1. The Main Window
   1. The Planets Screen
   2. The Planet View Screen
   3. The Ships Screen
      • Fleet Handling
      • Admirals
   4. The Ship Design Screen
   5. The Scanning Screen
   6. The Recon Screen
   7. The Diplomacy Screen
   8. The News Screen
   9. The Research Screen
   10. The Overview Screen
   11. The Battle Calculator Screen

The admiral is a set of rules that can be applied to one or more ships or fleets. Essentially you put several ships under the control of an Admiral. The Admiral will the perform the given tasks with its group of ships. There are four different types of Admirals available to you:

• The Transport Admiral takes care of transporting population (Stationed Military) from one planet to another.
• The Scout Admiral is mainly used to scout unexplored systems.
• The Defense Admiral will defend specific planets/systems according to specific rules, using ships/fleets that are assigned to it.
• The Assault Admiral will attack specific targets according to specific rules, using ships/fleets that are assigned to it.

You can create an admiral with a specific set of rules. Every tick the defined set of rules are executed on the ship(s) and fleet(s) that have this Admiral assigned. You can assign the same admiral to other ships and fleets as well. When you modify the set of rules of the admiral, the changes apply to all ships/fleets that the admiral is assigned to. You can create an unlimited number of admirals.

Please note: If a ship/fleet is assigned an admiral, and you manually change the orders of the ship/fleet (for example a “Move to” command or “Attack” command), the admiral is temporarily disabled for that specific ship/fleet. Once the ship/fleet completes the command and is at holding position, the admiral will take over control of the ship again.

The following rules are common for all four types of admirals (parameters are marked as underlined):

• Assign ships of specific ship-design produced on specific planet(s) to this Admiral. This allows you to automatically assign freshly produced ships to this Admiral. You can right click on the specific planet(s) link to switch to all of my planets.
• Fully|Sufficiently man ships of specific ship-design produced on specific planet(s) with Stationed Military, if rank level is at least|most 0. This allows you to automatically assign crew to freshly produced ships, that are under control of this Admiral. You can right click on the specific planet(s) link to switch to all of my planets.
• Assign ships of specific ship-design to existing fleet|a new fleet named specific fleet|specific name. This allows you to automatically add ships to an already existing fleet, as soon as the ship reaches the same position of the specified fleet. A second option allows you to have a new fleet created the first time two ships meet. All subsequent ships will be added to that new fleet once it is in existence.

Effectively, these set of rules allow you to have any ships built in the future being automatically put under the control of an Admiral, and perform the same tasks as all the other ships assigned to that Admiral!

The Transport Admiral basically only offers one rule (parameters are marked as underlined):

• Transport Stationed Military from specific planet(s) to specific planet(s).

The Transport Admiral will send the ship under its control to one of the specified source planets, load it with stationed military present on that planet, send that ship to one of the destination planets, and unload the optional crew there. After that the ship will return to the source planet, and the cycle will be repeated.

There is a set of optional rules, that allows to gain more control on how Stationed Military are transported back and forth between planets:

• Transport to specific planet first. Where specific planets can be one of the following:
  • Planet with lowest population count. Planets with a lower population count are served first (which is the default behavior).
  • Planet with lowest stationed-military count. Planets with a lower number of stationed military are preferred.
  • Planet with lowest population percentage. This one means that planets with a lower population count compared to their population limit are preferred.
  • Closest planet not having reached its population limit. The closest planet to this ship, that has not yet reached its population limit is preferred.
  • Closest planet. The closest planet to this ship is served first.
• Only transport Stationed Military with a rank of at least|most 0. Only military with a specific rank will be transported.
• Do not transport to planets with a Stationed Military count below|above 0. This means planets that do not meat the requirement will not be served anymore.
• Make sure one Transport Ship is sent to a target|source|destination - then, begin to double up|hold position. Since you can select multiple planets as the source and destination, and assign multiple ships to this Admiral, this rule will make sure that if another ship under the control of this Admiral is on its way to that planet already, it will pick the next best planet on the list. “Target” in this context means both source and destination. If there is no next best planet, you can chose to either start “doubling up” (which means ships will be evenly spread among the possible target planets), or “hold position” right there and wait until a planet becomes available.
• Wait for Transport Ship to be fully manned. The transport ship will wait at a source planet until it is fully crewed.

The Scout Admiral offers the following specialized rules (parameters are marked as underlined):

• Scout specific suns(s). The admiral will scout all star(s) specified in the list. It will send the ship to that star in the list that is closest to the current ships’ position. After all stars on the list have been explored, it will then move on to that star, that has not been scouted for the longest while.
• Scout all solar-systems within specific unit range of specific planet/sun|an arbitrary point in space. The admiral will scout all unexplored solar-systems within the radius of a specific planet/sun. If all stars have been explored, the admiral will begin scouting systems that have not been scouted for awhile. The specific planet/sun parameter can be changed to an arbitrary point in space by right clicking.

If the Scout Admiral is assigned to many ships, it will avoid sending ships to the same system. It will also try to send scout ships in different, opposing directions.

The Assault Admiral offers the following specialized rules (parameters are marked as underlined):

• Attack specific planet(s). This will attack and conquer one planet after the other according to planets list. Please note: in order to conquer a planet a troop ship needs to be present! The rule will be deactivated as soon as it is fulfilled.
• Attack specific ship(s). This will attack specific hostile ships according to list of ships that you specify. The rule will be deactivated as soon as it is fulfilled.
• Set rally point at an arbitrary point in space|specific sun/planet/ship, and wait until specific number|percentage of assigned ships of ships reached this rally point. This allows you to set a rendezvous point for this Admirals ships before you start the attack, and only start to attack once a minimum number of ships have gathered. The rule will be deactivated as soon as it is fulfilled. This rule can also set a rally point to a specific sun/planet/ship. Right click the at an arbitrary point in space and select specific sun/planet/ship. In addition, the specific number parameter can be changed to a Percentage of Assigned Ships by right clicking that parameter.
• Retreat ships to specific planet/sun/ship, when a specific condition is met. This allows you to define conditions on which the entire lead-cluster (or individual ships not part of the lead-cluster) are supposed to retreat during a battle.
  Please note that in case of a retreat all attack- and rally-point rules are deactivated.
• Don’t follow ships to hostile planets. In case your ships are ordered to attack other ships, this rule will make sure that we don’t follow ships to a (possibly heavily fortified) hostile planet.

Admiral rules are processed from top to bottom. The first attack target according to the rules that is available, will be attacked. Then the next one and so forth.

For example, suppose you wanted to set a rally point near an opponents planet and attack the planet once all ships have arrived. You achieve this by setting the following two rules in that order:

1. “Set rally point at an arbitrary point in space, and start attacking when a specific percentage of assigned ships reach this rally point”
2. “Attack specific planet(s)”

The Assault Admiral tries to determine a lead-ship, and makes all the other ships follow this lead-ship. Usually it picks the already largest existing cluster of ships as the lead-cluster, and inside that cluster of ships it will pick the slowest ship as the lead-ship. This way the Admiral makes sure that all ships will always stick together. Newly added ships will also try to meet up with that lead-cluster as quickly as possible.

The Defense Admiral offers the following specialized rules (parameters are marked as underlined):

• Defend specific planet(s). Should a hostile ship approach one of the specified planets, it will send the ships assigned to this Admiral to the threatened planet.
• Intercept hostile ships within a specific unit range. Should hostile ships come closer than the specified range (measured from the lead-ship) the hostile ship will be attacked directly.
  Also note, that any ship with that rule set will immediately start to attack hostile ships that are at the same location in space.
• Set rally point at an arbitrary point in space|at a specific planet/sun. This allows you to set a gathering point for this Admirals ships. In case there is currently no threat, the ships will rally at the specific position. This rule can also set a rally point to a specific sun/planet/ship. Right click the at an arbitrary point in space and select specific sun/planet/ship.
• Retreat ships to specific planet/sun/ship, when a specific condition is met. This allows you to define conditions on which the entire lead-cluster (or individual ships not part of the lead-cluster) are supposed to retreat during a battle.
  Please note that in case of a retreat all attack- and rally-point rules are deactivated.
• Don’t follow ships to hostile planets. In case your ships are ordered to attack other ships, this rule will make sure that we don’t follow ships to a (possibly heavily fortified) hostile planet.

The Defense Admiral, just like the Assault Admiral, tries to determine a lead-ship, and makes sure the other ships will follow this lead-ship. This way all the ships assigned to this Admiral will always stick together.

You can create a new admiral by right-clicking into the Admiral column of the Ships Screen. Select Admiral from the context menu.

Alternatively a simple double-click into the Admiral column will popup the Admiral window as well.

The Admiral dialog window looks like this:

The Admiral Name is initially empty and needs to be filled in. Every admiral needs to be given a unique name. The Admiral Name box at the same time is a list box, that lists all other admirals that have been created. Use the drop-down list to switch between the various admirals.

You also need to select the type of admiral. Remember, there are four different types of admirals. You can only select the type when you create a new admiral, but not when you modify an existing one.

Below that you find the box that lists the defined rules. This box is initially empty as well. To add a new rule right-click into the box and select one of the rules from the context-menu.

Once you added a rule it most likely requires you to specify additional information. This is indicated by the link style text in the rule. Click on it and fill in the required information. You are only able to successfully close the admiral dialog if you filled in all required information.

You can activate/deactivate a specific rule by clicking on the tick box at the beginning of each rule. You can delete rules either by using the context menu, or by pressing the Delete key while one or more rules are selected.

You can modify an existing admiral at any time. Simply double-click on the admiral in the Ships Screen. Please note that if you modify an admiral that is assigned to other ships or fleets as well, those changes apply to all ships and fleets that the admiral is assigned to.

In order to assign an existing admiral to other ships and fleets, it needs to be given a unique name. In the Ships Screen right-click on a ship/fleet and from the sub-menu “Assign Admiral” select the admiral that you wish to assign.

Of course you can select more than one ship/fleet up front and assign one admiral to several ships/fleets with a single click.

Some rules require you to specify planets, ships or any other space objects. For instance the Transport Admiral needs to know from which planet(s) to transport people to which destination planet(s).

To do so click on the link once, it will start to flash and display eg the text Pick one ore more of your Planets with a double-click. You can now double-click either on a planet in the Galaxy Map, or in any of the lists (for instance the Planets Screen). You can select as many planets as you want. You stop this process by pressing the ESC key, or by clicking anywhere inside the Admiral dialog window.

The list of planets that you selected so far are displayed in a drop-down list. You can delete any of the entries in there by selecting them and pressing the Delete key. You can change the order of them by dragging one or more entries to the desired position.

You can also ALT double-click to center the camera on a specific entry.

There are a few rules that allow you to specify an arbitrary point in space. For instance the rally-point rule allows you to gather your ships at any given point in space.

An arbitrary point in space is defined relative to a reference-point, usually a planet or sun, and specifying the horizontal and vertical angle as well as the distance from that reference point.

Start by double-clicking a planet or sun that should act as the reference point. After that a yellow disc is displayed, with the reference point in its center. A dashed line indicates the horizontal angle. The red cross at the end of that line, indicates the actual position. Use the left mouse-button to modify the horizontal angle. To modify the vertical angle hold down the SHIFT key additionally. The distance from the reference point can be modified with the mouse-wheel, while holding the SHIFT key.

You can point right in the direction to another planet or sun relative from your reference point, by simply clicking on that object.