Commander's Guide 01 Opening campaign
This is not a list of everything you can build. It is a plan for the decisions directly in front of you: what to inspect, what to protect, what to unlock, and how to leave your first world with a purpose.
Before construction Choose with intent
Read the cultures, choose the people whose future you want to shape, and then learn the planet you receive. A strong opening comes from responding to local conditions—not copying a build order without looking at the world beneath it.
Culture and homeworld context shape the story you continue. The civilization chronicles explain values and history; the Field Manual records compatible worlds and currencies.
Compare civilizationsFirst login scan
Seven phases The first-command sequence
The story campaign supplies direction and timely rewards. Use this plan to understand why each objective matters, and how to know you are ready to move on.
Origin · Before minute zero
Begin with identity, then switch immediately to evidence. Your homeworld is not an abstract backdrop: its deposits and your starting inventory determine which queue is comfortable and which will leave you waiting.
You can name the next building, its purpose, and which resource will become scarce afterward.
Foundation · The Listening Foundry
The opening campaign first asks for a Manufacturing Plant, then a Mining Facility. That order introduces both layers of the economy: raw materials come out of the planet; manufactured components turn that stock into specialized capability.
You can replenish core materials, hold useful surplus, and explain the difference between raw stock and components.
Science · The Impossible Instrument
Build the Research Lab, then complete Spacecraft Engineering, Enhanced Weapons Systems I, Enhanced Defense Systems I, Electromagnetic Pulse Weapons, and Hyper-drive Technology. The campaign uses both the defense and weapons branches because Enhanced Defense Systems I unlocks the EMP Array while the objective separately requires the EMP damage research.
All five campaign technologies are complete, and enough stock remains to build the Shipyard and its first equipment.
Logistics · Calculate before construction
The Shipyard, EMP Array, Hydrogen Hyper-drive, and Scout each consume raw materials or manufactured components. Open their Field Manual records, total the requirements, then queue the component inputs at the Manufacturing Plant in dependency order.
You know every remaining input and can fund the next steps without consuming the travel reserve.
Construction · Build and equip
Build the Shipyard. The next objective requires one EMP Array and one Hydrogen Hyper-drive manufactured there. After both are complete, upgrade the Command Center to level 3 and then level 5 to bring long-range radar online.
The equipment is ready, the Shipyard can accept a Scout order, and Command Center level 5 provides the radar range needed to select an occupied destination.
Commission · The Quiet Pathfinder
Your Scout is an information instrument. Commission the civilization-specific design available to you, verify that the prepared EMP Array and Hydrogen Hyper-drive are available, and leave hydrogen uncommitted for the mission. A finished hull with no viable route is not readiness.
The Scout is available, its equipment requirements are met, and hydrogen remains available for the route preview.
Expedition · Follow the Echo
The opening campaign concludes with a successful returned Spy expedition. Select an occupied settlement in the carrier’s path, study distance and travel time, review fuel, and send the smallest force that fulfills the mission. The report is the beginning of strategy, not the end of the tutorial.
The Scout returns successfully, the report is read, and one concrete follow-up action enters your queues.
Supply doctrine Six materials, three jobs
Do not evaluate a resource only by its current total. Ask what must remain liquid for construction, what must feed production, and what must be protected for movement.
A common input for buildings, research, Structural Frames, and spacecraft hulls.
Used by construction, research, components, and increasingly expensive spacecraft.
Used across buildings, research, components, and spacecraft construction.
Feeds research, Control Circuits, Fuel Cells, buildings, and spacecraft.
Used by construction and manufacturing as well as fleet travel. Keep a separate mission reserve.
Appears in advanced research, components, equipment, and capital spacecraft requirements.
Before you click build The three-balance test
The displayed cost is covered right now.
Its prerequisites, inputs, and follow-up queue are ready.
Mining, storage, and reserves remain healthy afterward.
Failure analysis Common opening mistakes
Recovery is possible. It is also slower than pausing long enough to see the second consequence.
A zero balance removes choices and can strand several queues at once.
Course correctionKeep a working reserve in the materials your next two objectives share.
Production that cannot be held does not become future capability.
Course correctionExpand capacity before a long absence or a major extraction increase.
Interesting nodes can delay the unlock your current plan actually needs.
Course correctionTrace prerequisites backward from one named capability.
The structure does nothing if hull components, drive research, or fuel are missing.
Course correctionStage the Scout recipe first; build the yard when it can receive work.
A construction spree can leave the first fleet unable to travel usefully.
Course correctionCreate a visible mental reserve for the planned route.
Several hulls multiply component and fuel pressure before information justifies them.
Course correctionOne Scout should answer the question that defines the next fleet.
Visibility is not suitability; distance, mission, timing, and risk still matter.
Course correctionCompare nearby targets and preview the complete order before dispatch.
Your economy and movements continue while you are away.
Course correctionLeave queues, capacity, and return times in a state tomorrow-you can understand.
After first contact Strategic branches
Your first report should narrow the next question. Pick a doctrine, strengthen the systems it depends on, and let other capabilities remain merely adequate until the plan has momentum.
Turn extraction, storage, and manufacturing throughput into the engine every later strategy can borrow.
PrioritizeImprove radar, drives, Scout coverage, and mission cadence until uncertainty becomes your best resource.
PrioritizeProduce intentional surplus, watch scarcity, and use trade to avoid building every supply chain yourself.
PrioritizeProtect what would be costly to replace, then make aggression an informed choice rather than a reflex.
PrioritizeTreat information, agreements, and reliable support as assets that compound across several commanders.
PrioritizeComplete Empire Expansion I, prepare a Colony Ship, and choose the next world for what it adds—not only because it is empty.
PrioritizeWhen detail matters Open the field records
Recipes, resource costs, technologies, spacecraft designs, defenses, buildings, and civilization records belong in the Field Manual.
Orders are yours End of briefing
Choose your civilization. Inspect your world. Build the capability you can sustain, then launch with a defined objective.
