Getting started
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|---|
| Main Page |
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General Help |
| Tutorial |
| Getting started |
| Faq |
| Rules |
| Quick reference quide |
| Playing by WAP |
Warfare |
| Attacking |
| Repairing |
| Hypering |
| Being destroyed |
| Scoring points |
| Pickups |
Communications |
| Messaging |
| Tara's Bar |
| Taunts |
Ships |
| Basic ships |
| Capital ships |
| Ajaxian ships |
| Boraxian ships |
| Krilgorian ships |
| Tibran ships |
Miscellaneous |
| Legion Commanders |
| squadrons |
| History |
| Legion descriptions |
| Going Awol |
| Edit your TVS account |
Sectors |
| Galactic map |
| Dominating sectors |
| Sector types |
| Bases \ Home sectors |
Home Worlds |
| Tibrar |
| Planet Krilgore |
| Boraxus |
| Ajaxus |
Quadrant Sectors |
| Tripe |
| Orbital |
| Garen |
| Aquarious |
Giant Sectors |
| The Three Suns |
| Southern Sector |
| Red Sky City |
| Canopus West |
| Moons of Kaarp |
| Dreadlar |
| Apollo Sector |
| 81103 |
Outer Ring Sectors |
| Acrador |
| C.T.6 |
| Mattas Head |
| Perosis |
| Star City |
| The Tibran Mining Colony |
| Dragor |
| Durius Highlands |
Other Sectors |
| The Asteroid Field |
| New Sector Alpha |
| The Uncharted Sector |
Begin playing
Upon deciding to join the fight for galactic domination, you are drafted into one of four 'Legions'; either the Ajaxians, Boraxians, Tibrans or the Krilgorians. The system will automatically decide which Legion is the most appropriate for you to join.
Once your allegiance is set, you may then choose to pilot one ship of the five fighter craft available to your side (See ship types). Each craft is different with variations in Shields, Speed and Weapons and some ships have special abilities, like auto-repair and cloaking. However, these specialised functions are paid for by less favourable statistics. Your new craft enters service in perfect condition with 2000HP (hull points).
You begin as a Class 1 pilot and your Combat and Piloting skills are rated at 10.
How to play
The aim of TVS is simple. Dominate the galaxy by destroying the homeworlds of all alien legions thus providing your legion with ownership of The Violet Sector.
TVS is a turn based strategy game, loosely based on a role play scoring system. During 'Beta' games, each turn lasts for 3 hours and is called a 'tick', during which you may make up to 5 moves. In 'Frantic' games, ticks are just 15 minutes long. Various actions require different numbers of moves, and any combination of actions is permitted per 'tick', provided you have the required number of moves to perform them.
| Action | Moves | Capable of move |
|---|---|---|
| Scan for pickups | 1 | All ships |
| Self repair | 1 | All ships |
| Decloak | 1 | All ships that are cloaked |
| Attack an enemy | 1 | All but repairer / carrier |
| Repair a friendly | 1 | Repairer / carrier only |
| Collect / dump scrap | 1 / 1 | Repairer / carrier only |
| Enter / exit carrier | 3 / 1 | All but Carrier / Cruiser |
| Expel ship | 1 | Carrier only |
| Cloak | 5 | Cloaker only |
| Hyperjump | 3 | All ships |
When you begin playing you are assigned to your home sector to begin battle against all enemies and assist your legion in dominating the galaxy. The known universe is divided into sectors between which you may travel via 'hypergates'. Taking a hypergate requires 3 moves meaning that you can hyper out of your sector if you have not made more than two moves during a turn.
You cannot carry over un-used moves each tick. If you leave moves unused at the end of a tick, they are lost forever and next tick you will have 5 moves as normal.
You can decide to select a ship which has auto-repairing facilities. These ships will repair themselves by a small amount each time a tick passes. These ships are especially good if you are unable to play TVS at certain times.
Skill Points
One of the most common questions asked by new players is how they should allocate the skill points gained when you level up. You get ten skill points at each new level to split between combat skill and pilot skill, and the answer to the question is that there is no 'correct' way to allocate your skill points to allow yourself a better chance of a high score. The reason for this is that the two skill are opposite - combat skill makes you hurt enemies more, pilot skill makes enemies hurt you less. Obviously, this means that if you have high combat skill (at the expense of your pilot skill) you will score faster but will be easier to kill. Conversely, if you have high pilot skill at the expense of combat skill you will be more likely to survive if targetted, but may level up quite slowly beyond level 3 or so.
The difference in damage and defence given by skill points is quite substantial once you get to level 3 or above. A pilot who puts all his skill points into combat skill will deal heavy damage even to a cruiser. Unfortunately, experienced pilots will know when someone who has shot them has high combat skill (it'll hurt more) or when someone they've targetted has low pilot skill (again, they'll do more damage). They'll pass this information on to the rest of their legion, and you may attract more fire as a result. And since you have no pilot skill, it'll be relatively easy to kill you. High combat skill therefore is for people who are willing to take risks to level up quickly, and are very active (since leaving a high-combat ship alone in a battle is not a good idea).
Pilot skill, on the other hand, keeps you alive. A pilot with high pilot skill is more likely to survive long enough to claim a cruiser, although this is offset somewhat by the length of time it will take to get there, which is substantially longer than for a high-combat pilot. Piloting skill also (somewhat oddly) causes repairs on you by friendly repairers to be less effective, and when repairers realise this they may be less likely to repair you if you're not on the point of death, meaning that it takes you longer to get your ship back in battle condition. Pilot skill also reduces the amount of damage you take from asteroids and PDS.
Basically, the mix of piloting and combat skill you take should be affected by three factors: The class of ship you are flying, the stats of your ship within that class, and your personal preference. Bombers generally need more pilot skill than other ship types - they tend to be easy targets because of low shielding, and they'll take more damage from PDS than other classes because they'll (hopefully) spend some time bombing bases. Cloakers may well want higher combat skill - they have reduced stats because of having the cloak, and high combat skill compensates for their weapon deficiency while the cloak should hopefully keep them safe - a good cloaker won't ever move until the last couple of minutes of a turn, so that if they're targetted they can simply cloak, and if necessary jump out the next turn. It's often a good idea to bear in mind your ship's strengths and weaknesses when allocating skill points, ships with poor defensive capabilities (such as the Boraxian Bomber or any of the Kril ships) might want more pilot skill to offset their lack of shielding.
