Galactica Documentation
version 1

Overview

Galactica is a strategy game based on exploration and colonization of the galaxy. It supports multiplayer games, either on a single computer or on a network using file sharing. 

Languages

Galactica will be available in English, Spanish, French, German. Versions in Russian, Dutch, Swedish, and Croatian are also planned. If you are interested in translating to Galactica to any other language, please contact us via email at ezavada@kagi.com.

System Requirements

Galactica should run on any Macintosh with System 7 or later, 1 MB of free RAM, and Color Quickdraw. This means it will not run on the Mac Plus, SE, Classic, Portable, or PowerBook 100. It supports any monitor depth, but may be harder to play in anything less than 256 colors due to the use of color to distinguish the various players. To hear the music you must have Quicktime 2.0 or later with MIDI support.
Galactica is a fat binary that contains 68k and native PowerMac support.

Shareware Plea

Galactica is distributed as shareware. This game represents over 3 months of full time work, so if you use it and decide to keep it, please pay the $10 US registration fee. You may freely distribute any unregistered copies, but make sure you pass along the entire package, including this documentation.
We have great plans for future versions, and your registration will help ensure that these plans will become reality. Plus, registered users of version 1 will receive a $20 discount on version 2.

Use the Register program included with the package to pay for the game. If you are registering a non-English version, please be sure to register the version for that language. We pay the translators a percentage of the sales of that version, so if you register the English version but use it in some other language, the translator doesn't get her or his money.

Questions or Comments

If you have any questions or comments about Galactica, please contact us via email at ezavada@kagi.com

Starting a New Single Player Game

1. Choose New Game… from the File menu to open the Game Setup window. 

   ote: the Game Setup window is opened for you automatically when you first start Galactica.

2. Select the Single Player (Host) radio button.

3. Enter the number of computer opponents you want in the game.

   ote: Galactica only has 9 distinct player colors, and you will be green, leaving 8 colors
   or computer opponents. If you choose to have more than 8 computer opponents, the 
   xtras will all be orange, and thus harder to distinguish.

4. Choose the density of stars in the galaxy from the Galactic Density pop-up menu. As a rule, the more dense your galaxy, the longer it takes to play the game.

5. Click on the Begin Game button.

6. The Save Galaxy dialog box will appear. Enter a galaxy name and decide where you want to save the files, then click the Save button.
    
7. The Game Login dialog box will appear. Enter the name you want to use, and click the Login button.

8. The Game window will appear, with your home star system selected. See Game Play for details.

Hosting a New Multiplayer Game

1. Choose New Game… from the File menu to open the Game Setup window. 

   ote: the Game Setup window is opened for you automatically when you first start Galactica.

2. Select the Multiplayer Host radio button.

3. Enter the number of human players who will be playing this game.

4. Enter the number of computer opponents you want in the game.

   ote: Galactica only has 9 distinct player colors. If you choose to have more than 8 players
   otal, human or computer, the extras will all be orange, and thus harder to distinguish.

5. Choose the density of stars in the galaxy from the Galactic Density pop-up menu. As a rule, the more dense your galaxy, the longer it takes to play the game.

6. Check the Limit Turn Length box if you want to limit players to a certain amount of time per turn.

   ote: The host will automatically process the end of turn after the time limit elapses,
   egardless of whether or not all the players have posted their end of turn. To prevent a
   layer from losing their turn completely, the guest games will automatically post the
   hatever changes the player has made so far 30 seconds before the host is scheduled to
   rocess the end of turn. This means that in a game that has a 1 minute time limit per turn,
   he players really only have 30 seconds to make their moves. You should take this into
   ccount if you are setting a short time limit on the games. Also, the timing is based on the
   ystem date/time, so you should make sure the clocks on the various computers are in
   ynch.

7. Click on the Begin Game button.

8. The Save Galaxy dialog box will appear. Enter a galaxy name and decide where you want to save the files, then click the Save button.
    
   ote: It is highly recommended that the game files be saved on a local hard drive of the
   omputer that will be running the host.
    
9. The Host window and the Game Login dialog box will appear. Enter the name you want to use, and click the Login button.

   ote: Galactica can host a game on a separate computer even if no one is playing as a
   lient on that computer. This allows you to host a game for other people in the background
   hile doing more important things in the foreground, to have a file server act as the host,
   r even make use of that extra computer you have laying around (not likely). If you don't
   ant to play as a client on this computer, don't login. Instead, click the Cancel button in the
   ame Login window.

10. The Game window will appear, with your home star system selected. See Game Play for details. (Unless, of course, you canceled the Game Login and are just acting as a host)

Joining a New Multiplayer Game

1. Choose New Game… from the File menu to open the Game Setup window. 

   ote: the Game Setup window is opened for you automatically when you first start Galactica.

2. Select the Multiplayer Guest radio button.

3. Click on the Begin Game button.

4. The Choose Galaxy dialog box will appear. Locate the galaxy you want to join, then click the Open button.

5. The Game Login dialog box will appear. Enter the name you want to use, and click the Login button.

6. The Game window will appear, with your home star system selected. See Game Play for details.

Game Play

Game play in Galactica is a matter of building starships, and using those ships to colonize the galaxy, protect your territory, and defeat the other players in combat. Your level of technology is crutial. Higher levels of technology allow your ships to move faster, and give them an advantage in combat over ships with lower tech levels. Your star systems also defend themselves from attacking ships based on their level of technology. 

All tech development takes place in your star systems. As your level of technology increases, so does the difficulty of advancing to the next level and the complexity of building starships. This is were Growth comes in. As your system grows, there are more laboratories researching new ideas, and more factories to build high-tech parts for starships. If your growth doesn't keep up with your technology, you might know how to build a really advanced ship, but it will take you hundreds of turns to actually do so.

System Information

You manage your star systems with the System Information panel. Your relative effort in each of the three areas (Growth, Ships, and Tech) is set using the sliders. Contrary to what your boss may believe, you cannot expend more than 100% effort, so whatever you add to one will be taken away from the others. You can change these whenever you like, but be careful: it takes time to shift effort from one area to another, and worse still, you can shift effort away from something faster than you can shift it into something else. This means that while you are changing the distribution of effort in your system your total effort is likely to be less that 100%.

The system information panel also tells you the system's position and owner, the system's current tech level, and how close the system is to completing its next ship.

Ships in a System

If you want to see what ships are in a system, a list is available by clicking on the Ship button while a star system is selected. Ships that have a destination assigned will be shown in bold, and ships that want attention will be shown in yellow instead of white.

Ship Navigation

Ships can be selected by clicking on them in the Sector View, or through the Ships in System panel. When a ship is selected, the Ship Navigation panel is activated and the ships course is shown as a series of waypoints. The current destination of the ship is shown in bold. 

Clicking on a waypoint will allow you to perform operations on that waypoint, such as deleting it with the '' (Delete) button or changing it with the '' (Set) button. The '+' (Add) button lets you add a new waypoint to the course, and behaves very similarly to the '' (Set) button. Both '' (Set) and '+' (Add) are activated with a click, and stay active until you click on a destination in the Sector View, or cancel them by clicking on the button a second time. If your intended destination is not visible in the Sector View while plotting a course, you can use the scroll bars to scroll to it. There are also several buttons that affect the entire course. '' (Delete All) erases the entire course. 'M' (Mem) puts the current course in memory, or if there is already a course in memory, swaps the course in memory with the current course. '' (Loop) tells the ship to repeat the course: once it arrives at the final destination, it heads back to the starting point. Finally, '' (Call) tells the ship to bring itself to your attention at the beginning of the next turn.

Colonizing Star Systems

Arriving at an unowned system colonizes it. The system will have the tech level of the ship that colonized it, but as a new colony, it will have very little production capacity.

Transferring Technology

You can also use your starships to spread your advances in technology to you less advanced colonies. Simply send your hi-tech starship to the colony you want improved, and upon arrival the ship will transfer the information from its library to the colony, giving the colony the same tech level as the ship. Of course, this does not change the system's growth, so it may be a while before the colonies production capacity catches up its tech level.

Attacking Enemy Starships

When a ship intercepts an opponent's ship, it will attack. The higher your ship's tech level compared to that of your opponent's ship, the better your chances of winning the battle. The defeated ship is destroyed completely, leaving only debris. The winner will resume its course on the next turn if it has further destinations. When a ship is destroyed, you will see an explosion at the site of combat, and the winner will emerge from the explosion.

Invading Enemy Star Systems

When a ship arrives at an opponent's system it will attack. If there are ships stationed at the system, your ship must defeat each of the ships stationed there before you can attack the planet itself. The defending ships will have an advantage beyond their normal tech level based on the number of defending ships at the star. After all, they are coordinating their defenses. Your ship will then have to overcome the system's fixed defenses in order to succeed. The defenses are based on the tech level of the system, but the system's defense forces are at a disadvantage because they are under assault from mobile spacecraft. The system will lose some production capacity due to damage from the attack, and suffers greater damage if it loses.

Game Pieces that Demand Attention

Normally, game pieces will do what you told them without further intervention. But at certain times, a game piece may need instructions and will ask for your attention. For example when a ship reaches the end of its programmed course, rather than sitting idle in space till you notice it, it will call in. Likewise, when a ship is first created, it brings itself to your attention so you don't forget it was there. At the start of each turn, the first item that needs attention will select itself, and play an attention sound. After you've dealt with that item, you can use N (command and N keys) to go to the next item that wants attention. If you try to end a turn while there are still items that need to be dealt with, you will be reminded that there are still pieces that want attention, and will be given the opportunity to go back and deal with them.

Winning the Game

To win, you must eliminate all of your opponents' ships and planets. It is not necessary to colonize every planet.

Thank you for playing Galactica, we hope you enjoy it.