STEAMSKY
WELCOME
Press HELP to view this help screen again.
This tutorial will help you understand each game’s feature.
This first screen shows how to use menus.
HOME: A short description of your activities, your cities and your movements
BUILDINGS: Manage your buildings construction
CITIES: Manage your city height and iron production
SHIPYARD: Build new ships
BARRACKS: Train your soldiers
RESEARCH: Develop new ship skills
MAP: View map and neighboring players
MESSAGES: View your ingame mailbox
ALLIANCE: Show alliance menu
TRADE: Exchange your resources
INTELLIGENCE: Train and specialize your spies
STATISTICS: Show players’ scores
OPTIONS: Your account settings
EXIT: Exit the game
We kindly recommend you to read the “First Steps” section below.
FIRST STEPS
Your dominance of the skies is a gradual and laborious undertaking at first. Here are some advices to speed up your efforts:
PRODUCTION
Build farms, power plants and iron mines to produce resources.
The higher the level of these buildings, the higher their production level. These are the only buildings that start at +10 level.
Therefore, we highly recommend starting with more production facilities instead of building and developing only one..
Do not worry if you fill up the entire city’s available space with production buildings at first. You can later destroy any buildings and reclaim half of your spent resources.
It is therefore advisable to gather as many resources as possible through production buildings and later destroy them. This lets you get a higher production level and build additional facilities in short time.
WHAT THEN? QUICK ATTACK OR SLOW POWER UP?
After you make sure you got good resource production, you can take a decision: either attack other players immediately or power up your city.
I WANT TO ATTACK RIGHT NOW: You can build ship through the
shipyard. You will start with basic ships, but you can conquer enemy resources (if you attack same-level players, of course).
I’D RATHER POWER UP FIRST: f you start powering up, you can attack other players at a later stage. To do so, the first step is levelling up the Command Center.
Through the Command Center you can build the barracks and research center, essential for building more powerful ships than your shipyard can build at start.
LEEEEEEEROOOOOOOYYYY JENKINS!!!
As you power up you can order your first attacks. As much as powering up is important, remember that you earn points only by attacking other players or fighting off their attacks.
Try to find the right balance between power up and attack: avoid reckless attacks as well as wasting time powering up.
FINALLY
Afterwards, you may also consider building the market and eventually the intelligence agency.
Through the
market you can
redeem resources with others or with gold. The market can ease up your gameplay by redeeming exceeding or unproductive resources.
Through the
intelligence agencies you can spy other players. This is one of the final steps to complete your city.
Finally, you can establish new cities and increase your power, but remember: you only earn more points by attacking or defending!!!
HOME
This screen shows a summary of your city’s ongoing activities.
You can view each activity time to completion. Short-running activities are listed at the top.
ACTIVITIES
BUILDINGS: Shows building’s name and level when erecting or upgrading it. You can also cancel this operation.
HEADQUARTERS: Shows research, barracks and intelligence services upgrade options.
ESPIONAGE: Shows type of espionage, city and player currently spied upon.
MOVEMENTS
Shows departure and arrival city and player when attacking or sending resources.
Ships currently underway and (if applicable) resource amounts and types are also shown.
Each movement shows three dates: Departure, arrival and return.
You can cancel ships movements before they reach port of entry. An ETA to domestic port is shown.
IMPORTANT: Movements are also shown when players are interacting with your city. Therefore, if they are sending you resources or attacking, the Home icon turns red.
CITY
This screen allows you to manage construction of your city’s buildings.
If a terrain spot is vacant you can start building. Description and cost of building are shown.
If a building is already used you can choose to destroy it (you will take back half of the required resources) or upgrading it (at a higher cost).
If a building is under construction you can also cancel the operation.
Production buildings can be built multiple times, whereas development buildings can be built only once. You cannot destroy farms, power plants and mines unless you own at least one of each.
Please note: The Command Center is the only building that cannot be destroyed.
SHIPYARD
The shipyard is used to build ships and send battleships to attack other cities.
When building a new ship, name, description and cost, as well as current amount of same-type ships, are shown.
Ship features (attack, durability, armor, boarding and speed) and description are shown.
Ships can gain an additonal bonus from the Headquarters or the alliance.
You can build as many ships as the shipyard’s level simultaneously. Once you ordered to build a ship you cannot cancel this action anymore.
Some requirements must be met in order to build more advanced ships. Some ship require specific ranks like research (from the Research Center), training (from the Barracks) or directly from the shipyard. If a ship – or your city – already meets such requirements, these will not be mentioned.
All ships include a hold with various capacities. Needless to say, freighters have maximum capacity.
MAP
The map shows all game cities.
The map is divided into several areas, with 10 by 10 boxes each. You can choose various areas by clicking these buttons around the compass or by inserting co-ordinates.
Cities are displayed by color-coded dots for your convenience. Cities marked in:
BLUE: Your current city.
RED: Enemy city.
LIGHT BLUE: Owned city.
GREEN: Other player’s city that secured an alliance with you.
When hovering your mouse on a city you can learn about the city name, its owner, co-ordinates (in parentheses) and time required to travel to this city from your current one.
When clicking onto a city you can access various options. You can send a message, send a spy, co-ordinate an assault (only if your current city is in the air) or send resources.
MOVEMENTS
When attacking or sending resources some power is spent, depending on several factors. Distance between the two cities (movement factor), type of ship and research level.
AERODYNAMICS
Furthermore, depending on distance and Engines research level, your ships will take some time to reach their destination. This information is shown when selecting ships to move.
Once your ships reached their destination, they take the same amount of time to get back (unless, in case of attack, your opponent destroys all your ships).
ESPIONAGE
You can spy any player via the Intelligence Agency, as long as you have one rank in any of the four skills (Resources, Buildings, Movements, Fleet).
Your spy will have to spend some time before reaching their destination and can spy once at a time.
HEADQUARTERS
The Headquarters building has three menus: Research, Barracks and Intelligence.
Each of these choices can upgrade your city’s abilities. You cannot reverse your decision once you have chosen one ability. You also cannot increase other abilities of the same type (Research, Barracks, Intelligence).
RESEARCH CENTER & BARRACKS
These two facilities are mostly used to increase research or training ranks. These are essential to upgrade your ships (or, if requirements are met, to build new ones).
Each ability provides a description, resource and time cost and current level. Each ability may require to meet several conditions to be increased (generally according to the building’s level).
INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
Through the Intelligence Agency you can train your spies in several schools.
Unlike the Research Center and Barracks, these abilities never exceed this building’s level.
MESSAGES
In the menu Messages, you can compose new messages, view your inbox or sent messages. All messages older than a week are automatically deleted.
To write a new message you must include a subject, the player recipient and message body.
When reading your inbox, a sender, a subject and time are shown. When clicking on the link, the message is shown below.
TYPE OF SENDERS
There are several senders when receiving a message.
INFO: This is an automatic sender from the SteamSky team that notifies of your chosen events.
ALLIANCE: Another automatic sender, with information regarding your alliance.
PLAYER: When a player sends you a message (whether new or answering) their name is shown. Here a reply button is available, unless it is a circular message. In this case the game shows the player’s name (not the alliance itself) you are allied with, titled 'Alliance newsletter'.
Whenever a new message is sent to you, the icon is colored in red. You do not need to watch your inbox constantly to make sure you received a new message.
ALLIANCE
Here you can interact with other players that have joined your alliance. If you are the administrator, you must manage it (or create your own alliance).
Each alliance has a name, a description, its score, gold, bonuses and permissions.
DESCRIPTION
This is the alliance’s description and can be edited by the admin or those with permissions. Format text options are available.
SCORE
The alliance’s score is the total amount of points collected by its members once they joined it. Like the player’s score, the alliance’s score is updated every 6 hours.
Important: If a player leaves or is banned from the alliance, they will lose all points.
GOLD & BONUSES
Each member can donate some gold to the alliance to increase some bonus abilities to all members. Donations cannot be taken back.
Whenever abilities are increased, all members (regardless of their status) and their cities benefit from them.
However, if a player leaves or is banned from the alliance (or the alliance itself is broken) this bonus is lost.
Any member can donate gold and all alliance members can view how much gold is given, including daily donation average.
These bonuses are the same abilities that each player can increase within their own Headquarters.
PERMISSIONS
Permissions are concessions and limitations that the alliance admin gives to each member. Such permissions allow or deny players specific actions within the alliance.
ALLIED MEMBERS: Shows a list of all members within the alliance and to whom a message can be sent.
CIRCULAR MESSAGES: Send shared messages to all allied members through this function.
NEW MEMBERS: Shows players that want to join this alliance. New players can be accepted or denied.
MANAGE BONUSES: Players can purchase and increase abilities by donating gold.
BREAK ALLIANCE: Permanently break this alliance. All members are notified and will lose all collected bonuses.
Please note: All these options are restricted by admin’s permissions. Exceptions are “ALLIED MEMBERS” (accessible by anyone) and “BREAK ALLIANCE” (only accessible by the admin).
TRADE
Once you have built the Market, you can exchange resources. Gold is the most important resource, followed by food, energy, and finally iron.
When exchanging resources you must pay an interest rate.
This exchange rate is calculated by the Market level. The higher its level, the lower the cost to pay the exchange rate.
However, exchange rate cannot be entirely avoided. For example: with a level 3 Market the player can exchange 1000 iron for 225 food, or exchange 225 food for 456 iron.
Finally, it is advisable to use the Market only when you have a large overproduction of a particular resource that you do not need anymore.
IMPORTANT EXCEPTION
Gold always maintains the same exchange rate, regardless of the Market current level.
STATISTICS
Through stats you can view other players and alliances scores.
Scores are updated every 6 hours.
MANAGE HEIGHT / IRON PRODUCTION
Through this menu you can manage your city altitude (on the ground or in the air) and its iron production.
ALTITUDE
City altitude can be advantageous or not (according to iron production), depending on how high your city is.
If your city is attacked when docked to the ground, your opponent must destroy all your ships to ensure their victory. Otherwise, when attacked in the air, your opponent could win by striking your city down to the ground.
However, when lifted in the air, your city’s power production is doubled. Only when in the air, your cities can send resources and co-ordinate attacks against enemy cities.
Your city cannot stay in the air indefinitely. Also, the more your city is in the air, the lower its resistance.
Lifting your city in the air will cost power.
Please note: These features are described in the "Iron Production" section.
IRON PRODUCTION
Iron production can be halted or doubled.
When your city is docked to the ground, it is advisable to double iron production.
However, when your city is lifted in the air, its resistance (initially half its maximum iron amount) is dropping. When your city’s resistance is depleted, it will automatically descend.
If iron production is doubled when your city is in the air, its resistance will drop twice as much and eventually, it will descend faster to the ground.
Likewise, if iron production is halted when in the air, your city can stay up as long as it is not being assaulted and stricken down.
Therefore, when in the air, your city’s resistance cannot increase: it can only be constant, but usually it drops down gradually.
ESPIONAGE
Through the Intelligence Agency building you can spy upon other players. You can increase up to five espionage schools.
Each school level cannot exceed this building’s level. Therefore, you must upgrade this building before increasing a school level.
Each school is different with a detailed description in the Headquarters building. Only the first four schools can be used to spy upon a player. The fifth school, Counter-Espionage, increases your defense to avoid espionage from other players.
You can spy upon a player once at a time and the outcome could be successful or not.
If successful, you will receive a detailed report, and your target will not be aware that they have been spied upon.
If unsuccessful, you will receive a message that announces your spy has been exposed. You will not receive any new information and your target will be notified of your attempted espionage.
The outcome of your espionage depends on the level of a school. If your spy’s school level is higher than the target’s, they will be successful. If lower or equal, they will be unsuccessful.
Also, when spied upon, Counter-Espionage gives an additional bonus to all the other schools.
Finally, we remind that, through your
alliance, you can increase bonuses, including all five espionage schools.