Manual

Time and turns

Outer Space runs on a real-time clock. The server processes a turn at fixed intervals, for everyone at once, whether or not you are logged in. Between turns you give orders; at the turn they are carried out.

• One turn is one game hour; 24 turns make a game day.
• The game is designed for one turn per real hour.
• All times in the game — construction, research, travel — are shown as days:hours of game time. 1:06 means 30 turns.

You don't need to be online for every turn. Queues keep working while you are away: construction and research queues hold several items, and fleets carry multi-step orders. Logging in two or three times a day is plenty, especially early on.

Joining a galaxy

The game is divided into galaxies. Each galaxy is a separate game with its own map, players and clock. One account can play in several galaxies, with one position in each.

1. Create an account. Open the game, choose Create account and pick a login, a commander name (this is how other players will see you) and a password.
2. Sign in. Keep Remember me on this browser checked and you will be signed in and taken back into your galaxy automatically next time.
3. Choose a position. Under Join a galaxy pick an open galaxy and a starting position, then join it (see the types below).
4. Enter position. Your new position appears in the list. Select it and choose Enter position.

Starting positions

The screen

Star map

• Stars are star systems; the small squares next to them are their planets. Your planets are green, unclaimed ones grey, other empires in colours that reflect your relations. A name in [brackets] means you haven't scanned the system yet.
• Blue circles show your scanner range — what you can see.
• Click a star, planet or fleet to open it. Hover for a summary.
• Mouse wheel zooms. Right-click (or Shift+click) re-centres the map. Click or drag on the minimap to jump.
• The buttons at the bottom right toggle map layers (systems, planets, fleets, scanners, grid); Fit zooms to show everything.
• Colonies show their production and research (CP, RP) under their names.

Tabs

Status bar

Shows the current turn as day:hour, your name and galaxy. The game checks for new turns by itself and reloads when one arrives; Refresh reloads immediately.

Your first day

You start with one home planet, a few basic buildings, and a small fleet: two Scouts, two Fighters and a Colony Ship. A good first session looks like this:

1. Read your messages. Galaxy news tells you when the galaxy starts and when elections are held.
2. Start research. Open Research and queue a few technologies. Improving your Research Laboratory and Factory early pays off for the whole game. Never leave the queue empty.
3. Queue construction. Click your home planet. In the planet view choose Build (or click an empty slot) and add buildings: Factories for production, Farms for food, power plants for energy, Research Laboratories for research. Queue several items so production never sits idle.
4. Explore. Open your fleet, split off the Scouts and send them out with Move — or use Scout wave to send several scouts to different targets at once. Systems you scan reveal their planets.
5. Colonize. Pick a good planet — ideally in your home system or a nearby one — and send the Colony Ship there with Colonize. On arrival it builds an Outpost and the planet becomes yours.
6. Check Problems. Anything critical shows up there. Then log off and let the turns roll.

Running a colony

A colony is its population and the structures built on its surface. A planet has a limited number of slots, one per structure.

• Food and energy are shared between your planets in the same system, not across the whole empire. Each system has to balance itself.
• New buildings start damaged and reach full output over a few days as they are repaired.
• Planets differ: from barren rock and asteroids to hostile, marginal, terrestrial and rare Gaia worlds. Better environments support more people. Some planets hold strategic resources needed for advanced technology.
• Production with nothing to build isn't lost entirely — part of it boosts your other colonies — but it is far better spent at home. Keep every colony's queue busy; Problems will remind you.

Expanding

New planets are claimed by building an Outpost on them. There are two ways to get one there:

• Within a system you already hold, a colony can build an Outpost directly on a free planet of the same system. Use Colonize in the system overview, or pick the planet as the target in the construction dialog. It costs more than building on your own planet, but needs no ships.
• In another system, you need a ship that carries a colony module, like your starting Colony Ship. Build more in a colony with Space Docks, send the fleet to the target and use Colonize.

Once you have a foothold in a new system, its other planets can be claimed from there. Expanding fast is strong, but each colony far from your capital lowers morale, and a sprawling empire is harder to defend.

Research

• The tech tree has more than 250 technologies across six tech levels (TL1–TL6).
• Each technology can be improved up to level 5. Improvement makes its structures and equipment more efficient, and higher technologies often require an improved prerequisite.
• Research cost doubles with each tech level. The queue shows the estimated time for each item.
• To reach a new tech level, research that level's key technology and improve it to level 3.

Choosing a race

Reaching tech level 2 means choosing one of three mutually exclusive paths. The choice is permanent and decides much of what you can research later.

Ships and fleets

Designing ships

Ships are built from your own designs. A design is a hull, one control module (cockpit, bridge or command deck) and equipment: engines, weapons, armour, shields, scanners, fuel tanks or colony modules, limited by the hull's slots and weight. The Ship Design Centre shows the resulting speed, range, attack, defence and cost. You start with a few ready-made designs.

Moving fleets

• Open a fleet and use Move or Colonize, then click the destination on the map. Orders can be chained into a route; the planned route is drawn on the map.
• Fuel: ships use energy from their tanks every turn and refuel only at your planets (or allies' planets with a refuelling pact). A fleet that runs dry slowly falls apart. Watch the range before sending ships far.
• Fleets can be split and merged. Ships are repaired at Space Docks.

Combat

Combat is automatic. When military ships meet hostile ships or planets in a system, they fight each turn. Military ships fight anyone who doesn't allow them passage; civilian ships such as scouts and colony ships are normally allowed through. Planets defend themselves with their own defences. Attacking an empire ruins your relations with it.

Diplomacy

You meet other empires when your scanners find them. Relations run from Enemy through Neutral to Allied. They slowly decay on their own and are built up by keeping pacts:

• passage for civilian and military ships,
• refuelling and repair at each other's planets,
• research and production cooperation, which give both sides a bonus,
• sharing scanner data.

A pact has to be offered by both sides to work. Stronger pacts need better relations. There is no separate state of war: warships fight wherever they aren't granted passage, so switching off military passage is all it takes; a fleet can also carry a Declare War order that does it when the fleet reaches that point of its route.

Use Messages to write to other commanders. In a multiplayer galaxy, talking is a large part of the game.

Other factions

Besides the commanders, galaxies hold computer-controlled factions:

Winning

In a standard multiplayer galaxy you win by being elected Imperator.

• Every six game days the galaxy votes. Galaxy news announces each election two days ahead.
• In Diplomacy you Elect yourself or a commander you have contact with. Your vote stays until you change it.
• Votes are weighted by the size of each voter's empire (the planet slots they own).
• Two thirds of the votes make the winner Imperator (+10% production and research). Otherwise the candidate with the most votes becomes Leader (+5%).
• An Imperator re-elected in the next election can finish the galaxy and win the game.

A big empire helps, but so do friends who will vote for you. A galaxy also ends when only one commander is left.

Smaller galaxy types exist too: cooperative galaxies, where players win together by eliminating the hostile factions; brawls, where the last commander standing wins; and single-player galaxies for practice.

Tips

• Never idle. Before logging off, check that every colony has something in its construction queue and the research queue is full.
• Check Problems. It lists idle production, starving colonies, fleets low on fuel and an empty research queue.
• Grow your own system first. Free planets in your home system are the cheapest colonies you'll get.
• Mind food and energy per system. A new colony on its own in a distant system needs its own farms and power.
• Scout early. Knowing your neighbours and the good planets near you shapes the whole game.
• Talk to your neighbours. A passage pact costs nothing and avoids accidental fights. Friends vote.
• Think in days. Plan queues to last until your next login, not until the next turn.

Glossary

Turn

One game hour; processed on a fixed real-time schedule.

Game day

24 turns. Times are written days:hours.

Galaxy

One game: its own map, players and clock.

Position

Your empire in a particular galaxy.

CP

Construction points: production for structures and ships.

RP

Research points.

Slot

Space for one structure on a planet's surface.

Outpost

The structure that claims a planet.

TL

Tech level, 1 to 6.

Env

A planet's environment (biology) rating.

Solar

How much energy from its star reaches a planet.

Pact

A diplomatic agreement, offered by each side.

Imperator

The elected ruler of the galaxy.