The Starlanes User Interface

After the initial player determination screen, you will be presented with the main Starlanes screen. This screen is split into three individual windows: the map window, the company window, and the general info window.

The map window shows the terrain of the universe. The legend is:

The companies are Altair Starways, Beetlejuice Ltd., Capella Freight Co., Denebola Shippers, and Eridani Expediters. On the map, the companies are represented by the first letter of their name.

The company window shows information concerning the currently existing companies, including the company name, its price per share, and the current player's holdings.

The general info window will prompt the user for input if the player is waiting to move or trade, but will also display special announcements as they come up. During a player's turn, that player's name is displayed in the title bar of the window, along with his cash holdings.

Also, mention should be made of two other windows: the player standings window and the company detail window (not to be confused with the company info window.)

The player standings window can be brought up during the player's move by pressing the 's' key. This window shows all the player's names, stock holdings, cash, and total worth, sorted by total worth. It also shows the number of sectors that remain to be filled by companies before the game ends.

The company detail window is invoked with the 'c' key. It shows, for each active company, its name, price per share, size, and total worth (all player's shares * price per share). The company size and total worth are useful in determining the result of a merger (see below.)

If a screen redraw is necessary, pressing '^L' at almost any of the prompts will accomplish that.

Finally, if the players want to quit before the game before is over, press 'q' or '^C' and a quit verification window will pop up. If 'y' is pressed, the final game standings will be displayed, and the program will end.

Player Movement

If you move into a sector that is completely surrounded by empty space (.), that sector will then contain an infant company (+).

If you move next to an existing company (A-E), that company will expand into that sector of the map. If the new extension of the company touches an infant company (+), that infant company will also be assimilated.

Given that you're not moving next to an existing company, if you move next to a star (*) or an infant company (+), a new company will be formed. You, as company founder, will receive 5 shares in the company for free. For calculating how much a company will be worth, see Company Pricing, below.

If you happen to move next to a black hole (@), one of many things could happen, depending on the circumstances. See Black Holes, below.

Company Pricing

Holding Bonus

Trading

Use the arrow keys to select a company you wish to trade stock in, then press return. You will be asked for an amount to trade. Enter the number of shares you wish to purchase in this company. (Just press return again or enter ``0'' if you don't really want to trade with this company.) Choose a negative amount if you want to sell shares (at 100% of their value.) At this point, the user can also press the 'm' key to purchase the maximum number of shares possible, or press the 'n' key to sell all of his holdings in this company.

Once the player has completed trading, he can press escape to end his turn, thereby transferring control to the next player.

Mergers

First, the companies sizes are checked and the company with the larger size absorbs the smaller.

If the companies are the same size, the company with the highest total worth absorbs the smaller. (The user can view company size and company total worth on the company detail window, see above.)

Finally, if both company sizes and total worths match, the companies will merge at random.

If a three or four-way merger occurs, the merges will take place one at a time, in an order that is somewhat clockwise.

After a merger, each player will have half the number of shares of held in the vanquished company added to the number of shares held in the still-existing company. The value of the still-existing company's price per share will increase by the vanquished company's price per share.

Additionally, each player receives a cash bonus equal to

where stock price is the old price per share of the vanquished company and holdings percentage is the percentage of total stock once owned in the vanquished company. For example, imagine that Altair Starways (worth $500 per share) is merged into Denebola Shippers. Also, assume that the player owned 50% of the total shares in Altair Starways. Using the formula, that player would receive a bonus of

For more hints on how to deal with mergers, see Strategy, below.

Stock Splits

Black Holes

If a player attempts to place an infant company (+) near a black hole (@), that infant company will be immediately sucked up, resulting again in an empty sector.

Likewise, if a player attempts to start a new company that would normally be worth $500 or less per share next to a black hole, the sectors that the new company would have occupied all become empty space (.).

For some ways to make black holes work to your advantage, see Strategy, below.

Game's End

Strategy

Also, the larger the company, the greater that chance that it will be added onto (just because it takes up more room on the map.) If you own 300 shares in a company, and its value goes up by $100 per share, that's a $30,000 increase in your net worth.

Another thing to watch for is when companies are about to merge. Remember that the number of shares you own in the smaller company will be halved before being added to the bigger one when they merge. This can be used to your advantage, especially if the smaller company is worth significantly less than the larger. If the big company is worth $2,000 per share, and the small is worth $200 per share, you can buy 10 times as many shares in the smaller. When the companies merge, the number of shares in the smaller company is halved, but it's still 5 times the amount of stock you could've purchased in the larger company.

Don't forget that when two companies merge, the players receive a cash bonus that depends on the percentage of stock they owned in the smaller company (see Mergers, above.) It is good to try to own a higher percentage than anyone else.

A way to gain profit earning potential is to have a large number of shares in a company when the stock splits two-for-one (see Stock Splits, above.) Even though your initial net worth remains the same after a stock split, you'll now increase your net worth by twice the value you used to whenever the company's price per share rises. Also, if your opponent has 100 shares and you have 150 before the split, that'll change to 200 shares and 300 shares, effectively increasing your lead in shares by 100%.

Black holes weren't present in the original game, but were added to give players who have fallen behind a chance to shaft the leaders. If your opponent owns 100 shares of Altair Starways and you only own 50, you can extend the company against a black hole. Your opponent will lose $50,000 from his net worth, but you'll only lose $25,000.

Finally, a reminder to invest as much money as you possible can each round (unless it's too risky.) The reason for this is the 5% cash bonus all players receive each round based on their holdings (see Holdings Bonus, above.) Your cash earns you no interest.