Galaxy on Fire: Alliances

Transcription

1 Galaxy on Fire: Alliances A Guide Galaxy on Fire is a trademark of Deep Silver FISHLABS. 1

2 Starting New When you start the game for the first time you are presented with a screen to select your commander and species. Each of the species has its differences with the gender only affecting the appearance of your commander icon, but having no other gameplay influence whatsoever. The Terran race builds structures, ships, marines, spy drones and techs 5% cheaper and faster. The Nivelian race builds structures 10% cheaper and faster. The Vossk race builds ships 10% cheaper and faster. There are three main categories of gameplay that you can think of right away: farming, fighting and balanced. The best thing to do is to ask yourself under which of these would you see fit. If you think of yourself as a farmer, a Nivelian might be the right choice. If you are going to fight a lot, Vossk has the upper hand in getting back in battle. The Terran has a nice all-around type if you are undecided. After you have picked the gender and the race, you are ready for your journey as a Commander in the Shroud Nebula. Navigation I. Planet View Now that you have chosen your gender and race, you are presented to the planet view. The system where you start has three planets, one occupied by you, one by a Non-Player Controlled character and one empty planet. The Planet View is likely to be the place you will see more often than any other. Yo will notice at the top of the screen, on the side and in the bottom-left corner a couple of buttons. Let's see what they do. The buttons open up the following: 1. Planet List: provides an overview on the current status of your planets and the amount of ships, troops, spy drones and resources on them; it also shows warnings for incoming attacks and the time until the attacker arrives 2. Manage Fleet: gives you full control of your fleets, showing every carrier built, color of the artifact(s) it is equipped with (if applicable), the amount of ships on it as well as its maximum holding capacity, the cargo space as well as the current status of its action 3. Messages: shows the messages you sent or received from players, provides access to the alliance message board if you are part of one and shows you all the mission, spy and battle reports 4. Alliance: provides basic information about the members, such as their numbers, rankings, shows alliance invitations and applications as well as diplomacy offers* *Not all features may be available to you depending on your rank inside the alliance 5. Bookmarks: stores the planets you saved for yourself, made known to the alliance and to you by the alliance as well as the attack and defense calls made by you or your alliance 6. Leaderboards: you can check how your and your alliance's stats compare to everyone else's 7. Game Settings: basic info about the game and access to options for sound and notifications 8. Shop: game's store for credits, bundles and booster 2

3 9. Commander Menu: provides an overview on your stats (level, ships, planets), items you own (blueprints, limit extenders, artifacts) and skills 10. Tutorial*: you get familiarized with the basics by completing a couple of introductory missions 11. Structures: shows a list of the structures you have built on your planet, the number of available free slots and buttons to access more options and info from them 12. System/Galaxy View: leads to the planet menu when you press it once, the system view when you press it twice and the full galaxy view when you press it twice, with a focus on the system you are at moment II. Tutorial* It is recommended that you follow the tutorial missions to not only get familiarized with the game and its interface, but to also get some nice rewards in terms of XP and Credits you can use to speedup certain actions later on. They are missions to get you familiar with how you can build or upgrade a structure, how you build ships, load cargo and so on. As soon as you have completed all the missions, the button disappears from that side of the screen. III. System View and Planet Menu In this view you get an overview of your system. The light-blue circle above a planet indicates the presence of your own carriers on that planet, a purple circle above a planet indicates the presence of allied carriers on that planet. If you have one or more planets under attack, that planet will have a red circle on it or them, depending on how many are they, to let you know of the trouble approaching. Taping on a planet presents you with the Planet menu for it. There you can chose between: Planet Stats: for checking richness and type Attack Planet: for trying to take over an enemy or neutral planet Colonize Planet: taking over an empty planet Relocate Fleet: moving carriers on a friendly planet Deliver Cargo: allows you to send resources and troops to a planet held by: you, a neutral or a friendly planet Bookmark: you can save planets in that list for private use, share with the alliance you are in or set attack or defense calls for planets of high interest to you or your alliance Send Spy Drone: lets you find out about the structures and number of ships and troops found on a planet by using drones IV. Galaxy Map View It can be reached by pressing a couple of times on the System/Galaxy view button. It is a very useful tool for seeing every system in the Shroud Nebula and provides various modes. When you switch between modes you can bring up the Legend to make sure you don't lose track of what the map shows at the moment. The modes of the Galaxy View are (some features described can be shown only if you pinch to zoom-in): Diplomacy Mode: provides an overview on the systems emphasizing by using different colors who is an enemy, who is a friend and who is neutral: red, green-purple-light blue and grey respectively. 3

4 Colonization Mode: provides an overview on the richness of the planets as well as the number of empty ones, the number of citadels and the number of planets already occupied; the redder the system, the poorer the planets in it, the greener the system, the richer the planets in it; it can be very useful when you scout for systems and your highest priority is finding systems with citadels or systems of high richness; Planet Owners Mode: provides an overview on the number of planets held by you, your alliance, friends of your alliance, hostile planets and non-aligned planets; excellent for scouting planets hidden by your enemy when at war; Fleet Mode: provides an overview on the number of carriers stationed in a system, yours and your alliance's, as well as the total number of planets existing in that system (occupied and unoccupied) Resources Mode: provides the total number of existing resources, troops, spy-drones and ships stationed on your planets; Top 10 Mode: provides an overview on the territorial distribution of the Top 10 alliances Heat Map: provides an overview of the most active areas in terms of battles; the redder the system, the more battles have taken place recently, the greener the system, the safer the system was recently; V. Commander Menu Before proceeding with the four tabs, we should note the clip button near the "X" that closes this menu. That button is a "Copy link" that in this case copies the player link of your profile to be pasted wherever inside or outside the game. 1. Profile: displays a screen with your basic Player Information and Your Possessions You can check what level you are, what alliance you are in as well as the position inside, the amount of XP points you have and the amount required to level up. Underneath, Your Possessions displays the amount of citadels you own, the number of outer planets currently colonized and the maximum number you can have (includes bonuses from skill points and extenders bought), the number of carriers you currently have and the maximum number you can have (includes bonuses from skill points and extenders bought), the number of ships you currently have (includes bonuses from achievements, skill points and extenders bought) and the maximum number you can have. You can check at all time your progress for earning extra outer planets, carriers or ships in your Natural Limit area where you can see what your level has without using extenders and bonuses and the level required to increase that. one that displays when do you get the next skill point and the number of available skill points a list of all skills you can upgrade to your liking to suit your style. There are a couple of things to discuss here: an "i" button that provides information about the selected skill, its current level bonus and the next level bonus so you now how it is affected by an upgrade; the progress bar displaying how far are you from reaching level 10 (maximum skill level); the cost of an upgrade, right next to the progress bar; a "+" button to increase a skill (Warning If you press it the skill upgrades without any confirmation pop-ups and the action cannot be reversed) 2. Skills: there are two main areas in this tab: 3. Items: shows the activation status of the Double XP Boost, the number of red, blue and yellow artifacts, the number of blueprints that you have separately for each type, the number of (natural) limit extenders for planets, carriers and ships that you have. You also have near each a button that leads to the shop to activate or get some more. Carrier blueprints are not in the shop for balancing the gameplay, making missions the only way to unlock them. 4. Achievements: as you progress through the game, your actions will add up in the statistics and will unlock you some nice achievements that generate some nice rewards; whether you get a couple of artifacts, some XP or credits, they are always welcome to aid expand your empire; below you can find a pre-compiled list of all the achievements so you can even plan ahead what to do with the upcoming rewards, giving you a tactical advantage 4

5 List of Achievements Name of Achievement No. of Stars Requirement Reward 1 Earn or acquire Credits 1 x artifact of each color, 500 XP Credit King 2 Earn or acquire Credits 2 x artifact of each color, XP 3 Earn or acquire Credits 3 x artifact of each color, XP 4 Earn or acquire Credits 4 x artifact of each color, XP 5 Earn or acquire Credits 5 x artifact of each color, XP 1 Spend 500 Credits One artifact of each color, 500 XP Big Spender 2 Spend Credits 2 x artifact of each color, XP 3 Spend Credits 3 x artifact of each color, XP 4 Spend Credits 3 x artifact of each color, XP 5 Spend Credits 5 x artifact of each color, XP 1 Find or acquire 20 blueprints 5 x artifacts of each color Scientist 2 Find or acquire 50 blueprints 10 x artifacts of each color 3 Find or acquire 100 blueprints 20 x artifacts of each color 4 Find or acquire 500 blueprints 30 x artifacts of each color 5 Find or acquire blueprints 40 x artifacts of each color 1 Excavate or acquire 100 artifacts 100 Credits 2 Excavate or acquire 250 artifacts 250 Credits Archaeologist 3 Excavate or acquire 500 artifacts 500 Credits 4 Excavate or acquire artifacts Credits 5 Excavate or acquire artifacts Credits 1 Own 3 planets 250 Credits, 100 XP 2 Own 5 planets 500 Credits, 200 XP, 10 x Ships MK I Ruler of Worlds 3 Own 10 planets Credits, XP, 25 x Ships MK I (each type) 4 Own 15 planets Credits, XP 5 Own 30 planets Credits, XP, 100 x Ships MK II (each type) 1 Command 3 carriers 5 Fighter MK I Fleet Admiral 2 Command 5 carriers 25 x each type of ship MK I 3 Command 10 carriers 25 x each type of ship MK II 4 Command 15 carriers 50 x each type of ship MK II 5 Command 30 carriers 100 x each type of ship MK II 1 Log in 3 days after registration 100 Credits 5

6 Repeater 2 Log in 7 days after registration 250 Credits 3 Log in 30 days after registration Credits 4 Log in 90 days after registration Credits 5 Log in 180 days after registration Credits 1 Log in 3 days in a row 100 Credits Fanatic 2 Log in 14 days in a row 500 Credits 3 Log in 30 days in a row Credits 4 Log in 90 days in a row Credits 5 Log in 180 days in a row Credits 1 Reach commander level Credits Fast Climber 2 Reach commander level Credits 3 Reach commander level Credits 4 Reach commander level Credits 5 Reach commander level Credits 1 Use 10 artifacts 500 XP Chief Engineer 2 Use 50 artifacts XP 3 Use 100 artifacts XP 4 Use 250 artifacts XP 5 Use artifacts XP 1 Upgrade Headquarters to level Credits Architect 2 Upgrade Headquarters to level Credits 3 Upgrade Headquarters to level Credits 4 Upgrade Headquarters to level Credits 5 Upgrade Headquarters to level Credits 1 Upgrade one or more extractors to level 4 50 Credits 2 Upgrade one or more extractors to level Credits Extractor 3 Upgrade one or more extractors to level Credits 4 Upgrade one or more extractors to level Credits 5 Upgrade one or more extractors to level Credits Commanderin-Chief 1 Build at least one carrier MK III XP King of Traders 1 Build at least one advanced freighter (Freighter MK II) XP 6

7 Space Ace 1 Red Baron 1 Build at least one advanced fighter (Fighter MK II) Build at least one advanced interceptor (Interceptor MK II) XP XP Destroyer of Worlds 1 Build at least one advanced bomber (Bomber MK II) XP 1 Raid resources 100 Credits Raider 2 Raid resources 250 Credits 3 Raid resources 500 Credits 4 Raid resources Credits VI. Planet List In this menu we can see a list with all our planets. We can see if they are running jobs, if there are incoming attacks, the amount of resources existing on each of them, the amount of ships, troops and drones for spying or missions. Tapping on the planet itself (to the left of its name) leads you to the Planet menu while tapping on the button located to the far right of the planet name, after the displayed stored stuff on it, takes you to the Planet View where you can access its structures to manage them about which we will talk more in the Planet Management section. Remember to use the first to relocate fleets or deliver cargo as it saves you some taps. It is important to remember that each time you have a finished job or have an incoming attack you get a green exclamation mark right on the top-left corner of the button that opens.that disappears as soon as you have collected the job(s) finished and/or the incoming attack has finished (either cancelled by the attacker or the battle has taken place). If you see a number displayed on red, it means your planet has harvested the resource to the maximum amount of storage available. There is virtually no limit for troops or drones, only the resources storage is limited on a planet. VII. Manage Fleets 5 Raid resources Credits Socializer 1 Connect to Facebook 500 Credits This area can be split in several areas depending on what your fleets are doing. Before we explore each state of a carrier, let's see first what you can access at any time: Takes you to an advanced screen where you can set your carrier to avoid combat, upgrade your carrier with artifacts or delete it Takes you to the Planet menu of the planet the carrier is located at Takes you to the menu where you load your carrier. In the next screen you select how many ships of each type you load, in the one next to it you select the amount of resources and/or troops you load (requires freighters loaded to carry) 7

8 The categories in which are split are based on what activity they are engaged: Gathering: phase of combat during which carriers wait 15 minutes to make sure all the carriers involved in battle are present before the attack begins Combat: carriers displayed in this area are headed to a planet held by a non-aligned or hostile player Garrisoned: carriers stationed at a friendly or allied planet are displayed here Mission: carriers which are doing missions are displayed here En Route: carriers that are relocating or delivering cargo are displayed here Stationed: carriers stationed on your planet are displayed here VIII. Alliance When you are not part of an alliance you have three tabs available: - Search: menu for Searching for an alliance using its name or tag (three letter identifier), - Create: make your own alliance by filling a form (requires an artifact of each type and you also must be Level 5 or higher) - Offers: offers to join an alliance (or a list of alliances you applied to). You can always delete an application by tapping on the red circled button. When you are part of an alliance you have access to four tabs: - My Alliance: you can check the name and tag, the leader as well as the member count and senior officers number. You can also leave the alliance or delete it (if you are its leader) - Members: a list of all the members and their ranks; you can also access the profile of each and everyone and see a list of their planets - Offers: a list of all invited players or players who have applied for access, a list of diplomatic offers or requests to and from alliances - Diplomacy: a list of all alliances in-game and your alliance's status with them; by default the Neutral alliances are hidden but you can always search for them Since different rankings give different permissions for things you can do in an alliance, below is a list of it: Rank Permissions Leader Senior Officer Officer Senior Member Member Promote* Demote* Kick Invite Accept & Delete application Set alliance description Delete alliance conversations Diplomacy Treaties Open/Close threads Pin/Unpin/Delete threads Delete alliance *You can only promote, demote and kick members who are up to one level below your rank. If you are the Leader, promoting a Senior Officer to Leader will result in you getting demoted to a Senior Officer. 8

9 IX. Messages 1. Messages: all the private messages, one-on-one, are stored here; at the top you can use the checkmarks to display only messages you received, you sent or only messages from the server; at the bottom you can delete all messages (you are prompted with a confirmation pop-up to avoid accidents) or start a new conversation 2. Alliance (only if you are part of one): provides access to the board of the alliance you are from and it is split in the following areas: Pinned Conversations: topics pinned by Senior Officers or Leaders that remain always at the top Conversations: normal topics created by any member of the alliance At the top you are provided with checkmarks to filter the messages and at the bottom with a button to create a new conversation. Pressing the button will invite you to select whether you create an alliance or squad topic (squad is currently unavailable). After that you fill the Subject field and Message area before Sending the message. After creating it you are lead to it. If you enter an existing conversation you can "Reply" by pressing the button located at the bottom. If your rank is "Senior Officer" or "Leader" you can also "Delete" or "Pin/Unpin" a conversation. 3. Reports: there are three types of reports and we will explore them in the order of the checkmarks displayed at the top for filtering them: Reports: from the server Espionage: spy reports for planets you have spied on or spy reports that were detected in case someone attempted to spy on you and they have been detected (their name can or cannot be found in the reports) Mission Reports: presents to you the location on which it originated (provides a rapid link to the Planet menu of it), the result and status if you have completed it successfully or not and Outcome (prizes) of the mission. There are 5 types of outcome: Experience Points (XP), Resources (requires freighters on the carrier doing the mission), Credits, Artifacts, Blueprints; each type being specific for a different type of mission but multiple outcome types being available in most of them 4. Battles: provides a list of all the battles you fought against other players or in missions, with details on the attacker or attacked player, the planet the battle took place and the result (Win, Lose, Conquered). A battle with the tag "Win" means a battle took place without a ground battle. It is a very common occurrence when you are doing missions or you fight battles but you do not have an empty Planet Slot to conquer the planet. A "Conq." tag means you have won both the fight with the ships and the ground battle that took place on the planet and that planet is now yours. X. Bookmarks Here you can check very conveniently all the planets you or your alliance has marked as being important. You can filter through the list using the three checkmarks at the top: Calls: filters only to Defense and Attack calls you or your alliance members have created Alliance: filters to shared bookmarks created by you or your alliance members Private: filters to planets you bookmarked for yourself XI. Leaderboards Since it's an online game, chances are you want to compete with other players to see who is better at this. Here you can do that, different stats being accessible to compare. Let's see what each means: Points: calculated based on how much XP you have gained compared to how long you have been playing the game; the more points you have, the more efficiently you have played Alliance Size: the number of all outer planets an alliance has Alliance Warfare: calculated from the amount of XP gained through battles; good to know who to avoid or who to battle based on up the leaderboard they are Alliance Level: calculated on the basis of the ration between the cumulative amount of XP of an alliance and the actual amount of members of that alliance; the higher the rank, the higher the levels of the players found in that respective alliance Facebook Friends: compete with friends who have connected their accounts to the game and check who is the most efficient player (uses the "Points" leaderboard stats) 9

10 XII. Game Settings There are a couple of things you can access in this area so let's see what each button does: Replay intro: you can play back at any time the cool intro video shown when you first started the game Support: quick link for the page of the developer where you can report any problem you may have Connect to/disconnect from (Facebook): enables/disables game's access to your profile in order to see how you stand compared to your friends on the Leaderboards. Only your friends have access to your statistics and name, no one else does. Visit forum: quick link to the official forums of the game Credits: you can check the names of those who brought you this game Follow Alliances (Twitter): quick link to the official twitter account of the game to follow so you stay up to date with all the latest and greatest about it 1. Your Accounts In addition to those buttons there are also two more leading to additional in-game menus: In Galaxy on Fire: Alliances there is more than one server running and each has its own community with qualities and flaws. You can have a separate account (purchases don't transfer between them) and play on each to experience all the differences for good or for bad. In this menu you can see all your accounts and switch easily between them by pressing the Connect button. Tapping on the "Abandon Game" button will prompt you with a window to confirm your action by typing "ABANDON". Abandoning means you give up on your account with all its ships, planets and purchases. Your name will also be changed to a random set of characters when displayed near the planets you own. 2. Options Here you can control the volume of the music, sound effects or voices from the game or disable them completely depending on your preference. You can also check what push messages you want to receive in your Notification Center from the game so you always get only the info you want. XIII.Shop There is also a "Reset" button found at the bottom (you may need to scroll) to reset to the default values. Near the button that provides access to the Shop you can find the amount of Credits you have. It remains displayed after you enter it. In the Shop you can find three different tabs, each providing different content. Let's explore them: Credit Packs: you have various packs of credits prepared, the and being among the most popular choices for a balanced price per credit. A very good choice when you start playing is Credits. That allows for 8 Planet Extenders and 800 Credits remaining. Keep in mind that you shouldn't buy on impulse, it should be for use. Don't buy a Credit Pack of if you only wanted to use about for example. Keep in mind that while it is tempting to speed up things for credits, you may run out of resources stopping your production for a couple of days in terms of upgrades and you should have at all times jobs running Booster: XP Doubler is a very powerful booster with a very visible effect on leveling up from the very start. Every XP you would get after you activate this is doubled for every action. If you can buy it, you will not regret it Bundles: there are two types of bundles found here: pack of artifacts (10 of each color) and packs with blueprints, 30 artifacts and credits. The temptation to buy one is big, but blueprints are not as hard to find as you may thing and artifacts are even easier through missions or citadels. Keep that mind when making purchases. 10

11 Planet Management Planet Types and Bonuses Planets can be classified by type as citadels that provide artifacts and have something protruding from them and non-citadels, and at the same time based on their surface type: Volcanic Icy Desert Rocky Jungle Oceanic The type of the planet will grant you a species bonus if you chose the right planet for your race. You can check the table below to see which type grants the better bonus for building. The maximum is 20%. Species Bonus Overview Terran Nivelian Vossk Volcanic 0% 0% 20% Icy 0% 20% 0% Desert 10% 0% 10% Rocky 10% 10% 0% Jungle 0% 10% 10% Oceanic 20% 0% 0% You can also find planets that have something protruding through them. Those are called citadel planets and are rarer to find than the regular planets. They are of three types based on the color of the artifact: Yellow: provides a yellow artifact that improves the speed of the carrier equipped with it every time you dig for one Blue: provides a blue artifact that improves the defense for the fighters and interceptors onboard the carrier equipped with it Red: provides a red artifact that improves the attack of fighters and bombers onboard the carrier equipped with it Structures 1. Citadel: can only be built on Citadel planets and they allow you to dig artifacts. In order to start digging an artifact you need to open the Structures menu and tap on the button with the left arrow on it. After that you can go to the Artifacts tab and press on the Dig artifact button 2. Metal Extractor: helps extract metal from the planet, with each level upgrade becoming faster in terms of resources dug per hour 3. Gas Extractor: helps extract gas from the planet, with each level upgrade becoming faster in terms of resources dug per hour 4. Crystal Extractor: helps extract crystal from the planet, with each level upgrade becoming faster in terms of resources dug per hour 5. Laboratory: provides access to researching technology. Each tech can be researched in the Tech List, each laboratory allowing 3 techs. You can research tech to improve the digging income for metal, gas and crystal, storage, defending techs for your ships and troops, ship production improvements for MK I ships and carriers; it is also being used to 11

12 research blueprints (Warning Once researched they are deducted from your Inventory. Once deleted you lose access to them from both your Laboratory and your Inventory) 6. Shipyard: provides access to building ships and carriers, MK I being available at an instant if your Shipyard fulfills the minimum level requirement and you have resources to build; if you have researched blueprints on the same planet you can also build ships MK II or carriers MK II and/or MK III if your Shipyard meets the requirements and have resources you can build advanced ships and carriers to improve your fleet 7. Barracks: you can build troops here that will help you defend and conquer planets 8. Trade Center: provides access to exchanging resources as well as improves your storage 9. Planetary Shield: improves defense for all stationed ships (allied and friendly included), regardless if they are on a carrier or simply stationed on the planet Fleets Each species has three types of carriers, one of which can be built at any time without a blueprint. Carrier Type Quick Overview Carrier MK I Carrier MK II Carrier MK III Maximum No. Of Ships Ships Bonus per Artifact Upgrade Main advantage Doesn't require a blueprint to build Fastest type of carrier Carries the most ships Lab. and Shipyard Level Required As soon as you get access to a Carrier MK II you can research the technology and Shipyard your trips will shorten a lot and you will also be able to carry more ships. It provides a great advantage in battles as you can move fast around systems and it makes it harder for your enemy to catch you. The Carrier MK III is very nice to have but it takes a a while to build in terms of both time and resources. If you ever lose all of them the best solution would be to gather as many resources as possible and build them in batches as big as the planet's storage allows in order to speed the job and get back in fight. There are four different types of ships with two tiers. Each has its set of advantages and disadvantages as highlighted by the Shipyard when you go build them. The tier 2 ships (MK II) require a blueprint to be built. Ships Type Quick Overview Shipyard level required to build Lab. level required to research the blueprint Distinct characteristic Fighter MK I 1 - Good vs. Interceptors Fighter MK II Best vs. Interceptors Bomber MK I 4 - Good vs. Fighters Bomber MK II Best vs. Fighters Interceptor MK I 7 - Good vs. Bombers Interceptor MK II Best vs. Bombers Freighter MK I 2 - Stores Cargo Freighter MK II Stores Cargo 12

13 Back to Basics 1. Setting up first planets When you are first presented with the tutorial missions, at the end of it you will have on your Planet 1, the one you start with, the following structures: Metal, Gas, Crystal Extractors, Barracks, Shipyard, Laboratory, Trade Center, Scanning Array and three empty slots. You can fill those with one more extractor of each type or experiment a bit with a combination like one more Scanner Array, one more Lab and one more Barracks. A Planetary Shield isn't necessary in the starting system as you can never be attacked here. Planet 3 in the starting system is richer planet and provides a nice amount of resources per hour. You can set it as 2 x Extractors of each type and a Laboratory with the Metal, Gas and Crystal Extraction techs. Planet 2 can be used as whatever you like: storage by filling it with Trade Centers and constantly delivering resources for keep from Planets 1 and 3, Scanning and Troops planets through the building of Scanning Arrays, Barracks and a Lab with Silo, Metal and Gas extraction tech. When opening the jumpgate you can mimic Planet 1 in terms of structure distribution until you level up a bit. Remember to keep your planets busy at all times with structure upgrades and tech research in order to harvest as many XP as possible from your actions. XP is important to level up and leveling up is important to expand your dominion. 2. Building Ships In the beginning as you see you only got access to Fighters with the Shipyard Level 1 you may be tempted to build a lot of them. Please don't. It is important to keep in mind the table we have above and remember that if we attack a planet full of interceptors they will die a painful death as the Interceptors are quicker in destroying them. We want to keep everything balanced for right now and worry about more advanced layouts later on when have gained some confidence in battles. If we had a Natural Limit of 300 ships, we can have 75 ships of each type and dedicate a carrier to transporting cargo. 3. Artifacts Artifacts are items which enhance your carriers abilities in two ways: they improve your ship capacity and they receive a defense/speed/offense boost. The color of the artifact affects the type of boost you gain for that carrier: red: improves the offense of the fighters and bombers onboard the upgraded carrier blue: improves the defense of the fighters and interceptors onboard the upgraded carrier yellow: improves the speed of the upgraded carrier You should keep in mind that the level for upgrade represents the artifacts cost for that upgrade (e.g.: for a Level 1 carrier is 1 artifact of the desired color, for Level 5 is 5 artifacts of the desired color etc.). Artifacts can be obtained in three ways: buying them in stores finding them in missions digging them using citadels 4. Troops and Spy Drones Troops are essential to everything. They can be used for attacking and conquering planets, for defending and preventing planets from being conquered. It is recommended to always build troops. They are a great way to make XP and level up fast, as well as providing that extra defense when being attacked. Spy drones are also important though you could consider them less important than troops. They can be produced in large quantities and used for spying on a enemy's planet to find out what defenses and structures he has on a planet as well as scanning for missions. Keeping somewhere around drones on a planet makes it virtually impossible to run out when doing missions as the cost of a long range mission is only 5 drones per mission. 5. Attacking Attacking may seem intimidating at first or the most appealing thing to do depending on how eager you are to fight. If done properly, the experience is usually nice. Keep in mind that attacking a player of much higher level than you or of a player who is part of an alliance (easily recognizable by the three symbols tag near its name) is a potentially trouble as it can easily out power you. 13

14 Send drones to gain some basic info about his structures and defenses on the planet you want to take. Afterwards, send your ships if he has a lower number of ships than you to clear defenses, and preferably bomb some troops before sending a carrier with troops to conquer it. Try to colonize or relocate as close to target as possible in order to gain an element of surprise on your victim. This way the reaction time is reduced to a minimum. You can also always cancel an attack if you launched before getting the spy report, for example, and now you found that the victim may no longer be a victim and could actually be a deadly trap. To do so you have to press on the button with the right arrow next to each carrier while they are still in Combat. Once you enter the Gathering the attack can no longer be cancelled and the fight will take place no matter the result. 6. Missions Missions are a very important part of Alliances. You have to do those in order to unlock Blueprints that when researched give access to building advanced ships and carriers on that planet. They also are a nice credits generator. They are of two types: short range missions (takes 1 drone and 25 seconds to scan) and long range missions (takes 5 drones and 20 minutes to scan). It may be tempting to scan for short range and do those as you can find those quicker but the truth is you only ever want to do Long Range missions as those give the better bonus with the highest drop rate for both blueprints and artifacts. And speaking of artifacts, you can get more artifacts in a day from doing missions than from digging for them. Below you can find a table of what bonuses a mission generates and the credits multiplier per level. The maximum level for a mission is 10. Abnormal Signals Derelict Ship Battleship Husk Pirate Outpost Pirate Base Pirate Elite Traitors You can send for Abnormal Signals, Derelict Ship and Battleship Husk missions a single carrier with freighters only so you collect the resources. The Pirate Outpost and Elite Traitors are the only types of missions which require fighting ships as well as freighters to collect all possible rewards. Pirate Outposts and Elite Traitors offer the highest credits rewards (the higher the level, the higher the reward). Battleship Husk missions almost always drop a blueprint, the higher the mission level, the higher the probability for a drop. Abnormal Signals almost always drop an artifact (the higher the mission level, the higher the probability). 7. Alliance: Making the most of your presence Missions: Possible Rewards Overview Credits Resources Artifacts Blueprints Since you have started playing a game called Alliances, it is probably already on your mind that you want to either seek an already existing one or start your own thing. Since you have just begun playing, you would be better off searching for one of the many academies already existing and training new comers to the game so that they become very good at it in a short time. Once you have joined an alliance, make sure you are active. Take part in coordinated attacks to get yourself used to having proper timing, respond to defense calls from your allies and call for backup when in trouble. Also lend a helping hand for new comers and ask for resources and even troops when in need. This is why you have joined one, you should take advantage of it. If you have been part of one for long and have proven yourself active you may get promoted by their leadership. Bonus tip: If you have found blueprints for ships and don't know how to best delete the MK I ships, the simplest way is to colonize a very bad planet nearby, transport them there, unload them from your carriers and demolish the Headquarters from that planet to abandon it and also get rid of those ships for good. 14

15 Intermediate: Feeling Confident 1. Inactive Players' Planets It is a good idea in the beginning when you are still expanding your planet empire to look around for planets held by players with their name written in grey. They are inactive and they are very likely to never return. When you check on the planet, make sure to look since when was he inactive (press the Planet Stats button -> tap on the button to the right of the owner to see his/hers Player Profile and check the date). The more he has been inactive, the better the chance it will not return. You should also look at the Alliance Information to see if he is a member of one. Keep in mind that some may wish to fight back and take the planets for themselves so it remains within the alliance. Now that we have found a few planets from inactive players, we need to know what to chose. First thing we care about is a high level for the Headquarters which you can check at all times in the Planet Stats of the desired planet. After we found what we think we are looking, we need to confirm that and check what defenses we can expect. We do that by sending Spy Drones. I suggest you use spy drones for 90% accuracy or more to gain as better understanding of what to expect as possible. Since we plan on getting the planet, we do not care if our name is discovered in case we get detected as spied because our name will be shown anyway in the Battle Report generated after we attacked. The Spy Report should give you an approximate number of ships and troops, as well as structures, which can be found on the planets, but beware as those are far from being the most accurate things. Be always ready for surprises or spy more than one time. If he has troops left but not ships too, or if he has both, send first a wave of ships to clear the ships. As soon as the ships are destroyed, send as many waves of bombers as you like to take the number of troops on the planets to a minimum. It is recommended that you park your fleet somewhere nearby so that you will not waste too much time flying between planets. After you have considerably reduced the number of troops on the planets, you are now able to easily send a carrier with troops to collect it to your nice list of planets. 2. Saving some troops: bombing troops before conquering It is always a good practice to send the carrier that has troops last, preferably after you have bombed as many troops from the enemy as possible in order to save as much of yours as possible. Troops are considered very valuable based on the costs to produce them and you can sometimes use troops to buy planets on the black-market from other players, thus making them an important component not only for defending or conquering, but also for negotiating different things with other players. 3. Closer look to Carrier set-ups Before you start, take a look at how many artifacts you have. A good way is to have an equal number of red and blue upgraded carriers and a handful of fast yellow ones. The fast yellow ones can be MK II type as you want to mainly used to to transport resources around as fast as possible, wasting as little time as possible on this task. You want to have an equal number of carriers for each of blue and red artifact as you wish a balanced approach so you are prepared to encounter any combination. Let's say you have 1 carrier, level 2, blue. At this point we only talk MK III, which gives us a ship capacity of 160 ships. We can spread them as 110 Interceptors MK II and 50 Fighters MK II. With a similar approach for a level 2, red carrier we have 110 Bombers MK II and 50 Fighters MK II giving us a total of 110 Interceptors that have a defense bonus which is useful when fighting bombers, 110 Bombers with an attack bonus to finish of enemy Fighters faster and reduce the casualties on our side and 100 Fighters, half with attack bonus and half with defense bonus, being very effective against Interceptors. It's a very good recipe for you to follow if you wish a nice and balanced fleet. You can add 5 ships of each type for each carrier whenever you do an upgrade for your carrier. You can even mix some Freighters MK II in if you wish to carry troops spread out on all carriers instead of a faster carrier made for that specific job. 15

16 4. Missions: Management and Carrier Setups Since we want to be as effective as possible, let's not waste any ships and carriers. For Derelict, Abnormal Signals and Battle Ship Husk missions you can send a carrier of any type with 7 Freighters MK II. For Pirate Base missions you can send a carrier MK III balanced with ships based on what artifact upgrade it has (see our previous section) or if not upgraded filled with 50 Ships of every fighting type. For Elite Pirate Traitors and Pirate Outposts of high levels it's best if you use upgraded carriers at higher levels and if you want to collect the resources too you have to include 7 Freighters to ensure you get all resources no matter which level the mission is. You can run these missions very easily at Home and allocate as many carriers for this as you want depending on what fights you are currently engaged in or how much time you want to dedicate to this. Keep in mind that missions take around 2-3 hours to complete during which your carrier is unavailable. 5. Planet Layouts: Advantages and Disadvantages If you have never considered it, it would be a good time right now to think about making planets dedicated to only one job. The advantage is it usually means it is optimized the right way to fulfill a task, but it comes at the cost of making you dependent of it and losing usually means destabilizing your ecosystem. You can create a metal planet that has 100k/h extraction rate or more by finding a 5.0 rated planet for Metal and as many slots as possible. You would then have to fill it with metal slots and one lab. On that lab it would have be Metal tech, Silo tech and another tech (usually whichever extraction type is poorer on the planet). You can do this for Gas or Crystal too. Keep in mind that most of the time you will be doing troops, the cost being roughly 4:2:1 (Metal:Gas:Crystal) for that. A troop farm can be made in several ways, everyone having his own best way. You can make a very large storage facility (lots of Trade Centers, a Lab for Silo tech and a Barracks structure) and batch build troops with quick speed-up (at most 999 Credits). That yields all the XP at once in very large quantities. You can make a planet filled with barracks (optional: add an extractor of each type) and deliver metal, gas and crystal and run jobs of troops per structure. This way you get daily XP. It's entirely up to you how you do it. In either case it is best if you keep a carrier with large cargo handy to transport resources around and perhaps save the troops before being destroyed in case of an attack on one of your farms. 6. Skill Points By now you have already chosen which type of player you want to be and as such you want to make sure you upgrade your skills accordingly: Fighter: Sharpshooter, Squadron, Supreme Command and Engineer -> this combination improves your attack bonus and your cost in resources and time when you rebuild your ships and troops as well as it expands the size of your fleet. You can optionally add the Cartography skill to travel faster or the Smuggler to transport more troops to battle using less freighters, thus saving space for fighting ships. Farmer: Metal, Gas and Crystal Specialist, Governance, Engineer and Storage Specialist -> you are constantly receiving resources at high extraction rates, thus we compensate with storage and planet expansion as well as lower costs for building stuff with the resources we gather. You can optionally add the Smuggler skill so you can transport more resources between planets. Feel free to experiment in whichever way you like. Combine them to fit your needs the best. 7. Credits The easiest way to make credits aside from buying and unlocking Achievements is by doing Pirate Missions. Elite Traitors and Pirate Outposts generate the highest amount of Credits per mission, with the mention that the higher the mission level, the higher the Credits gained by completing it. You can easily make Credits a day by doing Pirate type of missions generated by Scanning Arrays of level 10 or higher as you want to get missions of as high a level as possible. 16

17 Advanced: I'm a pro now 1. Planets: when to protect them? Let's say you are in a war with an alliance and some of your planets you configured to be the best in town get attacked. Before you jump on protecting each of them, ask yourself if it is really worth it. You should only protect those high level systems or hard-to-build farms. What is considered a hard to build farm? A ship farm as that is the most likely to take ages to rebuild given the fact that you need high level laboratories and ships if you want to make use of blueprints. If you made a troop farm that runs on the principle of batch-building once every ten million resources then that is also a painful loss as those Trade Centers of high level are also time consuming to rebuild. You should always keep a high level shipyard and a high level laboratory with all blueprints researched so that you can recover after a hard loss during the war without being dependent on the outer planets you may lose to an attacker. 2. Diplomacy: War Every now and then you will find yourself in the position of negotiating your alliance out of the war. But how exactly do you do that and what are the consequences? If you provoked the war and you found yourself outgunned, you may want to surrender quickly to avoid both misery and shame and build your firepower for a later rematch. You can propose a truce and if they accept, you are lucky and had an easy one. If however you receive "No" for an answer, try to negotiate it by proposing a number of troops contributed by the whole alliance as a tribute to escape. It may not be a solution you like, but it may avoid you greater losses if you were unprepared. If you find yourself in opposite situation where you were declared on yet you dominate your adversary completely, you can offer them surrender terms and demand a troop pay in order to leave them alone. This way you gain your alliance a nice amount of troops and focus on a better adversary. 3. Introduction to Ghost Style If you have always wanted to be independent of your outer planets and not care about them when you lose them, the answer is properly configuring your home system. If you do it right, you can then attack other players very effectively by keeping two or three planets spread out through the Shroud Nebula and then sending your carriers in the system or the immediate vicinity of the system you want to attack. You can move your carriers one by one from home, where they have been stored, then send them on their way. If you are on a high duration travel, remember to set your carriers on avoid combat just in case someone who is neutral attacks your destination planet. This way you avoid useless losses. An example of home system configuration can be as follows: Planet 1: 3 x Trade Centers, 2 x Shipyards, 2 x Laboratories (for blueprints), 4 x Barracks Planet 2: 2 x Scanner Arrays, 3 x Extractors, 1 x Laboratory (extraction techs) Planet 3: 2 x Each type of extractor, 1 x Laboratory (extraction techs) In this scenario you would one carrier with big cargo capacity and constantly transport resources between Planet 3 and Planet 1. You will at first also transport for Planet 2, but as soon as it is upgraded to its maximum and has enough drones built, you can use it mainly for spying on your enemies and running missions (plus gathering additional resources). Planet 1 would be the main command center where the Barracks will always be running troops jobs (you can set for more if you so desire). This generates a good amount of XP. The Shipyards allows for rebuilding your fleets effectively after you suffer some losses. 17