¶ Foreword
This guide is aimed at absolute beginners who have decided to try Universe-Dawn. It is intended for training alliances so that new players can be given something to help them and not every single detail has to be explained again. It can also be used as a reference for these players. I have deliberately tried to focus on only the essential things that are important at the beginning.
¶ 1 The Universe of Universe Dawn
The playing area of Universe Dawn forms a three-dimensional space. You can move your fleets in it by determining the coordinates x, y, and z and moving from point to point. The galaxy has dimensions of 500-500-500 (as of 01.07.2023, depending on the number of players, the galaxy expands). Here is an example image from the galaxy view:
¶ 2 Buildings
¶ 2.1 The Most Important Buildings
¶ The Control Center
...Is one of the most important buildings. You can build 50 new resource factories per level, thus increasing your production. In addition, from a certain level onwards, you receive valuable development points (Development points can be exchanged in the ruler's dossier (you get there by clicking on your portrait in the upper left corner) for certain bonuses. For traders, loading capacity is interesting, while freelancers and warlords often go for attack value, persistence, or defense value. The shipyard is of great advantage to all professions.). Make sure to always utilize your resource factories from level 8 of the control center before you can place a new level order.
How should you distribute your resource factories? How many titanium factories, how many food factories do you need? To some extent, it's a matter of taste. At the beginning, you need some resources more urgently than others. I want to give you a reasonable example to guide your production. Assuming we can build 100 factories, we distribute them as follows:
| Resource | Number of Factories |
|---|---|
| Titanium | 25 |
| Silicon | 15 |
| Helium | 10 |
| Food | 10 |
| Water | 10 |
| Bauxite | 5 |
| Aluminum | 10 |
| Uranium | 5 |
| Plutonium | 5 |
| Hydrogen | 5 |
¶ The Technology Center:
...Is also one of your most important elements. In this building, you can research important technologies and components that will be very useful for you later when building ships. Additionally, your research will become cheaper with each level you increase your technology center.
The Research System in Galaxy Conflict
You can divide the technology tree into different levels. When you go to your technology center, you can read the following terms:
These are the research areas and at the same time represent the top level of a research branch.
Here is a small (silly) example:
Attack Strategies (Level 1)
Small Weapons (Level 2)
Cotton Ball Gun (Level 3)
Medium Weapons (Level 2)
Fat Weapons (Level 2)
Mega Ion Blaster X1000 (Level 3)
Ultra Super World Destroyer (Level 4)
Real technologies are nested similarly:
Here, spaceship construction is Level 1. "Launch Calculation," "Da Vinci's Analysis," and "Hunter Principle" are at Level 2, "Victim Analysis" at Level 3.
So far, so good. To go one level deeper, you must bring the technology at the next higher level to a certain minimum level. You can improve technologies by using the left of the two icons:
Let's take a closer look at 2 technologies:
In the alliance tech tree, we can see that behind the technology "Victim Analysis" there is a "[from Level 10]". This means that you must have the technology at the next higher level (in this case, the technology "Hunter Principle") at least at Level 10. Once you have done that, you can search for new technologies under this technology. To do this, use the right button:
As a result, you would find "Victim Analysis."
The alliance tech tree is a separate tech tree managed by the alliance. Each alliance has its own, and there is no public one. If you play solo, you must figure out the tech tree yourself.
The Resource Bunker
Your resource bunker helps you secure your resources. Initially, you still have a so-called newbie protection (Newbie protection means that no one can harm you, meaning no one can rob you or attack your fleets. You can see how long your newbie protection lasts in the ruler's dossier.), which prevents other players from robbing you. However, once this protection expires after a few weeks, only your resource bunker can help you secure your resources. When you click on the adjacent symbol, you will come to an input mask where you can determine which and how many resources you want to store in the bunker. Here is an example:
In this example, 10,000 iron, 5,000 titanium, 1,000 hydrogen, and 500 rare earths were stored in the bunker. These resources are now untouchable by other players and cannot be stolen.
But beware: the higher the level of your bunker, the more resources you can store in it. Therefore, it is advisable to regularly upgrade the bunker to protect your valuable resources.
¶ 2.2 Other Buildings
¶ The Shipyard:
In the shipyard, you can build your ships. The higher the level, the faster it goes. Additionally, you get 150 shipyard slots per level (Shipyard slot: Every ship requires a certain amount of space in your shipyard. Large ships need more shipyard space than smaller ones. Once your shipyard space is used up, you must expand it before you can build new ships.), allowing you to build more ships.
Initially, some standard ships, such as the MX-Trader, are available. Other ships and components must be researched first. Universe Dawn gives players a lot of freedom for their own creativity. Ships have a certain capacity of cells. Each component consumes a certain number of these cells. If there are no cells left, no further component can be installed.
So, it's essential to find the best possible combination. Ensure that a ship at least has a drive, as otherwise, it is immobile and cannot maneuver.
¶ The Academy:
Here your researchers are trained. You have probably noticed that technologies take different amounts of time to be fully improved. To improve technologies, you always need a different number of cycles to reach a 95% chance of success. Each cycle has a certain chance that the research will succeed and the technology will be successfully improved. To increase this chance, you can train researchers. As researchers become more expensive, the more you have, you must carefully consider in which research branches you need more than others.
¶ The Communication Center:
In the communication center, you can search for players and trade planets (GvGs).
¶ The Government Building:
...is required to join or create alliances. Additionally, each level of this building increases your credit production.
¶ The Ship Dock:
Here you can refit, scrap, and repair your ships. The higher the level of the ship dock, the faster repairs and modifications are completed.
¶ The Defense Base:
Here you can build defense towers for your planet. Generally, however, it is not recommended, as experienced players will easily destroy your defenses.
¶ 3 Space Fleets
¶ Creating Fleets
¶ Sending Fleets
To send your space fleet, enter the x-y-z coordinates in the "Target" field and click the "Save Fleet" button:
Hint: next to the last coordinate, you will see a symbol that looks like a barrel, this is your own coordinate database. Here you can save coordinates that you consider important (e.g., a trade planet or a player you found).
If you did everything right, another button will appear, namely the "Send Fleet" button:
Clicking on it will send your fleet.
¶ Loading and Unloading Resources
To load resources, your fleet must first have loading capacity. You get this by installing cargo bays in your ships. Once your fleet is at one of your planets or a trade station, you can load/unload resources in the right dialog.
Unloading resources works the same way.
¶ Scanning
One of the most important elements in coordinating your space fleets is the scan function. With it, you can discover other fleets and planets, for example. Without scanning, you are flying blind and do not know what is happening around you.
To scan, you must install an antenna in one or more of your ships. The range you can scan depends on the type of antenna installed. If your fleet has a ship with such an antenna, you will see the scan button:
The most commonly used antenna is the "Directional Antenna Echo". It comes in various versions, each with a different range.
¶ 4 First Steps
The beginning is relatively simple if you know what to do and what is important:
- Make sure you always have a control center under construction.
- Always have resource factories under construction. Distribution can be found in 2.1) under Control Center.
- Make sure you quickly level up your technology center to a reasonable level. Level 10 is a good goal for the beginning. If you do not do this, you will find that your resources will quickly run out.
- Start further research only when your technology center is at least level 5 to 6.
- Ensure your resource bunker can hold enough resources before your newbie protection expires. Reference can be found in 2.1) under Resource Bunker.
If you play actively, the phase where you can easily place everything in construction will last about a week. From then on, you will rely on the help of your alliance. So, do not hesitate to ask for resources. If the round has been running for a while, the traders in your alliance will only smile at the tiny amounts of resources you need.
¶ 4.1 Fleet Building
As a small newbie, you may have already seen some combat reports from experienced warlords and freelancers with awe, showing them going at each other with gigantic fleets. This naturally awakens the ambition to have such an armada as soon as possible.
However, you should remember that these players did not build their fleets overnight. Before you start building your fleet, make sure you have researched the most important components for your ships. These differ from profession to profession. This research act will undoubtedly take the most time.
To avoid researching blindly, make sure you have access to your alliance's tech tree. This can be unlocked by your admins.
Here I list the most important components for each profession. These are usually essential for every ship, and without them, you will have a disadvantage in every space battle or trading. I will divide them into two groups: "Start" and "High End". "Start" means that these are relatively quick and inexpensive to research and make the ships already usable. "High End" means that there is nothing better, but they are very time-consuming to research and also associated with high costs.
¶ Drives:
Start:
- Mega Corebooster Deluxe (for traders)
- Mega Corebooster Deluxe M (for warlords and freelancers)
- Booster Mix S, M
High End:
- Fusion Engine SSE XL
- Xenon Ion Engine
- Booster Mix L
¶ Armors
Start:
- Imoto Titanium Armor
- Armor NPZ1
- Arama Titanium Silicon Armor
- Dual-Arama-Titanium-Silicon Armor
- Arama Titanium-Silicon Molecule Armor
High End: - Armor NPZ2
- Deflector Shield Sub1
- Heavy Shield Reflect Pro
- Titanium Composite Armor (for warlords)
¶ Weapons
Start:
- Ion Cannon Blast III
- Rocket Launcher Revenge Evo I
High End: - Ion Cannon Blast III
- He Laser Dual Hel A02
- Rocket Launcher Revenge Evo II
- DMC-DMXC-MK2 (for warlords)
Note, these are the most common weapons with which you can build good all-round ships. Generally, all weapons are good for a specific purpose. Explaining this would go beyond the scope of the guide. If you want to know more about it, ask your alliance admins to explain the different weapon and ship classes.
¶ Equipment
Start:
- Pulse Generator PG9
- Directional Antenna Echo IVc
- TripleX Cargo Bay
High End: - Gigantor Cargo Bay
- Gigantor Light Cargo Bay
- Pulse Generator PG9 MKII
- Directional Antenna IVc
- Bounty Antenna Argos IV (please ask admins about function first)
¶ Chassis ((Chassis = Spaceships)):
Start:
- x-800 ha (Freelancer)
- x303 su (Freelancer)
- Eagle Patrol Ship (Warlord)
- Behemoth (Warlord)
- Fight Corvette (Freelancer & Warlord)
- Fight Corvette XL (Freelancer & Warlord)
- Transporter Class I
- Transporter Class II
- Carrier Bullfrog (Trader)
High End: - Predator Battleship (Freelancer)
- Prototype (Freelancer)
- Nemesis Cruiser (Warlord)
- Command Ship (Warlord)
- Carrier Bullfrog Prestige (Trader)
- Carrier Kaiman (Trader)
¶ 5 Second Planet
If you started playing Galaxy Conflict in the middle of the round, it might already be possible to colonize a second planet. This should be your first major goal to achieve as quickly as possible because a second planet offers you enormous advantages:
- Conducting 4 research projects simultaneously (2 per planet)
- Expanding buildings on the 2nd planet
You will progress twice as fast. To colonize a second planet, you need a Coloship. Check your tech tree to find out where you can research this and research it first.
On the research page, you will find instructions on how to obtain it.
¶ Quests
THIS FEATURE IS STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION. Please skip this chapter for now
Example:
We filter out the information and now know that we need to fly 3465 titanium to coordinates 483-707-326.
Once there, you will find a speech bubble icon. Clicking on it will usually engage you in a dialogue. Here you must read the text and find keywords to enter.
Once you find the correct word, your counterpart will reveal further information. This continues until the sub-quest is fulfilled. Then you will receive coordinates or tips for the next destination.
If you do not feel like playing guessing games, you will usually find the solutions in your alliance forum.
¶ 6 The 2 Iron Rules of Galaxy Conflict
These 2 rules must be mastered if you do not want to have the reputation of a victim or a noob. If you do not follow these rules, GC will not be fun for you in the long run, and you will also draw the resentment and hatred of some admins 
Therefore, follow these rules, and you will have fun and be helpful to your alliance.
¶ 6.1 Being Safe
--TODO--
Being safe means having your resources secure in your bunker at all times.
Correct:
Wrong:
If you do not have your resources in your bunker, you will lose them as soon as a player robs you. If this player sees that you have unsecured resources, he will say "thank you" and come back. He will come back because he assumes you have not learned anything and still have unsecured resources. He may not come back tomorrow, not the day after tomorrow, or this week. But he will definitely come back at some point, and if not him, then another player will.
In all alliances that play somewhat successfully, such behavior is not tolerated and usually leads to expulsion from the alliance. So remember that your resources must always be in the resource bunker and do not forget to regularly upgrade it.
You must remove your resources from your planet. Either use them by constructing buildings, building ships, or researching. Or load the resources onto your fleet and sell them at a trade station. In return for the resources, you will receive credits, which cannot be robbed.
If you do not have time or ships to remove your resources, ask your trusted admin about the loading ramp function of the resource bunker. This way, the traders of your alliance can load resources from your planet and bring you other resources that you can use.
¶ 6.2 Fleet Management
What annoys your alliance's leaders just as much as lost resources are unnecessarily lost ships. You must never leave ships at your planet. If you do, you will return to your computer and see many of these status messages:
A space battle has taken place, one or more of your ships were involved as a waiting player at [coordinates - of - your - planet].
A space battle has taken place, one or more of your ships were involved as a waiting player at [coordinates - of - your - planet].
A space battle has taken place, one or more of your ships were involved as a waiting player at [coordinates - of - your - planet].
A space battle has taken place, one or more of your ships were involved as a waiting player at [coordinates - of - your - planet].
Then you will find that all your ships parked at your planet are gone. You can check the battle reports for the exact cause.
So: When you plan to leave your computer, never leave a ship at inhabited planets. The same applies to GvGs and wormholes (ask admins for information!). You should also hurry when you are at such coordinates, as experienced players are practically waiting there to relieve you of a few resources and ships.
Your thought about what to do with your fleet when you, for example, want to go to sleep is justified.
Ideally, you do not go to sleep or leave the computer. Fortunately, there are two other options, with the second one being the better choice.
¶ First Option:
Before leaving the computer, send your fleet to a remote area. These areas are usually at coordinates above 500 or below 100 on the Z-axis. For example, 1500-1500-75 or 750-1000-550. These zones are usually not inhabited. However, you have no guarantee that your fleet will not be found and destroyed. The longer you are away, the greater the risk.
¶ Second Option:
This requires some timing. First, you must know that fleets in transit cannot be attacked. Good players take advantage of this and let their fleets fly exactly as long as they are away. This has the advantage that the fleet is 100% safe, and secondly, it is not at the end of the galaxy when you return to the computer, saving flight times.
To avoid having to send the fleet too far away during longer offline times, so-called brakes are used. These are ships that deliberately fly very slowly and thus slow down the entire fleet. This way, you can fly longer and cover only short distances.
If you want to try this, ask your admins how to build a brake. For beginners and casual players, the first option is probably the more convenient method. Usually, no admin will get mad if they see that your fleet was destroyed at such a remote coordinate.
¶ 7 Tips
¶ 7.1 Dangerous Coordinates
Dangerous coordinates are those where you should not stay for long as they are often monitored by "bashers" ((Bashers are players who are very hostile to other players. They are often said to spoil the fun of the game for others.)) waiting to destroy your fleet. These include:
- Trade stations (GVGs)
- Wormholes
- Quest planets
- Asteroids
- 20 PC radius of active players
¶ 7.2 Defense
Remember that building defense is absolutely ineffective. A defense attracts players who frequently raid only more to your planet. Initially, you also have a Prime Defender at your planet. I recommend tearing it down in your defense base. There are some large alliances with such a defense. But these are always reinforced by fleets of large warlords and freelancers, and you will never be able to build an effective defense alone.
¶ 7.3 Creeps
If you have been diligently scanning, you may have noticed that there are ships of creeps here and there.
These ships do not belong to any player and are scattered throughout the galaxy. If you attack and manage to destroy them, you can get some resources from their cargo holds as a reward. The prerequisite is that you have a weapon on board and have loading capacity. For each destroyed ship, you get about 5000-10000 resources and some credits.
However, beware of pirates. Their fleets are often accompanied by some smaller military ships, as in the example above.
Attack creeps with the parameter "Bounty Hunt". If you use a different parameter than this or "Neutral Flight," your newbie protection will end... that would be annoying.
¶ 7.4 Asteroids
Asteroids are scattered throughout the galaxy. Scanning them is initially rather difficult without a good antenna. However, if you find one, you can mine resources there with special ships (called Harvesters). To do this, you must place these ships on the same coordinates where the asteroid is currently located. From time to time, they change position by a few PCs (about every 18 to 24 hours). But be careful: you can make a lot of money with asteroids, but the risk is high that other players also know the position of the asteroid. Then it usually does not take long for your fleet to be attacked there. Therefore, it is advisable to change the asteroid frequently or to stay there only during sleeping times. The best time is usually between 2 AM and 12 PM.
¶ 7.5 Wormholes
THIS FEATURE IS STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION. Please skip this chapter for now
Wormholes provide point-to-point connections. If you want to fly to a distant destination, it is possible that the wormhole optimization will be displayed to you. You can then display this and get the coordinates of the necessary wormholes.
Wormhole Trademania-Beta:
Simply steer the entrance and you will find yourself in another part of the galaxy. Please refer to point 7.1) Dangerous Coordinates before using wormholes.
¶ 7.6 Race-Profession Combinations
Here are the best races for each profession:
Warlord:
- Zuup
- Morricaner
- Ozoid
Freelancer: - Zuup
- Ozoid
- Morricaner
Trader: - Weganer
- Plentrop
- Magume
¶ 7.7 Ingame-Chat and IRC
The in-game chat is located in the upper right corner, possibly hidden behind this symbol:
Most training alliances will ask you to come to IRC (Internet Relay Chat) or activate the in-game chat. You can activate the in-game chat in settings.
¶ Conclusion:
I hope I have helped some beginners. Even though you still do not know everything about Universe Dawn, you now hopefully have the most important basic knowledge.
I am happy to receive productive criticism, suggestions, and improvements on Discord: https://discord.gg/XST3S2PwVc
Have fun in Universe Dawn,
Insomnia and the entire Universe Dawn team!