Getting started

You start by making an account at planets.nu. You will be asked to choose a race for your very first game, but you wont be restricted to that race for new games. I recommend you select a versatile race for your first game. Solar federation is a good choice. You should be aware, that all new players will be given one months free play. After that, you will have to pay a small monthly fee. If you dont want to pay, you can still play on, but with a tech level 7 limitation to all new bases.

All new players, will be placed in a giant melee game, pitted against other new players. The Giant melee games are pretty hectic, with lots of players, placed very close together. It will let you see some action really fast, but is not how the game was originally intended to play. When the game is started, you will be guided through the first couple of turns. Follow the assistant, but be aware that some of the advice is actually not very good. for example, you are being told send freighters through deep space, at warp(speed) 7, towards unknown planets. There are 3 reasons for that to be bad advice: In the giant melee games, most planets will be taken, so you dont want to send unarmed freighters towards unknown planets. Secondly, all ships ending their turns in deep space, will be visible to other players at a distance of 300 lys(lightyears) if you can, try to jump from planet to planet instead. Ships in orbit of planets are not visible to everyone, so it will hide your ship from other players. and finally, warp 7, is advice from old times, when all new players was restricted to that tech level.

You can choose to play on in the giant melee game, but you can also resign, if you dont like that type of game. Normally it is considered very disruptive to drop out of games, since it destroys the balance of the games. But the giant melee games, are designed to handle dropouts.