Survival Guide - Dust Settles' Main Screen: Left-Hand Column

Table of Contents:

Purpose:

The left-hand column contains all of the links to the primary pages that you will be using throughout the game. These are the pages that you will use to increase your resources, build all buildings and advanced weapons, set all attacks, increase your population, and watch all of the more in-depth statistics about your camp and others'. There are three main parts, the Control Panel, which contains the links to all the primary pages, the Infrastructure column, and the buttons, which will take you to the DSO screen or the Camp Leader's Lounge.

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Primary Pages:

The control panel is split up into sections so that you can more easily find the page you are looking for. These sections are, "Main Menu", "Exploration", "Construction", "Research", "Battle/PVP", "Camp Stats", "Optional Pay", and "Account". Each section contains links that are appropriate to it, such as the Construct link being in the "Construction" section or the Special Ops link being in the "Battle/PVP" section.

The first link on the control panel is for the Main page. Any time you want to see the page you return to after each end-turn and login, you should click this link. At first, you will have a number of links that are a lighter gray and not bold. These links will not work until you have met certain requirements. Later in the game, your control panel could end up looking like the one on the left.

As you click through the game, you should note that clicking another link while a page is loading will cause your account to be logged out. This is part of a security measure we put in place to keep someone else from taking over your account from another computer. Basically, if you accidentally click Recruit instead of Learn, just wait until the page has finished loading and then click the right link.

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Explore:

This link will take you to the Explore page where you will set up the details for exploring missions. You will send out some of your population to explore for food, disposables, building supplies, land, or all of these at once. You can also send these people out with buses once you have the ability to construct garages.

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Recruit:

In order to find and recruit the survivors that live and wander around your camp you will have to click this link to use the tools on the Recruit page. Here you will set up some of your population to search the surrounding area for survivors. Once you have some buses and gas, you can send them with your recruiters to help increase returns.

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Construct:

The Construct page is where you will assign workers and set up queues to build the buildings your camp will need. Click this link if you have something that you need to build or demolish, if you need to change staffing, or if you just want to check out certain totals and daily costs.

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Garages:

In order to build your own buses, armored ground vehicles, or aircraft, you will need an active garage or two so that you can access this page. Here you will be able to set up construction of any vehicles and aircraft that you want.

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Missile Hub:

Patriots and cruise missiles, once opened will be constructed and launched through this page. Multiple levels and types of research are required to build and launch these two missile types.

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Nuke Factory:

Once you have the ability to build nukes, you will use the Nuke Factory page to construct up to four at a time. Once you have met the research requirements, you will also build nuclear reactors for power in this page.

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Space Center:

Once you have completed a large amount of advanced research, you will be able to access this option. Here you will construct and launch your satellites.

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Recycling:

If you end up with too many vehicles, defensive structures, or weapons, you can just turn them back into building supplies. You will get back whatever building supplies you put into the construction of those items, though you will not get back any CEPs. You will need at least 1 active recycling plant to access this page.

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Focus Path:

Once you have done enough research to open a focus building and you have committed yourself to a path, this page will become active. Depending on what path you decide to follow, this page may only be a message reminding you to look in the Nuke Factory or Garage for the items that you can build for your specific focus or it may hold your options for smelting ore.

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Learn:

At first this choice will not be accessible. Once you have enough people, though, you can build a lab or two and start researching. Research will be one of the biggest factors in your progression from living in tents to building and launching missiles.

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Advanced Lab:

Later in the game, when you have met the requirements to build and have built at least one advanced lab, you will be able to access this page and begin researching more advanced researching topics like Uranium Extraction and Automated Trajectory Calculations.

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Attack:

After you have opened the ability to build classrooms and barracks, you will be able to begin sending trained army units out to attack other camps. This page will show you all of your basic army and offensive attack related details and options. You will be able to access this page from the beginning, but you will not be able to use any of its features until you have the buildings mentioned above.

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Defense:

In order to defend your camp against invading armies, you will want to use this page to train militia and set up your appropriate defenses, including construction of defensive structures. Some basic information regarding your guard posts can be found on this page as well.

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Special Ops:

Stealing information, sabotaging buildings, poisoning population, or assassinating officers it's all in a day's work for your special operations officers. You will use this page to set up their missions.

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Air Force:

This is where you will set up bombing runs on other camps. Air defenses are automatic depending on what you have available.

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Barracks:

Weapons production will be started and adjusted through this page. You will get a basic chart explaining details about your barracks. Beneath this will be the charts and tables with your weapons building options.

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Classrooms:

In order to train something more impressive than militia, you will need to set up training queues in your classrooms. Army units, special ops, and officers will all be trained through this page. This page will open once you have at least one active classroom.

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Peoples:

You will be able to keep track of primary resource production, camp morale, and other bits of information about your population on this page. You will also use this page to change rations and cast out population when needed.

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Mastery:

This page is visible at any point throughout the game. Here you can see all masteries achieved by you or a member of your alliance.

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Infrastructure:

For information about wall, guard post, and light coverage; storage, waste, and communications status; and power production you will want to check out the Infrastructure page. Though some of this information can be found in other pages or on parts of the main screen, you will find more detailed information on this page.

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Statistics:

The Statistics page is where you can check your score compared to others around you and check other ranks. Some ranks will not be displayed until the end of the round due to the fact that certain ranks would give away too much information about a camp mid-round.

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Hired Hands:

If you decide that you would like to spend 5 bucks or so for a special spy or scribe, you will use this page to purchase them. This is also the page where you will assign the spies you bought a specific camp to watch and where you will read their report(s).

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Scribe:

You will only see this link if you purchase a scribe. This is the page where you will access all of the information that your scribe was hired to keep track of.

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Camp Setup :

In this page you will find options for your camp that you shouldn't have to use very often. These options will allow you to change your terrain before turn 9 (in case you made a mistake during sign-up), and kill off your camp in case you want to start over fresh before the round ends.

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Infrastructure Displays:

This column serves the same purpose as the resource counters on the top bar, it just shows different information.

At a glance you will be able to see how many units of wall are enclosing your camp, how many you need to reach 100% enclosure, and how many units of wall you are lacking to meet 100% enclosure. This last value can and will go negative when you reach the point that you can build more than 100%. All of this information sits at the top of the bar beside a picture of a part of a wall.

Below the wall information, beside the lightning bolt, you will find basic information about your power supply. Your total power is displayed first, followed by how much you are currently using, and finally how much power is still available for use.

The last information in this bar deals with your gas supply. Beside the image of the gas can, you will see the total number of gallons of gas that you have in storage followed by the percent of storage that this uses.

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Daily Standing Orders:

Once you get a high enough level of Time Management Research, you can begin to set up Daily Standing Orders. These are tasks that will be performed every turn without your having to reset it each and every time. The following are the new orders that will open with each increase by 5 in Time Management research starting at 10. All orders previously opened will still be available for use.

Time Management at 10: All remaining available population assigned to explore for any and all.
Time Management at 15: All remaining available population assigned for recruiting or for a chosen exploration type.
Time Management at 20: All remaining available population split 50-50 between exploration for a selected resource and recruiting.
Time Management at 25: Max. weapons assigned for production. (resource dependent)
Time Management at 30: Max. comm relays and/or max. wall assigned for construction. (resource dependent)
Time Management at 35: All remaining available population assigned for nuke production. (Your people will be assigned to exploration/recruiting before nuke construction so make sure the other orders are off if you want to use this one.)

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Camp Leader's Lounge:

Whenever you feel like participating in a chat with other camp leaders or just feel like wasting some time until you get some more turns, you can head to the Camp Leader's Lounge for an IRC chat and a mini-game that will earn you in-game resources and CEP.

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