If you’ve played StarDrive you know it’s a massive game with almost non-existent tool tips or tutorials. There’s a tutorial “manual” and tutorial videos found underneath the help section, but who wants to spend time reading and watching those when you could be playing your game? So I’ve put together some of the basics I’ve gathered while playing. Everything from speeding up time to how to use subspace projectors and launching infantry into space. Lets get to it.
Speed up and slowdown time: – and + keys. You can speed up StarDrive to high levels, I wouldn’t recommend going past 10x speed or staying at 10x for very long considering the instability of StarDrive. You may also pause time by hitting the space bar.
Launching infantry into space: You’re only given the infantry tab on planets where you have a capitol city or a military outpost. After your infantry units have finished constructing, you will see them on the grid map of the planet they were built. Simply right-click them and you’ll hear a launching sound. The units you’ve right-clicked you’ll find orbiting the planet they were launched from. Don’t worry if an infantry unit is on the same square as one of your buildings. The unit will be launched before the building is demolished.
Invading a planet with troops: Alright, so now you’ve got your troops into space. Lets get them onto an enemy planet. Send the troops that are in space above the planet they launched from, to orbit the planet you wish to invade. When the troops are close, click the planet you’re invading. In the planet info box that opens in lower left hand side of the screen, there are two icons, one above and one below the planet. Click on the icon below the planet and an almost horizontal grid map opens up over the planet. In the upper left hand corner of the screen you’ll see two tabs. One says ‘Bombard’ the other ‘Troops.’ Click on troops. A list of troops that are within range to land will appear. You can select troops one by one and choose exactly where you would like them to land on the planet. Or you can click ‘Land All’ and all of the troops in the list will land and start attacking.
Planetary Bombardment: Planetary bombardment is another way of taking over an enemy planet. Planetary bombardment may only be done tactical nukes. The larger the ship, the larger payload they’ll carry. You’ll need multiple ships with big payloads in order to deplete a planetary shield. Then you need to keep bombarding the planet in order to kill off the inhabitants.
Planetary bombardment is very easy to do, it’s just time consuming. All you need to do us highlight the ships you wish to use then right-click the planet you wish to annihilate. You may also click on the ill-fated planet, click on the icon underneath planet in the planet info box. Just like you would if trying to invade. Then click ‘Bombard’ in the upper left hand corner. This will signal all ships in the area with the ability, to commence bombardment of the planet.
Subspace Projectors
You may notice that enemy races tend to increase the amount of subspace in their civilization. How are they doing this and what does it actually do? Increasing the subspace via subspace projectors allows your ships to travel faster and provides transport ships with waypoints for faster hyperspace travel.
In order to create subspace projectors, find the icon in the lower right hand corner, with the mini map, that shows two hammers. Left-click on this icon and a new window opens showing you subspace projectors and platforms bases. Select subspace projector. You’ll notice you’re able to place them wherever you want and the circle around the icon shows you how much subspace is projected. Intertwine them together like links on a chain to create pathways between your planets.
Once you have selected some to be built, construction will start at the nearest and most able planets. The construction ship is the ship that will build the subspace projector. It will automatically be built and flown to where the projector will be built and finish construction.
Automatic exploring, subspace projector creation and cargo ship creation: You may also set the creating of subspace projectors to be automatic. In the lower right hand corner with the mini map, is an icon labeled, ‘AI.’ Click on this icon and a window will open allowing you to set certain things to be run by AI.
You can make sure your empire always has one scout exploring the galaxy and subspace projectors are being made to keep your freighters moving quickly to distant colonies. Setting your freighters to automatic will allow them to be constructed and choose transport paths without your input.
Assume control of a starship: Enter the firefight yourself by assuming control of a starship. The starship you assume control of will be marked as your flagship until you take direct control of a different ship.
You may take control by selecting a ship and press ‘Q.’ When pressing ‘Q’ a couple of options will appear near the ship. Click ‘Take Control.’ At this point your screen will follow the ship and you may control its direction with ‘WASD.’
I hope this helps you out. If you have anything more I should add, leave a comment below or email me, barry@levelsave.com
