This manual is aimed at those who have little or no experience with Planetarion and its features. Each section is meant as a stand-alone section, but it's recommended that you read at least some of the first sections (such as those on your planet and the basics behind the game) before the game starts, or in the very early stages.

Why play Planetarion?

The basic idea behind Planetarion is to compete with 4000 other players over 10 weeks of non-stop gaming to be the best. Activity, skill, dedication and teamplay are all huge factors, with an element of luck. Every person plays one planet, and with the help of his or her friends, alliance and galaxy plays to win, or to at least have fun. When you start with your planet, you create mines and initiate "asteroids" that are orbitting around your planet to gain resources. With these resources, you can construct 6 different classes of ship, two of which are capable of stealing asteroids from enemy planets, and one of which is capable of bombarding enemy planets to ruthlessly crush their structures to dirt. There's 4 races to choose from, with 12 unique ships in each race.

Each planet is judged by their "score" - a combination of your current planet networth, and the experience you've gained in battle. The person with the highest score wins. Sounds simple? While you can attack hostile planets to steal their asteroids for your own personal gain, others can defend them. Sounding more complicated yet? People are grouped into galaxies and alliances, to attack and defend together. Could you repel 20 hostile attack fleets on your galaxy with no one else around at 2am? Could you lead an alliance into battle, or negotiate a peace treaty afterwards? Organise yourself and others to destroy a common enemy? Or even just play with friends and meet new people as a small group of planets answerable to no one? Can you handle the responsibility of a Planetarion planet?

How does Planetarion work?

As said before, every person has a planet. These planets are grouped into "galaxies" (more on this later). Planetarion is a turn-based game that anyone with a web browser can play. Each turn is called a "tick", and is 1 hour long in a normal round (there's fast rounds, called "speed rounds", where ticks are generally between 1 and 5 minutes).
The standard procedure is for a round to be announced with 2-3 weeks until the turns (or "ticks") actually start. Signups are then opened on the main server, so that people can get their accounts, galaxies and alliances sorted out before the game begins. When the game begins everyone is in "protection mode" and so cannot attack each other. During the first 36 ticks (1 1/2 days) of the game, people are placed in big galaxies with "mentors" incase people in the galaxy need help. At tick 36, people are broken up and placed randomly in lots of smaller galaxies. If you're free you are placed randomly, but if you pay you can form "buddy packs" with one or two friends.

Why be in the same galaxy?

The advantages of being in the same galaxy are that it's quicker to send your ships to defend each other, and you can see when another planet is being attacked (with pay accounts you can also see where everyone else is attacking and defending). More on galaxies here.

Alliances

Along with galaxies, your other main line of defence is alliances. Alliances are groups of people that agree to send each other ships when others are attacked, and attack together to make it more difficult for others to defend. More information is available here.

Combat

This is a space war game, so obviously combat is an important part. It includes how combat works, what ships to build, and basic strategys to winning. The person with the highest number of ships doesn't always win, as often bigger ships are more powerful and untouched by those smaller. The combat section is located here.