Playing the game

Now we will have a look at the game when you are actually playing it.

In campaign mode you must buy the upgrades you want with metal scrap. When you destroy a small asteroid it gives metal scraps, pick them up and bring them to your base. At your base you will be able to use them to upgrade parts of your ship.

You should start by trying the "easy" sectors (the ones near your base) to pickup metal scrap and upgrade your ship. This way you will be able to face the harder sectors with a stronger ship.

As said before, if you select the campaign mode, you get to the galaxy screen first. In this screen you see all the sectors where you can go. Using the mouse to make a passover on a sector you get basic information about a sector. How many asteroids, if there's UFOs there and if there's a base or an evil outpost waiting to shoot a lot at you.

To enter a specific sector, just click on it.

A green "X" represent your own base, and red "X" represent evil alien outposts or base.

The nearer a sector is to your base the easier it is. This means the sectors in the opposite corners of the galaxy are hard ones.

That's where the fun begins.

At the top of the screen, you have from left to right: your score, your shield power level, your armor left, the number of lives left and the overheat indicator (when you are slow to shoot, it's probably because you're overheating).

The center of the screen is where the combat takes places.

At the bottom of the screen, you always have the minimap to display the sector in which you are playing (bottom center). If the dash is off (to turn it on/off hit TAB), at the bottom right you can know if the ships attractor device is on and also which targeting mode your missiles are set to.

If the dash is on, the left part have a red rotating attractor symbol if the attractor is on. Still on the left, you can see the current gun spread configuration. On the right, you see the targeting mode of your missiles, how many torpedoes, missiles, mines and metal pieces on board.

At any time, you can hit the ESC key to bring up the config pop-up to pause the game, to save the game, to load another one or just cancel this game and return to the main screen.

If in the current sector you have a friendly base (green "X" in the Galaxy Screen), you can go to it and upgrade your ship.

You access the save screen from the config pop-up (hit ESC).

You can see the current saved games. If you want to replace an existing saved game, click on the save game you wish to overwrite and then click on the save button. If you want to create a new save game, click in the edit field, enter the save game name and click on save button.

First thing, you'll need money. And money comes from metal pieces, and metal pieces comes from asteroids. Period.

If you do have money, let's spend it! On this screen, you have a lot of sliders that let you upgrade the current systems installed on your ship. You also have the option to buy/sell missiles, mines and torpedoes. On the upper right, you see your ship as it is, with the systems currently on board. Under the ships configuration picture you have the armor repair slider. To repair the armor on your ship, you slide to the right. The repair cost box indicates how much it will cost you to bring your armor back to brand new.

Under the repair slider, you have the torpedoes, missiles and mines that your ship will launch and the current quantity.

By the way, in a multiplayer game none of this is available. The Base screen will immediately go to the Upgrade screen.

To change the systems on board your ship, click on the upgrade button. That brings up the upgrade pop-up where you can buy new systems to put on your ships. When changing systems, you automatically sell the old one at it's value, and also getting back the money from the upgrade (sliders from the Base screen) and also from the mines, missiles and torpedoes since they do not fit any longer with the new launcher. When you have finish selecting system, the cost box on the lower right must be lower or equal to your total money. If not, you can't buy the changes. This cost takes into account the selling of the old systems. If you have enough money click OK, and there you go. If you change your mind, click Cancel and no harm done. The Back to space button is disabled while the upgrade pop-up is up in single-player mode. You can also cancel by hitting the ESC key.