A crash course in FTL-ing

Star Trekking through the Universe!

Faster-than-light travel. A marvel of human ingenuity, one that is sparsly understood even today! And for you, Bridge Officer, it is at an arm's reach.

Indeed, today, on this guide, we will be looking at how the FTL Console works, and where can you travel with it.

Before going in, I should mention that this is an easy job, unlike piloting the ship. It doesn't need a seperate BO, and it can be done by your superiors most of the time.

The FTL console

The FTL console, located on the Bridge, is your main way of directing the ship while FTL-ing. Usage of it is quite simple, but if you feel daunted by all screens, take a look below:

Click here for the Map part of the UI
(These pictures were hidden to reduce load times and make scrolling through the page easier)

Every System on this map is marked by a colorful dot with a colorful ring around them. The dot's color marks it's alignement, and the ring's color marks if you can travel to it. The ring is blue if you are in it; it is green if you can travel to it, and if it is red, you can't travel to it.

This is how the map looks like while the ship is travelling.

The Change Sector button let's you change the map over to see another Sector, but it doesn't move the ship itself.

The FTL drive

The FTL drive is what makes the ship move into Bluespace, and cover the unimaginable distance between stars. It is located in Engineering, thus it requires the Engineers to spool it.

Click here for the Ship Status part of the UI
(These pictures were hidden to reduce load times and make scrolling through the page easier)

This is what you will see if you click the Status panel on the console while the ship is stationary. Once the green bar reaches 100%, you are ready to jump.

This is how the Status panel looks like when the ship is moving. Notice how the bar is back to 100, meaning that the Engineers re-spooled the drive after you began the jump

Sectors

The Galaxy around us consists of an innumerable amount of Star Systems. Some of these Systems are far away from eachother. But some are very close. So close in fact, that FTL traversal between them doesn't take multiple life-times. These Systems are grouped into Sectors. The part of Space that you will be travelling in consists of four sectors:

Sector 1

The home of Nanotrasen, and Humanity as a whole. Thanks to tireless efforts, the Syndies have been pushed back from here. Better not let them come back!

Sector 2

No-man's-land. This group of Systems are a neutral zone between the bases of NT and the Syndicate, and as such, the place of most battles you will take part in. This, however, did't stop some brave capitalists to set up shop, and sell questionably legal things.

Sector 3

The final frontier. Only lost probe torpedos know what is here. But to keep it serious, this is unkonwn, to be explored space. As most of these systems have only been spotted by scientists looking through telescopes, they only have identifying codes, such as J-03L

Sector 4

The homeland of the Syndicate. This is where their "capital" resides. Only the finest of crews make it here, and even they don't come back.

Hypergates

The Hypergates are the way of travelling between two far away Sectors. They are located in special Star Systems, which are marked on the Ui (as shown above). They are essentially giant teleporter gates for ships.

This is how you can use them:

Move to the Hypergate System in your Sector
Find the matching Hypergate System in another sector. It can be identifyied by being in the same position, and having a green circle, marking that you can move to it.
FTL to that Sector like you would usually.
The ship will now do a jump
Congratulations, you are in another sector!

You can also use wormholes to travel between Sectors:

In a System, a wormhole can be spotted on the DRADIS, marked as an Anomaly. It can be identified visually.
Now click around the map until you spot a System that you can move to, despite it being in another sector, and ~~a bajollion~~ 300 lightyears away.
FTL to that System, and get jumped by a Syndie deathfleet

Systems

A star with a few planets around it is called a Star System. Space combat is based on these Systems. In our time, an empire can consist of a handful of warships parked around a few starts and space stations. Your misson is to enter these systems, clear the enemy ships, and claim it as NT territory

Jumping to a system is quite easy. You click on it on the map, then wait for the Drive to spool up (the green bar fills up) and click jump. You have a small window of time to cancel the jump, in case you messed up. The Engineers will need to respool the drive though.

The UI

Helpfully, you needn't watch the news, or read history books to know who owns what sector. All you have to do is look at the Map on the FTL console:

So, as mentioned before, the color of the dots shows their alignement

Color	Alignement
Blue	Allied
Orange	Neutral
Red	Enemy
Black	Anomalous

Three more things:

If there is OCCUPIED next to the System's name, there is a noteably strong fleet there
If there is HYPERGATE next to the System's name, there is a Hypergate there
If there is a company name next to System's name - like "Minsky Heavy Engineering" here - there is a Trader Station here

Friendly

Nanotrasen space. You are safe here. Unless the Syndies invade.

Neutral

Empty Systems, ready to be claimed.

Enemy

Syndicate space. You are not welcome here.

Anomalous

Strange and unknown systems. Most likely empty of enemy presence, but full of something worse...

Trader Stations

The one place not corrupted by capitalism has been corrupted by capitalism. Some brave traders set up shop in the final frontier, ready to make some cash.

They can be traded with by hailing them on a DRADIS console. Once hailed, you can spend the cargo budget to buy new weaponry, fighter and even more. They can also give you tasks, completeing which will give you a reward.

Important sectors

These sectors are important for one reasone or another

Sol - The homesystem of Nanotrasen, and Humanity too. Losing this means losing the war, ending the current shift.
Lalande 21185 - The Hypergate leading into Sol. Syndicate invader forces are usually met here by the best of NT's fleets.
Dolos - Rumored to be the Syndies' capital. The goal of many brave crews
Rubicon - The last line of defense before Dolos. Fierce figting awaits anyone coming here

User:Grabowski

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