Magellan Wars 2009 Basics Manual

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Races
1. How to Choose a Race?
2. Racial Traits Explained
3. Economy
1. Control Model
2. Planets and Buildings
4. Battles
1. Battle Rules
2. Weapon and Armor Terminology
3. Ship Designs
4. Commander Attributes
5. Tactics
1. Defense Plans
2. Formations
3. Fleet Orders
4. Decoys
5. Scouting
6. Raping
7. Commander Training
8. Ship Queuing
9. Fluffing
10. Mass Small Ships
11. Key Technologies
6. Communication
7. Frequently Asked Questions
8. Appendix A: Racial CM Modifiers
9. Appendix B: Racial Commander Attribute Modifiers
10. Appendix C: Commander Special Abilities
11. Appendix D: Projects
1. Planet Based Projects
2. Domain Ranged Projects
3. Council Projects
4. Black Market Projects
5. Ending Projects
12. Appendix E: Planetary CM Modifers
13. Appendix F: Weapon Statistics
14. Appendix G: Armor Statistics
15. Appendix H: Device Statistics
16. Appendix I: Event Effects
17. Appendix J: Fleet Order/Status Effects

1. Introduction

This guide is meant to even a huge contrast between old-timers and new players, who often, not by their own fault, do not know where to look for information not provided in the encyclopedia. Instead of ready solutions, it contains a lot of raw data for players to work with. There are, however, some hints regarding economy and battles, that are considered to be absolute basics in Magellan Wars.

2. Races

2. a. How to choose a race?

Contrary to popular belief, races are quite balanced. There is no single best race. When making your choice, do not look only at the racial CM modifiers and starting techs displayed in the Encyclopedia. You must also know what their racial traits do, and what their commanders are capable of. This guide explains these things, yet still your choice may depend on what function you want to perform in a council. Some races can get powerful weapons early, can build up fast, can have powerful battle abilities or a feature to counter such abilities of other races...

Appendix A contains a table with racial CM modifers, while Appendix B contains a table with racial commander attributes modifiers.

2. b. Racial Traits Explained

Advanced Battle Processing (Celebrus Opes Ending)
+50% experience from combat.

Asteroid Management (Cochehua)
Increased power of the Meteor Strike and Stellar Bombardment special ops.

Diplomat (Dementian)
Better relations with the Empire (bribery, boons etc.).

Downloadable Commander Experience (Celebrus Opes)
When a commander dies, all other commanders receive 50 exp. points per dead one's level.

Efficient Investment (Celebrus Opes)
100% of PP invested into ship building is actually used (instead of 50%); Planet investment costs are halved; Maximum Research investment is doubled.

Enhanced PSI (Dementian, Tetecuhtin Ending)
Physical damage dealt with PSI weapons increased by 20%.

Enhanced Shielding (Dementian Ending)
+10% shield strength to all fleets.

Fanatic Fleet (Tetecuhtin)
Fleets never retreat nor rout, however they still may enter status effects such as panic.

Fanatical Recruiting (Tetecuhtin Ending)
Turns required to spawn a new admiral is reduced by 1. Get a new admiral every turn from Military CM of 6 up.

Fast Maneuver (Thatloque)
Fleets return 30% faster and fleet speed in battle is increased by 30%.

Fragile Mind Structure (Karakiri)
Fleets get 25% more damage from PSI attacks, 50% if armada commander is dead or disabled.

Genetic Engineering Specialist (Karakiri)
Increased effect of the Red Death special op - it additionally puts an Obstinate Microbe on the victim's planet.

Great Spawning Pool (Karakiri)
Ships with Bio armor are 20% cheaper.

High Morale (Mactabilliss)
Base morale for all commanders is 25% higher.

Hive Ship Yard (Karakiri Ending)
All ships are 10% cheaper (stacks with Great Spawning Pool).

Information Network Specialist (Accedo Machina)
+5 Spy CM for Steal Technology special op.

Militaristic Dominance (Mactabillis Ending)
Increases PP drawn from total production to build ships by 10% at all times.

No Breath (Celebrus Opes, Jinchou Tennou)
The atmosphere is excluded from calculating Environment CM, so terraforming is faster.

No Spy (Cochehua)
Cannot use or be a target of special ops, except for Meteor Strike and Stellar Bombardment.

PSI (Dementian, Tetecuhtin)
Can use PSI weapons and devices.

Pacifist (Dementian)
Cannot perform special ops marked as Atrocious and gets –3 to attack abilities in offensive battles.

Scavenger (Accedo Machina)
Gets PP from destroyed enemy fleets. Will only gain 15% of normal salvage from battles with the empire.

Stealth (Cochehua, Thatloque)
The chance for being detected on Raid and Privateer missions is 25% lower.

Stealth Pirate (Thatloque Ending)
The chance for being detected on Raid and Privateer missions is 25% lower (cumulative with Stealth).

Tactical Mastery (Mactabillis)
+3 to offense abilities in offensive battles and +3 to defense abilities in defensive battles.

Trained Mind (Dementian)
Fleets never go berserk.

3. Economy

3. a. Control Model

Control Model (CM) represents a modifier for all economical and domestic issues. It can be boosted or decreased by techs, projects, planet attributes and Concentration Mode.

Environment
Determines how much your planets have to be terraformed in order to achive the Suitable status (anything lower penalises overall production, growth and building rate of a given planet).

Growth
Determines the reproduction rate of your people.

Research
Determines the amount of RP (Research Points) produced per Research Lab. Research CM also reduces the RP cost of techs while in free research. Free Research discount = 20% + Research_CM*4%. Minimum discount is 0, maximum is 40%. (So this effect of Research CM is capped at 5.)

Production
Determines the amount of PP (Production Points) produced per Factory.

Military
Determines the amount of MP (Military Points) produced per Military Base, the amount of experience given to newly formed fleets, the frequency of commander spawning and the amount of your total production (planet production + commerce – upkeep) that will be spent each turn on ship building (that PP will be spent no matter you order ships to be built or not - in case there are no ships in the queue, the PP goes to the ship pool).
Note: The maximum Ship Pool Spending is 80%, attained at military CM 10. Military CM above 10 will only increase the output of Military Points.

Spy
Determines the chance of your special ops to be successful, and decreases the chance of success of special ops targeted at you slightly (you need an increased security level to significantly reduce the chance of spy ops working on you).

Commerce
Affects the amount of PP your planets will get from commerce. Each commerce CM increases the production gain from each planet it is linked with by 0.8%. The base amount is 8%.

Efficiency
Determines your Waste rate. Planets further away from your home planet in the planet investment pool list have higher waste rate. Waste rate is capped at 55% for planets in your home cluster and 60% for the rest. Note: The maximum Efficiency CM is 20. Anything higher gives no benefits.

Genius
Determines the occurence of good commanders versus bad.
Note: The maximum Genius CM is 15. Anything higher gives no benefits.

Diplomacy
Affects with the Empire (ie. bribery, boons), changes to Honor and Council Honor (if speaker).

Facility Cost
Determines the building rate and maximum building capacity of your Population.
Note: The maximum Facility Cost CM is 5. Anything higher gives no benefits.

3. a. Planets and Buildings

Types of buildings
There are three types of buildings you can build on a planet: Factories (they produce PP), Research Labs (they produce RP) and Military Bases (they produce MP and protect planets from raids and some special ops). It is a common beginner mistake to build Military Bases in order to boost their ship building rate. Military Bases have nothing to do with ship building, they only produce MP needed for ship upkeep. To build ships faster you need PP - meaning factories and commerce - and higher Military CM.

Planets' capacity
Each planet can hold a number of buildings. It is dependant on the planet's size (Tiny, Small, Medium, Large, Huge) and Facility Cost CM. Lower Facility Cost CM means much less buildings. Keeping your planet invested, increases its Facility Cost CM up to +5 and Growth CM up to +10. It is important to keep your planets invested all the time, otherwise they will not only slow down in building but also lose people and production.

Building rate
Buildings are constructed based on the Facility Cost of the planet, it's population, it's size, and it's environment. Low Facility Cost CM, low population and bad environment (anything worse than Suitable) will slow the building rate. Also, the building rate will get slower and slower as your planet gets developed.

Production per turn
The amount of PP/RP/MP produced per turn depends on: the number of buildings, the type of a planet (Ultra Poor, Poor, Normal, Rich or Ultra Rich) and its Production, Research and Military CM's being your global CMs modified by the planet's attributes (refer to Appendix E for a list of attributes and their effects). The planet's PP/RP/MP production is modified by Waste rate. It is important to note that the buildings will only produce their points if there is enough people to support them. If for some reason (ie. Red Death special op) there is less than maximum population, first the building rate is lowered, then some buildings become inactive.

Detailed calculations

PP per Factory:
		6 + Production CM
		multipliers: Ultra Poor: 50%, Poor: 75%, Normal: 100%, Rich: 175%, Ultra Rich: 250%
RP per Research Lab:
		10 + Research CM
MP per Military Base:
		10 + (Military CM*2)

Building Ratio
It is important to remember to set proper ratios for each planet. Since you can get most PP out of Riches and Ultra Riches, they should always have ratio of 100% Factories. On the other side there are Poors and Ultra Poors, on which there is no point to build any factories. Thus, it is best to build 100% Research Labs on them, or 100% Military Bases if you already finished the research. Normal planets can have different uses (a ratio of 50% Factories / 50% Research Labs is a good one for build-up). The top players out there usually build 100% Research Labs on P/UP, 50%/50% of Factories/Labs on Normals and then, they get rid of those planets and try to build an inner core (first 20-40 planets with little or no Waste) of only Riches and Ultra Riches with 100% factories, and an outer core (the following planets covering your inner core) of anything from Ultra Poor to Normal with 100% Military Bases.

Commerce
The planet's final PP income results also of commerce coming from three slots. Each slot links to other player's free slot as soon as you or your councils make a Pact. If the pact is broken, it will unlink immediatly. Alliances between players/councils count as +1 bonus to Commerce CM for those linked slots. Subordinary relation counts as further +1. If a player is engaged in any war, be it personal or council, it will lower Commerce CM by 1. If a player is engaged in total war, it will lower Commerce CM by 2 instead of 1 for other wars. Commerce is not affected by Waste Rate. However, the waste rate of the players you link to will affect their production, hence affect your commerce income.

4. Battles

4. a. Battle Rules

Who will defend against Siege/Blockade?
All fleets in defense plan returning or on standby + fleets stationed on defending planet + allied fleets.
–If there are no fleets returning or on standby, allied fleets and staioned fleets will NOT defend against the invasion.
–Fleets returning from attacks CAN defend against attacks, but they must be set in the defense plan.
–Defense plan is disabled if the armada commander is not returning or on standby, or if half or more of the rest
of the fleets set in plan are not returning or on standby. In both cases, the first twenty standby fleets will engage in battle with a line formation.
–Every player can receive help from at most 5 allied fleets. Every player can only send 1 fleet to each ally.
–If both players have fleets remaining at turn 1800, then the battle ends in a Draw. Otherwise, whichever side has fleet remaining wins.
–If defender has any fleet on stand ground at turn 1800 and attacker does not, then the battle counts as an Attacker Win instead of a Draw.
–If no defender fleet show up or attacker fleet wins the fleet battle, military bases on the planet will defend and have a chance of shooting down one attacking ship of any size. If this is not the only ship attacker sends, then attacker wins.

Who will defend against Raid/Privateer?
Fleets on patrol or stationed on the attacked planet have a chance of detecting and intercepting these attacks.
–Larger ships, higher number of ships and fleets improve the chance of detecting and shooting down the attacking fleet.
–Defender will never lose any ships defending against these attacks.
–If enemy raid fleet is undeteted, military bases on the planet will be hit before all others, with a maximum loss of 100 MB per attack.

Fleet Return Time
5*(9-Engine_Lvl) + remainder of turn that you attacked on, in minutes. Fleet return time is doubled if you hit into a cluster you don't own and don't at the same time claim that cluster by a successful siege.

Who fires first?
Generally, the fleet with higher Detection (commander's ability) fires first, since it can see the enemy earlier. However, one of the fleets may be cloaked. Therefore, it will not be detected and can fire first even though it has lower Detection. Once the cloaked fleet fires, it becomes uncloaked. Note that some commander abilities can detect cloaked ships. Also note, that Detection ability alone does not help detecting cloaked ships at all. If both fleets are cloaked, they will not fire at each other. Fleets do not have shared vision. All fleets have a "red zone radii" of 300, which allows it to see all uncloaked fleets within 360 degrees of this range, regardless of detection/stealth values.

Accuracy
Weapon accuracy is based on attacker's computer AR (Attack Rate) and attacker's weapon AR vs defender's computer DR (Defense Rate) and defender's armor DR. All modifiers to AR and DR refer to overall AR and DR. Note that there are plenty of Devices and Special Abilities modifying these values. Also note that regardless of values, accuracy and damage are still random to a certain extent. Defender gets 5% DR bonus for blockades and 10% DR bonus for sieges.

Computer Level	Name	Attack Rating	Defense Rating
1	Electronic	100	233
2	Optical	133	289
3	Genetic	172	354
4	Quantum	218	429
5	Neuro	271	518

Mobility
Mobility is based on ship class and engine. Smaller ships and higher level engines give higher mobility. It is also affected by fleet experience, commander ability and ship devices. Mobility goes into armor DR calculation, and helps a decent proportion.

Engine Level	Name	Gunboat Mobility	Doomstar Mobility
1	Retro	45	15
2	Fusion	54	18
3	Anti-Matter	65	22
4	Impulse	78	26
5	Phase	93	31

Speed
Speed is based on ship class and engine. Smaller ships and higher level engines fly faster in battle. It is also affected by fleet experience, commander ability and ship devices. Speed determines how far a ship can fly every turn, and is important for ships with special fleet orders such as flank - if the ship fly too slowly, enemy fleets may have turned around before you can attack them from the back. Every grid in the defense plan represents an area of 200*200.

Engine Level	Name	Gunboat Speed	Doomstar Speed
1	Retro	16	9
2	Fusion	22	13
3	Anti-Matter	31	17
4	Impulse	42	24
5	Phase	59	34

Fleet Experience
Reduces panic modifier, reduces cooldown up to 10%, increases DR, increases AR, increases speed, and increases mobility. Max is 100. Train Injector will maximize it regardless of true experience. Changing commander of a fleet drops the fleet experience by 20%, reassigning a different design to a fleet drops the fleet experience by 10%. Remove/Add Ships of the same design does not cost fleet experience.

Morale
Each fleet has its own morale. It drops when the armada (all fleets in battle on the same side as the fleet in question) takes damage, loses ships or fleets in its armada are destroyed/retreated. It raises when the fleets does damage, kills ships, or when enemy fleets are destroyed/retreated. Psychological effects appear when morale drops significally. Berserk Modifier lowers the threshold at which Berserk effect occur; Panic Modifier affects threshold for other negative effects. So Berserk/Panic Modifier with a negative value is desired. Affected fleets can break formation, or enter states of Disorder (reduced abilities), Panic (immobilized), Retreat (run to back), Rout (run to nearest border) or Berserk (run through enemy). Commander's Efficiency reduces the time of temporary effects (Disorder, Berserk). Morover, all effects can be overcomed if morale raises. Morale also reduces cooldown, increases speed, and increases mobility.

PSI Weapons
PSI weapons deal less damage than other weapons at the same level, but their psychological effect (morale drop) is doubled and further increased by PSI Attack bonus from devices and commander abilities. With PSI weapons you can make the enemy fleet retreat/rout/panic much earlier than it should. An immobilized or retreating fleet will obviously not be a threat anymore and can be destroyed easily. PSI weapons are very effective but risky because a specially made design (e.g. with Energy-Organic Armor or Mactabillis Anti-PSI Device) can reduce PSI damage and effects by more than half. It is strongly advised to mix PSI weapons with normal ones.

4. b. Weapon and Armor Terminology

Weapon stats:
Attack Rate - accuracy
Dice Rolled / Dice Type - the amount of dice of a given type rolled in damage calculations;
if you are unfamiliar with multi-sided dice concept, refer to Appendix F to see min. and max. weapon damage
Cooling Time - the amount of turns needed for the weapon to reload
Angle of Fire - self-explanatory
Weapon Speed - currently not implemented
Attack Range - the maxiumum range of a weapon
Space - the amount of space the weapon takes in each slot

Weapon effects:
Shield Piercing - chance of doubling the damage dealt to shields.
Shield Overheat - triples the damage dealt to shields.
Shield Distortion - chance of bypassing the shields completly, including the solidity damage reduction.
Armor Piercing - additional chance of Critical Hits.
Additional Damage to Bio Armor - Deals additional damage to biological armors.
Critical Hits - chance of dealing twice the damage multiplied by the enemy ship's armor HP multiplier (Damage*2*EnemyArmorHPMultiplier).
Corrosivity - increases damage to armor by 1% per corrosivity.

Armor stats:
Defense Rate - counter-accuracy.
HP Multiplier - each ship class has base Hit Points equivalent to its total weapon space. Ship_HP = Base_HP*HP_Multiplier. Ship_HP is then multiplied by 1.2 if it is equipped with Reinforced Hull.
Repair - auto-repair (see FAQ).
Defense against Beam/Projectile/Missile/PSI - reduces total damage by a given percentage.

Related device/ability effects:
Shield Strength - effectively a shields' hit points. These absorb damage before the actaul ship hull is hit.

Shield Level	Name	Shield Strength –Gunboat	Shield Strength –Doomstar
1	Electromagnetic	30	3558
2	Graviton	42	4980
3	Deflector	58	6972
4	Barrier	82	9762
5	Multiphase	116	13668

Shield Recharge Rate - the speed at which shield strength recovers. Shield Recharge Rate per turn = Shield_Level*Ship_Size*2 (Ship size: Gunboat = 1, Doomstar = 10) The unit is in points, not percentages.
Shield Solidity - reduces damage by 3% per shield solidity, while shield strength (shield HP) is above 10%.
Impenetrable Armor - reduces the chance of Critical Hit (see Armor Piercing).
Impenetrable Shield - reduces the chance of Shield Piercing (see Shield Piercing).
Stealth - effectively increases the distance between a stealthed fleet and enemy fleets by the amount specified when fleet detection range checks are made by fleets.
PSI Attack - increases the PSI effect (morale drop).
PSI Defense - decreases the PSI effect.
PSI Neutralization Field - chance of complete damage reduction from a PSI weapon.
Berserk Modifier - increses or decreases the chance of going into berserk after morale drop.
Panic Modifier - increases or decreases the threshold at which the fleet is affected by morale drop (the lower the better).
Trained status - fleet experience is set to 100 in battle regardless of the fleet's real experience.

4. c. Ship Designs

Weapons
Generally, Missiles have a high initial firepower but high cooling time so that it is possible to destroy many ships with the first blow. In opposite to that; Beam and Projectile weapons have generally higher damage potential over time but low firepower per shot. The Best end-game weapons are the weapons found at 5th and 6th tier of Ship Components.

Armor
All 3 of the end-game armors are potentially useful. WoK is undoubtedly the best against missile weaponry, though it is very weak to projectile weaponry. Eternium is more of the middile ground armor, no particularly gaping weaknesses, and Energy-Organic Crystal is useful against players who rely heavily on Distortion Blaster. The end-tech armours are particularly vulnerable to critical hits unless used with a commander (eg Engineering Specialist) or device (Ablative Coating) which reduces them.

Devices
Several of the devices are for more specialized cases, such as psi enhancement or defense, but there are several decent options to choose from for generic designs. The following are inarguably useful in almost any design: Ablative Coating, Reinforced Hull, Coprocessor, Kwang-11, Cloaking Field Generator (Frigs to Cruisers only), Escape Pod, and Advanced Escape Pod.

4. d. Commander Abilities

Class
Determines the bonuses that the commander gives to other fleets when he is the Armada Commander (capital fleet). In all other cases, it is irrelevant. Class D commander can be as good as Class A.

Fleet Commanding
Determines the maximum amount of ships you can fleet with a commander. The maximum value for Level 1 admiral is 11, which becomes 40 (45 for some races) at Level 20.

Efficiency
Determines how effectively your fleet targets the enemy fleet, spreading damage more throughout enemy fleets the lower your efficiency is. Additionally, it influences the ability to overcome various psychological effects (ie. Berserk, Retreat, Panic). Note that it can much be higher than 100%.

Offense
Increases (value × 3%) Attack Rate and Defense Rate when Siege/Blockade others. Increases chance of success on Raid/Privateer missions.

Defense
Increases (value × 3%) Attack Rate and Defense Rate on defense.

Maneuver
Increases (value × 3%) ship Mobility and Speed.

Detection
Determines the range at which a commander will see the enemy and fire. Also used to detect enemy Raids and Privateers.

For Commander Special Abilities, see Appendix C.

5. Tactics

5. a. Defense Plan

Remember to always have a defense plan. The plan is set by fleet IDs, so if those change (ie. when you make, lose, disband some fleets) you have to make a new one. Someone without a defense plan can be easily broken by much less fleet power attacking in a formation.

5. b. Formations

It is generally a good idea to keep fleets close to each other. Scattered fleets are more likely to be targeted by several fleets at once, thus they die easily. Also, try to protect your capital fleet, since if it is destroyed, other fleets lose morale and may retreat or panic.

5. c. Fleet Orders

It may be time consuming to select Fleet Orders for 20 fleets, but it is worth the effort. The most important order is Formation - it keeps the formation you had set up, preventing faster fleets from going too far ahead and getting killed. Use of other orders can be useful in hitting certain fleets, such as those in the back or on the sides, as well as obtaining the additional critical hit chance gained from hitting a fleet from behind or on the side. An additional 5% to 20% critical hit chance can be gained, depending on the angle you hit from, which can add up to a significant improvement in damage (see Critical Hits).

5. d. Decoys/Fodder

Decoys/fodder fleets are usable only if you attack/defend with less than 20 fleets. It is possible to fill the remaining "slots" with crappy fleets (ie. cruisers, not cloaked, or gunboats for pure defense) so that the enemy fleets in front waste their initial missile rounds. It is also possible to put bigger and bigger ships in front in order to "sweep" the enemy decoys...

5. e. Scouting

This is the most basic thing to learn - scout before attacking. Blockade or (if possible) siege your enemy with 2 cruisers (or earlier - gunboats, but you must choose a planet from your own cluster) before sending your armada out. You will learn the size and formation of enemy fleets. Scout fleet should be fleeted with a crappy level 1 admiral, since he will most likely die.

5. f. Raping

In Magellan Wars, raping means taking a lot of planets from an unprotected player. It is done with a number of "grabbers" (usually fleets of 2 cruisers each, since a fleet consisting of 1 ship only can be destroyed by planet's Military Bases). This way, a defleeted player can lose tens of planets in a matter of minutes, and eventually die. With the implementation of 'Imperial Protection', a player will be temporarily un-siege-able until they make an offensive action or 12 hours pass. Total war also negates protection.

5. g. Commander Training

Commanders gain experience by participating in battles and missions. They can earn most exp. points for killing ships in battle. Alternatatives include: Training (it takes 48 hours to train from 1st level) up to level 20, whereafter they no longer gain experience. Privateer (200 exp. per mission, more if you steal more PP - to do so use bigger ships / better admirals), Raids (exp. gain depends on the number of buildings destroyed - from 0 to several thousands of points), Station (5 exp. per turn), Patrol (10 exp. per turn). Organized attacks by council mates with large fleets of smaller ships than whatever is being used on the fleet with the commander you wish to be trained are the safe way to get a commander to level 20 without real combat. Make sure to hit with single fleets repeatedly should you do this, as the capital fleet gives 3 times the normal experience when killed.

5. j. Mass Small Ships

This tactic is based on the fact that smaller ships always have higher firepower-to-cost ratio. Example:

Gunboat: 1,000 PP (3 Fusion Missiles)
Frigate: 9,363 PP (8 Fusion Missiles)

Frigate: 9,363 PP (8 Fusion Missiles)
Cruiser: 88,360 PP (28 Fusion Missiles)

As you can see, 9 Gunboats can carry 27 Fusion missiles in total, while 1 Frigate costs the same as 9 Gunboats but can carry only 8 Fusion missiles in total. Same principle applies to Frigate vs Cruiser, 9 Frigates carry 72 Fusion missiles while 1 Cruiser has only 28 Fusion missiles in total for same cost. However, you have to keep in mind that Cruiser can reach other clusters and small ships fluff your power a lot. Last but not least, you can only send 20 fleets into a battle, with 6-40 ships per fleet depending on the commander. So, this tactic is limited yet effective in certain situations.

5. k. Key Technologies

While Free Research is faster long-term, in some situtations you will want specific techs in order to achieve certain tasks.

Ability to declare independence (640k RP)
Psychology, Religion, Personalism Theory, Totalism Theory, Classism Theory.

Steal Common Technology spy op (800k RP)
Superconductor Computer, Bionic Chip, Artificial Intelligence, Genetic Computer, Self evolutionary S/E.

Steal Important Technology spy op (5,280k RP)
Superconductor Computer, Bionic Chip, Artificial Intelligence, Genetic Computer, Self evolutionary S/E, Artificial consciousness, Ghost Creation, Self-Evolutionary Network.

Galactic University (1.28m RP)
Ultralight Communication, Chaos Algebra, Non-linear Programming, Advanced Encryption Algorithm, Hyperspace Communication.

Anti-Matter Missiles (1.6m RP)
Anti-Matter Power tech gives the best early weapon and also a decent armor and engines.
Chaos Algebra, Fusion Power, Plasma Mechanics, Gravitation Physics, Cold Fusion, Unified Field Theory, Atomic Manipulation, Anti-Matter Power.

Homing Black Hole (165,920k RP)
The shortest path to arguably the strongest missile weapon, along with every level 5 ship component but the computer.
You need all techs needed for Anti-Matter Missiles + Inertia Control, Gravity Control, Temporal Mechanics, Solar Manipulation, Singularity Physics, Quark Manipulation, Novarization, N-dimensional Algebra, Solution of Chaos Equation, Matter Compression, Artificial Singularity, Probability Mechanics, Timespace Manipulation, Dimension Manipulation, Reverse Entropy.

6. Communication

Most players in Magellan Wars use IRC as their main coordination tool. MSN is useful for normal chatting while IRC provides more options like steady channels, setting topics, being able to easily view what's gone on during whatever period of time in that channel without disconnects presenting significant problems, crowd control etc.

MSN Messenger

mIRC (IRC client)

IRC data for Magellan Wars is:
Server: magellanwars.com
Port: 6667 Channel: #magellanwars , #help

8. Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What determines the waiting time for an expedition to find a new planet?
A: Every 48th hour, you have a chance to discover a new planet. This chance is affected by the amount of planets, and how many clusters, the player currently controls.

Q: How do I sell items on the Black Market?
A: You cannot sell anything on the Black Market.

Q: Why did my research cost suddenly increase?
A: Amount of research point needed to advance your technology is at 100% for the first week or so from set start. The cost drops to 50%, for the second week. Then it drops to 33% of base value from the third week onwards. However, after a server reboot or crash, the RP cost may go back to 100% for a short period of time, probably an hour or so.

Q: How to attack the Empire?
You can click the Empire Diplomacy Menu, and select Invade Empire. Note: The Magistrate must be defeated, before the Empire can be invaded.

Q: How to attack other players?
A: You can blockade or privateer any player within your attack range (75-133.33%). In order to siege or raid a player in your council, you must declare war on him first (Send Message in Diplomacy). In order to attack a player in another council, your council must declare war on his council (only Council Speaker can do that). Note that in order to declare wars, you/your council must share a cluster with enemy/enemy council, and the opposing council must also be in your council's attack range (50%~800%).

Q: When I tried to attack a player, I got a message saying that my ship is too small to voyage to his cluster. What is going on?
A: Only Cruisers and bigger ships can travel to planets located in cluster other than your home planet. You can check your home planets' cluster by clicking planet management or the planet invest pool link, or even the Domestic main link, and checking the name of your home planet. A name of 'Asnan-456' would indicate that your home cluster is 'Asnan'. You can get a list of all the clusters by clicking the Clusters link under the main Info main-link/drop-down.

Q: How does auto-repair work? Does it work at all?
A: It's effect isn't very significant due to current targetting issues.

Q: Why end-game score is totally different from power rankings?
A: End-game score is not based on fleet power at all. It depends on the achievements of the player, his total Fleet Score, and his ratio. Sieging the Capital Planet, also merits a large bonus.

Q: What are ending projects? How do I get them?
A: Each race has its own ending project. They give huge benefits but to be able to buy them, you must meet certain requirements. Each race has different requirements, and those are not known to players. Players can, through trial, and good communication, eventually discover the requirements for these projects.

Q: How to affect the rate at which new commanders appear in my pool?
A: The rate of commander spawning depends on your Military CM. You get a new admiral every 2 turns from Military CM of 6 up. With Military CM of 5, you get Admiral every 6 turns, with CM of 4, every 10 turns, with CM of 3, every 14 turns, and so on. Note, that you do not get new admirals if your total number of admirals (both in pool and in fleets) is 150 or greater.

Military CM	Turns Per Commander	Total Income Allocated to Ship Building
11	2	80%
10	2	80%
9	2	75%
8	2	70%
7	2	65%
6	2	60%
5	6	55%
4	10	50%
3	14	45%
2	18	40%
1	22	35%
0	26	30%
–1	30	25%
–2	34	20%
–3	38	15%
–4	42	10%

Q: What does honor do?
A: Honor influences some random events, ie. there are some very bad things that happen only to evil players, and some good things that happen only to players with high honor. However, this does NOT mean that if you have high honor you will not recieve honor-independent events, of which there are alot of. Moreover, honor affects your panic modifier in battle, so being evil will make your admirals more likely to retreat after taking damage.

Q: What about council honor?
A: Council honor is as important as your personal honor. For the purpose of calculating morale and events probability, an average of the two values is taken. Council honor raises automatically by 1 point every 8 hours.

Q: How to raise my honor?
A: In short, you cannot. This is to prevent abuse. Honor does, however, raise automatically every day by 1 point, or 2 points if you have Diplomacy CM greater than 0. There is also a chance to have your honor raised significally by random events. What you can do about honor, is keep it from going down, which is explained in the next answer.

Q: How to keep my honor from dropping?
A: There are several things to remember. First of all, Diplomacy CM will lower all your honor losses by a given amount, up to 50% of the total loss. Losses for some actions like blockading a player half of your power can cost you over 20 base points, so Diplomacy CM bonus is significat. Note that for council honor calculations, speaker's Diplomacy CM is used. Therefore, Dementian speakers are best for PR... Then, you have to avoid actions that are considered evil. Such actions are:
- blockading people while not at war, especially if you are pacted/allied with the victim
- blockading (while not at war) or declaring wars on people/councils with power lower than yours, especially much lower...
- declaring wars on people/councils you were previously pacted with
- breaking pacts with people/councils if you were previously allied with
- using harmful special operations, especially if you are pacted/allied with the victim
- bribing the Empire, requesting boons or aid, submitting to Empire's demands (all minimal, usually 1 point loss)
Honor differences will increase or decrease the loss. This means that if you have much higher honor than the victim, you can do evil things to him/her and get away with it. Yes, be nice to other nice players, but give the evil bastards what they deserve! :) Note: blockading/sieging while at war is perfectly justified and will not cost any honor regardless of power/honor differences.

Q: So I got 0 honor. I am Evil! Am I screwed?
A: Many players don't care. They have to suffer from the reduced morale and evil events being slightly more common, but they get an obvious advantage of being able to attack anyone they can to grab good planets and keep their opponents low. This advantage is actually better than anything else, but the significance of honor gives a slight bonus for being nice.

9. Appendix A: Racial CM Modifiers

10. Appendix B: Racial Commander Attribute Modifiers

11. Appendix C: Commander Special Abilities

Notes:
– The effectiveness of abilities depends on the commander's level.
– Complete Cloaking is an equivalent of Cloaking Field Generator device. Weak Cloaking also is, but it can be detected by commanders with Weak Cloaking Detection.
– Stealth value affects the detection range of the enemy trying to detect the fleet. Thus, +50% means that the enemy will need 50% more detection points to see the fleet at a given range.

12. Appendix D: Projects

12. a. Planet Based Projects

12. b. Domain Ranged Projects

12. c. Council Projects

12. d. Black Market Projects

Black Market Projects are hard earned, and only availible through the Black Market section. Many projects here have enormous effects on an Empire, and are worth every PP spent. Almost all Black Market Projects have secret requirements, that are left to the players, to explore and discover. Some Projects have clues and hints in their descriptions, while others are harder to discern. Early game Black Market Projects can be found on the table below, and have no secret requirements.

12. d. Ending Projects

13. Appendix E: Planetary CM Modifers

14. Appendix F: Weapon Statistics

15. Appendix G: Armor Statistics

16. Appendix H: Device Statistics

17. Appendix I: Event Effects (Not Updated Yet)

18. Appendix J: Fleet Orders/Status Effects