It has been a long time since we used to play this version of OGame. We think it is possible you need a refresher.
1. How it looks and what you can do
Overview is the place where you can see most of things happening to your empire:
In the upper side you have the drop down menu enabling you to visit your planets ( after you have at least a colony) and the three resources: Metal, Crystal and Deuterium
In the central part of the screen you can see the event list : hostile is red, own is green
Below the picture of your planet you can see if you have any building in construction. You can also see the number of fields used by your buildings, temperature range of your planet and last your points and your rank in highscore.
The left hand menu:
- Overview - you can return to overview at any time to check the event list
- Buildings - you can order buildings from this menu : It is important to select the building you need to construct, not the building you have. If you are using the wrong building sequence this can make the difference between being a top account or just one in the row.
-Resources- you can manage resource production versus energy
Research- you can develop the technologies
Shipyard- build ships
Fleet- opens the fleet dispatch menu
Technology - you can see requirements for different buildings, technologies, ships and defense
Galaxy- opens the galaxy view, traveling between systems will cost you deuterium
Defense- you can build defense
Alliance- opens the alliance menu
Statistics- opens the highscore
Search- you can search by player name and alliance
Messages- you can read fleet messages and player / alliance messages
Notes- opens the personal notes menu
Buddylist- you can manage your buddies
Options- opens the options menu
Logout - logs you out
Rules- link to the rules
Legal Notice- link to the T&C
2. What to do first - Building Order
All in OGame is about being the first or being the best.
One measure of this is to have as many points as possible. You get a point each time you spend 1000 resources . Points can be permanent ( points in buildings and technologies) and not permanent ( points in fleet and defense)
When you first start to play and the universe is fresh, everybody is eager to advance the faster possible. OGame is a strategy game, what to build , when to build is very important. Here is a suggestion from a veteran :
When you just begun with ogame, and your planet is completely empty, there's a building order that proved quite good for developing your planet:
1. Solar Power Plant Lvl. 1
2. Metal Mine Lvl. 1
3. Metal Mine Lvl. 2
4. Solar Power Plant Lvl. 2
5. Metal Mine Lvl. 3
6. Metal Mine Lvl. 4
7. Solar Power Plant Lvl. 3
8. Crystal Mine Lvl. 1
9. Metal Mine Lvl. 5
and so on...
The reason for focusing on the Metal Mine is that you need very large amounts of metal at the earlier game stage. You won't need much crystal or deuterium at the beginning, so go for sure and increase your metal production as fast as you can until your Mine reached lvl. 7 or 8. First then you should build your crystal mine at higher levels.
3. Expanding
Try to research everything needed to build colony ships as fast as possible. If you have your first colony ship, try to colonize a planet of the position 4, 5 or 6. The best chances to find a big planet are given at this positions. Then your colony is founded, construct your buildings like i wrote in Building Order" to develop your colony quickly. Try to colonize at least 6-7 other planets, but save the last colony slot (you can only have 8 colonies + 1 main planet), you'll need it as a mobile base for your fleet in the later game. For people who focus on raiding other players it might be helpful to save 2 colony-slots, so that your fleet gets a higher mobility. Colonies will increase your income of resources rapidly when they are build correctly - and with your income of resources, your amount of points will also increase more rapidly ;). Later you can send the daily production of your colonies to your main planet, to convert it there into ships, research, defense and buildings.
4. Raiding in the early game
Try to raid! It's one of the main aspects of the game. By raiding, you can increase your daily income of resources, and you get sure that your neighbors won't develop that quickly than you do. Before you attack any planet, send an espionage at first: Send enough Espionage Drones that you can see his researched technologies. If you only see the resources on the planet, be careful: You've found a player who's probably stronger than you and who might take revenge for your attack. The amount of energy displayed by the resources is also a possibility to estimate his strength: The higher the energy, the higher are his mines - and the result of their production. If you send more drones, you might be able to see his fleet and defense. Send a fleet that is able to transport the stolen resources but keep in mind that you can only steal half of the resources on the planet. Transporters are useful because your small battle ships haven't much room for transporting resources ;).
Be sure you send a fleet that's strong enough to destroy all ships and defense structures on the other planet. Even if only one Rocket Launcher survives, you won't get any resources!
There are some battle simulators that can help you see the probable result of the fight before sending the attack.
If you had success in raiding a planet, espionage it every day, and when there are enough resources that a worth raiding the planet, attack it again! Maybe you won't get as much resources as at the first time, but if you do that with more than one planet, it'll work and you get an extra income of resources every day. That's called "farming" - you get sure that a part of the resource income of another player is added to your own income by raiding. And if you find enough planets to farm, it's like you've got more colonies than the other players. But be sure that you raid each planet only once a day (don't forget to espionage first!), so that the other player has a chance to play, too. And of course because you needn't to bash other players ;).
5. Raiding in the midgame
Now it's time to get the feeling for "real" raiding. Most players don't raid because because in most cases there are only a few resources and they would have to raid many planets to get a real amount of resources. So they look for other player's fleets - to annihilate them.From a destroyed fleet you will be able to recycle up to 30% from the orbit of the planet you attacked . So build enough recylcers and a strong fleet and go on the hunt! Especially battleships will prove useful, so get a big amount of them as fast as possible. A guideline is that you should build 2 Recyclers for 5 Battleships, that you can collect all resources your entire fleet will "produce" when destroying another fleet. High levels for you weapon, armor and shields are also very helpful.
How to attack another fleet:
First of all: Espionage. Try to find other fleets. Most inexperienced players keep it on their main planet, so if you're looking for hostile fleet, look over there for it. You can find out what planet another player's main planet is, by clicking on the message for "send message to this player".
6. Phalanx
In the late game, you'll have to face a few problems: First, there won't be much other fleets near your main planet if you were hard-working ;). And that's the moment were the phalanx enters the game and proves very useful! The problem: You can construct this building only on a moon. And to get a moon can be quite difficult: A moon is only created when fleet is crushed in the orbit of a planet. So, to get a moon there are three possibilities:
1. Somebody destroyed your fleet
2. Somebody attacked you, but you blasted his fleet to the stars
3. You paid somebody to attack you with a fleet only to get a moon
For each 100.000 resources floating in the orbit, there's a chance of 1% to create a moon. But the maximal chance is 20%, regardless of how much garbage is floating out there after the battle ;).
The second possibility is the best of course, but unfortunately the rarest, too.
Once you've got a moon, take resources to it with your transporters, and start to construct a moon base, to get place for your phalanx. The range of the phalanx is the following: x²systems - 1system, where x is the phalanx's lvl.
When you've got your moon and your phalanx ready, scan other planets with it - each scan will cost you 5.000 deuterium, so get enough deuterium on your moon in time. The phalanx scan displays other fleets moving or coming from the scanned planet - elapsed time included! Note the time and strength of the fleet and the defense on the planet where it'll arrive and look how long your own fleet needs to fly to that planet.
An example:
7. Saving your fleet and resources
No, this doesn't mean you have to handle savegames with oGame ;). To save your fleet, first you have to know how long you will be offline. In my case, that are 20hours. Then, take all your fleet (recyclers included!), and type in some coordinates as destination spot. Don't click on continue! Just look at the elapsed time. Set the speed to 10%, and look how the elapsed time will grow. Increase or decrease distance of the destination point from the point where you're fleet is located, until the time is half of the time you want to be offline. In my case, i'll look for an elapsed time of 9h 50min and 10h 30min. Half of the time you want to be offline, because the fleet will have to fly the way there and back, but the shown time is needed for 1 way, not for 2. When the elapsed time is alright, click on continue. Now you have to give your orders what to do at this spot. Because of you've got recyclers with you, you have the option to gather resources. Chose this mission for your fleet and fill in the resources in the boxes you want to save - normally it's all you've got ;).
If you done everything correctly, your fleet will come back (with all the saved resources...) when you're back online and is waiting for new orders! While your fleet is doodling around, no one is able to attack it, because in oGame moving fleets can't be intercepted. Why should you save your fleet? Simply answer: not to lose it. Other players want 30% of the resources you've paid for it, too. And so they will try to kill your fleet. Be sure you stay on the right side of this food chain! Even when a weaker player will scan you, there's the possibility to get killed when he passes the scan to another player!
That is for tonight, see you in game
Keep your fleet safe!
1. How it looks and what you can do
Overview is the place where you can see most of things happening to your empire:
In the upper side you have the drop down menu enabling you to visit your planets ( after you have at least a colony) and the three resources: Metal, Crystal and Deuterium
In the central part of the screen you can see the event list : hostile is red, own is green
Below the picture of your planet you can see if you have any building in construction. You can also see the number of fields used by your buildings, temperature range of your planet and last your points and your rank in highscore.
The left hand menu:
- Overview - you can return to overview at any time to check the event list
- Buildings - you can order buildings from this menu : It is important to select the building you need to construct, not the building you have. If you are using the wrong building sequence this can make the difference between being a top account or just one in the row.
-Resources- you can manage resource production versus energy
Research- you can develop the technologies
Shipyard- build ships
Fleet- opens the fleet dispatch menu
Technology - you can see requirements for different buildings, technologies, ships and defense
Galaxy- opens the galaxy view, traveling between systems will cost you deuterium
Defense- you can build defense
Alliance- opens the alliance menu
Statistics- opens the highscore
Search- you can search by player name and alliance
Messages- you can read fleet messages and player / alliance messages
Notes- opens the personal notes menu
Buddylist- you can manage your buddies
Options- opens the options menu
Logout - logs you out
Rules- link to the rules
Legal Notice- link to the T&C
2. What to do first - Building Order
All in OGame is about being the first or being the best.
One measure of this is to have as many points as possible. You get a point each time you spend 1000 resources . Points can be permanent ( points in buildings and technologies) and not permanent ( points in fleet and defense)
When you first start to play and the universe is fresh, everybody is eager to advance the faster possible. OGame is a strategy game, what to build , when to build is very important. Here is a suggestion from a veteran :
When you just begun with ogame, and your planet is completely empty, there's a building order that proved quite good for developing your planet:
1. Solar Power Plant Lvl. 1
2. Metal Mine Lvl. 1
3. Metal Mine Lvl. 2
4. Solar Power Plant Lvl. 2
5. Metal Mine Lvl. 3
6. Metal Mine Lvl. 4
7. Solar Power Plant Lvl. 3
8. Crystal Mine Lvl. 1
9. Metal Mine Lvl. 5
and so on...
The reason for focusing on the Metal Mine is that you need very large amounts of metal at the earlier game stage. You won't need much crystal or deuterium at the beginning, so go for sure and increase your metal production as fast as you can until your Mine reached lvl. 7 or 8. First then you should build your crystal mine at higher levels.
3. Expanding
Try to research everything needed to build colony ships as fast as possible. If you have your first colony ship, try to colonize a planet of the position 4, 5 or 6. The best chances to find a big planet are given at this positions. Then your colony is founded, construct your buildings like i wrote in Building Order" to develop your colony quickly. Try to colonize at least 6-7 other planets, but save the last colony slot (you can only have 8 colonies + 1 main planet), you'll need it as a mobile base for your fleet in the later game. For people who focus on raiding other players it might be helpful to save 2 colony-slots, so that your fleet gets a higher mobility. Colonies will increase your income of resources rapidly when they are build correctly - and with your income of resources, your amount of points will also increase more rapidly ;). Later you can send the daily production of your colonies to your main planet, to convert it there into ships, research, defense and buildings.
4. Raiding in the early game
Try to raid! It's one of the main aspects of the game. By raiding, you can increase your daily income of resources, and you get sure that your neighbors won't develop that quickly than you do. Before you attack any planet, send an espionage at first: Send enough Espionage Drones that you can see his researched technologies. If you only see the resources on the planet, be careful: You've found a player who's probably stronger than you and who might take revenge for your attack. The amount of energy displayed by the resources is also a possibility to estimate his strength: The higher the energy, the higher are his mines - and the result of their production. If you send more drones, you might be able to see his fleet and defense. Send a fleet that is able to transport the stolen resources but keep in mind that you can only steal half of the resources on the planet. Transporters are useful because your small battle ships haven't much room for transporting resources ;).
Be sure you send a fleet that's strong enough to destroy all ships and defense structures on the other planet. Even if only one Rocket Launcher survives, you won't get any resources!
There are some battle simulators that can help you see the probable result of the fight before sending the attack.
If you had success in raiding a planet, espionage it every day, and when there are enough resources that a worth raiding the planet, attack it again! Maybe you won't get as much resources as at the first time, but if you do that with more than one planet, it'll work and you get an extra income of resources every day. That's called "farming" - you get sure that a part of the resource income of another player is added to your own income by raiding. And if you find enough planets to farm, it's like you've got more colonies than the other players. But be sure that you raid each planet only once a day (don't forget to espionage first!), so that the other player has a chance to play, too. And of course because you needn't to bash other players ;).
5. Raiding in the midgame
Now it's time to get the feeling for "real" raiding. Most players don't raid because because in most cases there are only a few resources and they would have to raid many planets to get a real amount of resources. So they look for other player's fleets - to annihilate them.From a destroyed fleet you will be able to recycle up to 30% from the orbit of the planet you attacked . So build enough recylcers and a strong fleet and go on the hunt! Especially battleships will prove useful, so get a big amount of them as fast as possible. A guideline is that you should build 2 Recyclers for 5 Battleships, that you can collect all resources your entire fleet will "produce" when destroying another fleet. High levels for you weapon, armor and shields are also very helpful.
How to attack another fleet:
First of all: Espionage. Try to find other fleets. Most inexperienced players keep it on their main planet, so if you're looking for hostile fleet, look over there for it. You can find out what planet another player's main planet is, by clicking on the message for "send message to this player".
6. Phalanx
In the late game, you'll have to face a few problems: First, there won't be much other fleets near your main planet if you were hard-working ;). And that's the moment were the phalanx enters the game and proves very useful! The problem: You can construct this building only on a moon. And to get a moon can be quite difficult: A moon is only created when fleet is crushed in the orbit of a planet. So, to get a moon there are three possibilities:
1. Somebody destroyed your fleet
2. Somebody attacked you, but you blasted his fleet to the stars
3. You paid somebody to attack you with a fleet only to get a moon
For each 100.000 resources floating in the orbit, there's a chance of 1% to create a moon. But the maximal chance is 20%, regardless of how much garbage is floating out there after the battle ;).
The second possibility is the best of course, but unfortunately the rarest, too.
Once you've got a moon, take resources to it with your transporters, and start to construct a moon base, to get place for your phalanx. The range of the phalanx is the following: x²systems - 1system, where x is the phalanx's lvl.
When you've got your moon and your phalanx ready, scan other planets with it - each scan will cost you 5.000 deuterium, so get enough deuterium on your moon in time. The phalanx scan displays other fleets moving or coming from the scanned planet - elapsed time included! Note the time and strength of the fleet and the defense on the planet where it'll arrive and look how long your own fleet needs to fly to that planet.
An example:
7. Saving your fleet and resources
No, this doesn't mean you have to handle savegames with oGame ;). To save your fleet, first you have to know how long you will be offline. In my case, that are 20hours. Then, take all your fleet (recyclers included!), and type in some coordinates as destination spot. Don't click on continue! Just look at the elapsed time. Set the speed to 10%, and look how the elapsed time will grow. Increase or decrease distance of the destination point from the point where you're fleet is located, until the time is half of the time you want to be offline. In my case, i'll look for an elapsed time of 9h 50min and 10h 30min. Half of the time you want to be offline, because the fleet will have to fly the way there and back, but the shown time is needed for 1 way, not for 2. When the elapsed time is alright, click on continue. Now you have to give your orders what to do at this spot. Because of you've got recyclers with you, you have the option to gather resources. Chose this mission for your fleet and fill in the resources in the boxes you want to save - normally it's all you've got ;).
If you done everything correctly, your fleet will come back (with all the saved resources...) when you're back online and is waiting for new orders! While your fleet is doodling around, no one is able to attack it, because in oGame moving fleets can't be intercepted. Why should you save your fleet? Simply answer: not to lose it. Other players want 30% of the resources you've paid for it, too. And so they will try to kill your fleet. Be sure you stay on the right side of this food chain! Even when a weaker player will scan you, there's the possibility to get killed when he passes the scan to another player!
That is for tonight, see you in game
Keep your fleet safe!
( acknowledgment to Sardaukar for using his guide, posted initially here: Getting started )
