STEP 4
 
 
 

 

Alas the STARSHIPS button is chosen from the menu. Here is where you'll spend most of your time eventually. You can use your mouse to direct a waypoint for your ship. Notice in the photo above that by clicking on the planet NW of the center, the ship will travel there and arrive there next turn. Each turn a ship with Transwarp drive engines can travel approximately 81 light years (there are some exceptions).

You can toggle through all your ships by using the 'arrow' keys, or black triangles in the upper middle. One thing you should know, and what can cause confusion, is you can perform multiple tasks from different windows. To even add more confusion, you can perform the SAME task in different looking windows as well. But let's just keep it simple for now, and we'll worry about WHERE our ship is going, and how much CARGO it has... by pressing the "C" button, you can access the cargo space which accounts for the FUEL, MINERALS, COLONISTS, and MEGACREDITS the ship can carry.

 
  One more important thing worth mentioning in the STARSHIP screen is the Mission parameters. Each race will have certain BONUS missions it can perform. The one key error that EVERY new player does at least once, is setting the mission to COLONIZE when orbiting a new planet they want to take. CAUTION: to colonize a planet, just transfer your colonists and supplies (if any) to the planets' surface, and that will do. The COLONIZE mission is the turn your ship into SCRAP and convert them into minerals, and the colonists/crew colonize the planet as well.