Frequently Asked Questions

The worst that can happen is that he'll give you an answer, write it down for everyone else's benefit, and publicly thank you. What do you have to lose?

Q

Is there an easy way to determine a planets/ship's location?

A

For a ship? Not always.

If they used the F key to distress then you will get a sector number and a planet in their message. The first number in the sector is an x coordinate, the second is a y coordinate. Sectors are numbered from 1 to 6 in a left-to-right or top-to-bottom order. If you have "Draw galactic map grid" enabled in your Options window, you should be able to locate the person quickly using this method.

Once you have the grid you should be able to locate their ship position indicators (`K3', `Ra'). This assumes they aren't under a dogpile. You can still warp to that sector and impulse to them.

For a planet? Not trivial, but fairly easy.

Use `P' to bring up the planet list window. Search for the name of the planet alphabetically and then look at its entry in the sctr column. This is the sector the planet is in. Remember that planets on the galactic have the `Planet' or `New' prefix removed.

Q

Is there an easy way to determine the source of armies for your team?

A

Yes.

Press `B' until you get some planet bitmaps on your galactic that look like this:

Anything with a little man on the left has extra armies which you can beam up and use to beat up on enemy planets. Actually, you can beam one extra army off after the man disappears, but that's an advanced tactic.

Q

Do the "gurus" remap their keyboards so they can phaser and torp easier?

A

Yes. Most ``gurus'' do rearrange their keyboards. Most of them don't even use the mouse to fire.

Here's my (Editor: Brazilian's ?) keymap. I don't claim it's the best, but it works for me.

# completely remaps the asdf area
#
# cloak   beamup  maximp  plasma  switchspec        warwin
#  shield  course  phaser  torp    afterburners      dock
#  halfimp  beamdn  bomb   detmine  pressor           refit
#         ---------------- det ---------------------------------------
#
keymap:		qcwze%rftCywauskdpftg`Hez#xxcbvDbynr d
# new mouse bindings, left-to-right
#         tractor-on  T/P-off  pressor-on
buttonmap:	1_2$3^

Q

How come everybody locks on me and phasers me even before I can get my cloaking device turned off?

A

They are good, lucky, or both. Hit <TAB> to toggle your galactic between normal-sized and zoomed. The zoomed view makes it easier to phaser enemies. Remember that the cloaked position you see is inaccurate.

They could also be using missiles as indicators, since they are homing on normal servers.

Q

What are some good macros to have?

A

Here's a couple of macro I (Editor: again, Brazilian ?) use:

macro.f.T: $tapUn %?2=$tapA%{AGRI%!    %}      %2%{near $tasn in $tap@%!is targeT%}
macro.y.T: $thui is going to die
macro.Y.T: $thui is crippled near $tapn, get him if you can.
macro.h.T: Somebody kill $thui near $tapn NOW

Q

Who are the best players so I can observe them to see what they do?

A

Rank is a good first guess at who's a good player. Anybody who's made Midshipman probably has their act together.

Q

How do I increase my rank?

A

Uh,

Crush, kill, destroy!

Seriously, bombing and taking planets are fairly important. If you just play hard, you should get enough rank to fly bases in a few weeks. Any rank beyond that is scumming territory and you'd have to read the rank system document (Editor: which hasn't been written yet) to figure out what you're missing.

Q

Whats a jumpship and utility ship do?

A

A jumpship is a big engine with docking ports. It is designed for hauling ships around the universe REAL fast. A good jumpship pilot can SERIOUSLY augment the taking power of a skilled carrier. This power is increased if a dedicated escort comes along.

A utility ship is a very lightweight base. It can carry armies without having to get kills, but can not orbit planets. It can refuel ships that are docked to it. PTs can enter the game docked to the UT (for a finite number of times, then the UT needs to refit).

Q

... fighters as weapons. How do you get em,

A

You don't normally. Fighters were an experiment started at Eden. We decided they needed a little more work than we could currently dedicate to them before they became a balanced part of the game.

On servers where carriers (CV) are allowed, you can beam up armies and deploy 8 fighters for each army (max. 8 at once) as a replacement for torps. Those fighters are server controled in that they seek out the nearest (to mouse or own ship ?) enemy ship and deliver a single torp. Those torps are well aimed, but the fighters don't possess great maneuveribility. They are most useful on long ranged targets.
It's hard to defend against fighters, but it's possible: either you det a lot (but eventually you die), or you have to hit the small fighters with a phaser. Whenever a unit of 8 is incomplete, the CV loses an army.