This tutorial will guide you through how to play Space Domination up to the level of being an intermediate player. If you do not understand everything, do not worry - these concepts are much easier in-game. Please make use of the images for each section, as they greatly aid in understanding

1. Requirements to play Space Domination
2. The different servers
3. Logging into the game
4. Choosing your race
5. Moving in game
6. Battling enemy forces
7. Setting up a planet
8. The Ship Types
9. The Different Planet Types
10. Phenomena
11. Facilities
12. Star Darts
13. Declarations

1. Requirements to play Space Domination

• Pentium 333mhz or higher processor
• Information is not shared with 3rd parties. Please read the Privacy Policy if you want to know more.
• 28.8k modem or higher
• Java compatible browser
• Java version 1.1.8 or higher - note the latest version of java can be downloaded from here
• Space Domination is 100% free to play

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2. The different servers

There are currently 2 Space Domination servers

1. Andromeda - The longer and slower of the two servers. Games on this server can last for weeks, and players can have thousands of planets.
2. Blackeye - The fastest of the Space Domination servers. Games last about 2 days, and are more action packed than the games in the Andromeda server.

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3. Logging into the game

Step 1. Locate and select your arena:

Click on one of the server links on the games page. Space Domination will now load. If it doesn't load please visit our faq, or post a message on the forums if the faq doesn't help you.

Step 2: Enter your user information and login:

Now that Space Domination is loaded, please enter in a username and password of your choice, and hit enter.

If you get an error, it is probably because either your username or password are invalid. Please make each over 4 characters in length, and only use letters and numbers.

Your username and password will automatically be sent to the server and you will be logged in. This username and password will be valid only in the arena you selected, and only the current game. You will now be brought to a race selection screen, which will be explained in the next section of this tutorial.

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There are 8 different races to choose from in Space Domination. This section is a lengthy, though informative. If you wish to skip this part of the tutorial and read it later, then just pick humans. Do not fret if some of the things mentioned in this section are confusing: there's a lot of tutoria left.

The following is an in depth explanation of the different races

Home World: New Earth

Sector: 0
Planet Build Bonus: -10%
Speed and Maximum Speed Bonus: -10%
World Bonus: Builds frigates 50% faster on desert worlds.
Unique Ability: When a destroyed star dart lands on a phenomenon you control, you have a 50% chance of scoring an additional star dart.

Makluvians

Home World: Makluvia

Sector: 1
Planet Build Bonus: +10%
Speed and Maximum Speed Bonus: -20%
World Bonus: Builds rangers 50% faster on mountain worlds.
Unique Ability: +50% command build.

Kaletians

Home World: Kaletia

Sector: 2
Planet Build Bonus: None
Speed and Maximum Speed Bonus: +20%
World Bonus: Builds corsairs 50% faster on tundra worlds.
Unique Ability: Can pass through nebulae without losing speed.

Zorestians

Home World: Zorestia

Sector: 3
Planet Build Bonus: None
Speed and Maximum Speed Bonus: +5%
World Bonus: Builds sloops 50% faster on aquatic worlds.
Unique Ability: All ships decay 25% less than other races.

Avarians

Home World: Avaria

Sector: 4
Planet Build Bonus: None
Speed and Maximum Speed Bonus: +10%
World Bonus: Builds stations 50% faster on jungle worlds.
Unique Ability: Stations on worlds can be dragged to and from your fleet.

Najunians

Home World: Najunia

Sector: 5
Planet Build Bonus: +10%
Speed and Maximum Speed Bonus: -5%
World Bonus: Builds industry 50% faster on metallic worlds.
Unique Ability: Ships deal 20% more damage in battle.

Cestanians

Home World: Cestania

Sector: 6
Planet Build Bonus: +10%
Speed and Maximum Speed Bonus: +5%
World Bonus: Builds everything 25% faster on large worlds.
Unique Ability: All facilities build 200% speed on average worlds.

Quarethians

Home World: Quarethia

Sector: 7
Planet Build Bonus: -10%
Speed and Maximum Speed Bonus: -5%
World Bonus: Builds everything 25% faster on small worlds.
Unique Ability: Ships fire, move, and retreat in battle an average of 15% faster than normal.

Once you have chosen the race that you think is best, hit the submit button. You may have to wait up to 10 seconds to the server to receive all information and to put you into the game.

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5. Basic Gui and Moving

To move, you click on a planet. You will see a blue line connecting your fleet and the planet. Your fleet will begin moving towards that planet. To stop your fleet, click on your fleet. To travel around the galaxy, you click from planet to planet.

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6. Battling enemy forces

If this is your first planet, it is wise to make it a weak planet. Weak planets are 10-20 population planets. The population of a planet is displayed in the lower left-hand side of the applet when you mouse over the planet.

To battle a planet, click on it, and let your fleet collide with the planet. You will now enter the battle screen.

Your ships are the ships at the center of the screen. The enemy ships are on the right side of the screen. To fire on the enemy, click on one of your ships, holding down the left mouse button, drag to an enemy ship, and let go.

 If you see a Star Dart (it will usually be in the back row andlooks significantly stronger than the other ships) press the retreat button. You are not strong enough to kill a Star Dart yet.

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7. Setting up a planet

Once you have conquered a planet, you will be brought to a green and yellow screen. This is where all the magic happens, and is called the industry screen. This is where you will do everything from building ships and industry, to building facilities. Yes, the screenshot below is confusing at first, but we'll go through each and every part of it. :)

Building more ships

The planet will be already be building at least one ship. We want to make our planet build several different kinds of ships. Avarians are the only race that can move Stations to their fleet, so if we aren't Avarian, we better make sure that planet is building more than just Stations. Follow the below steps to build another ship on your planet.

Step 1. Click on an empty box:

Clicking on an empy box will highlight the box with a small red outline. You will also see a send button appear in the box.

2. Select a ship:

The ship types are Sloop, Ranger, Corsair, Station, and Frigate. Select a ship by clicking on its respective button.

3. Number of Ships

Now you need to tTell the planet how many of this ship to build. You do this by sliding the industry bar.

The further to the right you move the bar, the more ships you are telling that planet to build.

4. Repeat

By setting repeat to true you are telling the planet that once it is done building the desired number of ships, it will automatically add the same command at the end of its command queue. You can see that there is either the word true or false under the number of ships built / to be built..

This means that once the planet has built x number of ships, it will put that box at the end of its queue, and build those ships again. It is normal for a player to have a planet building several ship types, all with repeat set to true. This cycles the ships that the planet builds, and gives the planet a good defense.

5. Hit the send button.

Industry is a very important factor in how fast a world produces ships and facilities. Building industry is easier than building ships.

Step 1: Locate The Planet's Industry and Determine How Much To Build

Industry is displayed in the following format: industry_built ( industry_not_built)

So 4(108) means that the planet currently has 4 industry, and that 108 more industry can be built on the planet.

Step 2: Building the right amount of industry

So we build industry the same way we build ships. We select a box, click on the industry button, move the slider bar, and then hit send. Industry is normally set to repeat: false. Industry only needs to be built once.

Building Facilities

If you know how to build ships and industry, then you can build facilities without much trouble. The steps are the same. Select a box, click on a facility, and then click send. You don't need to worry about the repeat button or the slider bar

The only two items in a box with a facility are the facility name and it's cost. You will notice that the cost for a facility is a lot higher than the cost for a ship. In most cases this requires that you stay on the planet until the facility has completed.

the number 8000 is the build points required to build the Stellurae. 8000 is a LOT of build points. Your planet will not be able to handle this local facility by itself. Your planet recieves a bonus when you are docked on it, and you will need that bonus to successfully build the facility. On longer, slower servers, you will have to wait until your empire is larger before you can build one. Planets are limited to 1 local facility each.

Note: It is asked, "I get build points every turn, so why won't it reach 8000?" The reason is because decay becomes a factor. Decay takes out a certain, small percentage of your ships and/or build points each turn. When the decay becomes more than the amount of build points your planet supplies every turn, the planet gets stuck. For this reason, it is wise to only build things you know your planet can handle.

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8. Ship Types

There are several different ship types, each with their own strengths and weaknesses.

Sloop:
Cost: 100
Guns: 2
ECM: None
Strong Against: Frigates
Weak Against: Corsair and Rangers

Station:
Cost: 200
Guns: 4
ECM: 0.02
Strong Against: Nothing
Weak Against: Star Darts

Ranger:
Cost: 500
Guns: 10
ECM: 0.06
Strong Against: Sloop
Weak Against: Frigates

Corsair:
Cost: 500
Guns: 10
ECM: None
Strong Against: Sloops
Weak Against: Frigates

Frigate:
Cost: 2000
Guns: 20
ECM: None
Strong Against: Corsair and Rangers
Weak Against: Sloop

Star Darts are explained later in this tutorial

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9. Planet Types

Space Domination boasts several different planet types, with each planet having its own special attributes.

Aquatic World:
Aquatic worlds always build sloops at 150%.

Average World:
Average worlds have no special positive or negative attribute.

Beacon World:
Beacon worlds can build more beacons than other worlds, and builds them at 200%

Core World:
There are 12 core worlds in each game, all of which directly surround Old Earth. Core worlds all have 100 population, and give out small declares.

Desert World:
Desert worlds build Frigates at 150%.

Jungle World:
Jungle worlds build Stations at 150%.

Large World:
Large worlds have 6 industry points for every population point. The added bonus of industry allows large worlds to build ships and local facilities faster.

Merchant World:
Can build more Merchants than other worlds, and builds them at 200%.

Metallic World:
Metallic worlds build industry at 200%

Mountain World:
Mountain worlds build Rangers at 150%.

Poor World:
Poor worlds build ships and local facilities at 50%.

Rich World:
Rich worlds build ships and local facilities at 150%.

Small World:
Small worlds have only 2 industry points for every population point. This decreases the potential of the planet drastically.

Stardock World:
Stardock worlds can build more Stardocks than other worlds, and builds them at 200%.

Tundra World:
Tundra worlds build Corsair at 150%.

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10. Phenomena

There are 6 different types of phenomena in Space Domination

1. Nuetron Stars: These are denoted by a large yellow circle. When in one of these, your fleet moves 2 times faster than normal.
   
2. Nebulas: These are denoted by a large grey circle. When in one of these, your fleet moves and 1/2 speed.
3. Gateways: These have a stargate-like look. Entering into one of these will transport you to another gateway in a different planet in the galaxy. The order of transportation between galaxies is static.
   
4. Wormholes: Wormholes are small, purples cirles. Their function is similar to gateways, except they transport you to a random wormhole, instead of a set wormhole.
5. Red Giant: Red giants are denoted by a large, red circle. When in a red giant, your speed is reduced, and decay is increased (you lose ships faster).
6. Blue Dwarf: Blue dwarves are denoted by a blue circle. When in a blue dwarf, your speed is increased, and decay is decreased (you lose less ships).

You can find Star Darts in all of these phenomenas

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11. Facilities

There are four different facilities.

1. Merchant:

Cost: 3000 build points. Effect: Increased production on all your worlds and the bonus your fleet gives

2. Beacon

Cost: 5000 build points. Effect: Increases your fleet movement speed.

3. Stardock

Cost: 12000 build points. Effect: Decreased the rate at which you and your planets lose ships to decay

4. Stellurae

Cost: 20000 build points. Effect: Each Stellurae gives a small chance that when a Star Dart is killed, you will 'score' it. It will be added to your score, and placed on the planet under your control that captured it.

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12. Star Darts

Star Darts are the most powerful ships in Space Domination. It takes several thousand guns to challenge one stardart. For the inexperienced, killing a Star Dart can take around 10,000 guns! When found in a group Star Darts are even harder to kill, and do incredible amounts of damage.

How to obtain a Star Dart:

First a Star Dart must be killed. This involves going to a planet, and destroying the Star Dart. The Star Dart will now be considered 'up'. This means that the Star Dart is now available to be found by any player.

To find the 'up' Star Darts, you must go into the center of a phenomenon. When you hit the center, and it says that you have found a Star Dart, you have indeed found a Star Dart. If it does not say that you found a Star Dart, then you must try other phenomena. (It is wise to not search for Star Darts until you know there are Star Darts up)

13. Declarations

Declarations happen when you take control of one of the strongest planets in the galaxy. The home world for your race will declare, home worlds will declare, and Old Earth will declare.

A declaration; when you capture one of the above planets, other planets and phenomena automatically decide to join your side. A graphic of this is shown below:

As you can see above, I captured Old Earth. 40 other worlds decided to join my side, as well as 11 phenomena. Phenomena are useful on your side, because they allow you to 'score' darts. Scoring darts is talked about in the next section.

This is the end of the tutorial! You now have enough knowledge to play the game of Space Domination well. Congratulations for those of you who read the whole thing. For those of you who read bits and pieces, I wish you good luck in game (you may need it, hehe).