Getting Started

This chapter takes you from a blank screen to your first dispatched fleet. The steps are the same in spirit on web and mobile; where they differ, both are described.

Step 1 — Open Nova

• On the web: open the Nova address in your browser. You arrive at the enrollment screen, branded NOVA / Galactic Command.
• On mobile: open the Nova app. If you have played before, it remembers your last commander and drops you straight back into that game. Otherwise you land on the same enrollment screen.

Screenshot: the enrollment screen. On the web, a left-hand menu lists "My games", "Join a game", "New game", and "Map editor". On mobile, a bottom tab bar offers the same choices — My Games, Join, New Game, and Map Editor — and new players land here.

Signing in

The public, hosted Nova asks you to sign in first, so each commander belongs to a real account. You meet a screen headed NOVA / Galactic Command with the prompt "Authenticate to deploy." Sign in once and Nova remembers you:

• On the web: choose Continue with Apple or the Google button. Each opens that provider's secure pop-up; approve it and you are in.
• On mobile: tap the Apple sign-in button and approve the native iOS sheet. (Phones are Apple-only for now.)

You use one account, linked by email — sign in with Apple and with Google under the same email and you land in the same account. There is no password to manage. You can sign out any time from the Account view (web: left menu → Account; mobile: the Account tab), which shows the email you are signed in as. If your session lapses, Nova returns you to the sign-in screen automatically and you sign in again.

Development builds replace the provider buttons with a simple dev sign-in: type any email and press Enter dev mode to become that email's commander. It exists only for local testing and never appears on the live service. A Nova configured with authentication switched off skips this screen entirely and drops you straight at enrollment.

Step 2 — Join a game, or start a new one

A theatre is a single game. You can join one that is forming, or create your own.

Joining a game in the lobby

Under Join a game you see the games that are forming — open theatres still waiting for their commanders. Each one is shown as a card with its name (or a number like Theatre #19 if it was left unnamed), a row of settings chips (game length, time compression, galaxy size), and a roster showing how many slots are taken ("Joined 2 / 4"), the commanders who have already claimed a slot, and how many "+ 2 slots still open" remain.

To join, type the name you want in the "Your commander name" field and press Join. That claims the next open slot in the game and names you as its commander — there are no pre-named commanders to pick from. The game then moves under My games, where you watch it fill: its card reads "Waiting for players…" and updates live as others join, then "All players joined — starting…" the moment the last slot is taken.

You join one slot per game with your account: once you've claimed a commander, trying to claim a second slot in that same game is refused ("You have already claimed a commander in this game"), so you cannot hot-seat several commanders from one login. For testing, development builds let each browser tab sign in as a different dev email — and so join as a different commander — which is how the screenshots in this manual are made. On a no-login Nova nothing locks.

Screenshot: a Join-a-game card showing the game name, its settings chips and roster, and the "Your commander name" field with a Join button.

Tip — one slot per account. With sign-in on, your account claims a single slot per game in the lobby, and once a game is active under My games you are locked to the commander you claimed — you play that theatre as that commander, and yours alone.

Creating a new game

Choose New game and fill in the form, headed Open a new game:

1. Theatre name (optional) — a label like Orion Skirmish. Leave it blank and the game gets a number instead.

2. Map — where the galaxy comes from. You pick one of two routes (see Choosing a galaxy below): generate a fresh map — choose a layout and set the number of commanders yourself — or load a saved map you designed in the map editor, in which case the map fixes the number of commanders for you.

3. Number of commanders — when you generate a map, how many commander slots the game has (a count of at least two). When you load a saved map this is set by the map and can't be changed. Players name themselves when they claim a slot in the lobby, so you do not name any commanders here.

4. Stars per commander — when generating, how many stars the galaxy holds for each player. The default is 8, and you can type any value you like — a couple for a quick skirmish, or dozens for a sprawling epic. More stars means a larger, longer game. (A saved map carries its own stars, so this doesn't appear when you load one.)

5. Pace — how the game feels over real time. The quickest way is to pick one of three presets:

   • Quick — 1 hour, high compression. A brisk session you watch from start to finish, with a production cycle every couple of minutes. (the default)
   • Medium — 3 days, with about one production cycle per real hour. A campaign you check in on a few times a day.
   • Long — 14 days, a slow epic with a production cycle every couple of hours.

   Each preset just fills in the two underlying fields, which you can then edit freely to build any configuration you like:

   • Game length (real hours) — how long the theatre runs in real-world hours; decimals are allowed (e.g. 1.5 for a ninety-minute game). When this much real time has passed, the game ends.
   • Time compression (×) — how much faster the game's internal clock runs than real time. 1× is true real time (a slow, days-long campaign); higher values pack more action into the same real hours. Crucially, the game length stays the same real hours either way — compression changes the tempo, not the duration.

6. Advanced (ships, costs) (optional) — a collapsed section you expand to reveal two kinds of fine-tuning most games can leave alone:

   • Starting ships (home world) — how many ships each commander's home star begins with. Every commander's home world starts with this many ships, so the opening stays fair. The default is 250; lower it for a tense, ship-starved start or raise it for a slugfest.
   • Purchase costs — the price of everything commanders can buy in this theatre — factories, the speed/range/battle-power upgrades, spy probes, nova bombs, and the two shields. Leave them at Nova's standard prices (listed in the Economy and Building chapter) or tune them to shape the game — cheaper nova bombs for a demolition derby, pricier factories for a leaner economy. Both the starting ships and any custom prices apply to that theatre for its whole life.

When everything looks right, press Create game. Nova builds the galaxy and the game appears in the lobby. As players join and claim its slots it fills up, and it starts automatically the moment every slot is taken — there is no manual start step.

Screenshot: the new-game form with name, the Generate / Load-a-saved-map choice and the three map buttons, the number-of-commanders count and stars-per-commander field (shown when generating), the Pace settings (game length and time compression), and the optional Advanced (ships, costs) section holding the starting home ships and purchase costs.

Note: Game length is always real-world time. A 24-hour theatre ends 24 real hours after it starts no matter what compression you pick — turning compression up just fits more production cycles and battles into those hours. See Time compression and game length in the Core Concepts chapter.

Choosing a galaxy

When you create a theatre the Map section offers two routes, and you use exactly one of them: Generate a map or Load a saved map.

Generate a map builds a fresh galaxy and lets you set the number of commanders. Pick one of three styles:

• Symmetric — Identical rotated regions with a contested hub. Every commander gets a starting region that is an exact rotated copy of every other, with a single hard-to-hold star at the dead centre of the map. This is the fairest possible layout: no one has a better opening than anyone else.
• Sym + scatter — the symmetric layout above, plus a sprinkling of extra neutral stars spread roughly evenly across the map to break up the pattern and add surprises. Still very fair, a little less predictable.
• Random — Procedurally scattered and balanced. Stars are scattered freely and then balanced so each commander has a comparable share nearby. More varied and less tidy than the symmetric maps, and only roughly fair.

Screenshot: the Symmetric, Sym + scatter, and Random buttons, with the explanatory line beneath them.

Load a saved map is the other route, available once you've designed and saved your own galaxy in the map editor. Switch the Map section to Load a saved map and pick one from the list (on both web and mobile); the game starts on that custom layout. Because a saved map already places every home world, it fixes the number of commanders — the count follows the map and the generate-only options (layout, stars per commander) step aside. See the Map Editor chapter.

Step 3 — Get your bearings

Once you are in, you are looking at the galaxy. Find your home star — it is in your colour and is your strongest world, with a large garrison of ships. Take a moment to read the next chapter, Reading the Star Map, so the colours, numbers, and rings make sense.

Step 4 — Issue your first order

The shortest path to playing:

1. Select your home star by clicking (web) or tapping (mobile) it. Its details appear in the Contact panel.
2. Because it is your star, command buttons appear — choose Send fleet.
3. Pick a destination: click or tap a nearby neutral (grey) star that lies inside your range ring.
4. Choose how many ships to send using the slider or the ¼ / Half / Max buttons.
5. Confirm with Launch.

Your fleet leaves home and crawls across the map toward its target. When it arrives, it will either occupy the neutral star (if it is undefended or you bring enough ships) or fight a battle for it. Watch the Comms feed and the Fleets in transit panel to follow what happens.

That is the core loop of Nova: select a star, give it an order, watch it play out, repeat. Everything else in this manual builds on those four moves.

Switching commanders or leaving

To leave a game and return to the enrollment screen — for example to join a different theatre or play a different commander — use the ‹ Lobby control in the status bar at the top; your game keeps running while you are away. On the web, opening a second tab is usually easier than switching back and forth. You can also sign out or switch accounts from the Account view (web left menu → Account; mobile Account tab).