On the right you will see the two different modes the ship section can be in. If you need to refuel you will see the refuel section open first otherwise you will see the Upgrades section.
In the refueling section you will see how much you currently have, a slider to select how much you wish to refuel, as well as an indicator to show how much you have selected and how much it will cost. At the bottom you will see two buttons, on the right you will see a refuel button, this will refuel the ship in the amount selected. To the left there is an “Ad Supported Free Refuel” button, this will fully refuel your ship but you will need to watch a short advertisment first. Once you watch the advertisment your ship will be refueled to 100%.
In the upgrade section you will see a list of ship parts in their relevent sections. If in your ships inventory you have parts for a particular section you may select that particular slot and a list of parts in your inventory and in the slot are shown. You may then select which part you wish to have in that particular slot.
Settings
From the settings menu you may adjust the audio levels; namely SFX, which are the ships and laser sounds, Music, UI, which are the button clicking sounds, and Voice, which is the AI voice you hear giving status updates.
There are also three buttons. The first is the get to these instructions you are reading right now. The second button is to the feedback form. Please consider giving feedback while we are in beta. The third and last button allows you to start a new game.
You may also start a new game, view these instructions and go the the feedback form from the start screen of the game.