<PAGENAME>Newbie
<H>Basic Gameplay, Commands and Controls

<h>Panning ( Camera )
Move your mouse to the edge of the screen; Hold Mouse Wheel, drag to pan view; Use arrow keys; Click Mouse Wheel on the minimap will centre to that location.

<movie>camera

<h>Zooming In / Zooming Out
Try to get an overview of the whole map: Scroll Mouse Wheel or "PageUp" / "PageDown" keys to zoom out / in. You can also press "Tab" key to toggle full-map view.
How to move from one position on the map to another: Zoom Out, Move cursor to the desired position, then Zoom In.

<h>Choosing Start Location - placing the base
Click anywhere on the green area to choose your starting location. The green area is your start box, the red is the enemies. The green circle around your Tower is build range of your base.
There are many ways how to choose good start spot - here is the list of the most important factors:

<list>Press "F4" to see metal spots. Try to have the most metal spots around you ( count each ground metal spot as two water ones ).
<list>Try to have access to strategic places - for example on hill + on plain, in sea + on isle, on two isles at the same time, ...;
<list>In big team games put you tower into deep hole, behind the big mountain, not in sea ( if big sea map ) to prevent some enemy from using long range weapons or subs ( in case of sea ) to kill your tower.
<list>Don't be at same spot with your ally, but sometimes I can be strategic to have some penetration of your build cirles ( for assisting for example first shipyard ).
<list>If playing East vs West or North vs South and map have no special good places in starting sector ( box ), try to be closer to center of sector, not in the corner of the map.

When you wish to proceed, click the yellow button marked "Ready".

<h>Selecting Units and Buildings
To select your main building ( Tower ) or units - Click "Left" mouse button on them. Another way is holding down "Left" mouse button, draw a rectangle around the area where units located. To Add to selection or to Deselect specific units - Hold "Ctrl" + click "Left" mouse button on the unit.

<h>Construction - First Buildings
Metal Extractors produce Metal, Solar Power Generators produce Energy. You need both in equal amounts for construction. Let's start with economy by building a Metal Extractor. Select your Tower, Build Menu will be shown on the left of the screen. Click on Metal Extractor in the menu, then click Left Mouse Button on top of one of the metal spots to place the building. Make sure the blue-green area of the metal spot is inside the Metal Extractor range ( red circle ). You can build any other buildings the same way as you built your metal extractor.

<h>Queuing Orders
Select the Metal Extractor from the Build Menu. Hold "Shift" key, place Metal Extractor over the second and third metal spots. These actions will place orders at the end of order queue. It means Orders will be executed in sequence. If you give an order without "Shift" held it cancels the queue in favour of new order.
To cancel a single order in the queue, hold "Shift" and click on its location - in the case of a build order, you must have a building selected to do this.
You can also insert commands at arbitrary positions in the queue by holding down "Space" while issuing the order.

<h>Multiple Building Placement
Select the a Solar Power Generator from the Build Menu. Hold Down "Shift" again, click Left Mouse Button over the place and drag to build a line of buildings. Make at least 4. Solar Power Generators produce +20 energy.

<h>Factories
Factories produce new units. Build the Kbot Lab Factory, press "[" or "]" while placing the Building to rotate it 90°. Select your factory. Repeat Button in the menu is ON by default for factories. This was done as intended for constant production. The repeat option will allow your factory to keep producing units indefinitely at your chosen ratio.
When a construction unit is selected you will see images in it's command list ( menu on the left ) representing the buildings that it can build. These are referred to as "build-pics". Mousing over a "build-pic" will make the tooltip show information about the structure or unit. Clicking on a structure's buildpic will select it for contruction. If multiple units are selected, all available structures ( and mobile units ) will appear in the command list. Choosing to build a building when you have multiple units selected will usually assign all units to help build those buildings if this is a valid command.
When you build a unit with a non-factory you will need to choose a ground plate for it to be built on ( represented by a grid on the map under your cursor ).

<img>ground.plate

<list>If the grid is green, you can build at that location.
<list>If the grid is green with some yellow-green squares in it somewhere, it means the ground-plate is blocked by a mobile unit or reclaimable feature. This situation should be resolved automaticly by the constructing unit.
<list>If the grid has any red squares in it, this is an invalid build position, the non red squares of the grid represent unobstructed parts of the obstructed grid.

When you build a unit with a non-factory you will need to choose a ground plate for it to be built on ( represented by a grid on the map under your cursor ).
You can add units to your factories production queue by left-clicking the icon of the units you wish to build. The factory will then immediately start production. To remove a unit from the queue, simply right-click the unit's icon.
If you need a unit to build quickly, you can press Alt while clicking and you will make that many units outside of the queued loop ( it will only be made once ), after the current unit is finished. "Shift" click Adds / Removes 5 units in queue, "Ctrl" click Adds / Removes 20 units.

<h>Orders - Unit Selection
You can select multiple units of the same type on your screen by double-clicking one of them. To select all units of all the unit types you currently have selected - press "Ctrl + Z".
You can control-group units by pressing "Ctrl + Number" ( Number is from 0 to 9 ). Pressing the number key will select that group of units.

<h>Orders - Unit Movement and Combat
To order units to move - right-click at location. Holding down the right mouse button when having multiple units selected - draw a line or curve, which orders your units to spread out and proceed towards their position in the formation with equal spacing.
If you give an explicit order of "Fight" ( F key ) or "Move" ( M key ), you can also draw a line or curve for formation.
To order units to attack a specific target by right clicking it. Note: Units will automatically fire at enemies in range, so may not fire at the target first.
Nearly all units can shoot while moving. To order units to attack a specific target by right clicking it. Note: Units will automatically fire at enemies in range, so may not fire at the target first.
Hold down "Shift" key while having units selected to take a look at their current command queue. While doing so you can also add new commands to your selected units, which will then process all commands one after the other.
The Fight order will make units stop to engage enemies they encounter ( like Attack Move in other RTS games ).

<h>Construction - Advanced Technique
There are few basic rules - don't loose metal and time and try to get first army as soon as possible. Those rules go against each other, yes, we now. The right start build queue is the key to keep all these rules and not to loose the battle very soon. Here is one start build queue ( 16 buildings, for CORE faction ):
Every Solar power generator in this build queue can be replaced by one Tidal power generator or by 1-2 Wind power generators ( if tidal or wind is strong enough on given planet - map ).
Remember: Solar power generators are the most metal-cost expensive, but they have the lowest build-time and they produce reliable source of energy. So for the start they are optimal.

<h>Chat - Send Messages
<list>"Alt + Enter": Send messages to Allies.
<list>"Ctrl + Enter": Send messages to Everyone.
<list>"Shift + Enter": Send messages to Spectators.
<list>"Enter": Send messages to Last Receivers.

<h>Markers - Placing, Drawing, Erasing
Depending on your keyboard there is a key below "Esc" - Tilde(~) or Circumflex(^) or something else. With this key held down, use your mouse:
<list>Hold Left Mouse button and drag to draw.
<list>Click Wheel Mouse button to place a marker.
<list>Hold Right Mouse button and drag to erase.
<list>Double Click Left Mouse button to place a marker with text.

<h>Custom Formations
Select units, select command from the menu, then hold Left Mouse button and draw a line anywhere on the battlefield. You can hold Right Mouse button to draw a Move formation.
Depending on your unit selection, one of the following will happen:
<list>If only a single unit is selected, commands will be queued along the line. This allows you to quickly draw a path to go around obstacles such as static defences and more.
<list>If a group of units is selected, one command for every unit will be created along the line. This can be used to draw a formation before engaging the enemy, to spread up for example.

Custom formations works for the following commands: Attack, Fight, Jump, Move, Patrol, Unload.
To use Attack or Unload commands for Custom Formation, you have to hold down the "Alt" key while drawing a line.

<h>Area Commands
Area commands will order units to perform a task on every "reasonable" and visible target. To use them, select unit, select command from menu, press or hold Left Mouse button, then move your mouse to set the size of the area. This works for the following commands: Attack, Area attack, Reclaim, Repair, Resurrect.
