NEWCOMERS guide

[markb50k]

I just want to give people an idea of what to do when they first join the game.  I am assuming that you have succesfully logged in for the first time before you read this.

 

FIND YOUR SHIPS

when you first join the game you are looking at the center of the galaxy and probably cant see your ships on the map.  To quickly find your ships (you probably only have one), go to the left side of the screen and hit the FLEETS link.  This will list all units you have.  Any ships you start off with will probably be under the UNASSIGNED UNITS link.  Click that.  Then click whatever ships are under there, and a Unit Display will show up on the left, showing the ship's name, its position, its status.  A useful think to do is hit the ZOOM TO UNIT link which will zoom down to the tactical level.

 

PLAY AROUND WITH THE MAP

The map has two modes, strategic and tactical.  You get to tactical by double clicking on a sector from the strategic map.  You get to the strategic by double RIGHT clicking on the tactical map.  You can drag the map with the right mouse button, you can center the map on a location by clicking the middle mouse button, and you can zoom by using the mouse wheel or the Z and shiftZ keys

 

CHECK ON YOUR EDIT TIME

any thing you do, like change orders, has to be saved to the server using the SAVE button on the main menu.  BUT, you must save any changes you make BEFORE the current turn ends.  IF you dont save your changes and the turn changes, all your changes will be lost.  That may seem harsh, but if you saw the code and issues I would have trying to merge your new data with changed data from the game engine it would make your head spin, so I dont like it, but its a necessary evil.  So, always check the Main Menu, each time you look it shows how much time is left in the current turn.  If you dont have enough time to do the stuff you need to do, you should wait until the new turn begins, hit REFRESH until you see the new turn come up, THEN do your orders.

 

CHANGE YOUR PERSONAL INFO

There is a link on the main menu to change your password.  You can also edit your TITLE.  Titles are just for your own sake right now, no one else can see your title.  You can also change your username at any time as well.  You can never change your Login ID, and you will always use that to log in to the GUI.

 

CHECK FOR ANY REPORTS FROM THE GAME ENGINE

You will probably already have a report waiting for you after you login.  You can find the report file in the REPORTS directory in the directory you are running GALSIM out of.  Most likely you wont have anything important on your first order, except for it telling you how much money you have to spend on units.

 

ORDER NEW UNITS

From the main menu you can specify which ships you want to buy.  I would recommend going to the UNIT SPECS link first and seeing all the ships and their prices.  Once you decide on what you want to buy you click the ORDER UNITS FROM GM link on the main menu, and simply type in the # and name of the ship you want, like 10 XWING.  After you order them, hit SAVE (hopefully b4 the turn ends) then when the next turn happens you will have those ships waiting there in your home sector

 

GIVE ORDERS TO YOUR UNITS

Once you have some ships, play around with the different orders you can give.  You can order your ships to JUMP to another location, either within the same tactical sector or to another sector altogether.  MAKE SURE to check the JUMP order after you give it to make sure you arent going to far (it will give you an estimate of how many seconds it will take the ship to get there).  The game runs 10 cycles every 45 minutes of real world time, so obviously 1000s of seconds is NOT A GOOD THING.  If so, just cancel the order or change the destination to something closer.  TRY out an escort mission.

 

GET YOUR FEET WET IN BATTLE

This phase of the game is intended to test the battle code and the user interface, so when you feel up for it, give your ships orders to JUMP to 50100,50100 and see what happens.  The game will get alot more crazy once you enter the battle zone but you will learn quick.