Command Summary
RACE RELATIONS (A,W,O)
The race relations commands allow you to set how you want your race to
react to other races in the galaxy when you meet them. Basically there
are two choices, you fight or you don't. These commands are actually used
to determine if you wish to initiate combat or not, since if your opponent
choose to fight, then you will fight as well, no matter what your preference.
In Explorer there are three levels of control. The first one is the default
posture that your race assumes when meeting new races. This is used to
govern how your ships respond when first meeting a new race and will be
used to set your initial state with respect to that race.
O DEFAULT PEACEFUL ; do not attack new races and start at peace with them
O DEFAULT AGGRESSIVE ; attack on sight and remain at war with them
The second level of control is used to determine how your ships will respond
to a race the next time you meet them. If you are at peace with a race,
that means that you would like your ships and his to be able to co-orbit
a planet without fighting, and if a fight breaks out at a planet where
you both are at you would prefer not to choose his ships as targets. If you
are out to eliminate a race or just feeling hostile towards him, you may
declare war against him and everytime your ships meet his, yours will attack
him.
A raceName ; declare peace towards a race
W raceName ; declare war on a race
The last level of control is on a planet by planet basis. You have specific
feelings towards the alien races of the galaxy in general but when it comes
your worlds, thats a different matter. You are able to set up defensive
states for your planets, on a planet-by-planet basis, that overrides the
two other levels of control. If you do not want to allow anyone to view
a world of yours (its size, resources, level of population and production)
you may choose to set its reactive state to DEFENSIVE. On the other hand,
you may wish to allow anyone to visit a planet of yours, no matter if you
are fighting with them elsewhere or not, then you may set that planet to
PEACEFUL. The default defensive state for all planets is CONFORMing,
which means that this level of control is not engaged, and the response
of your fleets at your planet will depend upon what you have determined
using the first two levels of control.
O CONFORM planetName ; default
O DEFENSIVE planetName ; attack all foriegn races
O PEACEFUL planetName ; do not initiate combat
For additional control, an option has been added to allow a race to be
declared an ally. Allies are allowed to orbit defensive worlds without
being fired upon.
O ALLY racename ; declare a race to be an ally
O PEACE racename ; same as 'A' command, will remove ally status
O WAR racename ; same as 'W' command, will remove ally status
One important note: These commands only determine how your race will
respond to other races. If you are at peace and someone attacks you,
you will not be disadvantaged in any way, your forces will fight back
as best as they can. Also, having a battle with a race does not
automatically change your relations towards him, you must do that
yourself.
BREAK (B)
This command is used to break ships off of a group and to form a new
group. The new group will be identified with a group number one larger
than the highest group number that you have. For example, if you have
four groups and you break one, the new group's number will be five.
There is a keyword MAX that may be used to identify the new group but
be careful in its use since MAX may change as you enter additional
commands. Also this command is used to remove a group of ships from a
fleet.
B grpNum numShips ; break some ships off from a group and form
; a new group
B grpNum FLEET ; break a group out of a fleet
CHANGE RACE NAME (C or O RACENAME)
This command is used to set your race's name. It may be anything you
choose as long as it starts with a letter. Complicated names involving
combinations of letters, numbers, and special characters are best enclosed
within quotes. Spaces in names may be indicated by an underscore ('_').
C Northern_Alliance ; sets race name
O RACENAME Southern_Alliance
DESIGN (D)
This command is used to design ships and fleets. Fleets are a collection
of groups that may be dispatched as a single unit and will then move
together at the same speed, arriving at their destination at the same time.
Ships consist of six components and a value for each must be specified
for this command to be accepted. Ships have a name to identify them and
values for drive, number of attacks, weapon size, shield strength, and
cargo space. A value of zero is acceptable for any attribute otherwise,
an attribute may not be less than one. The number of attacks must be
a whole number but floats are acceptable for the other attributes.
D shipName drive attacks weapon shield cargo
D FLEET fleetName
ERASE (E)
This command is used to erase an existing ship design or fleet. If any
ships of the specified type are in existance, this command will fail.
It is only to be used on defunct ship types. This command may also be
used to disband a fleet.
E shipName ; erases an unwanted ship design
E fleetName ; disbands a fleet
UPGRADE (G)
This command is used to upgrade an older group of ships to a more advanced
technology level. This command happens after ship movement but before the
first battle phase so it is a useful tool for surprising enemy forces.
Ships who are to be sent out may not be upgraded but an upgraded ship
may travel along a route since cargo routing happens after upgrades.
Unlike production, this is a single turn command. If a planet is unable
to upgrade a ship all the way to a desire tech level, it will upgrade
as much as it is able and stop. If you wish the group to reach the desired
level, you will have to issue the command again the next turn.
G grpNum
G grpNum dtech wtech stech ctech
Note: Upgrades happen after ship movement so it is not wise to use the
keyword MAX with this command. If you wish to only upgrade part of a group,
break the group so that the portion you wish to upgrade remains in the
original group and upgrade that.
RECALL (H)
Normally once a ship has been sent off in hyperspace, its course may not
be changed. It will fly on until it has reached its destination. The
recall command allows a player to recall a group or fleet to its origin,
if the player owns the originating planet. The group will then turn
around in hyperspace and head back to the origin of its journey.
H grpNum [num] ; recall a group (or part thereof)
H fleetName ; recall a fleet
INTERCEPT (I)
The intercept command may be used to vector a group of ships or a fleet
to intercept foriegn ships at a planet. If the ships at the target planet
move on the turn your intercepting groups leave, your groups will be
vectored to the destination of the departing groups. There are some
caveats on this command however. If the departing groups head to a
destination that is more than two jumps away for your intercepting group,
you group will not follow but head for the specified planet instead.
If there is more than one group at the specified planet, this command
gives priority to the largest group (or fleet) and your ships will
follow it.
I grpNum planetName [numships] ; send a group to intercept ships at a planet
I fleetName planetName ; send a fleet to intercept ships at a planet
JOIN (J)
This command is used to join groups to a fleet or to merge two fleets
together.
J grpNum fleetName [num] ; join a group (or fraction) to a fleet
J fleet1 fleet2 ; merge fleet 1 into fleet 2,
; fleet 1 will cease to exist
LOAD (L)
This command is used to load ships with cargo. There are three types of
cargo: colonists (COL), materials (MAT), and capital (CAP). A group may
only carry one type of cargo. The cargo on a planet that is to be loaded
into a group will be divided evenly up between the ships that make up the
group.
L grpNum cargo [num] ; load a group with the specified cargo
There is one special from of this command that will calculate the minimum
number of ships necessary to carry the cargo on the planet, breaks ships
off from the group if necessay, and load them with the cargo.
L grpNum cargo MAX ; maximize cargo loading
If the cargo trade at alien planets is allowed, the Load command gets an
extra flavor, namely:
L planetOwner grpNum cargo [num]; load a group with the specified cargo
that can be used to fetch cargo at a planet of the said race as if it
were yours.
NAME (N or O WORLDNAME)
This command is used to name a planet. You may name any planet that is
shown you on your report. The only limitation is that names must begin
with a character.
N oldName newName ; name a planet
O WORLDNAME oldName newName
OPTIONS (O)
This was originally used for setting options on default behavior.
This has since be expanded to add new capabilities to the game for
which simple one letter commands have not been assigned.
You may set a planet that you own to automatically unload cargo when it
arrives at a planet. This gives you no explicit advantage in the game
but it makes the planning for your next turn that much easier.
(Cargo unloaded automatically at the end of a turn is no different from
cargo unload explicitly at the beginning of a turn, except it does so
up on the turn report as being on the planet).
O AUTOUNLOAD planetName
O NOAUTOUNLOAD planetName
Note: planets with autounload enabled will show up on the turn report
with an asterisk in front of their name.
These options have been described above.
O DEFAULT PEACEFUL ; do not attack new races and start at peace with them
O DEFAULT AGGRESSIVE ; attack on sight and remain at war with them
O CONFORM planetName ; default
O DEFENSIVE planetName ; attack all foriegn races
O PEACEFUL planetName ; do not initiate combat
Another option allows you to designate an owner for a planet. This is
useful if your information on a world is not up-to-date and you have
received some intel that indicates that someone else owns this world.
By using this option, you can force the planet to show up as belonging to
a specific race (even if you have not visited that planet yet).
O OWNER planetName raceName
Note that by using the keyword UNKNOWN as the raceName you'll be able
to remove the earlier assigned ownership.
The following commands are equivalent to some rarely used commands described
elsewhere:
O ADDRESS ; see the Z command
O PASSWORD ; see the Y command
O RACENAME ; see the C command
O WORLDNAME ; see the N command
Finally, there are two command for controlling the format in which the
turn reports and forecasts are generated:
O FORMAT XML ; will request the XML format
O FORMAT TEXT ; will request the default textual format
Note that the effect of these two commands is felt immediately, i.e.,
even the forecast for orders containing one of these commands will
already be returned in the requested new format.
PRODUCTION (P)
This command is used to set what your planets will be producing in the
next turn. Planets may produce ships, technology, capital, and materials.
A planet may only produce one thing at a time.
P planetName tech ; reseach technology
; tech = DRIVE | WEAPONS | SHIELDS | CARGO
P planetName CAP ; produce captial (for increasing industry)
p planetName MAT ; produce materials (to aid in ship building)
P planetName shipName ; produce as many of the specified
; ships as possbile
When tech levels have increased, it is still possible to create ships at
lower tech levels, at a discount price. To create ships at a specific
tech level, specify those levels after the ship name
P planetName shipName dtech wtech stech ctech
ROUTE (R)
This command is used to set up cargo routes between planets. Routing is
a convience that makes it easy to move cargo between worlds. When a route
is established, the game will automatically load ships at one world and
send them to another. The fewest number of ships necessary will always be
used (but groups are loaded in the order they show up on your turn report).
Routes may be established to move colonists (COL), capital (CAP),
materials (MAT), and empty ships (EMP). Empty ship routing only applies to
those ships with a cargo area greater than zero.
R origin cargo destination ; move cargo from one planet to another
SEND (S)
This command is used to send groups and fleets to another planet through
hyperspace.
S grpNum planetName [num] ; send a group to a planet
S fleetName planetName ; send a fleet to a planet
Note: When sending fleets on a multi-turn jump through hyperspace,
Explorer will adjust the fleet speed to the minimum necessary to
get there in the minimum number of jumps. This is done to further hide
your ship designs from your opponents until it is too late for him to
do anything about it.
RENAME (T)
This command is used to rename an existing ship design or an existing fleet.
T oldName newName
UNLOAD (U)
This command is used to unload cargo off of a group at a planet. This
command is also how you settle and claim planets for your own.
U grpNum [num] ; unload the cargo from a group
If the cargo trade at alien planets is allowed, this command gets an
extra flavor, namely:
U planetOwner grpNum [num] ; unload the cargo from a group
that can be used to dump cargo onto an alien planet as if the planet
were yours.
SCRAP (X)
This command is used to scrap existing ships. They are broken down into
raw materials which are then stored for used on the planet this ship is
currently orbiting.
X grpNum
PASSWORD (Y or O PASSWORD)
It is always recommended to set a password to protect your race from
having other races 'accidentally' submit orders for you. This command
establishes a password of your choice for your race.
Y password
O PASSWORD password
Note: knowledge of your old password is not required so it is recommended
that this be one of the first commands you enter.
CHANGE EMAIL ADDRESS (Z or O ADDRESS)
This is used to change the email address to which the game will send your
turn reports and game messages.
Z "new email address" ; quotes are VERY important here
O ADDRESS "new email address"
Note that you can request for several email addresses to be used by
providing them in the form of a comma separated list with no white
space in between.