OGame Getting Started Guide

OGame Getting Started Guide by Sardaukar

First of all, i’m german, so don’t worry if my English is sometimes a bit strange. I play only the german version of oGame, but registered here to give you some hints in playing the game – and increase my knowledge of the english language as well . If you don’t understand anything, please don’t hesitate to tell me .

1. Building Order
When you just begun with ogame, and your planet is completly empty, there’s a building order that proved quite good for developping your planet:
1. Solar Power Plant Lvl. 1
2. Metal Mine Lvl. 1
3. Metal Mine Lvl. 2
4. Solar Power Plant Lvl. 2
5. Metal Mine Lvl. 3
6. Metal Mine Lvl. 4
7. Solar Power Plant Lvl. 3
8. Crystal Mine Lvl. 1
9. Metal Mine Lvl. 5
and so on…

The reason for focusing on the Metal Mine is that you need very large amounts of metal at the earlier game stage. You won’t need much crystal or deuterium at the beginning, so go for sure and increase your metal production as fast as you can until your Mine reached lvl. 7 or 8. First then you should build your crystal mine at higher levels.

2. Expanding
Try to research everything needed to build colony ships as fast as possible. If you have your first colony ship, try to colonise a planet of the position 4, 5 or 6. The best chances to find a big planet are given at this positions. Then your colony is founded, construct your buildings like i worte in “1. Building Order” to develop your colony quickly. Try to colonise at least 6-7 other planets, but save the last colony slot (you can only have 8 colonies + 1 main planet), you’ll need it as a mobile base for your fleet in the later game. For people who focus on raiding other players it might be helpful to save 2 colony-slots, so that your fleet gets a higher mobility. Colonies will increase your income of ressources rapidly when they are build correctly – and with your income of ressources, your amount of points will also increase more rapidly . Later you can send the daily production of your colonies to your main planet, to convert it there into ships, research, defense and buildungs.

3. Raiding in the early game
Try to raid! It’s one of the main aspects of the game. By raiding, you can increase your daily income of ressources, and you get sure that your neighbours won’t develop that quickly than you do. Before you attack any planet, get surce to espionage it first: Send enough Espionage Drones that you can see his researched technologies. If you only see the ressources on the planet, be careful: You’ve found a player who’s probably stronger than you and who might take revenge for your attack. The amount of energy displayed by the ressources is also a possibility to estimate his strength: The higher the energy, the higher are his mines – and the result of their production. If you send more drones, you might be able to see his fleet and defense. Send an fleet that is able to transport the stolen ressources but remind that you can only steal half of the ressources on the planet. Transporters are useful because your small battle ships haven’t much room for transporting ressources . Be sure you send a fleet that’s strong enough to destroy all ships and defense structures on the other planet. Even if only one Rocket Launcher survives, you won’t get any ressources! If you had succes in raiding a planet, espionage it every day, and when there are enough ressources that a worth raiding the planet, attack it again! Maybe you won’t get as much ressources as at the first time, but if you do that with more than one planet, it’ll work and you get an extra income of ressources every day. That’s called “farming” – you get sure that a part of the ressource income of another player is added to your own income by raiding. And if you find enough planets to farm, it’s like you’ve got more colonies than the other players. An advantage i don’t want to miss in the german version, although it might sound a bit unfair. But be sure that you raid each planet only once a day (don’t forget to espionage first!), so that the other player has a chance to play, too. And of course because you needn’t to bash other players .

4. Raiding in the midgame
Now it’s time to get the feeling for “real” raiding. Most player’s don’t raid because of the ressources stored on other planets, because in most cases there are only a few ressources and they would have to raid many planets to get a real amount of ressources. So they look for other players’ fleets – to annihilate them. you will find 30% of the destroyed fleet’s worth in ressources floating in the orbit of the planet you attacked. So build enough recylcers and a strong fleet and go on the hunt! Especially battleships will prove useful, so get a big amount of them as fast as possible. A guideline is that you should build 2 Recyclers for 5 Battleships, that you can collect all ressources your entire fleet will “produce” when destroying another fleet. High levels for you weapon, armor and shields are also very helpful.

How to attack another fleet:
First of all: Espionage. Try to find other fleets. Most unexperienced players keep it on their main planet, so if you’re looking for hostile fleet, look over there for it. You can find out what planet another player’s main planet is, by clicking on the message for “send message to this player”.
Espionage that coordinates, and if you’ve got luck, you’ll find a fleet you can beat and recycle. If there isn’t anything, continue your search, and scann this planet another day again – maybe his or her fleet was only on a trip to other planets .

5. Raiding in the late game – phalanx
In the late game, you’ll have to face a few problems: First, there won’t be much other fleets near your main planet if you were hard-working . Or they are saved (how to save your fleet, i’ll tell you in the next “chapter”.). And that’s the moment were the phalanx enters the game and proves very useful! The problem: You can construct this building only on a moon. And to get a moon can be quite difficult: A moon is only created when fleet is crushed in the orbit of a planet. So, to get a moon there are three possibilities:
1. Somebody destroyed your fleet
2. Somebody attacked you, but you blasted his fleet to the stars
3. You paid somebody to attack you with a fleet only to get a moon

For each 100.000 ressources floating in the orbit, there’s a chance of 1% to create a moon. But the maximal chance is 20%, no way how much garbage is floating out there after the battle .
The second possibilty is the best of course, but unfortunatly the rarest, too.
Once you’ve got a moon, take ressources to it with your transporters, and start to construct a moon base, to get place for your phalanx. The range of the phalanx is the following: x²systems – 1system, where x is the palanx’s lvl.

When you’ve got your moon and your phalanx ready scann other planets with it – each scann will cost you 5.000 deuterium, so get enough deuterium on your moon in time. The phalanx scann displays other fleets moving or coming from the scanned planet – elapsed time included! Note the time and strength of the fleet and the defense on the planet where it’ll arrive and look how long your own fleet needs to fly to that planet.

An example:
The scann shows that the enemy fleet needs 4h 34min to fly to that planet. The enemy fleet consists of 345 Battleships 50 Destroyers, on the other planet is an defense of 400 Rocket Launchers and 600 little Lasers.

The fleet you’ll need to destroy this fleet with a good profite is at least 2.500 light interceptors (the smallest battleships for 3k metal and 1k crystal, i don’t know how they translated it :/). Don’t get scared by the high amount of little ships you’ll lose – they’re only cannon fodder so the enemy fleet can’t focus on your expensive battleships – and your losses of ressources are smaller – believe me . To gather the approching ressources after the battle you will need ~425 Recyclers – as you see, the guideline i told you earlier isn’t that bad, right? Your recyclers will need much more time to fly to this planet than your fleet. In our example we examine that they need 3h and 50mins, so wait 30 minutes, and then send them to that planet, to gather ressources. If the option isn’t available, send a probe to that planet with the attack-order. After it’s “impact” the option for gathering should be available. By doing this, you get sure that no one will steal the ressources you’ve fought for! Back to the example, our fleet needs 1h and 10mins to fly to the targeted planet. Wait 3h and 30min or more until you send your fleet, so that it’s as shortly arriving at the planet as possible. Real good players get times of less then 3secs so that it’s impossible for the attacked player to save his fleet even when he’s online!

6. Raiding in the late game – mobile fleet
When there’s nothing to raid anymore in the closer radius of your main planet and you don’t want to work with a moon and phalanx or because it’s simply to expensive, your saved colony spot will become more and more important. Time to colonise a planet near new galaxies and systems far away: Especpecially such systems and galaxies with plenty planets to raid and fleets to crush. Get sure your new colony isn’t in range of another phalanx – or is strong enough to kill the phalanx owner’s fleet. Found a colony in a system with enough neighbors – avoid systems with members of you ally near them – you shouldn’t so share the same raid area. First, simply found your colony, you needn’t build any buildings there – later, you’ll erase it in every case. Then, wait, simply wait a few days. Don’t move your fleet there to soon. Wait who’s scanning your new colony – and espionage back. By doing so, you get a point of view who’s raiding in this area – if the scanning player isn’t a threat for you – ignore him first. Later you might kill his fleet to revenge for scanning you of course! I prefer to wait 2-3 days, that’s quite enough. But if you’re already one of the best players in the universe and in the Top25, don’t wait! Get your fleet over there and kill whoever you can before they move away. Other raiders will recognize quickly if someone big came to kill their fleets…

If you don’t belong to these big guys, wait, and then move your fleet over there. Take enough deuterium (!very important!) and transporters with you, don’t forget your recyclers & probes, they’ll have work soon. Transporters to take your booty home, deuterium because you will not get enough deuterium by raiding to keep your fleet mobile. Just raid there like you did near your main planet: Scann & Raid. Good times for raiding are 2 o’clock or later in the night, because the chance that a player you’re attacking is going online and saving his fleets & ressources before your fleet arrives: Your losses: plenty of deuterium. His losses: a bit defense.

After a week, return to your main planet, and found a new colony in another system far away… . If you saved two colony slots, you can have two of these moving colonies at the same time – move your fleet from one colony to the other when, erase the old one, and found another.

7. Saving your fleet and ressources
No, this doesn’t mean you have to handle savegames with oGame . To save your fleet, first you have to know how long you will be offline. In my case, that are 20hours. Then, take all your fleet (recyclers!), and type in some coordinates as destination spot. Don’t click on continue! Just look at the elapsed time. Set the speed to 10%, and look how the elapsed time will grow. Increase or decrease distance of the destination point from the point where you’re fleet is located, until the time is half of the time you want to be offline. In my case, i’ll look for an elapsed time of 9h 50min and 10h 30min. Half of the time you want to be offline, because the fleet will have to fly the way there and back, but the shown time is needed for 1 way, not for 2. When the elapsed time is alright, click on continue. Now you have to give your orders what to do at this spot. Because of you’ve got recyclers with you, you have the option to gather ressources. Chose this mission for your fleet and fill in the ressources in the boxes you want to save – normally it’s all you’ve got . Don’t matter that you fill in the ressources in the boxes for transporting – they will be taken by the fleet either.

If you done everything correctly, your fleet will come back (with all the saved ressources…) when you’re back online and is waiting for new orders! While your fleet is doodling around, no one is able to attack it, because in oGame moving fleets can’t be intercepted. Why should you save your fleet? Simply answer: To don’t lose it. Other players want 30% of the ressources you’ve paid for it, too. And so they will try to kill your fleet. Be sure you stay on the right side of this food chain! Even when a weaker player will scann you, there’s the possibility to get killed when he passes the scann to another player!

8. Saving your fleet against phalanxes
Of course, the time will come where you have to face enemy phalanxes which don’t allow to keep your fleet alive by saving any longer. You’ve got a few options then:
1. Save your fleet with the “deploy” order
2. Build enough defense

8.1
Fleets with the station order aren’t trapped by the phalanx, because they have a one-way route to fly. Somebody who scanns you with a phalanx, can send his fleet after you to catch it at the destination point, but you can call back your fleet to evade this attack! When he scannes the planet where your fleet is flying back to, he wont see your back-called fleet – It isn’t displayed by the phalanx – and it’s not a bug, it’s a feature! . (

8.2
Defense: The advantage of defense is that it costs less than a ship with the same strength in combat, destroyed defense doesn’t leave any ressources and 70% of the destroyed defense in combat is repaired after the battle. To decrease the profite another player would get by destroying your fleet, build defense: cannon fooder and some real big guns!

First: cannon fooder: Rocket Launchers and small Lasers are the best that way. The chance to to hit a battleship behind 49 rocket launchers is decreased to 2%, but you battleship will be able to shoot at the attackers as well and decrease them without be damaged seriously if your attacker doesn’t have a really big amount of luck. Because of the rocket launchers – which don’t leave any ressources after the battle in the orbit – the attacker wastes time and shoots, while your fleets is decreasing his fleet! If you build at least 10 rockets or small lasers for each of your battleships, the chance of hitting one it below 10% – not a really attractive target to attack, don’t you think ? I’m sure many players will hate me for writing these sentences, because many people don’t like defense structures because they can spoil the game when everybody builds so much defenses that he’s inattackable because somebody isn’t worth to be attacked if there aren’t enough ressources to get to restore your losses of the attack.

9. Your Ogame-“Confession” – You’re free to chose!
How do you want to behave in Ogame? Do you want to trade with other players? Or to raid them until they surrender to your victorious fleet? Do you want to spred fear and terror whereever your fleet approaches? Or to opress other people? One-Man Army or Assassination Squad – Ally? Want to be a headhunter? Ogame gives you a very large freedom in this point – and you are free to chose! You’re not forced to raid – although it might be better for your points if you do . But who cares about his point counter as long as he has fun? This “chapter” in my tutorial only serves to show you the possibilities of oGame .

10. Cannon Fooder and real big guns!
You’ll need Cannon Fooder in the mid and lategame to reduce your losses. Cannon Fooder like Little Fighters and Little Lasers have only one purpose: To get the enemy shots away from your really expensive ships and guns.

If 100 Battleships and 900 Little Fighters fight against 200 Battleships, the 200 will lose, because they can’t focus their fire on the Battleships which are standing against them! The 100BS (battleships) + 900LFs (little fighters) will win – and the player who sent them will even had made a small profite!
Each ship in a battle targets an aim by random. If you’ve got 100 BS and 900 in your fleet, the chance that a BS is hit, is reduced to 10%, because battleships have only that percantage on the whole fleet, and your enemy will have to work pretty hard to lower your cannon fooder to kill the real big ships and guns behind them. One Plasma Cannon behind 999 Rockets is barely not to hit and might be responsible for great losses when you attack this planet only with BSs! That plasma cannon will shot down up to 6 battleships – one per combat round! So get sure when you attack and your enemy has Cannon Fooder: Use Ships which have rapid fire against his cannon fooder! For example if he has many Little lasers – Destroyers are the best to chose: One destroyer kills up to 10 Little Lasers per combat round! Imagine how his cannon fooder will be blown up in 1-2 combat rounds…

11. How score and statistics are calculated
This little chapter explains how the values in the statistics are calculated:

11.1 normal points:
The amount of points you’ve got is very simple to calculate: You get 1 point for 1.000 ressources used for building. One example: an colony ship costs 10’000 metal, 20’000 crystal and 10’000 deuterium. That’s altogether an amount of 40’000 ressources you need to build – and resolves in that every colony ship you own gives you
40’000/1’000 = 40 points in the stats. If you lose a colony ship (because of a combat or you’ve colonised a planet with it) you will lose that amount of points of course. That resolves that ships and defensive structures aren’t a permanent investion for points – you can lose them at any time when you lose your ships or defenses because other players destroyed your raided you. Other investions like buildings are “half-permanent” investions – other players can’t destroy them and cause a reduction of your points – you can lose them only when you erase you planet or unupgrade your building. The last investions are technologies: Once a tech is researched and you gained points for it, nobody can take that points away from you!

11.2 fleet points:
Your fleet points are even more simplier calculated than your normal score: One point for each ship you own – a death star counts as much as a little fighter or solar satellite. The fleet points of a player gives you only a response of the quantity of his or her ships – not of the quality.

11.3 technology points:
Similar to the fleet points, you get one point per researched technology or upgrade of it – how much it costed to research or upgrade that technology isn’t essential.

11.4 alliance points
These points are calculated like the normal points, but this time all points of all alliance members are added together and then divided through 1’000.
That means: When you used 1’000’000 ressources to built something, that gives 1’000 points for you and 1 point for your alliance.