1. The Main Window
   1. The Planets Screen
   2. The Planet View Screen
   3. The Ships Screen
   4. The Ship Design Screen
      • Creating New Ship Designs
   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

When right-clicking into the area below existing ship designs a context menu pops up, giving you the option to create a new ship-design. If this option is picked the Ship Design window will come up.

The boxes along the outside of the window represent the various types of components a ship consists of and can be equipped with. The types of components are:

• Ship Class: This is really the hull of the ship and defines how much space will be available on the ship.
• Scanners: The scanner is the “eyes” of the ship. It determines how far it can see into space and detect other ships or unexplored planets. A ship can be equipped with only one scanner. IMPORTANT TO NOTE: Planets also have scanners. When you research a new scanner, your planet will automatically update with the new range. Example: If the next turn you complete research on Tachyon Scanner, then all of your planet’s viewing range will change to 50 units automatically.
• Engines: These define the thrust, and ultimately the speed of the ship. Speed is calculated by taking the total thrust of the ship and dividing it by the total mass of the ship (units). The resulting number is the distance a ship covers in one turn.
• Shields: Shields “strengthen” the units of a ship during combat. See Combat Overview for more details.
• Weapons: There are three types of weapons to equip your ship with: light and heavy guns and bombs. Again see Combat Overview for more details.
• Modules: There are a handful of specialized modules that a ship can be equipped with.

Following is a list of extra modules a ship can be equipped with:

• Colony Module: Allows you to colonize unmanned planets. Ships equipped with a colony module become progressively more expensive! Extra cost = (number-of-your-planets - 1) x 20.
• Troop Bay: Allows you to conquer hostile planets.
• Large Pilot Cabin: Increases the ship-crew capacity by 4.
• Cloaking Device: Allows you to cloak a ship, which makes it harder to detect. Only light ship-classes may be equipped with a Cloaking-Device.

In the center of the Ship Design window the statistics of the ship are displayed. Any new ship design requires a unique name and engines should be added so that the ship will move.

Depending on the ship class that you pick (the hull-size), the ship design offers a certain amount of space, that can be used to equip the ship with various components. Available Space indicates how much space is left for extra components.

By clicking into the component boxes, a drop-down list presents you with a list of possible items that can be added, namely the ones that you have already researched. Click on them to add them to the ship-design, they will then be displayed in the appropriate box. You can freely modify any aspects of the ship design. Other than space there are no real restrictions on what can be done.

Next to the displayed component, in this case a gravity drive, there will be a plus-sign, the number of this component currently equipped on this ship, and a minus-sign. Increase the number of a particular component with the plus-sign and decrease with the minus-sign. If the number is decreased from 1 the component will be removed altogether.

If there are any questions about the information in the this window hovering over any line will bring up a tool-tip with the appropriate information.

When the ship design is considered complete selecting the “Ok” button in the lower right-hand corner will close the ship-design sub-window and add the ship design to the existing list. If the ship design is unwanted clicking on the “Cancel” button in the lower left-hand corner will close the ship design sub-menu without saving the design.

If an existing ship design is right-clicked the following menu will be displayed.

The options to create a new ship design and rename an existing ship design will always be available. When an existing ship design has its name edited the change should show up in all pertinent menus and existing versions of that particular ship design will be renamed.

If a particular ship design is not yet in use (a ship with that design has not yet been built, or ordered to build) it still can be fully modified. In the context menu “View Ship Design” is replaced with “Modify Ship Design”, which will open a clone of the “Create New Ship Design” window where everything can be modified except for the name.

Also notice that “Delete Ship Design” is grayed out and is not selectable if the ship-design is already in use. A ship design is also considered “in use” if it is used anywhere in a production queue or governor. This is where hovering over the number in “In Use” column comes in handy. This tooltip will tell exactly where this ship is queued or used in a governor or admiral. All references to the ship design must be deleted before the ship design can be deleted.

Finally you can mark a ship design as inactive. Inactive ship-designs will not be listed in the production menu anymore, and therefor help you to tidy up that menu. However, ships of that design are still in full service and can be used normally.