Getting to grips with the seven departments, or nodes of the moon base should be your top priority from the outset. It's important to remember that the separate departments can't function independently. They all rely on what's supplied by the moon base's other facilities.

First of all, go to the ENERGY block and switch on the Mk. I Solagen which is already in stock in the energy module. Once this is up and running, switch on the Resource Complex. Research the Mk. II Solagen. Once the Mk. II has been researched, you'll find that there isn't enough energy to build the thing. Turn off the Resource Complex, build the Mk.II, and then turn it back on again. After that, it's simply a matter of researching and building increasingly powerful Solagens up to the Mk. X. Don't worry about the failed Mk. III. Simply use the Mk. II, which should be in store, and repeat the process. To speed up the researching and building of the Mk. II Solagen, advance through the day.

Once the base is operating properly, you have a number of options. But before many of the items can be built, extra minerals are needed. To get these quickly, and simply, research and build a small fleet of Grazers. These can continually ferry small amounts of much needed ores from the asteroid field.

The central part of the game focuses on the growth and expansion of the moon and it's colonies. This is a matter of finding which moons or planets provide the best sources of raw materials, setting up colonies and shuttling to and from these. The colonies provide minerals and ores, while the moon base sends replacement Solagens, Fighters and Orbital Lasers. The latter equipment is employed in the continual fending off of Martian attacks. Orbital Lasers are very effective, but can only be used once. Obviously it's best to keep a reasonable store in each colony and the Moonbase. Later on in the game, you'll need a full complement of lasers on the moon, so keep building!

Continually build and launch probes to find more info about the Solar system. However, don't bother sending them to the inner planets, Mars, and it's moons, Jupiter, and it's moons, or the asteroid belt. Since they either are destroyed or yield no useful information.

Triton is the key to completing the game. Probe, research and colonize as soon as possible, for reasons which will become clear later. When reports of Martian flu come in, research and produce the required vaccine. Don't just ferry it to the infected base. Produce enough for all colonies and the Moonbase since the strain is virulent and soon spreads throughout the inhabited worlds.

Sometime during your planet colonizing years, you'll receive a message from one of your Colony Commanders telling you that a Martian fleet carrier has crashed into an asteroid. It's left you with its blueprints, that allow you to research and build your own Fleet Carrier (you must have colonized Triton, Callisto and Leda for your Colony Commanders to find the fleet carrier). As with everything though, there's a catch. You'll need a substantial amount of silver, aluminum, titanium, iron and silica. Callisto base should supply you with the amount of silver required and the moons: Titan, Rhea, and Tethys, should provide you with the other supplies. Build a few more Carracks, and send them to these moons. Fill them with the goods and return them to the Moonbase, where you should be able to build your Fleet Carrier.

When built, put three or four fighters in its hold, assign a crew, and set its destination for Mars. It'll come under Martian attack en route, so send out a fighter and it shouldn't be too difficult to overcome the Martian craft. When their fleet of nine have been destroyed the Martians give you a nice smile and surrender their planet.

After this, Mars can be colonized in the usual way. The colonists then find plans of a Martian transforming machine, capable of making the Earth's air breathable. This too must be researched and built ASAP. However, you won't find enough chromium. This is where Triton comes in. You should, by now, have enough chromium collected for shuttling back to the moon.

Once the Terraformer is built, you'll find that even the Fleet Carrier isn't large enough to carry it to Earth. Don't despair as the researchers redesign the ship so that the Terraformer just fits in. The newly customized juggernaut can now take it to the Earth, although it can't take off again.

While the Earth is being transformed, previous reports of a huge Martian fleet prove to be true. The Moonbase is attacked by over 200 fighters! Use the stockpile of up to sixteen Orbital Lasers, prior to launching your fighters. Even after all this, it's quite likely that the attack can't be repelled completely, and the Moonbase still gets destroyed. If so, you'll find that the Moon base's population has been reduced to zero. Don't panic, send a couple of Carracks to the moon to dismantle them. The population'll increase by eighty for every Carrack destroyed.

Having survived the Martian final assault, it should now be just a question of time before Earth is colonizable. In the mean time, all your colonies start declaring independence. Don't worry about it as long as you have a good stock of materials. When a report comes in stating that Earth is once more habitable, build the necessary Standard Interplanetary Operations Spacecraft (SIOS), and send it to Earth and you're greeted with the ending sequence!

Each section of the moon base requires an absolute minimum of 1 kilowatt per hour at all times. Thus the energy plant must generate at least 7 kilowatts per hour to keep the moon base functioning. Building ships and equipment, life support, and mining materials, require yet more energy. For maximum moon base efficiency, you should give priority to upgrading the energy plant by adding extras solagens. Don't stop until you have a Mk. X, the most powerful solagen of all, which can create a massive 35,010 kilowatts per hour.

Now you'll want to colonize other moons and planets. You'll need a Standard Interplanetary Operations Spacecraft (SIOS), which has to be researched under the Transportation column in the research block, to do this. You'll need at least a Mk. VIII Solagen to be able to produce it, and one hundred tons of Platinum, which can be found by building a Grazer and sending it out to the asteroids, where you must leave it until it has found a suitable asteroid for mining. You'll have the option to take or leave the asteroid, otherwise let it continue scanning. It's a good idea to build five or six Grazers and send them out to the asteroid, as there's usually only about twenty tons of platinum on each one. When you have enough energy and platinum, you can build your SIOS. Build your first SIOS for the moon Callisto. Once it's been built, leave it in moon orbit, then build a Carrack. After this, go to the flight bays and load the Carrack with an Orbital Laser, a Flightier (for defense), and a Mk, X Solagen for energy. Now send the Callisto Base to Callisto, and launch the Carrack containing the above stated equipment. This enables you to run and defend Callisto as soon as the base arrives.

Colonization is vital and it's the only way you can acquire materials that aren't available on the moon. Don't send colonies willy nilly. Study the probe's analysis of the target planet carefully. Ensure that it holds the materials you need before sending a Standard Interplanetary Operations Spacecraft (SIOS). Once a colony is established, start up a chain of Carracks to ferry materials and equipment back and forth.

Orbital laser are much more efficient than fighters, and you don't have to rely on your arcade skills! Build up a large reserve of these and use fighters only as a last resort. When an alien attack does hit the mark, you're only likely to lose a small number of personnel, which replace themselves automatically, and a solagen. So keep some of these in reserve in the bunker.

The facility to individually name all of your ships is a necessity. Don't give your ships meaningless names. Name them logically so you can remember what the ship's purpose is just by glancing at it.

The moon base MUST be manned by a minimum crew of fifty at all times. Since the bog standard life support unit can only hold a hundred people, the unit must be expanded if you want to man any ships. If crewing a ship will reduce the base's population to less than fifty, you'll not be allowed to do so, it's as simple as that. On the moon, six modules can be fitted, allowing a population of six hundred. However on alien colonies, nodules cannot be added. Fortunately, due to the atmosphere on alien worlds, colonists stationed there are likely to mutate and live outside the base on the planet surface, which allows for potentially limitless populations!

During the first year the Martians will notify you of their presence, and that they claim ownership of Earth. Don't worry too much about them as they only attack Earth about twice year and they do very little damage. You can stop them from attacking by building fighters or Orbital lasers, which can only be used once. As soon as they're built, they're ready to attack. During an attack, just click on the DEFENSE block and select your means of defense (as long as it's there).

You'll have to send a probe out to other planets in order to be able to colonize them. The probe also must be researched and built before use. First of all, build eight probes, which is all that the FLlGHT BAY can hold). Name them, then set their destinations to: Callisto, Leda, Titan, Hyperion, Rhea, Enceladus, Phoebe, and Triton. These are the places that CAN be colonized. Then build another eight probes and send them to Uranus, Saturn, Miranda, Ariel, Pluto, Neptune, Oberon, and Tltanla. Build one last probe and send it to Umblel. Once the probes have reached their destinations, land them on the moon or planet, and research it. Once this is done, save your game as GAME 4. So you won't lose the record of the planets and moons.

This facility provides information on equipment and planets in the galaxy. Researching a piece of equipment couldn't be easier. Just select it and wait. But a planet is more difficult. You must send a probe there to inspect it and wait for the probe to send back its findings. Depending on the distance to the planet, this can take anything from a few days to over a year.

This is the facility which provides raw materials for use in the production department. It requires a crew of fifty and thirty kilowatts per hour of power to function efficiently. If either of these factors drop below the stated level, the mine will shut down automatically. At the outset, the mine is switched off. It should be turned on immediately in order to build up a stock of materials. Later on in the game, when there is no need to manufacture more materials, the mine should be shut down to reduce demand on the power generator.

1. Grazers are used for mining asteroids. They should be built first as they provide the materials needed to build a Standard Interplanetary Operations Spacecraft (SIOS).:
2. Waveriders should be used whenever you need speedy cargo transport. They're twice as fast as any other ship.
3. Carracks are the perfect workhorse, and best used for carrying large amounts of cargo. They Can carry almost anything.

1. Use the "advance day" facility whenever possible. It's an absolute necessity when waiting for ships to complete long journeys, etc.
2. Base fighters come equipped with a useful facility for use in ship to ship combat. If you lose your bearings, hit the right mouse button to instantly return the fighter to its correct X - Y axis.
3. Establish as many colonies as you can. Some colonies will declare independence later in the game, and cut off all communication with you. If that colony was providing vital raw materials, it's useful to have another to fall back on.
4. Don't establish too many bases or you'll spend all your time defending them from the Martians. It's possible to finish the game with only three. There's no point in establishing a base somewhere, that doesn't have vital resources. The most useful bases are Callisto, Titan, and Triton.
5. Triton is the only place that has Chromium. You need that later on in the game. Since it's far away, it's a good idea to send a probe and establish a base there early on in the game.
6. If a base loses all its colonists, dismantle one of the Carracks or Waveriders and the crew can repopulate the base.
7. New bases need at least one fighter, an orbital laser, and a solar battery. Send these in a Carrack because Waveriders aren't able to transport the necessary equipment for some planets.
8. Successful Martian attacks tend to destroy your most powerful solar battery. Store them in the hold of a Carrack or in the bunker for safety.
9. You'll have to turn off your refinery to get enough power to build a Fleet Carrier.
10. As soon as you start converting your Fleet Carrier, your moon base'll be totally destroyed. Unfortunately there's not much you can do about it. Just repopulate the base and store a battery as above.
11. After this your colonies start declaring independence. Again there's not much you can do about it. Any ships you land on independent colonies are lost. Just make sure you get as many resources as possible to the moon before this happens.
12. If you're stuck for materials for the earth base, dismantle all your ships and use their raw materials.
13. When you have completed your colonization of Mars and subsequently won over the affections of the Martians, you'll be notified by the Martian leader about a Terraformer, which can enable the recolonization of Earth. First you'll need to spend some time researching it, and then building it with Chromium, which can be found on TRITON. A message'll appear shortly telling you that your Fleet Carrier can be transformed into a Juggernaut, which is the only craft capable of transporting the 1,060 tons of Terraformer to Earth. Send the necessary materials to Earth and then bide your time for a year.
14. In the midst of all this, one of you bases will be attacked by Martians but an orbital laser should take care of the situation. Later on the situation with the other colonies starts to deteriorate. They begin declaring themselves independent, which effectively shuts them off from your control. Finally send a probe to Earth, select research, and follow up with a volunteer mission and an Standard Interplanetary Operations Spacecraft (SIOS) and Presto! Sit back and watch the finishing effect.