Galactic Empire (c) Copyright 1988 - 1993 M. B. Murdock & Assoc. All Rights Reserved USERS GUIDE version 3.2 Revised 02/01/94 Table of Contents ----------------------------- 1.0 ...... Introduction 2.0 ...... Game Environment 3.0 ...... Your First Ship 4.0 ...... Navigating 5.0 ...... Owning Planets 6.0 ...... Game Strategy 7.0 ...... Battle Strategy 8.0 ...... Planetary Battles 9.0 ...... Cyborgs and Cybertrons 10.0 ...... Scoring 11.0 ...... Commands 12.0 ...... Enhancements 1.0 Introduction It is 3250 in the standard year, 975 years since man has developed inter-planetary space navigation, and 412 years since neutron flux warp technology was perfected by the ship builders of Zygor. They currently lead the industry with the state of the art ships and weapons systems. These are good times where a commander with a good ship and some business sense can make himself very very rich. Many of the planets in the known universe are ideal for basing industries to supply the demands of the interstellar fleet. These are also times when the less scrupulous commanders can overrun a distant settlement and claim the planet for his own. It is not a good idea to leave a distant settlement unprotected and the Galactic Command (an ad hoc legal body) recommends that commanders check up on their colonists regularly. Once you have secured your ship, it is yours to command and keep maintained. The Zygorians will outfit you with enough supplies to get you started but you will surely run out if you encounter any rouge ships. The Galactic Command recommends you find and settle some planets immediately to secure a supply source for your ship. Or you can purchase supplies from other commanders with whom you have established trade agreements. The object of the game is to build and maintain as large an empire as you can sustain, using any means you find appropriate. You can do this by yourself or with a team of other players. Your System Operator will inform you of the prizes and awards for becoming the top player(s) in the game. Good luck and beware the dreaded Cybertrons at all cost. 2.0 Game Environment The game takes place in a universe with millions of sectors and thousands of known planets. Each sector is 10000 by 10000 parsecs square. The entire navigable galaxy is 6000 by 6000 sectors numbered from the center of the galaxy to the edges. Sectors are mapped on a two coordinate system giving a galactic map that looks something like this; +--------------------------------------+ |-300,-300 +300,-300| | | | | | | | | | | | 0,0 | | | | | | | | | | | |-300,+300 +300,+300| +--------------------------------------+ Each sector is measured 10000 by 10000 parsecs square measured from the top left to bottom right as follows; +--------------------------------------+ |0,0 0,9999| | | | | | | | | | | | 5000,5000 | | | | | | | | | | | |9999,0 9999,9999| +--------------------------------------+ In each sector there may be between 0 and 9 planetary bodies. Each planet has various environmental and resource qualities. The best planet has very good resources and a very good environment. Sector 0 0 is governed by the Galactic Command and is a declared neutral zone. This policy is maintained by the enforcer planet Enforcer-9. A single hostile action by any player in this sector will be met with a swift and preemptive strike from the Galactic Commands top secret weapons base on Enforcer-9. Sector 0 0 also has the first planet Zygor, the leaders in state- of-the-art weapons and ship hardware. Zygor manufactures the various ships and the weapons they carry. It is also home of the Galactic Monetary Reserve Fund, the only duly authorized financial institution in the Galaxy. Planet number two in Sector 0 0 is Tahanian Station, a embarking station for colonists and mercenary soldiers. This is also where you can purchase food supplies. There are several wormholes in sector 0 0 which provide portals to other distant sectors. Once out of Sector 0 0 it is a free for all, and you have to decide how to best defend yourself and your planets. Additionally Sector 0 0 has three portals (stable wormholes) to other parts of the galaxy. These can be used to help you cross the galaxy faster or to escape enemy ships. 3.0 Your First Ship Your first ship is an Interceptor class fighter. It is outfitted with neutron flux warp drives and standard sub-warp impulse drives. The impulse drives can attain speeds of up to .99 percent light speed while the flux drives can attain warp 5. The Interceptor is an extremely fast response, light weight fighter designed for scouting. It is outfitted with Mark-1 shields and Mark-1 phasers, hyper-phasers, torpedoes, and defensive decoys. The torpedoes are controlled by a Fire Control System that locks onto the target and guides the weapon to the target. Torpedoes are very fast and carry a fixed but powerful charge, and cannot be used when in hyper space. The phasers are line-of-sight weapons which you fire in a specific direction. Hyper-phasers are automatically chosen when in hyper-space as they are the more powerful weapon, taking hyper-energy directly off the neutron flux. Plasma-phasers have an additional feature of being focus able allowing you to create a wider beam that has less "punch" but is easier to score a hit on a moving target. The Interceptor has defensive systems that include deflector shields, and decoy's. The deflector shields are useful for protecting from plasma-phasers, and lightly charged missiles, but will not stand up to many torpedo blasts. Decoys are small drone ships used to distract, confuse, and divert incoming missiles and torpedoes. It gives off an electronic image that resembles a much larger ship, will attract an incoming weapon, and self destruct destroying the incoming weapon. The ship has a communications console with three separate transmission channels. You can set each to a specific channel or to the HAIL setting which permits you to receive all general hailing messages. If you create alliances you can set one radio to an agreed upon channel and have a private and secure communications path between members of your alliance. Finally, your ship has facilities to support a small complement of colonists, troops, fighters, and supplies. The ship can hold a maximum of 500 tons of these supplies. 4.0 Navigating An explanation of the coordinate system and some of the terms used in navigating in the galaxy will help you get started. Galactic Empire functions on a 360 degree compass and is strictly two dimensional. The major bearings are illustrated as follow; 315 0 45 \ | / \|/ 270----*----90 /|\ / | \ 225 180 135 BEARING - Bearing is always used to indicate where a particular ship or planet is in relation to you. It is relative to the direction you are facing and expressed in a number from -180 to +180. If a object is bearing -90, it is to the left of you, if +90 it is to the right of you, if 0 it is directly in front of you, and if - or + 180 it is directly behind you. HEADING - Heading is the relative direction of the other ship. It is used to indicate when a ship is facing toward or away from you. A heading of 0 means the ship is facing toward you, while a heading of 180 is away from you. GALACTIC HEADING - This is the absolute heading in the galaxy. A galactic heading of 0 means you (or the other ship) is facing north up. WORMHOLES - Wormholes are fairly rare galactic anomalies caused by a paired spatial singularity. The effect it to create a means of "leaping" across the galaxy to another sector. To navigate through a wormhole you must carefully approach it directly at about 1/4 impulse. You will be pulled into the wormhole and emerge at the terminal sector. If you approach too fast you will simply miss the event horizon. If you approach too slow you may oscillate between terminal sectors. Each time you pass through a wormhole some damage to systems may occur. Passing through a wormhole while severely damaged is not recommended. Wormholes are usually by-directional but an even rarer form of one way wormhole has been speculated to exist. The NAV command can be used to assist with inter-sector navigation. It will always produce a direction and distance to the upper-left corner of a sector. 5.0 Owning Planets In order to build up wealth you must colonize planets and maintain them. Planets are claimed by simply going into orbit around one and using the ADMIN command. You should be choosy at first about which planets you put a population on, as surviving on a poor planet can be very difficult and require frequent supply runs. Planets are rated on two factors, resources, and environment, with the following categories, POOR, MARGINAL, GOOD, and VERY GOOD. The resources factor rates the natural resources of the planet. A rating of good or very good will insure that your population has plenty of natural resources to use in the establishment of the colony, and the manufacture of goods. The environment factor rates the hospitality of the planet and how difficult it will be for a colony to survive. A rating of good, or very good, will insure that the majority of their efforts go toward producing goods and not simply surviving. Once you have claimed a planet you need to establish a population on it. This is done with the TRANSFER command to shuttle items from your ship to the planet. Once a colony is established they become an somewhat independent society. Anything you transfer to the planet belongs to them, you cannot transfer it back. If you wish to retrieve items from a planet you must purchase them from the planet at the base price. It is a good idea to leave some additional items on a planet besides men. They are; FOOD - If you fail to leave food on the planet you will find your men and troops all dead when you return next time. It is a good idea to leave a case for each 10 men & troops you have. TROOPS - Troops are mercenaries who produce nothing but serve to defend your planet from outside attacks, and squelch social unrest. They must be fed well, and will fight to the death when attacked. FIGHTERS - Fighters will defend your planet from both ground troop invasions and fighter attacks. They provide a primary defense force for your planet. Your troops will not be called into action unless the fighters are all destroyed. ION CANNON - This is a large defensive cannon which will attack any hostile ship that is in orbit around your planet. It will fire once every few seconds, and can destroy a ship in just a few blasts. An attacking ship won't stay long with an ion cannon firing upon them. You can have multiple ion cannons, but only one will be active at a time. There are several other factors you may adjust when you establish a planet. When the planet is first established your colony is instructed to divide their efforts evenly between the manufacture of food and the pro-creation of population (an ardous chore to be sure) You may wish to alter this to provide for the production of supplies or let your planet grow at maximum rate, its up to you. Additionally, you can tax your planet at a specific rate. The harsher the tax the less the productivity. Tax is your principle source of income for purchasing supplies for your ship. This tax is kept in the planetary bank until you arrive to collect it. The higher the taxes the more social unrest there is likely to be. Troops must be maintained to keep the social discontent from becoming a full scale revolt. Your colony will produce all the supplies you need for your ship if managed properly. These goods are cheapest at your own planets as Zygor charges three times the base rate for goods. The cash you spend on supplies goes into the planetary bank and is used to purchase more raw materials when the Inter-galactic supply ships come around. You can decide to sell supplies to other players if you like, and even mark up the price to other players. If you wish to be selective in who can purchase from your planets you can establish a trade password for your planet and only those who know the password can buy from you. This is also useful in establishing an alliance with other players where you all would set your planets to the same password and agree on the price to charge each other. Non-members will be excluded from trading with your alliance. Remember that the better your planet, the more attractive it is to marauders. Nothing can take the place of a well rounded defense system and frequent supply runs. Leaving a planet un-checked for more than a few days may spell disaster for your colony. 6.0 Game Strategy Your ship is equipped with nothing when you first enter the game, you are not in any eminent danger as sector 0 0 is a neutral zone. You are provided with an interceptor and an amount of cash with which you must decide what you are going to do. On Zygor you can purchase shield systems, phaser systems, missiles, torpedoes, fighters, decoys, and ion cannons. Note: some of these may not be available or useful on some ship classes (see HELP CLASS for more information). On Tahanian Station you can purchase colonists (men), troops, and food. Your first goal should be to secure an income for yourself, and therefore provide a source for taxes you will need to expand your empire, and keep your ships fully stocked. To do this you should purchase men, troops, food, and some fighters. Locate as good a planet as you can find and colonize it. It is advisable that you steer clear of other ships unless you know they are friendly. An alternative, albeit somewhat immoral, strategy is to purchase weapons and lie waiting for other ships to leave sector 0 0. When they do mount an attack and upon destroying their ship, gain what remains of the supplies on their ship. After several successful attacks you may have enough to colonize a planet or two. When you do colonize a planet you should redirect the majority of the effort to producing men, food, and troops, and gaining cash with which you can purchase larger and more powerful ships and expand your empire. Remember, these are only a couple suggested strategies, and others are only limited by your imagination. 7.0 Battle Strategy The flexibility of Galactic Empire precludes an exhaustive discussion of all the strategies involved in user versus user battling. Some suggestions are simply put forth here to get you started. When in a potential battle situation make sure your shields are up, and keep moving. The easiest target is a ship with shields down, sitting still. If your ship has a cloaking system, use it sparingly as it consumes incredible amounts of energy. It is most useful in covering a retreat. If you have incoming torpedoes you can ditch them easily by making a jump to light speed. This does not work for missiles though. Launching decoys does not guarantee that the incoming missiles or torpedoes will be destroyed. Launching more decoys than incoming weapons increases the chance of destroying an incoming weapon. When launching an attack try to get close to the target and use the faster torpedoes as they will have less time to react. If a target goes to light speed be prepared to make the jump with him and use Hyper-Phasers as soon as you pass warp 1. If you get hit with a Hyper-Phaser immediately go into a series of 180 degree high speed turns as your opponent will have difficulty locating you. Go out of light speed in another sector and immediately cloak (if you have a cloaking system) as a last ditch effort to loose your pursuers. Form alliances to help protect each other from marauders. Remember two ships are twice as powerful as one. When you are under attack you cannot EXIT the game to avoid your attackers. If you hang-up while you are under attack your ship will be destroyed. Remember "Death before Dishonor"!! If you are damaged try to make it back to sector 0 0 or to one of your own planets where you can get your ship repaired with the MAINT command. Remember the cost for everything is much more expensive in Sector 0 0. When you kill another ship you will get some of his goods on his ship. This can be very helpful when you are running low. When you want to find another player in hyper space use the SCAN RA command if the player is close or SCAN LO if the player is far away. The long range scanner will tell you where another player is in the galaxy. 8.0 Planetary Battles Planets can defend themselves with troops, fighters, and ion cannons. If you have no troops or fighters then your planet can be easily overrun. FIGHTERS are Nova Class Battle Fighters commanded by a fully automated tactical computer. They have inboard and outboard photon cannons capable of powerful and deadly offensive and defensive attacks. When pitted against troops the fighter is deadly, capable of taking out between 10 and 50 troops in a pass. When pitted against other fighters they are fairly evenly matched. TROOPS are trained mercenaries, and serve no other function than the defense or attack on a planet. The consume food, maintain there skills, and mostly play cards. But when needed they will fight to the death. ION CANNONS are the very powerful fixed focus, ion-plasma transmitters, capable of taking out a Star Class ship with only a few strikes. They are strictly defensive weapons controlled by a fully automated system. When the planet comes under attack they will automatically locate the attacker and commence firing upon the ship. When attacking a planet you are always at a disadvantage, as the local troops and fighters are better supported and fresh. Knowing this you should always plan on commencing a battle with superior numbers. Begin with a fighter attack. If they have no fighters you will overpower the troops rather quickly. If they have fighters you will be in a better position to do battle. After each wave your fighters or troops will return to your ship. If you wish to send them back you can do so. Remember, you will not take a planet so long as 1 fighter or 1 squad of troops (5) exists on the planet. 9.0 Cyborgs and Cybertrons Cyborgs are a race of automatons which are bent on the destruction of all humans from the universe. They command a class of ship manufactured specifically for them, the Cybertron. Both pilot and ship function as a single fighting unit and they can be quite deadly. The Cybertron is armed with phasers, and torpedoes, but has no missile capability. They can be deadly in hyper space with hyper-phasers, but cannot recycle the phaser as fast as most other ships. Cybertrons are prone to battle failure, and they will malfunction occasionally. This is often noted by strange transmissions from their ship. When attacked the Cybertron may summon other Cyborg Class ships to aid in the battle. If a Cybertron gets damaged too much they may launch jammers to cover a retreat. Be careful as they may often mine an area prior to leaving. Finally, Cybertrons will not attack interceptors and freighters unless first provoked, so don't mess with them unless you know what you are doing. 10.0 Scoring The Score Board is updated in real time and each night, during the nightly cleanup of the system. Scores are based upon the size of your empire and the number and class of kills you have accumulated is ship to ship combat. Each class of ship is worth a different number of points as detailed below; Interceptor 10 Light Freighter 25 Heavy Freighter 75 Destroyer 150 Star Cruiser 200 Battle Cruiser 250 Frigate 300 Dreadnought 500 Freight Barge 200 Cybertron Scout 75 Cybertron Battle Cruiser 200 Additionally you are awarded as a bonus, a small percentage of the killed players score on top of the ship points. Finally, when you kill another player, his score goes down also. This means that you can actually knock him down on the top player list making it easier to overtake him (or pass him further). While you can quickly gain a good score with points gained from ship to ship combat, over the long haul the scoring system awards the highest scores to players who create planetary empires and manage them well. 11.0 Commands All commands can be abbreviated to 3 characters for speed. Most commands have a full explanation displayed if they are entered with no options or improperly. 11.1 ABANDON - Abandon a planet previously claimed The abandon command will release ownership of a planet previously claimed. You must be in orbit around the planet to be abandoned. Issue the abandon command as follows; abandon simple enough. 11.2 ABORT - Abort a self destruct sequence This command will abort a self destruct sequence. 11.3 ADMIN - claim and administer a planet once in orbit. This command is used to claim and administer a planet. If the planet is un-owned then you will be asked if you wish to settle it; Do you wish to settle this planet, Sir! (y/n)? ---> If you respond YES then you own the planet and will be prompted; The Protocol Officer requests an appropriate name for the planet Sir, (20 characters max) ---> Once you declare a name you can now adjust your policies with the ADMINISTRATION MENU. Planet Administration Menu ----------------------------------- 1 - Get accounting report 2 - Collect taxes ($) 3 - Alter work assignments and adjust trade policy/pricing 4 - Rename planet 5 - Adjust Tax Rate 6 - Set Trade Password 7 - Set Beacon Message x - Exit to command mode Please Select (1 - 6) ---> 1 - Displays a full accounting report on the planet as follows; Planet Accounting report for Cyclops 1 -------------------------------------- Item Rate Qty Price Resv S Mkup Sold men 50 1911 2 10000 N 10 0 missiles 0 25 20 100 N 0 20 torpedoes 0 7 7 100 N 0 1 ion cannons 0 0 33 100 N 0 0 flux pods 0 0 200 100 N 0 0 food cases 10 790 2 1000 N 50 0 fighters 40 17 50 1000 N 100 41 decoys 0 12 18 100 N 0 0 troops 0 100 1 100 N 0 0 jammers 0 0 50 100 N 0 0 zippers 0 0 50 100 N 0 0 mines 0 0 50 100 N 0 0 -------------------------------------- Cash in Planetary Bank ..... 266 Tax Revenue ................ 2229 Tax Rate ................... 50 Trade password.............. none -------------------------------------- "Rate" is the percentage of the effort of the population being put into the production of this item. The total of all items cannot exceed 100%. "Qty" is the number on hand. "Price" is the base price set by the Galactic Command. You cannot charge any less than this amount. This is also the price charged to the "owner" of this planet for each good (explained further below). "Resv" is the number of each item to reserve for the use of the population or the "owner". Your colonists will only sell what is in excess of this amount. "S" is the flag indicating whether this good is for sale at all. A "N" indicates that it is not for sale, while a "Y" means that it is. "Mkup" is the amount over the price to charge for each item. The "owner" will not be charged the marked up price, only other players. "Sold" is the quantity of the item sold. "Cash in Planetary Bank" is cash that has been paid for goods sold. This cash is not available to the owner as it belongs to the colonists. They will use it to purchase raw materials from Galactic Command Supply Ships. Having a cash surplus enhances the production of goods. "Tax revenue" is the amount of taxes collected from the colonists. This amount is available to the "owner" and can be collected with selection #2. "Tax Rate" is the percentage of tax being assessed on the colonists. The higher the tax the more tax revenue collected, but the lower the production of the colonists. A tax rate of 100% will assess a 1 C tax per person per day. Example: in the above display there are 1911 colonists, and a tax rate of 50%. This will generate 955 C's each day. "Trade Password" is the password you have set with selection #6. This password will be asked of anyone before they can buy any goods. It is also asked prior to permitting a ship to get repairs at your planet. If set to "none" then no password will be required. 2 - Will permit you to collect taxes from the planetary bank and place them on your ship. The Galactic Command recommends you do this often as an attacker will gain all the taxes if they overtake your planet. 3 - Will permit you to adjust your policies concerning a given item. When selected the following menu is displayed; Select the item to adjust ---------------------------- men = adjust men mis = adjust missiles tor = adjust torpedoes ion = adjust ion cannons flu = adjust flux pods foo = adjust food fig = adjust fighters dec = adjust decoys tro = adjust troops zip = adjust zippers jam = adjust jammers min = adjust mines ---------------------------- Select now --> Select an item to adjust and you will be prompted; Select the percentage of effort toward men. ---> Select an amount between 0 and 100 percent. Remember if you already have assigned most of the activity you may need to first reduce an item before increasing one. Charge how much for Men. ---> Enter the amount to charge to other ships, if you are not going to sell this can be 0. Sell men to other ships? (y/n) ---> Enter Y if you wish to permit anyone (yourself included) to purchase goods from this planet, enter N if not. Reserve how many men for stock piling ---> Enter an amount of goods to reserve for yourself, or the planet. This is useful in preventing another ship from purchasing too many goods (such as fighters) and endangering the colony. 4 - Will permit you to change the name of the planet. You will be prompted; The Protocol Officer requests an appropriate name for the planet Sir, (20 characters max) ---> 5 - Will permit you to set the tax rate to charge the colonists, you will be prompted as follows; Enter the new TAX rate (0 - 100) ---> A tax rate of 0 will entice the colonists to produce as much as possible, while a tax rate of 100% will reduce their productivity to 20% of full production. 6 - Will prompt you for the new trade password as follows; Enter the new password "team" or "none" ---> If you enter the word "team" the planet becomes a team planet and any member of your current team can trade with your planet. If you change teams later you MUST change the password to "team" AGAIN as this is when the team ID is read and recorded. If you enter the word "none" there will be no trade password in effect. Any other word will become the trade password. This is useful for creating alliances as all the members of an alliance can set their password to the same word and all can trade and get repairs from each other. 7 - Will set a beacon message that is broadcast to all ships who come within range of your planet. X - Will return you to command mode. 11.4 ATTACK - Attack a planet with Fighters or Troops Issue the Attack command as follows; attack [] [tro/fig] number = number of troops or fighters to attack with; tro = send troops to the surface. fig = send fighters to the surface. Examples: attack 100 tro attack 30 fighters Provided you have sufficient fighters or troops to send to the planet the battle will commence, you will see a blow by blow report of the progress of the battle. After the attack, and provided there are any survivors, your remaining forces will return to the ship. You can then decide to attack again, or lick your wounds and go away. If the planet has an Ion Cannon then any hostilities will trigger the ion cannon to fire. The Ion Cannon will continue to fire so long as you are in orbit. Should your attacking forces meet little or no resistance than you will conquer the planet and its goods, funds, and civilization is yours. TIP: Match fighters against fighters and troops against troops. If fighters are present on the planet, begin with a fighter attack until the fighters are knocked out. Then proceed with a ground assault using troops. Pitting troops against fighters will yield disappointing results. 11.5 BUY - Buy goods or colonists from a planet The Buy command will permit you to purchase goods from one of your own planets or another players planet. Issue the Buy command as follows; buy [] [men/tro/mis/tor/ion/flu/foo/fig/dec/min/jam/zip/gol] [] number = the number you want to buy. men = buy men tro = buy troops mis = buy missiles tor = buy torpedoes ion = buy ion cannons flu = buy flux pods foo = buy food fig = buy fighters dec = buy decoys min = buy mines jam = buy jammers zip = buy zippers gol = buy gold password = optional trade password may be required by planet. examples: buy 1000 men buy 3 ion buy 500 foo drowssap All goods put onboard your ship must be purchased, or if permitted, transferred up. The cash will go towards improving the general conditions of the population. Additionally the population will use the cash to purchase more supplies and increase its production levels. 11.6 CLOAK - Turn on or off the cloaking system The Cloak command will turn on or off the cloaking system, if your ship is equipped. The cloaking system consumes large amounts of power and you should be careful not to drain all your energy pool. Due to the time it takes to charge the ST-Coils there is a few seconds of delay before the ship actually becomes invisible. Issue the command as; Cloak [ON/OFF] Example: cloak on cloak off 11.7 CLS - Clear the screen using ANSI Clear Screen Sequence. The CLS command is useful if your screen becomes cluttered and you want to clear it. 11.8 DECOY - deploy a decoy The Decoy command deploys a single decoy. Decoys proceed away from your ship and send a sensor signature that resembles your ship. If a torpedo or missile comes near the decoy the decoy will explode and destroy the inbound weapon. The decoy will self destruct after a period of time to prevent stray decoys floating around in your navigation path. 11.9 DESTRUCT - Start the self destruct sequence The Destruct command will begin a self destruct countdown timer that when it reaches zero will destroy your ship. The countdown can be aborted with the ABORT command. 11.10 FLUX - Load a new flux pod into the neutron engines The Flux command will replace an exhausted Flux Pod from the energy pool with a new one. This command presumes that you want it changed now, and does not warn you if there is still a good percentage of power left in the old pod. The old pod is jettisoned. Your power is restored to full charge automatically. 11.11 FREQ - Sets the communications channel frequency The freq command permits you to specify the channels you want your ships communication system set to. Issue the freq command as follows; freq [] [hail/] = Your communications channel A, B, or C as set by the FREQ command. hail = Sets the channel to accept all hailing messages. = The frequency to set this channel to. examples: freq A 12345 freq b hail freq c 23221 note: Channel frequencies above 20000 are converted to hyper space modulation packets and transmitted through hyper space. Channel frequencies below 20000 are transmitted in the current star system only. 11.12 HELP - Display help information Issue the help command as follows; help [/] Commands: abandon abort admin attack buy cloak cls decoy destruct flux freq help impulse jammer maintenance mine missile new orbit phaser planet price rename report roster rotate scan send set shield torpedo transfer warp zipper Topics : battle class communicate cybertron galaxy navigate planets scoring sector starting strategy The Help command will display a vast amount of information on Galactic Empire. 11.13 IMPULSE - Engage the impulse engines The Impulse command directs your impulse (sub-light) engines and sets your course and speed. Issue the Impulse command as follows; impulse [] [] speed = the impulse speed between 0 and 99 (99 is .99 light speed) heading = the heading from your current direction Examples: impulse 5 0 would alter the speed to impulse 5 and not change the heading. impulse 10 5 would alter the speed to impulse 10 and turn the ship 5 degrees to the starboard (right). impulse 10 355 would alter the speed to impulse 10 and turn the ship 5 degrees to the port (left). 11.14 JAM - Launch a Jammer The jammer command will cause a jammer device to be launched. It disrupts all scanner systems on all ships within range of the device, yours included. It is useful for covering an escape or distracting an opponent. Issue the jammer command as follows; Jammer Simple enough! 11.145 JETTESON - Jetteson some or all of an item type The JET command allows you to dump some or all of a given item. This frees up cargo space for other items. Issue the command as follows; jettison [ALL/] [men/tro/mis/tor/ion/flu/foo/fig/dec/min/jam] examples: jettison ALL ion jettison 500 foo 11.15 LOCK - Lock fire control on a particular ship The Lock command permits you to lock your fire control systems onto a specific ship no matter what its letter designation changes to. As long as the ship is within scanner range the fire control systems will remain locked onto that specific ship. This is extremely useful when in heated battle and multiple ships are in the vicinity. Ship letter designated -A- may become -B- or -C- as other ships move closer to you. The Lock command permits you to stay locked on to the ship as distances and letter designates change. Commands like MISSILE and TORPEDO can be then be used with the Lock option to fire on the ship you have locked onto. Issue the Lock command as follows; lock [] -or- lock examples: lock A would lock onto the closest ship. lock B would lock onto the second closest ship. lock would cause the lock to be released. Note: Once a ship is killed the lock is released automatically. 11.16 MAINTENANCE - Requests maintenance from a planet. The Maintenance command functions when you are in orbit at your own planet or Zygor. The maintenance crews will start repairing your ship and charge you a nominal fee of 200c's at your own planet and 2500c's at Zygor. Leaving orbit early will cease all repairs on the ship. 11.17 MINE - Launch a Neutron Mine The MINE command causes a neutron mine to be deposited at your current location. You specify how long until detonation permitting you time to leave the spot for safety. Mines are useful when you are being tailed by another ship. Beware that they are very powerful and you can also be damaged by them if you don't get far enough away. Issue the MINE command as follows; mine [