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How to play the Admiral

Most of the bridge flies ships. You command the war. The Admiral runs the whole side from above - mining worldlets, building platforms, raising fleets, and climbing a tech ladder - while the other consoles do the flying and fighting. This page is how to play that role, start to finish.

Where the Admiral lives

Open the Admiral console from the bridge. If your universe has no Admiralty (some don't), the console simply isn't there - that's up to whoever wrote the universe (see writing the Admiralty).

More than one Admiral

A universe can field more than one player-commanded side. When it does, each side has its own Admiral running its own economy, fleets, and research - you command your side, and the map you ride shows your side's view of the system. Whether the other sides are allies (a co-op war) or rivals is up to the universe.

The command view

The Admiral doesn't sit on a ship. You ride a camera high over the current system - a god's-eye 2D map of everything on your side. You give every order by selecting things on that map:

  • Click empty space - the view pans there. Use it to reach worldlets and fleets out past the edge.
  • Click an object - it's selected (the view recenters on it) and its actions appear on the right.
  • Zoom control - above the map; zoom out to see the whole system at once.

Two readouts keep you informed:

  • The ticker (top): ORE / GAS / CREW stockpiles, each held / cap, and CMD - your command points (fleets in play / maximum).
  • The status panel (right, under the menu): what's under construction, the result of your last order, and hints like "No extractors yet."

Your first five minutes

The opening is always the same, and there is one trap in it. Follow this:

  1. Find your worldlet. Every home system has one - a lone planet out on the ring. Zoom out or pan until you see it, then click it.
  2. Build an HQ. It's the only option at first. Wait for it to finish (the status panel shows the progress).
  3. Build an Extractor. Click the worldlet again - now the menu has grown. Build the Extractor.
  4. Watch the ticker. Ore and gas start climbing. You now have an economy.

The trap: don't overspend before the Extractor

An HQ and the first Extractor together cost more than your starting pile has to spare - and nothing produces income until that Extractor is up. Build the HQ, then the Extractor, before anything else. (And if you turned on the crew subsidy, turn it back off until the ore is flowing - it only drains.)

Building the base

Click any of your worldlets or platforms to build or command. Each new platform unlocks the next, so the menu grows as you go. The kit:

Platform What it gives you
HQ The hub. Your first build; everything else needs it.
Extractor Pulls a worldlet's yield into your stockpiles. Your income.
Refinery Speeds up its worldlet and raises your storage cap.
Academy Lets you commission officers into fleets.
Shipyard Where fleets are built - and where research happens.
Lab Runs research; one project per Lab at a time.
Sensor Relay +1 command point, and charts the neighbouring systems.
Depot Keeps fleets fuelled when they operate far from home.
Bastion Draws and holds border raids - your fortress.

Extractors sit on worldlets (build them by clicking the worldlet); the rest are your infrastructure. Spread Extractors across different worldlets to pull ore, gas, and crew all at once.

Raising and commanding fleets

The navy is how you project force across the system.

  1. Build an Academy and a Shipyard. Fleets need both.
  2. Commission a captain. Click the Shipyard - your available officers are offered. Pick one, and a fleet forms at the yard. Each fleet costs one command point (the CMD number caps how many you can field; Sensor Relays raise it).
  3. Give orders. Click any of that fleet's ships and choose:
  4. Escort - guard the flagship.
  5. Patrol - sweep the system.
  6. Strike - hunt and engage hostiles.
  7. Hold - stay put.
  8. Salvage - strip wrecks for ore and gas.
  9. Withdraw - return to base.

Captains get better with service - a veteran deepens the strengths they were built for. Which is why losing one hurts: a flagship can go down, and the captain's pod has only a short window to be rescued before they're captured (ransom them at the captor's stations) or lost for good. Fleets also burn gas on active orders and won't operate inside an antimatter veil - keep them fuelled and out of the lethal systems.

Research

Build a Lab, then click it to see the tech ladder. Each project costs resources and time, some require an earlier one first, and they unlock real upgrades - bigger storage, faster extraction, or new requisition hardware for the bridge crews. Every Lab you build lets you run one more project at once.

Keeping the economy healthy

  • Storage caps limit each stockpile. Refineries and research raise them; a full pool wastes income, so spend or expand.
  • Crew subsidy (click the HQ) discounts station prices for your crews - paid for out of your stockpiles, so it's a lever, not free. Stand it down when the pools run thin.
  • Command points cap your fleets. Want a bigger navy? Build Sensor Relays.
  • Depots keep distant fleets supplied; Bastions soak up the border raids that come with sitting next to hostile territory.

Seeing the galaxy

A Sensor Relay doesn't just add a command point - it charts the neighbouring systems, revealing what's out there without a scout having to fly the jump. Relays you leave behind also keep sending a share of their system's income home, so an expanding network pays you even while the fleet moves on.

That's the whole loop: mine, build, expand, command. Start with an Extractor, grow the base that lets you field a navy, and command it across the galaxy the rest of the bridge is flying through.