OGame Day One - Keeping it Positive

The very first thing you need to do to play OGame is to visit the site and register. In addition to picking a username and password you will need to pick a particular universe to play in. As I write this there are 21 universes to choose from and each is separate from the others. So if you know someone who is playing OGame and you want to play with them make sure you create your OGame account in the same universe. Otherwise any ol' universe will do, AFAIK.

UPDATE: Shizane and I have started a newbie alliance in Universe 19 called Draconis. Use the Alliance Screen to find Draconis and join us if you like, but you need to be in uni 19 to do it.

Choose a name for your home world. Might I suggest something clever yet non-offensive, creative and not cliche, a name you will be proud of and won't mind seeing on your overview screen every day for the next several years, something cool and not stoopid, something that is fun to say out loud, a name that will keep other players from attacking you because it's just so damn good they will want to be your friend and not your enemy. Alright already! Pick a name!

Once you register and login you will see the standard screen with a navigation menu on the left. As you click on a menu item you will see the appropriate info on the right. Explore the different menu items to get an idea of what's available.

Overview - a picture and some stats on your home world. Notice that if you click on your planet name you will get the option to Abandon the planet or to simply change it's name. As you settle more planets they will be listed here.

Buildings - Okay, this is where the action is for now. You have a few options for building new buildings. From what I've read you should start with a metal mine. But then someone else said you should start with a solar plant so you have energy to run the mines. Which brings up my whole gripe about the Energy thingie.

At the top of each screen you see the status of your resources: Metal, Crystal, Deuterium and Energy. The first three resources show how many units of each you have on hand. You start with 500 metal, 500 crys, and 0 deut. So you can build one of the least expensive building. You have to roll over the word "build" to see that it is a clickable link. The word "build" is in green if you have enough resources to create that type of building, it is in red if you can't.

Energy has 2 numbers. After building a few mines and solar plants my energy numbers are -11/149.



What do these numbers mean? Is it the energy required and the energy produced? Traviance posted a reply to my question on the help board. Here is the overview picture he made. (thanks traviance! the pic was most helpful) Regarding Energy it says,

"This is your energy bar for the planet. The first figure represents excess energy."

Okay, I am going to pick nits here. But the lack of official documentation for this game suxxors! Energy Bar? What bar? Okay, my first number is -11 so I guess I have negative excess energy. My first Energy number appears in red and in traviance's overview picture it appears in regular ol' white. Something is very wrong here. Am I producing negative energy? How long can this go on? Will my mines shut down for lack of energy? Are they even producing anything? Has my planet ground to a halt after my very first move? OMG! WTF is going on with this Energy thingie! I read in one of the guides that metal is most important so you should build metal mines first, but don't they require energy to run? They must! It says so right there if you click on the picture of the Metal Mines. I don't get this negative energy... SLAP!

Thanks, I needed that.

"The second figure represents the total output of your planet."

Reading ahead, I learn that there are 3 methods for producing energy, Solar Plants, Fusion Plants and Solar Satellites. For now we can only build Solar Plants so that is the thing to do. Fusion Plants and Satellites are more expensive and will probably appear on the list of buildings later.

So I recommend that your first move should be to build a Solar Plant. Then build a Metal Mine. Then add another level to the Metal Mine. Adding a level makes the mine produces more metal per hour. These are real time hours. So if your mine is producing 100 units per hour, come back in 5 hours and you will have 500 more units, mmmkay?

AFAIK, you can have only one Metal Mine on a planet. To increase production you increase it's "level". Also, keep adding levels to your Solar Plant to keep the first energy number positive.

UPDATE: The Energy number is explained pretty well here. I've learned a lot by browsing around the OGame Wiki. Try the Wiki's Random Page feature (just above the Search box).