Sea Powers | Game Guide

Game Guide

Sea Powers is a text based multiplayer naval strategy game built around a three hour update cycle. Every three hours (at 3, 6, 9 and 12 PST) income is received, research is attempted, population grows, construction is completed on new ships and buildings and fleets are ready to perform new actions. See the game clock at the top of any page for the current game time, as well as the approximate time of the next update.

Below follows a quick explanation of the functions of each page. These are accessible via the menu to the left.

Resources
Ships
Battles
Fleet
Patrolling
Shipyard
Technology
Infrastructure
Economy
Market
Players
Alliances
Ribbons

Resources

Sea Powers includes six different resources the player must manage.

Land gives the player space on which to construct buildings. You will recieve 1 free land every update, as long as have have logged in within the last 24 hours. It can also be stolen from enemy islands, but you must have ships with Marines (LCVP, LCI, etc) in your fleet composition to take and hold it.
Money is required to do just about anything in the game. It is acquired as tax revenue each update. The baseline tax rate is $1.00/person/update, but this can be improved by buying Schools from the Infrastructure page.
Food is created by Farm structures and stored in Silo structures. Make sure your ability to store food doesn't fall behind your production, otherwise it will go to waste. People eat food at the rate of 1tn of food/person/update.
Steel is produced by Steel Mill structures, and used to build ships.
Lumber is produced by Saw Mill structures, and used to build other structures.
Fuel oil is produced by Refinery structures, and used to fuel ships.

Ships

Ships are the bread and butter of Sea Powers, and the reason it was created in the first place. Unlike many navy-based games, Sea Powers lets you command a fleet rather than a single vessel. All the ships in Sea Powers are real ships (in some cases, concept designs) and they derive their stats off their real-world armaments and performance. Ships can be bought from the Shipyard page, and managed from the Fleet page.

Battles

Battles are fought using a round system; each round, every ship on each side takes a turn attacking a single random enemy ship.
Each ship has a chance to dodge an attack, based on its speed relative to the speed of the ship shooting at it.
There are five (5) rounds to combat in which ship fires its guns.
Aircraft attack throughout the five rounds, and have an additional free round before and after the main combat phase.
Torpedoes only fire once per battle (during round 4).
Anti-submarine attacks against submarines fire throughout the five main rounds.
The winner of the battle is the player who has the best damage ratio.

Attack Types:

Cash Grab: Does not require Marines to suceed. If you win, you gain a portion of the enemy's on-hand cash.
Bank Raid: Requires Marines to succeed. If you win, you gain a portion of the money in the enemy's Technology bank.
Resource Raid: Requires Marines to succeed. If you win, you gain a portion of the enemy's resources.
Technology Smash: Requires Marines to succeed. If you win, you destroy a small portion of the enemy's Technology levels.
Ground Invasion: Requires Marines to succeed. If you win, you steal Land from the enemy.
Infrastructure Raid: Requires Marines to succeed. If you win, you destroy a portion of the enemy's buildings.

Fleet page

Use the Fleet page to manage your ships. After a ship is purchased in the Shipyard, it appears here. Ships take one update to finish any action, such as building, attacking, repairing or refuelling.

From the Fleet page, you can:

Organize ships into Task Forces for easy management
Refuel, repair, or sell ships
Send ships to patrol in different regions

Patrolling

The Fleet page contains a short dialogue that allows you to send a selected ship patrol in any of Sea Powers' regions. Ships are sent to patrol for as long as you'd like; once you want them back, simply click on the "Patrol" link at the top of the page, select the ship, and hit the "Recall" button to bring them back. If your ships found anything of note, you'll receive an patrol report in your inbox.

The chances of finding something is based on the percentage of your ship capacity and the number of regions you're exploring in. The base chance of finding something each update is equal to half the percentage of your income that is spent on upkeep for exploring ships. Additionally, you gain a 5% bonus for each region which you have at least a single ship in. If you defeat a patrol group belonging to another player, you'll also gain a 10% bonus to your next updates patrol chances.

Example:
Captain Timmy has an economy that makes $10,000 per update. He spends $5000 per update on upkeep for ships patrolling across 4 different regions. He has a 25% chance from the volume of ships, plus a 20% chance from the number of regions which he is patrolling in. Additionally, the rest of his fleet has has defeated 2 patrol groups this update and he has captured their logbooks, giving him an additional 20% chance on the next update. He therefore has a 65% chance of having his patrol group make a discovery next update.

Shipyard page

The Shipyard allows you to buy ships, all of which are based on the actual characteristics of their real life counterparts. The vessels you are able to build are limited by available funds, unused shipyards, and population. Additional ships (so-called "Special Ships") are available to players who acquire Tokens, either through donating or referring new players.

Technology page

Researching technologies improves the quality of fleets. Funds must first be allocated to the research department. Then a field of focus should be chosen, which will have a chance to improve with each update. The chance of successful research increases by the amount spent on research but reduces as technology advances to higher levels. Money is only spent on successful research, however, and any funds allocated to the research bank are kept safe from raiding.

Anti-Aircraft Warfare	Increases damage done against aircraft
Anti-Submarine Warfare	Increases damage done against submarines
Damage Control	Reduces the amount of damage taken during combat
Electronics	Increases every weapon's effectiveness by a small amount, and also improves spying
Gunnery	Improves gun systems
Naval Architecture	Increases the effectiveness of warship armor
Naval Aviation	Increases the attacking power of aircraft
Submarine Warfare	Improves submarines
Torpedoes	Improves torpedo effectiveness

There is no upper limit to technology levels, although they become increasingly hard to achieve.

Infrastructure page

The Infrastructure page lists the buildings you can construct on your island. All of these buildings contribute to your economy or defense in some fashion. See the page itself for detailed explanations of what each structure does.

Buildings require Land, Lumber, and Cash to construct.

You can also spend money and food to bring in civilians, thus bypassing the population growth dynamic.

Economy page

The Economy page presents a brief summary of your island's economy. The metrics are self-explanatory.

Market page

The Market page allows you to buy and sell resources on the global commodities exchange. Prices will rise/fall as players sell or buy more and more commodities.

Players page

The Players page shows a ranked listing of all the players in Sea Powers. Click a player's name to see their detailed profile. This will allow you to send them a message, attack them, or send them resources. You can edit your own profile using the "User CP" link at the top of the page.

Alliances page

The Alliances page allows users to create alliances, which lets you team up with your friends under a common banner.

Ribbons

Ribbons are a series of small rewards that appear on each players profile - each one has a different meaning, and many are simply improved levels of a previous ribbon. Below is an explanation of them.

These ribbons are given to people who work on and help with managing the game.