About View Quadrants. View Quadrants is how you look at things on the map. This option can be selected from the main menu and other sub-menus. When one is using view quadrants to look at a place on the map one simply clicks the left mouse button on the location desired and the location is selected once you release the left mouse button. ( the action is a two step process because the location gets highlighted while you hold the left mouse button down). You may also select a location using arrow keys. by using the number pad (with Num-lock off,) you can move the cursor up,down,left,right as well as diagonally. To move by whole quadrants, simply toggle the insert key then the same keystrokes will move by whole quadrants. once you have moved the cursor to the desired location hit once the location is selected an info box will automatically pop up. The popup window will relate information about that place. You may scroll through the info or you may select specific options to look at. The options available are: Scroll Fleet Info Exploration Probabilities Return Scroll will scroll through all the information about planets, starfalls, fleets and the exploration probabilities. Fleet info will give more detailed information about the fleets there. Exploration probabilities will tell one about the chances for finding planets or starfalls at that location. this info is given in the form of number of objects 'X'/ within Distance number of hexes 'Y' for both systems and starfalls in general the greater the difference of the first subtracted from the second number the greater the chances of finding the desired object. Y - X = probability When you explore the probability is compared with a random number between 1 and 6. The random number must be less than the probability to explore succesfully. * note if there are no objects about the probability will be represented as 0/0 This is equal to one with in six or a probability of 5 For more info about exploration see About Exploration Return will return you back to the location selecting part of view quadrants. * note, fleet info will tell you about each fleet in the stack by clicking on that option, once you finish the last fleet on the stack, you will need to click on scroll to get to the beginning of the stack if you want to view a specific fleet again. When you are done looking at things clicking the right mouse button, or hitting the 'q' key will return you to the menu you entered view quadrants from. A variation of this procedure is used when you are prompted to select a location or fleet for some reason like combat, exploration, etc. The main differences is when prompted for a location no info box will pop up it simply waits for you to select the location either with the mouse or arrow pad. Hitting q or the right mouse button will cancel the location selection and the operation that called it. For fleet selection there are two more options that show in the info box: Select Cancel Select will select the fleet displyed in the info box. care should be to scroll to the correct fleet that you want to select. Cancel will cancel the action prompting you to select the fleet. if you pick return while selecting a fleet you will still be expected to select a fleet somewhere on the map. this feature is handy if you make a mistake selecting the location to pick the fleet from. You might notice the zoom map in the upper left corner of the screen this is handy for picking things since the hexes are bigger! View Quadrants will display the quadrant of the current location in the zoom map. The Map The Map itself may seem confusing at first, .planets are displayed in either a dark blue, for nuetral planets, dark grey for destroyed planets, or the player color for planets that are developed by specific players. (note the colors I mention are default colors and can be set by the user using starint.exe) planets have a '*' symbol at the center of the hex. .starfalls are displayed in a dark purple and have the '@' symbol at the center of the hex. .fleets are displayed as a sort of arrow head shaped triangle.. fleets in space alone are simple arrowheads in the players color. a fleet on a planet is displayed in its own color unless the fleets owner is the same player as the planet owner. in that case the fleet is displayed in the map empty hex background color, the reason for this is a red fleet on a red planet would be invisible. when the planet is owned by someone else the fleet is displayed in the fleet players color. .Stacked fleets, that is a location that has more than one fleet on it, are displayed in a variety of fashions due to the level of information that needs to be represented by color alone. if the fleet is in orbit about a planet, and the planet is owned by the same player, (same as case 1 above,) the fleet is displayed in the empty hex background color, but it has an outline in the graphicscolor, (dark green by default) fleets owned by other players also have this dark green outline but they are displayed in their respective owners player colors. Stacked fleets in space or on a starfall are simply displayed in the player colors with no outline. Fleets on order, ( that is longterm orders being built) are invisible. yet they still take up a space on the stack and they can be viewed as described above by the fleet info option. Each successive fleet is displayed a bit offset from the one previously, so they sort of look like they are overlapping eachother. a tall stack of fleets may extend well beyond the edge of the hex they are displayed as being in orbit around. keep this in mind, if a fleet looks misplaced from its location. .Tracking during the players turn traces are drawn to mark fleet movement in the fleet owners color this is sometimes interesting and helpful... .Locations are designated by a four digit numeral. the first two digits designate quadrant column and row, respectively. the last two digits designate area and hex nuumber within that quadrant. you can think of a quadrant as consisting of 6 area of 3 by 2 hexes, the hex numbers are counted starting from top left hex in a clockwise fashion about the 3 by 2 area. the areas themselves are counted left to right from top left corner to bottom right corner. .The Zoom Map as mentioned above is a display of the current quadrant your curser is set at. this is updated if you change which quadrant you are looking at. also individual hexes get updated there as on the full map, as your fleets move, combat, develop, etc. .Private info, some info is considered private to other players. ie. you may not be able to see data about your enemies planet unless you are in orbit about it. I'm working on the integration of shared data between allies.. that is you may be able to click on your allies fleet after a battle during your turn and see how many ships have survived. I'm still working out details, but hopefully this will allow a player to be able make good decisions based on viewing his own fleet strengths, as well as his allies fleets in the area..