Stellar Emperor FAQ v0.14 General Gameplay What is Stellar Emperor? The galaxy awaits a conqueror in Kesmai's Stellar Emperor. Thousands of solar systems sleep, unexplored, as your scout relentlessly scours the stars for the suitable candidates for mining and colonization. Exploration done, your colony ships arrive to establish planetary bases in an attempt to build the most prosperous economic empire. But wealth breeds jealousy, and soon you are engaged in wars of conquest as well as fights for survival. Stellar Emperor features real-time ship-to-ship combat in which battles range from individual duels to large pitched battles for control of the colonial worlds. In addition to skill in flight, captains must also be skilled in the management of their colonial economies. Whether the colony is to become an economic power, a defended fortress or a base for staging assaults on neighboring worlds is the choice of their founder. The production of advanced military hardware is only possible by wise management of planetary assets. Battleships are only built by the most advanced colonial shipyards. Captains must form alliances for protection and for war. The most powerful will seek to expand their domain and plunder the wealth of the galaxy. Once successfully captured, a colony's owner will need their allies still, as a newly conquered colony is the weakest. When the war is ended, the leader of the most prosperous alliance in the galaxy is crowned Emperor. Stellar Emperor comes from a long heritage of Kesmai multiplayer game development. It is a direct descendant of the game MegaWars III, with which Kesmai pioneered multi-player gaming on consumer networks in 1982. How long does a War run? A War runs for four weeks exactly. What if I enter a War late? Entering a War after the first few days is perfectly allowable, but may put you at a disadvantage to those who began building colonies right from the beginning. If you wish to win the game, try to get in early. Wars will be started frequently in order to allow everyone to enter a game from the outset. As demand rises, Wars will begin more and more frequently. All Wars will last four weeks from their start date. Do I have to play on a team to compete effectively? That depends on what you mean by compete effectively. If you wish to be the Stellar Emperor, you will almost certainly have to be on a team. If you wish to win the title of Warlord, you may be able to do so working alone. Teams certainly have an advantage in many areas: mutual defense, scouting, planetary attacks, etc. but if you simply wish to have fun, flying solo may be all you ever need. How do I get a ship? A Scout ship is always available to you for free at any of the four Imperial Bases. In addition, you may choose to switch to any of your own ships produced by your own shipyards. From the main menu, click on the third option to select a ship. If this is your first time in the War, you will be asked to name your ship (this will be your handle in the game). You will then be asked to place it at one of the four Imperial Bases, or you may choose to have it placed randomly among them. Once you have finished registering your ship, you will be returned to the main menu. How do I start flying? Simply click the fourth button on the main menu to take your ship into flight. The Flight Interface will appear, with the Galaxy Map overlaid on top. Hit Escape to remove the Galaxy Map from view. If you have just obtained a Scout from the Empire, you will be in orbit around an Imperial base. Otherwise, you will be where you were when you last exited the game. Everything on the screen is clickable, and many things are right-clickable. Experiment to get a feel for the interface. The circle in the upper left is the navigation wheel. You can click on the outer circle to change your direction. The bar third down from the top left is the velocity gauge; click on that to set your speed. How do I orbit a planet? Just click on the planet and then click the ENTER ORBIT button that appears to the left. How do I fight? When you click on a suitable target (another ship, missile or probe), the buttons on the left will reflect the appropriate combat choices. The faster you fire your lasers, the less time they have to recharge, and the weaker they are. When you fire a torpedo, you must reload by clicking on the inner ring of the circle in the upper right. The middle ring of the circle on the upper left shows your shields, with green meaning intact, yellow meaning damaged, and red meaning critical. The inner ring of the upper left circle uses the same colors to reflect your hull damage. How do I start a colony? When you are in orbit of a suitable planet, select the BASE option under the COMMANDS menu. One of the buttons that then appears will say COLONIZE. Click this, and you will start a new colony. "How do I establish a colony?" Orbit the planet. Press F7 then click colonize. What is considered a good planet to colonize? 1. A planet with a 90+HAB and 90+MET rating. Later in the war you might have to settle for lesser planets. 2. A planet with no colony. This means no people even if the planet is unowned. How do I improve my colony? You must do that back at the menus you saw at the beginning of the game. To get back to the menu, enter the orbit of a planet and type END. How do I get a ship if my old one is destroyed? Anytime your ship is destroyed, you may get a free Scout ship from the Empire, using the same procedure you used to get your first ship. If you have built a new ship in one of your colonies' shipyards, you may elect to take one of those, instead. How do I get a better ship? You have to build one in one of your shipyards. The Empire only makes Scout ships available for free. To build one in your shipyards, you need to allocate labor and engineers to your shipyards, allocate enough mining labor to produce the necessary building materials, and set your shipyard duties to the ship type you want produced. After that, it is a matter of time, and protecting your colony from attack long enough to build the ship you want. What can I buy with money? Money can buy ship repairs at the IMP and open team bases. They can also buy missiles and torps at the same. How do I form a team? How do I join an existing one? If you wish to form a team, simply go to the Main Menu (not in flight) and select the Alliances button. Click the button to send an invitation to another player and fill in the appropriate ship number. This will send a message to that player asking if he wants to join your alliance. If he accepts, you have begun an alliance. If you wish to join an alliance, you must either receive an invitation from another player or send a request to the leader of another team, using the appropriate choice on the Alliance menu. Either way, once you have joined or formed an Alliance, you will have access to the Alliance functions on this menu, and your team score will be available from the Mail/Scores menu. How do I attack a planet? To attack a planet, you must transport Fighters to that planet and send them into combat against the planetary defense guns on the surface. Once the fighters achieve air superiority, continued attacks will result in the destruction of industry, and the deaths of enemy troops and population. Generally, however, once air superiority is achieved, the fighters are used to ferry your troops down to the planet surface to finish the conquest and occupy the base. You attack a base by giving the ATTack command (enter ATT on the command line while in orbit of the planet). This sends down your fighters. An attack always takes 10 seconds. After entering the ATTack command, the message "Attack in progress..." will be displayed. Following the attack, you will be told of the results. Once air superiority is achieved, the base can be OCCupied (enter OCC on the command line, while in orbit of the planet). The OCCupy command sends troops down to the surface of the planet in your fighter ships. Each fighter carries 8 troops in addition to its 2 pilots. When you OCCupy, you will be told of the effect of your troops in surface fighting. If the populace no longer resists, they may accept you as their leader, and you will have a new planetary base as a colony. Of course, this means that the first thing you must do is defend it against its previous owner! How do I win? There are several different ways to win a war, depending on what you wish to accomplish and which title you are trying for. -- The title of Warlord of the Galaxy is awarded to the player with the highest adjusted combat score. If you are trying for this title, you should make sure that you have a steady supply of good fighting ships and armaments. -- The title of Ravager of the Galaxy is awarded to the player who has taken the most planets (bases). If you are trying for this title, you should make sure that you have a steady supply of Fighters and ships to transport them, in addition to plenty of occupying troops. -- The title of President of the Galaxy is awarded to the player with the highest individual score. If you are trying for this title, you will need to be good at planetary management. -- The title of Emperor of the Galaxy, or the Stellar Emperor, is awarded to the leader of the team with the highest team score. If you are trying for this title, you will have to be able to coordinate a winning team. Where do I deposit my tax money? You can deposit the tax money at any of the four Imperial Bases. You can find the IMPs on the galaxy map . Alt-G Technical What kind of system do I need to run it? At present, the minimum system is: 486DX66 running Windows 95 8 MB RAM Mouse or other pointing device 20 MB HD space 9600 baud Hayes-compatible modem Standard keyboard Recommended system is: Pentium 60 or faster running Windows 95 16MB of RAM Mouse or other pointing device 20 MB Hard drive space Soundblaster-compatible sound card PCI Video Card with 2MB+ of video RAM 14.4k+ baud Hayes-compatible modem Standard keyboard Does it run on Windows 3.11? Not at this time. A Win311 version is planned. Does it run on a MacIntosh or PowerPC? No. At the time of this writing, only Windows- compatible versions are planned. What does multiplayer mean? Multiplayer games allow users from all over the world to connect to a single game and compete against each other in a shared environment. Stellar Emperor can handle hundreds of simultaneous players in a single galaxy. I get a `emperorKDTT==NULL' message when I try to enter the game. Delete the game and its directory and reinstall the game. In addition, make sure that the helper app you set up in Netscape points NOT to the Emperor executable but to the KLNCH32.EXE located in your WINDOWS directory It says `No base established' when I tried to establish a colony. What happened? Either one of two things. 1. The planet has no HAB or MET rating. 2. There is a colony already there. Use the Planet Survey feature to check. I get a fseek error when I am in the game. How can I fix this.? Go to the bugs section of the newsgroup and look for the subject `fseek error' I uploaded a file named Emperor.cfg. Place this file in your Emperor directory. Make sure you have the latest version of this file. I will try up upload a new copy with each new front end. When I try to enter the game I get a `Product Monitor Denies Access', what is this? This happens when the host thinks you already have a ship in the game. It can be caused by you being booted while in flight. Under normal circumstances the host will reset your ship in 10 mins. THE FRONT END Gameplay Now that I am at the IMP how do I deposit my money? You must be orbiting the IMP. Next make sure you are in `Command mode' and enter the command . BAN . To withdraw fund use the command . BAN - How do I refuel? You can refuel a ship several ways. 1. You can refuel your ship at your base, an open team base, or an IMP. Once in orbit bring up the ship buttons (F3 or click left green circle), select "Dry Dock" then select "Repair Ship". If your ship is damaged or has its shields down, you may need money to Repair (refuel) at a base that is not your own. 2. Find a gas giant and scoop up Hydrogen. Use the Geology keys to check for a gas giant (usually orange). If a planet has over 40% hydrogen you can refuel there. Just orbit the planet and type SCO at the command line. 3. If you are in a scout, just get a new fully loaded scout at one of the IMP bases. "How can I turn off the GNN?" Click the large button at the bottom until it says `Radio CH C' then click . Tune . and enter 0 for the new frequency. "Why does the Users list more players than actually show using the Ships in Flight function?" Users include all players in the game including those in the menu area. "How do I communicate with other players? Every time that I typed a message and clicked send. The game gave me a `command not understood' error." There is two ways to send a message. 1. Have the bottom button on Command and enter your message in the following format... a/ 2. Have the bottom button say Radio CH A Freq 1. If you are in this mode you only need to type and hit return. "How do I get out of the radio room?" You can either exit to the menu area or enter the game from the radio room. To exit the game bring the communications window down . ALT-G . then hit . F3 . and click . Exit Ship. To enter the game make sure you are in command mode then use the command . FLY "All I see is numbers. Is there any way to display the name of the person on the com line?" No there isn't. You can get a listing of the players currently in the game by hitting . F3 . then click .Ships in Flight. "I cannot fire my torpedoes. All I get is a `target not acquired' message" This is called the targeting bug. It normally affects only your torpedoes, missiles and lasers should still work. My suggestion is avoid fighting that one ship. This bug normally affects only a few of your targets. "When in heated combat I sometimes enter too many commands in the buffer. How can I clear the commands that I have sent previously?" When you are in `Command mode' you can hit the . `-` . key several times. This will send a clear buffer message to the host. Technical "Sometimes I see two lasers coming from my ship. How do I know that I am hitting the correct ship?" This bug will be fixed in the future. Check your status window (bottom right) to see who your lasers are hitting. "Someone said that my ship number was not being displayed on my com messages. How do I fix this?" Exit the game and close the front end. Reentering the game has fixed this in the past. "I have found the manual commands but some of them don't work." All manual commands (command mode) will be going away in the future. Some have been turned off already. "When I type I cannot see what I am typing. What is up?" Check your display setting, it should be set to small fonts. "I know I have a ship at this base of mine but it won't let me get out of this transport!" This button command is broken. You will have to use the manual command from command mode. The format for the command is . DRY . where ship type can be SC, DD, CR, TR, BC or BS. "I destroyed a ship in the starspace, there was no music and no kill was added to my score." This is caused by the `no number bug'. Exit the game and close the front end. Reentering the game has fixed this in the past. Once back in check with other players to see if you number is showing up in your com. PLANETARY MANAGEMENT Gameplay "How do I manage my planets?" I would suggest you read the help file included with the front end. Also, get the PM Help file in the newsgroup called Pitchnomics. Its a good idea to fully read Pitchonomics. If you want a quick start, begin reading at the PM Stages section of the manual. This manual will be rewritten once all the PM screens are completed. "My people are leaving and there is looting in the streets. How do I stop this? If you are having any of the following problems...read this... 1. Population going down 2. Metal Stock going down 3. Looting There are signs of a very serious PM problem. If you selected your planet well (80H 80M Minimum) you should be able to correct these problem. Here is the labor settings you should try first. Agriculture 4% (With a metal shortage never try Special K) Mining - Set to what Mining Capacity is Eng - 3.5% Arms - 1.0% Shipyards - 0.0% for now Housing - Subtract your setting above from 100% After 4 hours check your planet to see if you metal stock is increasing and if the population is coming back. If your metal stock increase is greater than your population increase. It would be safe to move some labor from housing to shipyards. First try to set your shipyards at half the available capacity (take the labor from housing). Your Engineering Construction Effort should be as below. Use these settings for 24 hours...After that move 20 - 25% from mining to shipyards if you wish. Mining - 40% Engineering - 60% Technical "I am getting an illegal syntax error in the PM menu area." Make sure the large button at the bottom of the screen says `Command' instead of `Radio.'. Clicking this button should cycle you through the radio channels so you can get to the right mode. "I have tried several times to update my settings in the labor area but they won't stick" Try this. When you are in the labor area only work on once column at a time (labor or Engineering Construction Effort). Enter the figures you want in the labor column. Click the level button on the right then click the level button on the left and then click the Update button. Look for a "base updated" message. Next go back to the labor menu and this time enter the figures you want in the Engineering Construction Effort column. Click the level button on the right then click the level button on the left and then click the Update button. Look for a "base updated" message. Some say they don't have to do this but it seems to work for me. "My assigned labor settings on the economic report is different than what I just set it." You may see a slight decrease in all your settings. This is due to a bug which does not include government workers in the 100% calculation. They are take out after you update your planet. This will be fixed. My suggestion is to use a slightly higher (0.50% more) mining and engineering setting to make sure you will be covered. ALLIANCES Gameplay "I cannot send a message to my alliance from the alliance menu" Try using the message function in the Mail/Score area. Also make sure you are in command mode when you are in the radio area. Technical "I can't join an alliance. I am typing `Y' at the invitation message but it always says I declined" Make sure the large button at the bottom of the screen says `Command' instead of `Radio.'. Clicking this button should cycle you through the radio channels so you can get to the right mode.