Revision as of 02:46, 28 October 2005

A Not-So-Quick Start Guide to Playing FreeOrion v0.3

See also: Quick Play Guide for v0.2

Title Screen & Main Menu

When you start FreeOrion, you will see the title screen with some exciting background art, as well as the Main Menu of the game. The buttons on the Main Menu may be clicked to

• Start a new Single Player game, taking you to the Galaxy Setup Screen, then into the game itself
• Start or load a Multi Player game, taking you to the Server Connection Dialog. After connecting to a server, or hosting a game yourself, you'll be taken to the Multiplayer Setup dialog, where a new multiplayer game may be configured, or a saved multiplayer game loaded.
• Load Game previously saved (single player)
• Open the Options window, allowing various game settings to be changed. Many of these require the game to be quit and restarted to take effect, however.
• Read About the FreeOrion project (game licence and vision statement)
• View the Game Credits, a listing of people who have made significant contributions to creating the game so far.

Galaxy Setup

When starting a new single player game, various options concerning how the galaxy will be generated for the new game are available. These include

• Stars - The total number of stars in the galaxy. Use the spinner to adjust, or click on the number and type an amount.
• Galaxy Shape - The shape the stars are arranged in.
• Galaxy Age - Older galaxies will tend to have more blackholes, red stars and neutron stars, younger galaxies will have more blue stars.
• Starlane Frequency - The number of starlanes per star. Ships in FreeOrion must travel by starlane.
• Planet Density - The number of planets per star.
• Specials Frequency - The frequency with which planets will be generated with specials when the galaxy is created.
• Empire Name & Color - Self explanatory

After setting these options and clicking OK, the game will generate a new galaxy, and after a few moments, bring you into the game itself.

Multiplayer Connection & Setup

When starting or resuming a multiplayer game, initially you will be taken to the Connect to Server dialog. After hosting or joining a game, you will be taken to the Multiplayer Setup dialog.

Connect to Server

At the top of the Connect to Server diaglog, you may enter your Player name. Just below, you may select whether you wish to join an already existing game, or host a new game yourself.

If hosting, you need only click OK after entering a player name.

If joining a LAN game, clicking Refresh list should list any games on the local network waiting for players. Select one of these and click OK to join.

If joining an internet game, you need to enter the IP address of the game you wish to join, then click OK.

If the connection is made successfully, you will then be taken to the Multiplayer Setup dialog.

Multiplayer Setup

After connecting or starting a new server, you will be taken to the Multiplayer Setup screen, where the game may be configured and players assembled before a game begins. At the bottom left of the Multiplayer setup screen, you may enter chat messages which will be sent to other players in the game, and seen in the column above.

New Game

If you are hosting a new game, you should ensure that the "New game" option at the left side of the Multiplayer Setup dialog is selected (which it is by default). Adjacent, various options may be set to configure how the game generates the galaxy for the new multiplayer game, just like the single player Galaxy Setup dialog. If you have joined a game that another player is hosting, these options will be disabled, though you can see what settings the host has chosen for the game.

When you join or host a multiplayer game, your player name and all other players' names are listed at the bottom of the multiplayer dialog. Each player needs to pick a unique empire colour and enter a unique empire name before the game can be started. Note that occasionally the game might crash if you enter an empire name and press enter, so instead just type the empire name without pressing enter when done.

After all players have chosen unique empire names and colours, the host may click Start game, at which point game will generate a new galaxy, and after a few moments, bring all players into the game itself.

Load Game

If resuming a previously saved multiplayer game, the host can select the "Load game" option (instead of "New game") and then specify which save file to load in the drop-down list.

Players that join need to select which empire they will be playing in the saved game. Each player needs to pick a different empire before the host can start the game.

The Galaxy Map

Clicking with the left mouse button and dragging will move the map around. The scroll wheel zooms the map in and out. Alternatively the plus and minus key on the numeric keypad, or the E and R keys, may be used to zoom the map.

There are numerous stars on the map, but at the start of the game only one star is explored: your home-system. The name of explored systems appear below the star picture on the map. Any starlanes connecting the system to its neighbours are shown as white lines. Any fleets you know about in a system are shown by and accessed by clicking on the coloured triangle at the top right corner of the star picture.

When playing multiplayer, press “Enter” to send to type a chat message to the other players. Press Enter again to send the message.

Game Menu

Pressing the menu button in the extreme upper left of the screen or pressing F10 will open the game menu. From this menu you can

• Save or Load games
• Resign (quit your game and go back to the title splash screen and menu, where you can exit the program)
• Access the Options window, where you can change a variety of game options including
  • Autosave settings
  • UI appearance (colours, font and text size, main window size)
  • Sounds and Music
  • Directories (where games are saved, where data files are found when the game starts)

For many of the controls in the Options window, you have to quit and restart the game before they take effect. Enabling and disabling sound and music should happen immediately, however.

SitRep

Pressing the SitRep button in the upper left corner of the screen or pressing F2 will open (or close) the "Situation Report". This is a listing of events that occured in your empire during the last turn. On the first turn, nothing has happened, so this will be empty. On later turns, if something worth noting happens, the SitRep will automatically pop up when a turn starts.

The names of ships that appear in SitRep entries can be clicked to take you to the relevant ship by opening the Fleet Window and selecting the ship. Similarly, names of planets may be clicked to take you to the relevant planet by opening the System Sidepanel to the system containing the planet. When Technologies are researched, you can click their names in the SitRep to open the Research Screen with the new tech selected. If something can be clicked in a SitRep entry, it will underline when the mouse cursor is placed over it. (Note that buildings, which are not yet clickable, will also underline when moused over).

System Sidepanel

Clicking on the home system or any other star with the left mouse button will pull up the System SidePanel (though there may be a short delay while the game first loads planet textures for the first time). You can also press the D key to pull up the Sidepanel for your empire's home-system, which also centers the galaxy map on the home-system. Later, after colonizing other systems, the X and C keys will walk through each star system with colonies owned by your empire. Clicking on empty space on the galaxy map or pressing the S key dismisses the sidepanel.

The system sidepanel lists information about the contents of a system. At the top of the sidepanel is the system name. Once you have two or more systems under your empire’s control, you’ll be able to quickly move to them by clicking the arrows on either side of the system name. Or you can click the system name itself to choose a system to jump to from a list.

Planets

Planets in a system are listed in a column on the sidepanel. Extra planets that don't all fit at once can be seen by moving the scrollbar at the far right of the screen and sidepanel. All planets on the sidepanel have a name, size (eg. medium), and environment (eg. terran).

Populated planets have a population shown by the white icon resembling two people standing next to each other is Population. The first number is current population, the second is max population on that planet. If the first number is green, the planet’s population is growing normally. Unpopulated planet just have a size number, which is what the max population of the planet would be if you colonized it.

To change the name of a planet your empire owns, right click it and select "Rename".

If you have a colony ship in a system, an uncolonized planet that can be colonized will have a "Colonize" button. Clicking this button will create a new colony on the next game turn, though will consume the colony ship in the process. After clicking to colonize, if you change your mind, you can click the "Cancel" button to recover the colony ship. Terran planets make the best colonies, followed by Ocean and Desert which are the next best. Gas Giants and Asteroid belts can’t be colonized or otherwise used in v0.3.

Focus and Meters

If your empire controls a colonized planet, there will also be a box with five pictures, two rows of little bars, and some numbers below it. These are the focus selector and meter indicator. The icons in the boxes represent the five resources in FreeOrion:

• The yellow icon resembling wheat is food. You need one unit of food every turn for each population unit in the empire. Excess food is automatically shipped to needy planets that aren’t growing enough food.

• The green icon resembling a test tube is research. Research points are used on the Research screen Research Screen, which is accessed by clicking the "Research" button at the top right of the screen. By researching technologies, you can unlock buildings and get various bonuses for your empire.

• The red icon represents minerals. Minerals are used to fuel industry — you need one mineral point and one industry point to generate one Production Point.

• The blue gear represents industry. Industry is used with minerals to to calculate Production Points. You need one mineral point and one industry point to generate one production point. Production points are used on the Production screen, which is access by clicking the "Production" button at the top right of the screen. By producing ships and buildings, you can explore the galaxy, defend your empire, conquer other empires, and get beneficial effects for your planets.

• The orange icon represents trade. Trade does absolutely nothing in v0.3.

Setting Focus

You can control how much of each resource is produced by a planet by “Setting Focus”. Left clicking on any resource will set the “Primary” focus of the planet to that resource. Right clicking on any resource will set the “Secondary” focus. Left or right clicking on the numbers or bars below the resource icons will set a planet's focus to balanced. The primary focus resource of a planet is shown in colour, while the secondary focus is more brightly outlined. If balanced primary or secondary focus, all resource are coloured or outlined, respectively.

Primary focus is a planet's main activity, and will have the biggest influence on how much of each resource a planet produces. Secondary focus is a planet's other, non-main activity, which has a much smaller effect on what resources are produces. Planets that are focused on a particular resource will produce more of that resource than others. Balanced focus planets produce some of each resource.

It's important to realize that changing a planet's focus doesn't immediately change the resources it is producing to correspond to the new focus. Rather, a planet takes some time to reconfigure its infrastructure to produce the new resources whenever a focus change is made. The previous focus production is immediately lost when a focus change is made, however, so it's not wise to change focus often.

The specifics of how focus and resource production work depend on the concept of meters.

Resource Meters

Fleet Window

There will be a tiny triangle hovering near your home-system. This is a fleet: you begin the game with two scout ships and a colony ship. Clicking on a fleet will pull up the Fleet Window. While the fleet window is open, right clicking on empty space will dismiss the Fleet Window, as will left clicking the tiny X in the upper right corner.

The V and B keys will walk through each fleet owned by your empire. The F and G keys can be used to walk through each fleet owned by your empire that is idle (as in, not moving).

The top of the fleet window is a listing of fleets at the current system. Every ship is in a fleet. Clicking on a fleet will display the ships contained by that fleet.

You can drag-drop ships to change their fleet. Click on a ship and drag it to a fleet name. Drag a ship to “New Fleet” to create a new fleet. You can select multiple ships to drag by clicking on each ship: clicking once selects the ship, clicking again deselects the ship. CAREFUL: in the release version of FreeOrion .2 the game will crash if you move the *last* ship in a fleet to a new fleet.

You can also drag-drop fleets. Dropping a fleet on to another fleet will combine the fleets into one.

Just like planets, you can rename fleets and ships by right clicking on them and selecting “Rename”.

You can move fleets to a new system by selecting the fleet, then right clicking on the star you wish to move to. You’ll see an animated dashed line marking the path the fleet will take. There must be a known starlane leading to a star system in order to move ships to it.

You can right click on stars that are many starlane hops away—FreeOrion will automatically suggest a path for the fleet to take.

Each turn, you’ll see the fleet triangle move along the starlanes to its destination. When a ship enters an unexplored system, your galaxy map will update with newly discovered starlanes.

If a military ship enters a star system containing ships or planets belonging to another empire, combat occurs. In v.2, there is no tactical combat: this will change in v.4. For now, you’ll just receive a brief overview of the combat results.

Research

Production

Defense Bases

• Defense Bases You can’t build defense bases until your empire has finished researching ‘em. They defend the system from attack.

Ships

• Scout A fast civilian ship, cheap to build. They are good for exploration, but can’t fight.

• Colony Ship You’ll need colony ships to colonized planets.

• Mark I Attack ships. Eventually, your empire will research more powerful attack ships, labeled Mark II-V.

A green bar indicates the progress of the current project. When a project is completed, you’ll receive notification and a new ship of the same type will begin building.

You can also select a build project from the right side of the planet information window. Click on any colonized planet to summon this window.

Victory

In v.3, victory is achieved by eliminating all planets belonging to other empires. There is no AI currently implemented, so computer players will just sit around and wait for the inevitable.

Last Word

Have fun experimenting with this early demo of FreeOrion, and thanks for helping test it.

Feel free to drop by the FreeOrion forums if you have questions, want to share you experiences playing the game, or want to pitch in and help build the next version of the game.

If you discover bugs in the game, please use the Sourceforge bug tracker to report them.