[DOC] Getting Started - Main User Interface Overview

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Trekkan

NomadSoft Owner/Developer
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Oct 11, 2011
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In order to help familiarize you with the various aspects of the main user interface to Trade Realms, the below will contain posts, highlighting the various sections of the main UI and hopefully, explaining what you're looking at more clearly.

Main UI Overview
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Commands

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This is a basic command area for the game. Most of the items here should be fairly self explanatory. If you have questions, please post a new thread.
 
Ship Info, Deployments and Cargo
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In this section, you can see the fuel gauge. This is how many "moves" you can make before your ship is no longer able to move. Fuel auto generates over time, as well as you can purchase more from Port Sol (Sector 1).

Credits - How much money you are currently carrying on your ship. This money cannot be stolen from other players, etc. It is 100% safe.
Cargo Holds - Your total cargo holds as well as how many are currently in use. The cargo resources listed below (Water, Crystal, Metal, etc) are the commodities that you will trade with the various trading ports you find throughout the universe. General idea, buy low, sell higher.
Attack Drones - The standard in attack power. You can deploy drones to a sector and they will stay there, attacking anyone (other than the Federation) who enter the sector. You can also send them into adjacent sectors to attack other forces in that sector, weaking (or outright destroying) your enemy, before you move in.
Sector Mines - These are much more powerful than attack drones, but can only be deployed in a sector you are currently in. These are best used as defensive measures for your home base. Or, to sabotage another sector...
Genesis Devices - These are used to create planets. Planets generate free resources for you, the more resources that are on the planet. You can also deploy various planet enhancing devices in order to help increase production. You generally want to guard this, as any other players can take whatever they want from it, once all defenses are removed.
Plasma Warps - Designed to modify the pathways (warps) between sectors, Plasma warps create a bi-directional warp between two sectors. Allowing you to quickly move back and forth between two sectors.
Gate Warps - Work the same as Plasma warps, except they are only 1 direction. They will create a warp to the specified sector, but do not create a warp back from that sector.
Flash Warps - Extremely powerful, Flash Warps will instantly transport your ship to the specified sector. However, without fully scanning the destination sector first, you never know what you're going to find in the new sector.
Anti\Cloaking Energy - Simply put, if you have more cloaking energy than another player has anti-cloaking energy, they can't see your ship.
 
Navigation

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This is your ships helm, where you control navigation, attacks, docking on planets and trading ports, etc.
The first button is "Scan Adjacent Sectors", this will scan all sectors that are available from the current sector you are in (listed to the right) and report any known information in your ships log (upper right). Keep in mind, there are many devices in Trade Realms that are used to hide and find various items. So a scan is only as good as your scanning devices currently equipped in your active ship device bay!
Rescan Sector - Rescans the current sector only
Dock at Port - When at a trading port, or a Federation Specialty Port (sectors 1-8), use this to dock your ship and see the various services and resources for trade.
Land on Planet - If you find a planet (or create your own using a Genesis device), landing on a planet allows you to modify the planets resources.
Attack Sector - You can attack any sector adjacent to your own by sending attack drones into that sector.

Overspace Navigation

Overspace allows you to move to the next oridinal sector. Meaning if you are at sector 50 and want to go to 49 or 51 and there are no warps there, you can get there using Overspace. Overspace consumes a LARGE amount of fuel compared to the more efficient warps, so use it wisely.

Current Sector - The sector your ship is currently in
Adjacent Sectors - These are the sectors that the current sector, can warp to. These can change by either players using Plasma/Gate Warps or naturally. Clicking the button for any of these sectors, will move your ship to that sector.
Port, Planet, Ships, Drones and Mines will display any of these that are in the current sector

Captain's Personal Log

Keeps track of trading ports, planets, drones, etc... is very valuable, especially early on when you haven't been able to purchase ship devices to help! This section is for keeping notes, these are not visible by any other players, etc.
 
Computer Log

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The computer log displays various data such as the results of sector scans (as seen above), you should always scan sectors before moving into them, you never know what you're going to find! Scanning sectors also helps you locate trading ports to sell your cargo. (Hint: Purchase higher quality port scanners from Tech Magic (sector 5) for more remote port information).
 
Device bays

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Devices are the heart of Trade Realms. You start with a single device bay and the three devices listed above. There is a maximum of 10 devices per device bay. You can purchase more Device Bay Arrays through Tech Magic (sector 5). Only 1 device bay can be active at a time, but you can instantly switch between them. Think of your device bays as ship loadouts. If you're doing trading, you might have only trading devices enabled (along with scanners, etc). If you're out hunting players and the Cabal, you might have an entirely different loadout.

New devices are being created all the time, currently there are over 60 different ship devices available for purchase at Tech Magic.

Devices displayed with a status of "Passive" mean that those devices are always active and there is nothing you need to do with them. When needed, they will perform their functions.

Devices with a status of "Activate" mean you have to click the Activate button in order to enable that device. In the example above, clicking Activate on the Emergency Sol return will instantly move your ship to Sol (Sector 1). This device (and others), will be consumed on use but many can be used as often as needed. See the description of each device at Tech Magic for more information.

Device Damage - If a device is damaged, this is basically a percentage chance that the device will fail when activated (passive or active). Devices get damaged from being attacked by other players, entering sectors with defenses (Drones, Mines, etc). In order to repair a device, visit sector 4 (The Galactic Teamsters) to see repair costs, do the repair or remove the device.

Device Bay Configuration - This will open a new window, allowing you to move devices between device bays, configuring them as you'd like.
 
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