ii.
When you first start the game you're going to be in Sector 1, which is part of Kenosian Space (Sectors 1 through 10). You start here because the Kenosians are the "Good Guys" of the game and even though you're not part of anyone's faction at first, the Kenosians still won't be shooting at you, so you'll have a chance to get settled. In Sector 1 you'll find Kenos Prime, a Kenosian Starbase, and there will even be a huge fleet of Kenosian ships flying around. As a new player you have few credits or ships of your own, so don't blow all of your credits at the starbase, and don't panic when you see the little display telling you just how many potential threats are around. Also be aware that the movement controls are on the LEFT HAND side of your screen. Sectors 1 through 10 are usually perfectly safe to travel through, so try to stick to those until you're comfortable with the controls. Speaking of controls, you'll see the display (shown below) usually has several options. Just click a button to move to any sector listed. If you look at the N, S, E, W indicators this shows the "Galactic Direction" you'll travel in if you take that link which will move you one increment on the mini map in said direction. You may also sometimes see a fifth movement button off to the left hand side of the display. This is a special warp link that goes far away from your current location. Using just the normal NSEW controls will make movement fairly simple because you'll always understand the resulting destination's location relevant to where you currently are. The special button may not be so easy to grasp, so avoid it unless you feel comfortable making long jumps in the galaxy. There is also sometimes a "Scan" button in the mix which works with Probes, which you'll read about later on.
The whole game screen looks like the following image:
...There's 3 panels in the mid region of the screen to be aware of:
[
LEFT PANEL] - This primarily shows player information, and contains the controls you use to move with.
[
MIDDLE PANEL] - This area shows the most data, and changes every time you enter a new sector or take an action. In the example, it's reporting on what ships, resources, misc stats, and actions can be taken by the player while they're there.
[
RIGHT PANEL] - This is the MINI-MAP. The galaxy is 2,500 "Sectors" large. You can think of it as a 50x50 grid if that helps, wherein Sector 1 is in the Top Left hand Corner of that mini-map and Sector 2,500 is in the Bottom Right. Of note in this panel, there are in fact 2,500 markers there when you view it, all very small since this is a primarily text based game. Yellow areas are faction controlled space. Red areas are Starbases which you can use to PURCHASE things you'll need. The "aqua" colored area on the map represents your current location. Later on you will also see other markers, such as green for planets you control or tan for ports if you are able to find someplace to download data on the matter. The light gray vertical and horizontal lines that run through the center of the galaxy are known as the "Warp Corridor." Movement in the warp corridor requires no turns, so it's a good place to be. You'll also find a special Training starbase for new players in the Northern portion of the warp corridor, with some perks for you.
Moving right along, the "usual" rule in Galactic Gauntlet is that you may
not gather resources in sectors that are already defended, and that you may attack anyone who isn't in a faction alliance with you. This is "fudged" for new players for a brief amount of time in Kenosian Space (Sectors 1-10). You may mine resources (Metals, Organics, Fuels) if they're there, and if no one else has come before you that day and looted them it's quite beneficial to a new player to grab what's there, travel the Kenosian sectors and sell what you find at the 2 ports in that area for some more credits. IF the ports have already been heavily traded at for the day, and the loose resources in Kenosian space mined, you'll have to head OUT of Kenosian Space and start scouring the galaxy for resources to trade off. One thing that always holds true in Galactic Gauntlet is that if you think a region of the galaxy is popular, then someone else likely does to and you'd do better exploring somewhere more obscure to turn a better profit. Also, you will not have the option to ATTACK the Kenosians at first either, preventing you as a new player from accidentally setting negative events into motion. Over time, the option to attack will start showing up however.
Just offset from the very center of the Warp Corridor where it's paths cross is Sector 1326, best known for having Starbase Belenus. Starbase Belenus is run by pirates, instead of the factions, and may have some perks for new players to find. You must be unallied with any faction to make use of it's services.
iii.
There are tons of misc things which make Galactic Gauntlet exciting and challenging. A major goal of this game is to retain some sense of engima, even for advanced players, and to make that happen a lot of misc details are NOWHERE to be found in this document or the ship document, as has been noted already. You're expected to figure things out through experimentation in many cases, forcing you to be creative, take chances and get immersed in the galaxy. However, here are some major game elements you should certainly be aware of prior to starting the game. You should also track down The 4G article about advice for new players so you can catch up to advanced players rapidly, and visit the forum for tips.
METALS: Metals is the term for almost all metal substances used in construction in just about every walk of life across the galaxy. Metals are the easiest resource to find at random in space.
(Metals)
ORGANICS: Organics refers to several things, lumped together and called as such for trading purposes. This includes plant life, water, food sources, medical supplies and so forth. Within the game you only have to think of them as being "Organics" though. Organics are much harder to find in the galaxy than Metals.
(Organics)
FUELS: Several things fall under the definition of Fuels in this game, such as power cells, solar panel equipment, and even a certain element used to make fuels for ships. For the sake of this game, you just have to think of fuels as being any of these things, and if you're hauling fuels around just know you've got things on your ship that are used for the purpose. In fact, you can sell fuels just like the other resources, OR you can use them to power your ship! Your ship uses 1 turn every time you move between sectors, which represents you personal fuel source. You may convert the Fuels resource at a ratio of 10 Fuels to 1 Turn as needed. This can cut into your profits however...
(Fuels -=- These are a resource AND can power your ship!)
OTHER "RESOURCES" include "Salvage" which is left around the galaxy constantly by players who blow things up. Come after them and collect it to sell at ports. You may also find an unnatural resource that only planets can make, but sometimes get dropped in the middle of no where when someone is blown up known as "Qbrick."
PORTS: Places to buy and sell the resources as you go along. Each port has it's own prices set for buying and selling, and most ports buy 2 of the three resources and sell the other. Ports are also exhaustable, so you'll find yourself quickly developing a trade route between favorite ports each day. There are 250 ports spread across the galaxy. Ports can offer more than just places to trade resources as well, as you can see from this sample screen shot below:
PORT INVESTMENTS: If you belong to a faction, i.e. The Kenosian Alliance, and you're at a Port they control you may invest in that port. A button will come onto the screen telling you as much, and a price will be noted to "bid" for the port, usually being some multiple of 1000 Credits times the number of bids that have been made on the port since the game started. If no one has yet bid on the port, the price starts at 1000 Credits. What this gets you is payoff each night when the game strikes midnight. You recieve Credits equal to half of what that port made in trade by selling whatever resource it sells all day, each day. If the port sold 8000 Credits worth of Metals, you'll automatically get 4000 Credits added to your funds at midnight. Ports may be worth trying to outbid other players for to get the money for yourself, and it pays off in the long run. Ultimately, popular ports will cost more to bid on than several days worth of payoff, and you'll want to think carefully before trying to take possession of them. It's also worth nothing that since you may only place a new bid on ports that belong to an alliance you're part of, that your direct competition for ports are the same group of people you normally accept as being on your team in the game. Politics... go figure.
MOTHERSHIP UPGRADES: As mentioned previously, you're starting with a "Stock Freighter." This ship is your avatar in the game, and even though you'll never find a picture of it in this mostly text based galaxy, you'll see various stats that reflect it's being in the LEFT PANEL. A Stock Freighter captain like yourself gets 100 TURNS every day when you log in, has 100 Holds to transport resources with, and NO OTHER PERKS. It's the most basic of basic ships. Luckily for you there's a wide range of Motherships you may purchase to replace your Stock Freighter with. The cheapest of these run at least 10,000 CREDITS and are available at Starbases. There's a
ship oriented help doc you should read to get more details, as the game itself and this doc won't give you the fine print.
CARGO "PODS": In addition to change your avatar's ship model, you should be aware that Motherships have a flaw- They Can Be Destroyed! In fact, every time you over extend yourself in this game you'll get blasted back to being a "Stock Freighter" Captain. You don't actually "die" in Galactic Gauntlet, but you are punished by having your upgraded ship taken away when you lose combats. For a new player, you may want to focus on buying "PODS" instead. PODS, which are sold at few random places in the galaxy which you'll have to find, give additional cargo space to your mothership that won't vanish should you get blown up. If you're thinking of playing a good long term game, track these down.
MOONSTAR "MOTHERSHIPS": These really are NOT motherships. They are literally mobile fortresses. They work almost like motherships, but they're considered an evil and all powerful thing, almost like something else with the name "star" in it from a certain movie perhaps? Anyway, the game will announce when someone is trying to make one of these, and it's your solem duty as a player to crush any before they can be finished and ever enter gameplay. Moonstars are built by purchasing plans to build them from a hidden starbase (not on the map...that's another enigma for you to learn about) for 1 million credits. That price covers everything you need. Just navigate to an empty sector and an option will show up on the screen to begin construction. YOU MUST DEFEND THE CONSTRUCTION SITE FOR 5 DAYS while the Moonstar is being built. During that time all players will come after you...or so it's hoped. You are after all building a giant device to make their collective galactic experiences miserable. Afte 5 days you go to the sector, claim the Moonstar, and you're all set to dominate! Just prepare to have an armada waiting in that sector to repel those who are opposed to the Moonstar. As a player, if you should SEE someone is building one, you have a sacred obligation to try and destroy the construction site. If you don't, the game will end up very unbalanced and favoring the person with a Moonstar. If that's you, great! If not, well... chose your actions carefully.
FLEET SHIPS: Your mothership, especially when you start off, isn't really a combat ship. The GOOD NEWS as you know is that you can't "die" in this game. The BAD NEWS is that you can be prevented from doing lots of things when you get stuck with a stock freighter again and again. To make sure this ISN'T your fate, you need a fleet of warships. Fleets travel where you travel, and do your bidding. They have simple options such as automatically attacking and defending the mothership when with you, and they can be left behind in certain sectors you want to place forces in to annoy other players or look out for your own interests. You
will see pictures of your fleet units in this game, and they're probably going to be where you sink most of your hard earned credits. See the ship oriented docs for more details.
FLEET SHIP DEPLOYMENT: Assuming you've read the ship docs by now, you know there are many types of units you drag around with your mothership. When you want to start defending sectors you just hit the DEPLOY buttons which show up on your screen. To be eligable to deploy units in a sector it must be unowned OR you must already have forces in it. When you hit a deploy button, it drops about 25% of the quantity of whatever kind of fleet unit you're dealing with (i.e. "V-Wing Fighters"). Hitting it again will drop another 25% of the remaining units, and so forth until eventually it'll drop your last units. This game is designed to be a "no brainer" on the mechanical stuff like that, which is why this just a button pressing event instead of a precision thing. When you've deployed ships into a sector, you are given a few options on how they behave in your absence. You may select PASSIVE which means they never attack anyone unless someone else comes through and purposely hits their own attack button. If you select WARNING your ships fire off a warning shot at anyone passing through, usually destroying a small amount of ships to annoy them, but not launching an attack. This can be a fun setting if you like to tease people that you know have to pass through your sector frequently. The HOSTILE setting does what you think- it causes your forces to automatically launch a full attack on anyone entering the sector. Other players are not allowed to cross through the sector until they've beaten you forces either. The exception to the rule is ALLIANCE setting which allows people who're part of your alliance (let's assume you and someone else have joined the Xeer) to cross, but anyone else gets fired on. Alliance setting is only going to be useful if people chose to play this game as a team for awhile, OR if the AI who you're allied with trys to fly through your sector when the daily maintanence program runs and you don't want them attacking you. Keep in mind if you join an alliance the AI might sometimes use the HOSTILE setting, and not the ALLIANCE setting, so you're not always safe from the Xeer for example even if you're with them.
PROBES: As you get used to moving around the galaxy, you'll grow paranoid. Sector mines may blow up on you as you enter new areas, enemy ships might ambush you, or worse you might get stuck in a maze of parked forces created by other players to annoy you. To combat this, you should buy probes which are extremely cheap and available at ALL starbases. When you have probes on your ship, you're presented with an option to use them for scanning neighboring sectors using the "SCAN" button which will be with your movement buttons.
DROIDS: You'll find a few instances in the game where you need "Droids" (aka Robots, AI Units for various tasks) which are a special kind of resource that your holds are also used to transport. Look for them at starbases.
ALLIANCES: You'll be joining alliances with any of the three factions after awhile. To do this you must go to a starbase controlled by whatever faction you're joining, and pay them for the priviledge. This can cost you very little if you're not already in an alliance, or it can cost a small fortune to get on an alliance's good side if you've been joined up with another faction. TIP: The worse position to be in is to have joined the Kenosian Alliance or Xeer and then try to switch teams. Like other features, the ability to join won't even pop up unless conditions such as your Credits are high enough.
PLANETS: Planets are a place for you to have a base, a pit stop, and a storage facility all at once. Planets can produce resources and generate you CREDITS! You can't afford to ignore planets either because other players will overpower you if you ignore them. To make planets all the more interesting, they can be upgraded from level 0 up to level 5, where level 5 gives you the most perks. The planets themselves will prompt you as to what you have to do to make this happen. The benefits of planets of certain levels are as follows:
LEVEL 0: The basic planet, totally unenhanced. Produces a mere 1 of each resource type per day.
LEVEL 1: Produces *up to* 100 METALS a day, 100 Shields. *"up to" means it makes between 1 and 100 of the resources. All maximums that follow are "up to."
LEVEL 2: 200 METALS, 50 ORGANICS, 150 Shields, 50 Phazers.
LEVEL 3: 300 METALS, 100 ORGANICS, 50 FUELS, 1 COLONIST, 100 CREDITS**, 300 Shields, 100 Phazers.
LEVEL 4: 500 METALS, 250 ORGANICS, 100 FUELS, 2 COLONISTS, 1 DROID, 500 CREDITS, 500 Shields, 200 Phazers.
LEVEL 5: 500 METALS, 500 ORGANICS, 250 FUELS, 5 COLONISTS, 2 DROIDS, 1000 CREDITS, 1000 Shields***, 500 Phazers***.
**Credits are a solid number, not random.
***For every day a Level 5 Planet survives, +5 Shields and +1 Phazers are added. Thus, a long term planet is a very wise defensive investment.
Special: Like everything in this game, the planets have a
few more surprises you won't read anything about in these docs. One of them is that a refined material called "Qbrick" can be produced by planets when they hit a certain level. How much they make you'll have to experiment to find out. How much it's worth: 1,000 Credits per unit! Don't miss out.
--->You conquer planets by a two step process. Step 1 is to defeat all forces in the sector the planet is in. Step 2 is to land on the planet with a certain number of colonists and potentially other supplies. Without colonists, you won't have staff to keep things in order. To get colonists, just go to any of the three homeworkds (i.e. Kenos Prime in sector 1) and freely board some on your ship. Much like droids, they take up hold space, and you only need a certain amount to take a planet, so don't start hauling too many around. You can also disembark colonists on the homeworlds or any planet you own if you wish to get them out of your holds. Also be aware that when you conquer a planet, it LOSES a LEVEL. So if you took a level 3 planet, it'll be a level 2 planet when you start off with it.
ORBITAL SHIPYARDS (Or just "Shipyards" for short): Any sector that has a planet can have a SHIPYARD. Shipyards produce some ships free of charge for players each night when the game maintenance program runs. There are three levels of ships they can produce and a few requirements/catches to the whole process. First, it doesn't even matter if you own the planet in whatever sector you want a shipyard in. You just have to control the sector itself, which means you must have FLEET UNITS in the sector. After you've got fleet units in a sector with a planet, the buttons for building a basic shipyard will show up, and you'll be asked to fullfill a couple requirements to continue, as per most things in the game. Once the shipyard is built, there are two additional levels you can upgrade it through. At the first level it JUST makes Fighters. At the second level it makes Fighters and Cruisers. At the 3rd and highest level it makes Destroyers as well. Now the catches- The shipyard is yours ONLY so long as you have forces in the sector. If you take your fleet away from the sector the shipyard will REMAIN, but cease functioning UNTIL SUCH TIME as you (and here's the crafty part) someone ELSE takes over the sector. Shipyards are an investment, so if you build one, you want to defend it. It's worth it for free ships! Here's another catch: Shipyards can be destroyed at any time you or someone else is in the sector, IF you have fleet units with you and want to attack it. As the owner, you may want to trash one so someone else can't have it, or you might attack someone's planetary sectors and destroy theirs out of spite. No matter what, just keep in mind that you have to have at least some sort of fleet units controlling the sector to make them work. There's one more major catch/rule- Shipyards produce "Scout Fighters", "Pug Cruisers" and "Orb Destroyers". They will ONLY produce for you if you have either NO ships of the class sitting in the sector, or that specific type of class ships sitting in the sector. I.e. if you've upgraded a Shipyard so that it can make Fighters and Cruisers, and leave K-01 Fighters defending the sector, you will return the next day to find Pug Cruisers have joined the K-01s, but no more Fighters have been produced. Likewise if you left a Dreadnought in the sector instead of K-01s, you'd find both Scout Fighters and Pug Cruisers. The number of ships produced is random for each ship yard on a nightly basis, where up to 1000 Fighters, 500 Cruisers and 250 Destroyers are the maximum that will be made. For more about these Shipyard Ship types, see the ship docs.
FORUM: If you have any questions about the game that are not answered here, be sure to stop by the game's forum over on
Lepzard.com where you're welcome to make an account and ask what you need to know.
GRUDGES: The AI factions of the Kenosian Alliance, Xeer Empire, and Galactic Trade Organization are your primary providers of services in the game, and you should find yourself joining at least one of them for special perks that each alliance benefits it's members with, as is mentioned elsewhere. Here's the catch- for all the perks, there's also an in-game system of "Grudges." You'll build up "Grudge Points" as time goes on and you step on the AC factions' toes. There is no way to play this game withing making at least one AI faction mad, and when you do there are consequences. In brief, here's what can happen and what you can do about it:
TRIGGERS
1) ATTACKing a sector with AI units in it. This is the primary thing that will give you +1 Grudge Points.
2) Changing Factions. If you leave one faction for another, you might get SEVERAL Grudge Points. Consider using the Pirate Starbase's document hacking services when changing factions.
CONSEQUENCES
1) Services may be cut off.
2) Ships that are set to anything, even PASSIVE may attack you ANYWAY.
HOW TO FIX IT
1) WAIT. Each night 1 Grudge Point is forgiven.
2) CAREFULLY visit a Starbase belonging to the faction and pay the "Grudge Fine". You may want to AVOID Starbases that have faction SHIPS outside of them, as they may attack you. Look for random starbases in the galaxy.
GAME REQUIREMENTS: All you need is a modern web browser such as Firefox or IE's latest versions. The game uses NO FLASH or JAVASCRIPT!!! It's entirely HTML and CSS driven and because most things you interact with are simply text for buttons, there's really not much need to worry about if your computer can handle it. Chances are, you can. The best way to find out is to just log in and play.
STRATEGY: It's almost impossible to predict how people will chose to play this game. It's assumed you will likely search out an area within the galaxy to defend with a few planets and ports nearby, call it home, perhaps join a faction, and bide your time building up forces. No matter what, at some point you're going to bump heads with another player or the computer factions. When you first start the game you should ask yourself a few questions though: Q) Should I stay near the starting area? A) Only if you want to be where new players and the Kenosian Alliance has sucked up most of the resources leaving you with little. Q) Should I spend a lot of time in the Warp Corridor? A) It's good for long distance travel, but trying to defend part of it would be foolish with everyone passing through constantly. Q) Should I spend most of my money on Fleet, a Mothership upgrade, or invest in building up a planet? Q) There's no good answer to this. Only time will tell what was wise.
GAME BUTTONS: Some buttons in the game are always there, like the TURN/MOVEMENT buttons on the left hand side of the screen which you have to use. Sometimes those buttons go to their disabled state and stay on the screen to show you that there's something you can't do for whatever reason, such as there not being a WARP LINK to the sector to your GALACTIC EAST. There's a second button oddity you need to be aware of though- Some buttons just won't show up at all unless conditions are ment, and these are usually attached to Starbases, Planets and misc Sector functions. A good example is the starbase located in sector 1. At the beginning of the game you've got a little bit of money, some K-01 Fighters and little else. You should see some buttons prompting you to buy more K-01 Fighters, Probes, and to Join the alliance. You'll also see a little bar in your display indicating there's a planet in that sector called Kenos Prime. But perhaps you spend some money buying K-01 Fighters and your credits get too low to be able to purchase more. That buttons vanishes suddenly. It'll show back up again, but only after you come back to sector 1 with more credits. Perhaps you've decided to purchase some PROBES. You buy them, and suddenly a new button shows up on the screen in the planetary area called "Probe Planet". So, if you're getting the idea it's that there are many surprising things in this game that could be triggered later on, and just because you had a few options once doesn't mean you won't gave more next time. One of the biggest option issues you'll likely face is the purchasing of fleet units. Using the sector 1 example again, the starbase sells both K-01 and K-02 Fighters. Since you already have K-01 Fighters on your ship at the start of the game, it won't show you an option to buy K-02 Fighters because you may only have 1 of each type of class ship with you at any given time. To remedy this, go deploy your K-01 Fighters somewhere and come back, hopefully with enough credits, and the K-01 AND K-02 buttons will show up.
If you think there should be more buttons for something in a sector you're in, remember this: Sometimes it's a matter of screen resolution: Try simply SCROLLING-DOWN in sectors that are dense with "stuff" to find all the options. Take Sector 1 as an example: There's probably going to be everything from an attack button to starbase buttons to colonist boarding buttons on the screen at any given time and if the vertical display is larger than your montior/resolution, you'll need to find the scrollbar that's likely to be there so nothing seems to be missing. This is simply a design thing. The game is slowly being touched up over time though.
FLEETNET: FleetNET accesses the network between your remote fleets and planets and sends back locations and stats for sectors your currently in. By placing ships in misc sectors you can keep track of anything you want, but there's the risk that someone will blow up your ships.
SECTOR MINES: Sector Mines are the generic type of explosive mine that can be left by any player in a sector as a trap for the next person to wander in. They should only be used if you're certain you want to risk ticking off other players because. A single sector mine may be placed in a sector and the unlucky person who hits it will usually experience one of the following: 1) Loss of Cargo, 2) Loss of Ships, 3) Loss of Credits, or 4) Loss of Turns. There is no way to disarm a sector mine unless you're the owner of the sector.
Xeer Model 87 Mines (X-87 Mines): These are a special type of sector mine available only to Xeer allied players. Only normal sector mines, these have one goal which is to destroy holds of ships they blow up on. They're considered a dirty device to use in the game, and people who use them may draw the wrath of other players. Additionally, there is a 33% chance that these mines are undetectable by a probe scan, making them even more deadly.
FACTORIES: These are like shipyards, but only produce Quadrant Dreadnoughts. You may only build them in sectors that are empty of planets, ports and other misc things by depositing 1000 of each resource type.
JUMPSHIPS: This is REALLY misc, but if you ever come across a "Jumpship" in the game it's a ship that defies the rules of moving from sector to sector and has a mysterious engine that sometimes, nearly at random, will let players make big moves. Wacky things happen around Jumpships though, so if you don't like wacky, avoid this.
SCORE: There's not much to say about score other than the more active you are in dominating the galaxy the higher your score will rise. If you're inactive your score will slowly decline...
MINER CRUISERS: Take a look at what the ship docs have to say about these. They can be used to play the game in a peaceful manner...depending on who's playing with you.
GO PLAY THE GAME now, and good luck. More will likely be added to these docs, and you can visit the game's
forum or
The 4G as well. DON'T FORGET that you have some learning to do and a lot of misc details were omitted from these docs on purpose so you can experiment in the game. Reading the ship docs is recommended at this time however. Best of luck, and remember- new turns are given every day at midnight, Eastern time. If you enjoy this game, please let us know in the forum so that it can continue to evolve and be great fun.
iv. Recommended Strategy Guide (Thoughts by the game's admin)
One thing Galactic Gauntlet is certainly not short on is various ways to play the game, and succeed or fail. At the beginning of the game there's no question about what to do: Start trading at every port you can find and scrape together credits. The first real issue crops up as soon as you realize you'll want to do something with those credits. My advise- start buying CARGO PODS whenever you can, as often as you can. Each cargo pod increases the amount of resources you can haul around permanently, and is therefor a very good investmet. Almost everything else in the game can be taken away from you in some form, but it's very rare to ever lose a cargo pod.
Once you're comfortable, try to ignore other players as much as possible. Keep in mind that the ultimate winning scenario for this game is for YOU to conquer the 3 homeworld planets of the factions. There's nothing about that which actually requires you to enter combat with anyone else. If you're new to the game and the news is full of messages about players fighting with each other, then this is very good news for you because the other people are all wasting their credits, which you can move forward. A hostile galaxy can be fun, but it's not the smartest thing to be involved in yourself. Instead, go conquer a couple planets. Look for planets that are on the edges of the galaxy, or hard to get to because of the warp links between sectors. This will make you less prone to having to deal with others, and with just a couple planets you can defend them a bit easier than if you'd spread yourself thin with many planets. Build these planets up so that they produce everything they're capable of each day for you to benefit from, build them ship yards, defend them well. Slowly but surely, repeat this process with new planets. This is the logical way to become powerful over time, allowing you to eventually strike out and take more advanced actions when you're ready.
While you're out there trading, consider investing in the ports. To invest in a port, you must be a member of the faction that owns the port. Stop for a moment and take a look at the player list. See which faction has the LEAST amount of people in it. This faction might be the best one to join because there will be the LEAST competition to own it's ports. Also consider focusing your investing on ports in and close to the warp corridor, because they'll be the most heavily trafficed and therefor make the most money overnight on a regular basis. This not only allows you to maximize your investments, but sets you up for some great earnings during random events. One such event is when the news suddenly reports "Today is a great day to visit a port" or something similar. If you see something like that, chances are that the ports have been RESTOCKED mid-day and that means more money will be made than average. On these days, you should go out of your way to own the ports. Also on the subject of ports, don't let Kenosian or the GTO harbor a grudge against you. The Kenosians start charging you more to buy resources if they're mad, and the GTO may cut you off from using their ports entirely. There's no way that this is beneficial to a trader.
Avoid deals in the game that look too good to be true. The most noteable of such comes from the Galactic Trade Organization. To most players the GTO seems like the best possible faction to be aligned with, but there are hidden fees in any organization. The Replicruisers which seem like such a great deal, allowing players to convert Metals that are adrift into new ships, are actually the worst financial disaster in the entire game. By converting so many metals, tons of credits that could be made by selling them are lost, and options are cut down. While you're avoiding Replicruisers, considering buying the 2 ships that make the GTO a worthy faction: Miner Cruisers, which if you defend in an out of the way sector long term will pay off in resources, handsomely are the first. The second, and most under-appreciated fleet unit in this entire game is usually the Guardian Destroyer. They're not pretty. They don't seem to pop up in many places. They are however build for their defensive ability. Where other destroyers fail to stand up to attacks, Guardian Destroyers remain strong. In fact, the best fleet you can probably put together would involve a lot of strong offensive ships, coupled with Guardian Destroyers. Still, you'll likely see few in the game because they do cost a nice sum, and other destroyers tend to tempt players more. Know this though- for every action in the galaxy, there is something to counter balance it. During the BETA run of this game the Xeer's special Organic Destroyers excelled and ultimately were the tool used to win. This will not likely be the case again, especially since wise players should now know to eradicate all Organics they come across to prevent such a thing from happening twice.
If you do decide you want to take your fellow players down a notch, there are a few common mistakes you can take advantage of to really put an end to them. Chances are some players will always feel too comfortable, too cocky, and not see a true flaw where it exists. Let's assume someone's got a dozen planets and has built ship yards at each. From time to time they're going to get power hungry and grab their fleets from these sectors, and take off to attack things. This is when you strike, or any time when you can see you'll vastly out power whatever is defending a planetary sector with a ship yard. A fool expects you to attack the sector, and claim the ship yard, perhaps claiming the planet as well. You can be smarter than that. It's almost a given that they'll come back, mad, and reclaim the sector, no matter what you leave there. Instead, hit them where it hurts- in the future! Attack the sector, DESTROY the SHIPYARD itself, and leave. This costs them more money, droids, time and turns than anything else most likely. You may destabilize power players this way. It's either Evil or Good Strategy.
These are the basics to playing a strong game, and although vastly incomplete, should help you get started. Between the rest of the knowledge in the docs, The 4G, and your own learning experiences, you'll likely draw your own conclusions. There's really only one last thing you need to be aware of: THE WINNING SCENARIO. As you should know by now, you must take the Homeworld of each of the Factions, and hold them until midnight to win the game. The game will progress for awhile, and then someone will take a stab at this. IF they didn't underestimate the power of the factions, this will happen quickly, and you'll log on to find that the game is in danger of ending. MAKE NO MISTAKE- act quickly, or lose. With any luck, the entire player list will start harrassing the potential winner. The game's internal maintenance program which runs "at midnight each night" technically runs "when the first person who wasn't logged on prior to midnight logs in. This means you're on a timer, and need to do ANYTHING you can to stop someone from holding all three homeworlds. The easiest thing to do is just go hover around one of the three, GTO HQ for example, and claim it yourself, so that no one owns all three. It's safe to assume that the potential winner will come back and try to take it from you, so throw anything you've got into defending it. Even if your forces get blown up, chances are this will weaken the potential winner and someone else might be trying this as well, further sending things into chaos. When "midnight" rolls around, the factions themselves will actually attack and try to reclaim their homeworlds, even if all their ships in the nearby area have been destroyed, they'll come from far and wide to put an end to the instability. Those reports in the news each day about which faction makes the most money from ports somewhat secretly relates to how many new ships for the faction will be available as well, when they chose to spend the money. This means your part in this, is just to keep the potential winner distracted. WHAT IF YOU'RE THE POTENTIAL WINNER AND WANT TO WIN? Simple: Be smart. Don't attack what you can't yet defend in three locations.
And that, is all I have to say about that. Go try it for yourself.
The Kenosian Alliance Logo
The Xeer Empire Logo
The Galactic Trade Organization Logo