THIS IS A FULL TRANSCRIPT OF THE NEWBIES GUIDE AS OF 30TH NOVEMBER 2003 24:00 LONDON TIME In order to help with this process I would like translations for each paragraph after that paragraph? There are issues about the colour coding of text as used in the original (for emphasis) so if you can create a coloured html page then that would help BUT - leave in the comment areas marked in <> or [] brackets? I would like to keep the Guide central rather than distributed around the world. However - if you wish to host a copy of the site - please do but PLEASE do not use the original site for image links - use copies on your own site. My Internet Service Provider legal terms may be invalidated. The Transcript is as FOLLOWS- Playing With Yourself! by Olly Harlow, Paul Honigmann and worthy others translated by --- Your Name! "A professional is a man who can do his job when he doesn't feel like it. An amateur is a man who can't do his job when he does feel like it." James Agate 1877 - 1947 British drama critic and novelist So - I had a try at playing this game by myself - and found it really tricky to work out how to do it. I later learned of Admiral Quixote's and Admiral Panzer's excellent pdf file at http://www.solport.com/vgap4/quarters/How%20to%20start%20playing.pdf which the first page is based on - but I wanted to add some guiding pictures too? There is also a load of info at http://www.furfur.demon.co.uk/geop/v4startup.htm but I found it a bit too much to start with. Eventually I gave up trying to play this thing - I got too frustrated !! - and resolved to produce this "Complete Idiot Newbie's" guide as a "Quickstart Guide". I decided I should write it as a "Newbie", myself, to help other Newbies as I started learning? Paul Honigmann (aka Kingon Kommand) volunteered to play a three turn game against himself under rigourous rules (to make it reproducable) and to document it in such a way that I could play the same scenario... and while doing so - I would create this guide - as I went along. That is what we have done - he did most of the game play and text - and I then played it (repeatedly! 8) )- and did the html/piccies etc. Enough chat! these are the chapters If you have any comments or criticisms - anything! Please feel free to contact us at crayons@twoflower.fsnet.co.uk CONTENTS 1. Starting a Local Host 2. Turn 1 - The Feds 3. Turn 1 - The Birds 4. Turn 2 - The Feds & Birds 5. Turn 3 - The Feds & Birds (so far) 6. Turn 4 - The Feds 7. Colonising, Pods, and other stuff Also? Game Turn Check List can be useful? also? this is where people play.... VGAP World (or just hit NEXT PAGE below) Klingon Kommand Crayon-World NOTE: I would really like to get this guide translated into as many languages as possible - ON this site preferably. To this end I have created a Text only transcript here. If you can get a team of people together to translate it - I will post it and do all the html/graphics changes required... Please feel free to contact us at crayons@twoflower.fsnet.co.uk NEXT PAGE >> Playing With Yourself - Part 1 "Basic research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I am doing" Werner von Braun 1912-1977 German-born American rocket engineer Load and Install the Program Get the program at http://www.vgaplanets.com/v4beta.htm (look for the "New players start with this package" bit) This guide was written based on the use of the v4beta19.exe package of October 2003, which is now no longer downloadable from vgaplanets.com. We will be updating this guide to reflect the changes for this new release - but in the mean-time you can either try to play it with the new v4beta20.exe (package from the link above) or download the v4beta19.exe package from here v4beta19.exe Get the program at http://www.vgaplanets.com/v4beta.htm (look for the "New players start with this package" bit) This guide was written based on the use of the v4beta19.exe package of October 2003, which is now no longer downloadable from vgaplanets.com. We will be updating this guide to reflect the changes for this new release - but in the mean-time you can either try to play it with the new v4beta20.exe (package from the link above) or download the v4beta19.exe package from here v4beta19.exe Download (it's free right now but you can pre-order) and install the thing......this should be pretty simple really and now.... Setting Up a Local Host Since this is (normally) a Play By E-Mail (PBEM) game - you need to set up both ends of the PBEM "session" on your own machine. The two ends are the "Host" - the machine you'd contact on the internet - and the "Client" - that's you. We need to : a) Create the Universe b) Start the "Host" locally using that Universe c) Start the "Client" game program. d) get learning!!! Create the Universe This section is based on Admiral Quixote's guide - I've just set it up graphically and set some stuff that will make the rest of the tutorial work... So Start the Master program and you'll get this picture - Click on the "1" button thingy and then NEXT You'll get the following screen... This is for selecting maps and game scenario types ("Scripts"). Right now just leave it as it is and click NEXT again And up comes this screen Select the "Game Name" field and change it to something like "Testgame" or something. The other 2 fields you can leave as they are. Click NEXT This comes up next... This is for choosing the players. There's a scary red thing flashing away - just ignore it - it'll go away eventually. Set the "Number of players in game" to 2. And click ENTER. OK - if this is going to work we REALLY need to get our two races in the right order! To select the races you want for your two players click the race name on the left panel and then the Player entry on the right panel. Select the two players' races thus - you need to select The Solarian Federation of Planets as Race 1 and The Birdman Republic as Race 2 or the rest of this guide won't work so well... (The red flashy thing should disappear). Click NEXT. And this appears... This page is to place your two races - they're a bit far apart as a default - so click on "Pick" . Now - please be precise here! It really will help if you get the right stars here!! Select the two stars on the map as shown. New yellow squares with the race numbers will appear where you click. Then click NEXT - and up pops this... This screen is to change the defaults for the game - so let's make it easy on ourselves. Change the "Starting Cash" and "Population" to the maximum... then click NEXT This is another page for changing the defaults - but we don't want to change anything here - so click NEXT This little page will run a script in your face - and then say Finished. Hit DONE Your Universe is now set up!! Start the "Host" Run the Host program. It should look something like this... Your Game name you selected earlier should be in slot 1. If it is click the "1" button. If it isn't - click a number next to an {Empty) slot and a "YIG Scan" button should appear. Click that. and it should find your game. then click the number next to the Game Name you created, And this appears. The two red lights show there are 2 players with completed "turns". To make life a bit quicker we have some "Preferences" we'd like to implement. Click the preferences button. This should appear. Click the "No Countdown. Run Host at Once" check box - to get a tick in there. Click Done. This will get you back to the previous screen. Click "Run Host" and this another thing runs a load of stuff at you! When it's finished - cllick DONE You should still have a Host Window on screen. Looks like this? The green lights now show that our two "players" have not made their move. OK That was the easy bit. The Host is all ready - now it's time to play! << PREVIOUS PAGE NEXT PAGE >> << PREVIOUS PAGE NEXT PAGE >> Playing With Yourself! - Part 2 "Like most of those who study history, he learned from the mistakes of the past how to make new ones." A.J.P.Taylor (re Napoleon III) (You have just come from here) This page is wider - the pictures are going to need it! OK you should now have a local "Host" running now so it's time to start playing a game. There are two races in your Universe - Player 1 is "The Feds" Player 2 is "The Birds". These are supposed to be good starter races to play. BUT! You're going to have to play them both. So let's Play the Game! The Feds - Turn 1 Start the Planets4 program and you'll get this picture - Click on the "1" button that should be next to your Game name You'll get the following screen...(I've resized the bigger frame in this shot) STOP HERE!!! Click Nothing and read this! Really! This is important!!! SO make sure you understand it before anything else - it will help avoid many frustrations I met doing this thing! During Planets4 Order creation sessions - like the one we are about to embark on - you can just exit whenever you like! Hit the X - exit - whatever - It should save your last position - no probs! BUT! When you re-run the thing to carry on where you left off - and get this far again - do NOT click the Unpack RST File option - click on the race number thing and then "Play Saved File" - if you hit "Unpack RST" you will dump everything you did and have to start all over again!!! Aaaargh! I hated that! So - to summarise!!! Unpack RST = Start new orders file - ditch everything so far Play Saved File = Open saved (but not submitted) orders file Make TRN File = Submit orders - finished (but you can submit again! The host will use the last TRN file you submit) (Note - That Green Square for the race? Later on it gets other colour boxes inside...the various colours mean Green only - new RST (result) file present - only the Unpack RST button should be Active Green, Yellow - the RST file has been unpacked - The Play Save File button should also be Active Green, Yellow, Red - There is a TRN file present - i.e. you have pressed the Make TRN file button Green, Yellow, Red, Blue - You have emailed your TRN file. Even so - you can still open your TRN file (Play Saved Game) and redo stuff. (I presume until the Host actually runs the turn) (we don't need to email stuff - we're playing locally) OK - right now we're starting a new set of orders so... Choose the "1" button at the top - this selects Race 1. Then click the "Unpack RST" File - (we ARE starting a new TURN so this is OK - but beware of this button!!!) Anyway - that done - stuff like this should happen! Now things are hotting up! From this point on - I'll only be doing sections of screens - based on a full screen original... Let's have a look at this page? At the bottom Right of the map view is this thing... This area manipulates the map and displays the symbol key table. This thing pops up a key to all the map symbols This thing zooms the map in and out - you can hit the + or - buttons or click on the triangular area to select zoom levels This button switches on a Head-Up Display - basically text about selected objects - some people like it - but we're not going to use that here so leave well alone for now!!! Scroll tool - click inside this thing to scroll the map around - best just to have a play with it to see how it works Have a play with these now? Next we have that toolbar at the top? Yup! Pretty - but also pretty confusing! And some of them aren't even activated yet! Have a read through some of the icon names and then... But I'm getting a bit bored with this - lets do something... we'll come back to this later maybe? In a normal game I gather it's a good idea to start some Spy Activities as an opening gambit - maybe get lucky. This would unfortunately chuck in some "random elements" which may mess up this tutorial so we're going to miss that out I'm afraid. ALSO - it seems - many of your resources start already loaded onto your freighters - don't ask me why! We're going to need that stuff on the base so this is just to redistribute the wealth! In the middle of your star map you'll see a star with a green crosshair on it - that's your base- you can either click on it or sweep a selection box (left click and hold while sweeping an area) and the "Hammer and Anvil" widow pops up This is a slice of what I got. This is our first view of this thing - we'll probably see it later too I suspect. Right now we can see a flashy bar at the top left? This shows that the thing we're going to select will be a "hammer" object - a "doer" - if we click on the blank grey area to the right of this it will select the "anvil" side - the thing the "doer" does "whatever" to - basically the target. Make sure the hammer side is selected and then click on the first Ship (the Medium Deep Space Freighter) in the middle window. (You can use the green up/down arrows to scroll this list). [If you don't get this image - left click to select the first freighter in the centre list (to make it the hammer object) and right click the Base (to make it the anvil) ] A green ship icon will appear in that yellow box between the "?" and the hammer picture - click this to open the ship view page... Aaargh! Too MUCH too SOOON!!!. Panic Not. So we're going to do some ship stuff! - those boxes at the top are buttons - have a play looking at the various pages and then - click on "Trans" button - and a new window will appear... on the right is a Transport target area - click on the box relating to the Base you are Over. This appears. First - we're looking at the freighter "Express 3" here (well I was) - if we click on the green up/down button at the upper right we can cycle through all our ships - have a play and get back to "Express 3" OK - the first issue here is all those supplies - 400 of them on the each freighter. Way too much for the ship - we need that stuff on the base. If we click on the supplies box in the middle (the yellow bit) a new overlay appears we're going to transfer stuff DOWN (using the green right hand arrows) to the base. so send down 30 of its fuel (around 100 is enough for now - they don't need much, and at the start of the game there will be free fuel lying around on planets they visit anyway) 250 of its troops (ie most) of the troops (more useful on HW - 'scuse me, HomeWorld, a common abbreviation, being trained into High Guard, or HG as they are often called. HG are the officers who have special powers. In my example, I only have 8 to start off with. We want, ultimately, thousands.) 300 (ie most) of the supplies. 100 will be plenty to set up initial colonies. The important thing at the start is not to bottleneck production of things, which requires supplies, on your HW. 190 or all the food You will only need food on colonies if population gets above about 50,000. All the Med packs. Actually these have been more or less written out of the game now. They were felt to just be a complicating factor which added nothing. All the ordnance freighters have no weapons, so it is best stored somewhere it can be used. OK, having made some room, load onto the freighter from the base 300 cash to kick start your colonies. But leave the bulk of your cash on your HW then fill it with with colonists These eager volunteers will run your mines, sweat on your off-world farms and for the privilege, send anything valuable home whilst being eaten by sandworms and attacked or enslaved by alien races Then cycle through to "Express 2" and 1 and do the same there. - you can scroll through the ships using the up/down green arrows in the top right corrner. If the freighters seem low on repair units - ie less than 100 units - you might want to load some on board, though they're unlikely to need them. Now we have that Nebula Class Cruiser to deal with? The starting Fed Nebula can carry a little cargo, but not much. Using the TRANS screen, load it with: 400 cash, 200 troops, ONE HIGH GUARD, as many colonists as it can hold; and 50 supplies (for starting colonies. But this is not its primary job.) Note that we put a single High Guard on board - when we get to turn 3 maybe you'll see why? Also, fill it up with Ord (Ordnance - weapon stuff!) and Repair units. This baby is going to have to do some fighting! It wants a bit more fuel than the freighters, say 200, as it may have to operate for a while with no refueling. In the ship's ATTACK screen, set it to "Attack All Enemy Ships", "Target Dangerous", "Delay Ship (Second Wave)", (this delays its entry into combat to the "Second Wave") "Fire at ground targets". In the ship MISSION screen, switch on "Auto Intercept enemy ships" and use the slide bar to set Intercept range to, say, 70. Now switch to the NAME screen of eachship. It is potentially useful to give ships names. And fun too. I shall call my starting ships: Assymetric Dog, Giant Mongolian Death Gerbil, Whoop Whoop Holler!, and Planned Obsolescence - for the Cruiser Other folk use systems like "Freighter-Medium-MolyCarrier", but I think that is dull. Oh, if you toggle click on the button legended "NAMES" in Space Command, it'll list the items there alphabetically as names, or numbers Freighter transfers and naming done. Now move on to their movement. On the ship OVERVIEW screen, near the top right is a "Speed" box. this is actually a slide control. Click on it and move Speed up to max. Do the same for all the ships. And hit DONE Now we need to send them somewhere - get the Hammer and Anvil (HA) screen up again - by sweeping an area over the base or something. Select the freigher "Whoop Whoop Holler" in the middle window of the Hammer/Anvil window again and then click the
A Government Centre This is vital in order to increase tech levels. Mineral Mines These turn ore (See the Base MINERALS screen) into metals, which you'll be using for building ships later. Farms These make food and a little money, but unfortunately there is a build limit of 10 per turn. Factories These make things! Heck, they're factories! Another Training Centre this is required for turning those troops into those valuable "High Guard". It also promotes colonists (breeders) to crew (for ships), crew to troops. Later, we'll build more to accelerate the process, but they're quite expensive and we actually don't want too many as breeding colonists is the priority right now. Cities These will your main source of income in a few turns. SO - select the Struct button and you get this screen What is this saying? - basically - it identifies what structures I have in this base. Green ones I can build - the red ones I can't - yet. I note that I have 0 Government Centres... click this. And it opens up an upper area showing that I have a Current Count of 0 and none pending. We need to build one. Click on the Build 1 red button - you'll notice a blue circle thing appear at the bottom? Next - while we're here select Farm and then Build 10 of those (the maximum allowed). Next - build 400 Factories, another Training Centre, 10 Mines and as many Cities as you can with the supplies available - I managed 6. Right - lets check a few things are ON that should be. Click the Switches box at the top right of this window. Then click on the Factories box on the left... This thing defaults to 100 supplies per turn - click on the 1K X button and use the slider bar to select 10000 supplies per turn (maximum). Click on the Terraformers box and switch these ON if they are off - these keep the planet farmable. You need food - or people get unhappy and riot, etc. Click on Ship Repair Shop and use the sub screen to convert 10 Duranium a turn into Repair Units. You won't need many for a long time. Click on Air Attack Base, and then "Form Airwing" on the sub screen that comes up. This brings you to a new screen. Use the slider bars to make a Wing consisting purely of 50 "Io" fighters, and press "Activate Wing". This will help with homeworld defense, because you're sending your starting warship off somewhere else Then click the Switches button at the top again (as there doesn't seem to be an exit button for this page) Now click on the Base Shield box - make sure it is ON. Basic advice is - Don't Switch This Off!!! Click the Anti-Aircraft Gun box and make sure these are ON. They cost nothing unless something happens.... Finally - let's put the Base on an aggressive stance. Click on the Military tab/button and click on that Kill! Kill! Kill! option! This is so that it is more effective if attacked in "ground combat". And finally - click on the Name box at the top and give it an interesting name - it amuses the enemy and helps you to remember what's yours! We're done with the base so click DONE Some strategic things we should and can do... I say "should" because we're noty going to do it all in order to make sure random elemenst don't mess up this tutorial's "flow"... So... Now click on the HQ button
NEW STUFF: Now switch to the MINISTERS sub screen of "HQ". Select "Bases". From this, click the Build Farms (If Climate Supports) button. If you now return to the Fed Base and look at the Struct screen, you'll see that there are 10 farms queued up to be built this turn. (If not, you probably overlooked clicking the red X on the base overview screen a few stages back.) Imagine being able to do that when you have an empire of 50 planets. What a time saver! I suggest you have a good look at the Ministers screen in HQ. You'll see there are all kinds of empire-wide orders you can issue: structure building, ship control, etc. SHIP BUILDING The intelligent thing to do now, would be to kill that dangerous enemy Wing (and ships). And the best way to do that, at this stage, would be with another Wing - because you can't yet build a ship which can take on that monster Wing. Tactics Digression Another option in a game with more players, would be to tell a player like the Evil Empire (EE), "I think the Bird homeworld is at x,y and he has stripped his HW defences to raid me. He's wide open." The EE can use hyperspace to drop in unexpectedly on people. There are ways of blocking hyperspace travel but not for all races, and not until you get to higher hull tech levels. The primary defence against the EE in the early game is the homeworld's fighters. The EE has a huge incentive to kill other players as soon as possible, because the EE starts out strong, then usually grows... but not as quickly as other races who breed faster... a compound interest effect occurs and the EE drop further and further behind everyone else. Unless they can find and knock out a few rivals early! But we're playing the Federation. And Captain Kirk was never known for acting logically. So instead, I'm going to show you how to build a ship. From the BASE overview screen, click the Ship subscreen. From here, hit SELECT HULL. (You can't miss it!) From here, select NOCTURNE CLASS DESTROYER. You may want to use the Holds / Power, Weapons and Specifications buttons to look at this ship's abilities. One to note is that under the "Specifications", Shield Power is shown as 400. Now hit "OK". We jump to a new screen. Click Small Weapons. A list of available weaponry appears - including the pulsed lasers we built last turn. Click on those several times, until the maximum (6) have been transferred to the middle part of this screen. For Large Weapons, select a couple of weapons and add them to the recipe. ( I used 2 Heavy Lasers (Olly)) For Point Defense, we have some free stuff - take say 3 holo decoys (these help against fighters) and an Intercept (no use at all against fighters, but quite good versus ships). Engines... pick an engine... some ships need several. They must all be the same type. ( I used a Lasno-1 (Olly)) Shields... now, remember that this ship's shield rating is 400? That's the max it can use. All shield names include a number (like Fleece S-30) indicating their power. Note that the client will allow you to put that expensive 3000 point shield on the Nocturne. What you will find, however, is that it will ONLY act like a 400 point shield in battle. ( I used a Fleece -S30 (Olly)) Armour : just click on the green arrow pointing left and the correct amount will get used from stock. I don't think it's particularly well displayed. Now click DONE, then BUILD SHIP in the next screen, to build the ship. Wahoo! Ship build order done ! A footnote about ship building is here. [FOOTNOTE One problem with this method of building ships is, that you have to wait a turn for the individual components to be built, and sometimes you don't have a turn. (Like when that invading fleet is about to reach your homeworld!!) Another problem is that you have to be pretty sure you know what you want to build NEXT turn; it can be pretty tedious working out that you will need 6 pulsed lasers, 4 flake cannon... in fact sometimes you are even unsure of what type of HULL you will want next turn. There is an alternative way to build ships, and it is somewhat simpler. I won't describe it here because if you're interested, it is fully documented in the official Help Files (just search for "Quick Build"). The Help stuff is accessed through the