Begin Tutorial
A Lt. Rayne Gateguard is here to help guide us through the tutorial. She's wearing the fashionable popped collars that have somehow survived into the far future.
Before you do anything else, rename your character! This is the only time (that I've discovered) that you can do it for free. It will cost you money afterwards! Pick something interesting, Commander 867-5309 doesn't exactly fill the galaxy with terror! This account is named King of Frogs, because, why the heck not?
You start out with Ore: 1000 Crystal: 500 Hydrogen: 100 Credits: 10000
We will go over more of this interface later, but for now the only menu you need to pay attention to is the one on the middle left that starts with Missions. We will be using the Buildings selection right below it.
Begin building a Solar Array
Step 2 of 6 tells us to begin building a Solar Array.
So we click on the Buildings menu, and let's build that sucker!
Step 3 of 6 is a shameless attempt to get money off of you.
Let's not waste our 10,000 credits on completing simple, short builds at the beginning. So soon enough, we have our fully functional Solar Array:
The Solar Array generates energy, which is used to power all your other buildings. If you don't have enough energy, your mines run at a lower production, buildings won't work, and you look like a jerk to your imaginary robot servants. Don't be that guy, and make sure you upgrade the Solar Array regularly so everything has enough power!
Next you will Build an Ore Mine
Step 4 of 6
A planet will still produce 20 ore and 10 crystals an hour if you have no mines/refineries. But that's pathetic, so let's make us some mines! It's all about the money.
Here is the art for the Ore Mine:
And just because we can, the art for the Crystal Mine and Hydrogen Refinery:
Notice that each building shows how much it costs to build/upgrade, and how much energy is uses over time. The energy your Solar Array generates. See? This is all coming together! Click on BUILD and begin making your Ore Mine.
While we're waiting for the Ore Mine to finish, let's play with our spaceships and run a mission!
Step 5 of 6
We're going to Raid Unguarded Crystal. All these resource getting missions are "raids", because we have to keep things exciting. Here is the mission:
Raid Unguarded Crystal
Click on that one to begin. We only have one ship at the moment, but if we had more, the Start button would have a drop-down menu. There are a few other missions at the moment:
Raid Abandoned Hydro
Haul Cargo and Raid Ore
Haul Cargo is different because it can only be done once per day. The mission brings in a lot of scratch, so it is good to do that mission when it becomes available and you don't have time to be sitting at the computer starting new missions every 2 1/2 minutes.
As you can see, the raid is proceeding. Your ships have to arrive and return. Each mission uses up one point of Hydrogen for each ship sent.
Step 6 of 6
Oh, snap! We're done already, and also expert Stardrift Emperors or something. Whatever, let's claim our reward:
The reward is the +1 Admiral Fleet Bonus for a week (which Increases your maximum Fleets by 1) and another Atlas Cargo ship, which is great because you need that ship to run resource acquiring missions. It actually takes some time leveling up structures to get to the point where you can build your own, so this comes in very handy to use for raiding missions to get more resources!
You also get this nifty Eagle Scout Badge:
Atlas Cargo
King of Frogs has begun his conquering of the galaxy, one cargo ship at a time!
Now that the tutorial is done, it's time to look at the rest of the controls we didn't cover, and then figure out what to do next.
