QUICK START QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

If you are familiar with mouse-based interfaces, and want to leap immediately into the game without reading the manual, the following answers cover many of the basic “how to” concepts you’ll need to play Master of Orion.

How do I send my ships to another planet?
Select one of your ship icons in orbit around a planet. The right panel will display which ships are in orbit around that world. Use the arrow buttons by each ship type to change the number of ships you will send. Choose a destination planet for your fleet, then select the ACCEPT button. See the manual for more information.

How do I create a new colony?
Send a colony ship there (i.e. a ship equipped with a special colony base device). If the planet is habitable, you will automatically be asked if you want to land and establish a colony there. Your colony ship is disassembled and its parts used to establish the colony. Once you have set up your colony base, you should immediately transport more colonists to that planet, to help it grow more quickly.

How do I TRANSport my colonists to another planet?
Select the planet you wish to transport your people FROM. Select the TRANS button from the panel on the right, then select the planet you wish to send your people to. After you have chosen the destination planet, you can
use the slider bar on the right panel to decide how many people you want to send, up to half the population of your source planet. Note that you cannot send people to a planet that has not yet established a colony base, and you cannot transport to a planet you have not yet explored.

If you are sending transports to an enemy colony, you do the same thing. The people you send to an enemy world are automatically armed with the latest technology for ground combat. Note that enemy ships and missile bases can destroy your transports before they can land. This combat happens automatically when your transports arrive at their target world, and you see only the results. For more information, see the manual.

Why can’t my colony ships travel as far as my scouts do?
Your scouts are equipped with a special device called Reserve Fuel Tanks” that let them travel to planets 3 parsecs farther away than your other ships can. At the start of the game, your scouts can reach any star within six parsecs of any of your colonies, but your other ships can only reach planets 3 parsecs away.