As its title suggests, Rogue Universe is set in space. And, like space, Rogue Universe is a daunting prospect when you first arrive, with a dizzying array of jobs to juggle and stuff to learn. This guide is designed to …
As its title suggests, Rogue Universe is set in space. And, like space, Rogue Universe is a daunting prospect when you first arrive, with a dizzying array of jobs to juggle and stuff to learn.
This guide is designed to help you understand the very basics at a glance. It won’t get you all the way to edge of the universe, but it will allow to go that little bit more boldly.
Mothership
We’ll start with your mothership, since this is your base of operations – like your city in a land-based strategy-RPG.
Your mothership is made up of six modules. From front to back:
Command Post: The level of this module dictates how fast your basic resources refill and how much you can store.
Dock: This determines your ship’s capacity, as well as its reinforcement and stabilization time.
Barracks: Levelling up this module increases your crew capacity and reduces your training times.
Reception: This is where your ambassadors live. The more slots you have, the more influence you can gain in the universe, which in turn helps with trading.
Lab: Your lab is where research is carried out into pretty much everything.
Engine: Levelling this module up decreases your cruising standby time.
Each of these modules can be levelled up, and they all need to be levelled up roughly in concert with one another. That is, if you don’t keep your Command Post at the cutting edge you eventually won’t be able to level up your Lab, for example.
To view your modules you need to tap on the M.ship icon at the bottom of the screen and then on the modules icon to the top right of your ship.
Ships and Crews
Other than the modules on your motherships, Ships and Crews are the main assets that you need to look after.
You can do four things with each. In the case of Ships, that means construction, reinforcement, stabilizing (repairing), and dismantling.
You start with one construction slot, but add two more as you research the necessary facilities (more on research later) and obtain the necessary Honor level. There’s a huge range of ships to construct, and each construction project is on a timer.
There are four different types of ship to add to your fleet. Arsenal ships are slow but powerful, Torpedo Bombers are fast, Main Ships are balanced, and Utility ships are good for collecting resources. It pays to maintain a balanced fleet and choose the right ships for the right missions – e.g. there’s no point sending Utility ships on an NPC assault.
Reinforcement is pretty much the same deal, though you can eventually have five slots.
Stabilizing is something you’ll want to do intermittently, to restore your battle-weary fleet to its full glory.
Dismantling lets you harvest resources by destroying ships you don’t need, to spend on ships that you do.
With Crew, there’s recruitment, training, boarding, and release. You can recruit three different types of crew: Combatant, Support, and Guest. Each of these crew types has a choice of four skills, and you can set a salary level – the higher the salary, the longer it takes to recruit that crew member, but the more effective they are.
Training, like reinforcement, is another term for levelling up, and release is equivalent to dismantling. Fortunately for your crew, dismantling them is not an option.
Your research is split into six areas: Management, Mothership, Main Ship, Arsenal Ship, Torpedo Bomber, and Utility Ship. Each of these contains an RPG-esque skill tree whereby researching one level opens up options on the next.
For instance, researching the level 1 Port Expansion in the Mothership section opens up both Increase Defense and Reduction in Stabilization Time.
You’re free to choose your own path through these upgrades, though you can’t embark on a research project until you’ve got enough material, fuel, coin, and a sufficiently levelled up lab module. Obviously, as you make your way down a tree the requirements become more demanding.
It’s important to ensure that you’re always in the process of researching, recruiting, constructing, and reinforcing everything you can in order to keep moving forward.
On the bottom-right of the screen is a Scramble button. This lets you attack other players, attack NPCs, complete missions, and do deep strikes. As this is a beginners’ guide we’re going to focus on NPCs and missions.
You can attack NPCs from the main 3D interface, by swiping to move around the planet you’re orbiting in search of NPCs indicated by yellow markers. However, it’s easier to just use the Scramble function.
This gives you a list of the available NPCs to attack and their levels. Once you choose one you’re given the option of selecting and refining your fleet by changing ships, but if you want to skip the complicated stuff you can always press Auto Scramble.
Like everything else, NPC assaults are on timers. When the battle is over you’ll learn whether you’ve won or lost.
Similarly, the missions tab gives you a list of missions to choose from. These are more diverse than just killing, and you can complete the same mission multiple times. You can run multiple missions and NPC assaults at once, depending on how many fleets you have.
It’s worth pointing at this stage to the awesomely handy Task Progress tab on the left of the main screen. Tapping on this brings up a summary of all the tasks you’ve got running, and how long each has left.
Near the bottom of the screen you’ll see a bright blue bar containing some mission text. Tap on this and you’ll arrive on the Journey page, which is where the game’s campaign story plays out.
Each journey comprises a set of tasks, such as recruiting personnel, reinforcing a ship, completing a mission, or whatever. The purpose of the Journey, aside from busting out some sweet comic book cut-scenes, is to steer you in the right direction by encouraging you to undertake productive activities in exchange for helpful rewards.
Note, you don’t have to stick slavishly to the journeys if you don’t want to. If you keep researching, constructing, recruiting, reinforcing, and scrambling you’ll often find that you’ve already completed some of the journey tasks before that chapter of the journey even begins, allowing you to progress more quickly.
By currencies, we really mean, “stuff that you get for doing tasks”, since things like Honor points can’t really be considered currencies. Here’s a selection of the main resources and so on that you’ll amass through play.
Material – A metallic substance used in everything from research to construction.
Fuel – Again, necessary for most tasks
Coins – The main currency, and necessary for doing almost anything
UNS, Zurich Bank, and Black Flag reputation – you can spend this on various items at the reputation shop, which you can find hovering outside your mothership.
Time reduction cards – For reducing research and build times for a range of specific projects, such as Ship Research, Crew Recruitment, Ship Constructions, and so on
Honor points – Awarded for completing missions, annihilation, and attacking NPCs. Increasing your Honor level unlocks training, construction, and reinforcement slots.
Gems – For speeding up timers.
Blueprints – For constructing ships. You get these for completing journey stages, among other things.
Essentially, Rogue Universe is about making sure you stay on top of your construction, research, recruitment, and reinforcement, while also ensuring that you have balanced fleets capable of taking on every kind of task.
Hopefully this guide will prove to be a useful reference resource as you embark on your intergalactic travels. Good luck!
Check out Rogue Universe via both the App Store and Google Play.
