Getting Started

Revision as of 04:12, 21 September 2015

The Story

It began with the banks. All greed and no caution led to a chain of collapses. Businesses followed them down, and one by one the big names fell. Then the governments started going bust. First the planetary governments, then the interplanetary.

We lost our savings. We lost our jobs. We lost our homes, and we began to lose each other. There were riots for food. At first the government quelled them, but later, there was no government, and nobody to put a stop to the violence, which spread, burning through our worlds like fire through dry grass. Cities burned, and emptied, and lay in ruin.

Nobody kept the libraries, the archives, or the news feeds, and we started losing our memory, our knowledge, our technology, our future. We began to fall.

Nobody was left to keep maintaining our communications networks, our star gates between the worlds, or our space stations, and one by one, they began to fail. We have lost contact with many colonies. They are now alone in the black. Finally, burning and war torn, Earth itself was lost to us when the last of the star gates failed.

Just eight systems remain connected. A tiny portion of the military remained loyal. With no pay and little provisions, they still keep the peace. Arrayed against them are all the forces of anarchy, chaos and terror. They stand alone, holding back the flood.

Our systems are failing. Our people are starving and lost. Our factories empty and silent, our fields sown with weeds. Chaos is consuming our whole race, one town, one city, one planet at a time. We are running out of food, components, and material. We are running out of time. We are running out of hope.

We have almost lost our place in the stars.

You can change it. If you can hear this message, you are one of just 0.3% of the population whose neural patterns can interface with the control systems of a modern space craft. You can carry people and material from places of abundance to places in short supply. You can help feed the hungry, supply silent factories with goods and hands to make the light shine again. You can help us rebuild everything we have lost. Together, we will rebuild the gates and reconnect with our lost people.

And through great combined effort, we will rebuild even the gates to our lost homeworld.

Citizens of Earth. We... are going... Home.

Ascent:TSG

follows a Freemium model: The game is free to play, allowing a player to build settlements on two inner-system planets, mine asteroids, collect rare gases, fight pirates, complete contracts, and build a private space station. A premium subscription allows a player to mine/farm the remaining more lucrative planets in the inner-8 systems, allows outer system planet colonization and Orbital Space Base construction, fit class 6 and higher ship modules, access to more challenging pirate combat, and allows a large expansion of the player's private space station.

Ascent:TSG has a moderate learning curve for new players, but with practice and patience, many new players adapt and overcome the obstacles. Veteran players attest that if a new player can conquer the in-game tutorial and reach the end of the storyline, then the new player is fully prepared for the advanced content. A new player can always ask question in the in-game chat if they are stuck. This wiki page is to help new players overcome the more non-intuitive challenges.

Your first new game - Login process

To start the game open the following URL in a new tab: http://www.thespacegame.com/play.html (Will not work in Google Chrome)

You can play the game immediately for free without registration or sign-ups.

Click 'New Account' to get started and you will be assigned a 'newuser' name with a number, example: newuser00000

Your Second Try as a Newuser - The Login Process

At this point, you played the game before and received a newuser identification. If you did not register in-game when you were a newuser, you may see the following login menu:

If you want to try the game again using your original newuser name, click Load Game. It is highly recommended at this time you register your username since there is no guarantee that your newuser progress will be saved.

Registering Your Game Name

For all new players going through the registration process, please take it slow. Many times, new players rush through the process without reading the dialogue boxes that appear and end up asking for help in in-game chat.

When you try Ascent:TSG the first time, you are given a newuser name with a number (ex: newuser00000). It is recommended that you register as soon as possible, even if you are in the flight tutorial. When you register, you may be kicked out of the tutorial. You can replay the tutorial using the in-game Option -> Flight Tutorial.

Please note that when you register, your Username becomes your in-game name, so pick carefully.

Sinstrite created a video tutorial on how to create your unique name through the registration process. Ascent:TSG Registration

To simplify the process, when you are in the game:

Options -> Register -> Enter valid email address, Username (which will become your in-game name), and password (write it down and store in a safe place). When you have entered the data, press the Go button once.

You will receive a validation e-mail from the e-mail address you entered. Do not close the game. Open a different browser window to read the e-mail.

In the e-mail, click the link or copy/paste the URL to a new browser. If everything is successful, you will see this:

In the game, after you click the Go box, you should see something like this:

In some instances, the tutorial might interfere with the registration process by presenting a different OK box. Just click OK and the registration success box should appear.

To see your username in the game, you might need to wait a few minutes for the game to update your screen view. If your newuser name persists, relog the game / refresh the browser, then select Log In and enter your Username and Password.

Now What?

If you did not have a chance to finish the flight tutorial, in the game, click Options -> Flight Tutorial.

If you hear a woman calling for help, follow her instructions since that is the beginning of the main storyline. Completing the storyline will give you a good grasp on the basics of the game and prepare you to tackle the more advanced features. Reading this wiki can give you some ideas.

If you are in space near a station or a jump gate and you want to look around, click the Autopilot on the upper left side of your screen. Click any of the locations listed and you will warp to those destinations. Here is a map of the inner-9 systems along with player-created jumpgates with player colonies.

This is a very small map in a very large universe. See Maps for more.

If you want to experience the game without logging in, Waervyn's put together a list of useful videos demonstrating the mechanics of the game: Waervyn's Ascent:TSG Videos

Good luck explorer.

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