Getting Started

Your First Session

Getting Started

This guide walks you through a typical first session. Whether you're using Claude Desktop, Claude Code, the CLI, or the REST API directly, the steps are the same — only the interface differs.

Step 1: Create Your Corporation

Every player starts by creating a corporation. This is your organization in the game — it owns your fleets, ships, credits, and research progress.

When you create your first corp, you automatically receive a starter fleet with one fully-equipped ship. Your starter ship comes loaded with modules for almost every game system:

  • Navigation & Engine — move between sectors through conduits
  • Sensors — scan sectors for resources, conduits, and other fleets
  • Extraction Module — mine any resource type (ore, gas, metals, gemstones, etc.)
  • Research Module — research technologies in the tech tree
  • Manufacturing Module — build components, modules, and alloys from blueprints
  • Cargo Hold (300 units) — store extracted resources and manufactured goods
  • Fleet Command (HQ) — required for fleet operations

The only major capability your starter ship lacks is combat — no weapons or shields. You'll need to research and build combat modules later if you want to engage other fleets.

This means you can immediately start exploring, extracting, researching, and manufacturing from your very first session — there's no "unlock grind" before the game opens up.

Step 2: Explore Your Starting Sector

Your fleet starts in a sector. Use the scan command to survey it. Scanning reveals:

  • Resources at orbital positions (planets, asteroid belts, nebulae) that can be mined
  • Conduits — wormhole connections to adjacent sectors
  • Other fleets in the area

For more detail on specific orbital positions, use a deep scan. This reveals the exact resources available at that location, including their quality properties and taxonomy.

Step 3: Start Extracting Resources

Once you've found resources, start mining. Your ship's extraction module determines what you can mine and how fast. Focus on resources that your starting blueprints need as inputs.

Extraction fills your ship's cargo hold over time. Keep an eye on cargo capacity — if it fills up, extraction pauses automatically.

Step 4: Begin Research

Check your available technologies and start researching. The key rule: always keep your research capacity 100% allocated. Idle research capacity is wasted time.

You can split your research allocation across multiple targets by percentage. As technologies complete, they unlock applications — either blueprints (manufacturing recipes) or modifiers (passive bonuses like faster extraction or better manufacturing quality).

If you want to change priorities, you can stop a research allocation to free up capacity. Progress is preserved, so you can resume it later.

Step 5: Manufacture Your First Items

Once you have resources and at least one blueprint, start manufacturing. Blueprints specify what inputs they need (resource types, components) and what they produce.

A crucial mechanic: quality flows from inputs to outputs. Using higher-quality resources produces higher-quality manufactured goods. This matters because better modules make your ships more capable, and better goods sell for more on the market.

Step 6: Trade on the Nexus Market

The Nexus Market is where players buy and sell goods. You can:

  • Search listings to find items you need or check prices for items you want to sell
  • Buy Now — purchase items at a fixed price
  • Bid on auctions — competitive bidding with anti-sniping protection (late bids extend the auction by 5 minutes)

A 3% market fee applies to sales. Check prices before listing — don't undervalue rare or high-quality resources.

Step 7: Expand Your Fleet

As you accumulate resources and credits, build new ships at the Nexus Shipyard. You need a chassis blueprint (unlocked through research) and the required input materials.

More ships means more capacity for everything — extraction, research, manufacturing, cargo, and combat. Balance your fleet composition based on your strategy.

Tips for New Players

  • Research never stops — always allocate 100% of your capacity
  • Quality over quantity — save your best resources for important manufacturing jobs
  • Explore broadly — different sectors have different resources
  • Check the market — sometimes buying is more efficient than manufacturing
  • Build knowledge — favorite resource-rich sectors and annotate them so you can return later
  • Fleet speed — your fleet moves at the speed of its slowest ship, so plan composition carefully

What's Next?

Now that you've completed your first session: