Thanks for playing Planet Connect! It's a real time space strategy game where you try to capture a computer player's space station on the other side of the universe.

There is no in-game tutorial, and it's a fairly complicated game, so please read the following tutorial before you get started!

The game is controlled with your mouse, and utilized left click, right click, and middle click. To move your camera around the universe, middle click and drag.

Each planet has a base planet type, an atmosphere, and a faction shown on screen. With a number above them showing how many ships are stationed at that planet. In addition, if there are any ships stationed on a planet a number representing that amount will appear above the planet.

Moving your mouse cursor over a planet will show some vital information. On the left side of the planet it shows how many connections the planet has, and what its maximum amount of allowed connections is. The top line to the right of the planet shows the planet type, and how far away from the nearest hub it is. If the distance is -1, it means it's not connected to a hub. The second line shows how many ships are stationed on the planet, and the planet's defense rating. The third line deals with the fuel system, showing how much fuel the planet is receiving and how much it can give. Some planets have a fourth line. In rare cases a planet will have life on it, and you can "unlock" a planet's hidden abilities later on. Both of those are represented on the fourth line if they are present.

To select a planet, left click on it. If your selected planet is a friendly planet it will be marked by a blue circle, and you will have access to several options. The first of which is dragging the mouse cursor, while still holding left click, to another planet. This will create a connection between the two planets, assuming there was a free connection available. Depending on the faction of the planet you just connected to some different events will occur. If you connected to another friendly planet, a link will be created and nothing else. If you connected to an enemy planet, a link will be created and the planets will become contested, which will be evident by the music changing. If you connected to a neutral planet and your currently selected planet has ships on it, they will be dispatched to go capture the planet automatically. If you click and drag to a friendly planet, but already have a connection between the two, the ships stationed on your selected planet will move to the one you connected to.

Right clicking and dragging between planet allows you to do some other important functions. Dragging between two friendly planets will add a fuel line between them, which will often make planets produce more resources. Dragging to a neutral or hostile planet will dispatch any available ships on your select planet to try to take the target planet over. When a hostile planet is attacked, it will automatically dispatch any ships it has stationed to attempt a counter attack.

Fuel is a very important aspect of Planet Connect. Most planet types have a secondary function that is unlocked if they are fueled:

Water planets and icy planets will both have increased water output when fueled. Metal planets are similar, but they will not give you any resources at all unless you fuel them.

Gas planets will "store" their fueled amount, and will provide that fuel to other planets that they are linked to.

Rocky planets and space stations do not have any added bonuses for being fueled, acting as sources instead.

When you have a friendly planet selected, there's a build menu that will be on the left hand side of your screen:

Add ships will create 10 ships if you have the resources for it and add them to your selected planet, if you do not have enough resources it will create as many as it can.

Scrap ships will destroy 10 ships on your selected planet, or less if there are not enough ships present, and will give you materials in return.

Fortify will increase your planet's defense rating, which can destroy ships that try to take it over if your ships fail to stop them.

Unlock will add special permanent effects to the planet depending on what type it is:

Water planets will get life, and therefore get an extra connection available.

Metal planets will awaken, granting a +5 bonus to their planetary defense

Icy planets will be tapped for geothermal energy, and start providing fuel.

Rocky planets will be mined, and start providing metal.

And lastly gas giants will speed up and reduce the cost of any ship building they do.

Get Reserve and Send Reserve deal with reserve ships. You can send extra ships from your planet into your Reserve Ships resource, and then get them back on any planet by clicking Get Reserve. Getting ships from your reserve is faster than building them.

Selecting a planet and hitting your backspace key will remove all connections the planet has.

If you want to reset the game, hitting escape will do that.

That should about cover the basics, your goal is to capture the enemy space station which is on the other side of the map. Good luck!

Planet Connect was made by Harrs for Ludum Dare 30 using unity. Art was created using Paint.Net and music was created using FL Studio 11. Sound effects were created with sfxr.

Thanks for taking a look at Planet Connect!

Updated 8/24/14 at 7:58 PM eastern: Removed the distance value from the GUI on unconnected planets.

Updated 8/24/14 at 8:37 PM eastern: AI now builds properly if it has the resources.

Like the music? you can download it here! https://soundcloud.com/harrs/planet-connect