Frequently Asked Questions
These questions are often asked by players completely
new to the game.
Who am I?
Where am I?
When is the game set?
Where do I start?
Tell
me about my ship
Where can I go?
When do I start paying?
What can I fight and where?
How do I get more ships?
How do I create my own empire?
Who am I?
You are in control of a ship. This ship is part of an affiliation. An affiliation
is a faction within the Peripheries. This faction may be human or may be
an alien species. The crew on your ship specifies your race. The race is
appropriate to the faction you have been seeded into. Under cargo, it will
state whether they are Human crew, Hive crew, Dewiek crew, Feline crew,
Naplian crew or Falconian crew.
Races
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Where am I?
You start the game docked in the starport of a starbase. The faction you
have been seeded into owns this starbase. This is situated in the Yank
system. This is a star that is pretty much in the centre of a number of
star clusters that together make up a region of space known as the Peripheries.
The Yank system along with the adjacent Skord system together make up a
neutral region of space controlled by the Kastorian species of aliens.
You have started here as it is central to the game and also neutral, i.e.
relatively safe.
Faster than light travel is possible, i.e. ships can move between stars using
engines known as jump drives. They move the ship directly from the region
of space close to one star to the region of space close to the destination
star. There is a network of roots that forms the map of the stars.
System Maps
Kastorian Laws
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When is the game set?
The setting is a few hundred years from now. Humanity has fractured into
various groups and has encountered alien races. Each species of alien has
its unique history and while some have interacted with others for hundreds
of years, humans generally have not had dealings with aliens for more than
a few decades.
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Where do I start?
It is best to start simply by getting used to doing simple orders. Use the ‘move
to planet orbit’ in order to move your ship from its current location
to that of another planet. ‘Scan planet’ order can be used to
get maps. You can issue ‘detailed scan’ in order to look more
closely at other positions (ships, starbases etc) that you have detected
during your journeys. Do not leave the system unless you know where you are
going. It is a hostile universe so jumping into the wrong system could prove
disastrous.
Another top tip is to contact other players. Email addresses are shown next
to positions scanned. Simply writing to anyone and everyone can often pay
dividends. The game is a very social one so knowing players is often half
the fun.
While you are doing this, it is best to look at the professions on the website.
These give insights in the roles you can play in the game. There is nothing
stopping you from pursuing more than one profession or even all of them.
They professions pages are simply guides focussing on parts of the game.
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Tell me about my ship
You start the game with a courier. It is effectively the 1.1 litre engine
of the Phoenix universe. It is a good little ship to get you going but
all in all is really only a training ship. It is not a warship, nor is
it a particularly good trader. It does have a few defences, but these would
be no match against serious opposition. It also starts with a cargo of
kastorian delicacies that are worth something. The quicker you can find
a market for these the better.
By way of comparison most human ships are approximately 100 hulls compared
to a Courier’s 20 hulls although often the purpose of the ship defines
the size. The hull strength determines the damage that a hull can withstand
so the size multiplied by the hull strength determines the maximum damage
a ship can withstand. A light hull Courier can withstand 20*25=500 damage
while a 100-hull warship can withstand 100*400=40,000 damage. This should
give you some idea of what is out there. At this stage of the game, it is
best not to get too cocky.
Your ship has a cargo capacity of 400mu’s. While reasonable, there
are many trade ships with capacities in excess of 6,000mu’s. These
tend to be haulers, dealing with bulk transport. Your limited capacity means
that it is best to deal with smaller goods that have high values. You can
find out about many items and their local worth simply by issuing ‘tech
manual’ orders for the items.
Example Tech Manual
Kastorian Delicacies (30009) - 1 mu
These cover a range of dishes that are produced and consumed throughout
Yank. They are made from traditional Kastorian recipes and while they may
not be many people's favourite dish, their scarcity outside Yank is
sufficient to warrant their sale in distant peripheries.
Item Type: Trade Good (Perishable)
Value at Source: 1 (Stellars/mu)
Local Value: 3 (Stellars/mu)
Origin System: Yank
This means that each mu of kastorian delicacies is worth $1 in Yank but as
you move further away from Yank, the value increases.
You can even check the markets of the starbases within a system by going to
the system map. At the bottom of the map you will find links to markets for
starbases present.
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Where can I go?
Anywhere you know about. A better question however is where should I go.
The answer to this should be determined with some conversions between yourself
and the rest of your affiliation. Charging off in a random direction is likely
to end in destruction. There are maps of the peripheries out there and some
even label which affiliation claims domain of which system. This can be very
helpful. If you want to sell your initial cargo, it is best to do so to your
own affiliation or to one of its allies. This is just starting advice and
once you know the game better you will know where to trade and with whom.
Your affiliation may also have some survey work lined up. There is never
a shortage of worlds to check over.
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When do I start paying?
You can play the game for free as long as you never perform special actions,
surface explorations and want to run positions other than ships and ground
parties. While you do not have a political position, each position that
you own has its own stellars (money) rather than a central account.
KJC’s advice is to learn the game a little better, do some trading
or scanning then, if you want to go further, set up a political account.
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What can I fight and where?
To begin with it is best to avoid trouble as your courier is simply not
up to it. If you are serious about getting into trouble, you shouldn't be needing to read this FAQ!
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How do I get more ships?
There are number of ways of getting more ships. The three standard routes
are Create Poltical Position, beg your affiliation and buy one from the
EEM.
The simplest one is to start a political position using the Create Political
Position order in the editor (note that this means that you will become a
paying customer). Using the order automatically generates two more ships
for you. They are a heavy hull broadsword class ship and a caravel freighter.
The second method is to beg your affiliation for another ship. This will
largely depend on how well you get on with your affiliation. It is often
the case that they have a few spare ships laying around that they could transfer.
It is more often though a question of why should they?
The final method of getting ships is to buy them from the starbase Balmoral.
This is done through the use of a special action. It is unlikely that you
will be able to afford more ships for some time though.
This is a list of freely available ships and some basic statistics.
Yacht Class Scout, 10 (Heavy Hull), Stellar Value: 12950
Courier Class Freighter, 20 (Normal Hull), Stellar Value: 30000
Solo Class Freighter, 50 (Normal Hull), Stellar Value: 114000
Caravel Class High G Freighter, 75 (Light Hull), Stellar Value: 127500
Mayflower Class Passenger Liner, 75 (Light Hull), Stellar Value: 142500
Far Courier Class Freighter, 75 (Normal Hull), Stellar Value: 163500
The EEM do not normally sell Broadsword class ships.
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How do I create my own empire?
While a frequently asked question, it is quite an advanced one and requires
good understanding of the game. Yes it can be done, this said, most players
that initially want to go down this road often end up controlling an already
established affiliation. Anyway, this said, here is the correct answer:
There are two methods of carving a niche for yourself in the Peripheries.
The first method is to create your own affiliation from scratch while the
second is to take over where somebody else left off.
Creating your own affiliation can be achieved by leaving an affiliation and taking all
your assets with you providing you have 1 million stellars in your political
account. Once you are independent, you issue a special action declaring your
new affiliation, i.e. giving it a name and a three-letter acronym. An example
would be Periphery Defence Force (PDF). The Game Master will then put this
data into the game and promote your political to Periphery Director.
Alternatively should you bump into a faction within the game that are not
represented by an affiliation, you can leave your affiliation and use a special
action to become the representatives of the faction you have found. For example,
a player finds an isolated world populated by a technologically advanced
group of humans that apparently ended up there some decades ago by accident.
The player issues a special action and declares that he will represent these
people in the game from this point onwards. Note that there are often consequences
to these sorts of actions.
As stated above, more commonly a player can take over an established affiliation.
From time to time the real world interferes with the game and players have
to leave. As a consequence a small faction such as either of the ones mentioned
above becomes uncontrolled. Presuming that you know of this (through rumours,
talking with players etc), you can ask to take over the affiliation. All
assets will be transferred to your control.
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