Getting Around

Command List

Frequenty Asked Questions

About the Beta Test

The Rebel Dawn Universe
You begin your adventure in Rebel Dawn just as the galaxy reaches a critical point in its history. The Intergalactic Revenue Service (IRS) has raised taxes yet again. The Republic that holds all the systems in the galaxy together is falling apart. Some planets have left the Republic completely. Other systems have declared their political independence from the Republic, while still submitting to IRS taxation to avoid war.
Most traders have stopped paying IRS taxes. The IRS has deployed many IRS Tax Collector ships to hunt down tax evaders. In addition, many traders have started running missions for the rebel planets. The galaxy is now in a state of civil war.

Getting Around in Rebel Dawn
This is a quick guide to navigating around in Rebel Dawn. Here are all the basics you need to travel from planet to planet, buy and sell cargo, buy items, go on missions, and interact with other players.

The Screen
The Rebel Dawn screen is divided into many parts. On the left, you will see a card representing your character. You can see your character's six ability scores. These numbers are explained during the character creation process. You can also see how much money your character has, how much they owe in taxes, and their health expressed as a percentage. Under the character card, there will be a card representing the planet you are on, or in orbit around. This will show you various pieces of information about the planet. The most important piece of information is the planet's affiliation: Republic, rebel or independent. At the bottom left is your ship's sub-ether band radio. You can use this to tune into news, information and music from around the galaxy. Be sure to check the news station for updates on the galactic situation.
On the right side of your screen, you will see a card representing your ship. You will see the speed and hull strength of your ship, its condition, how much fuel you have and how full your cargo bays are. Under the ship card, you will see a series of tabs that allow you to flip through various card decks representing your ship's cargo, crew, personal items, missions, and other categories.
The center of the screen shows what you see, such as the view of a planet from orbit or a map of the surface of the planet. At other times, decks of cards will appear in the center to allow you to easily make selections.
At the bottom center of the screen is your text input line. This is where you can issue commands and interact with other players.

Moving Around
After creating your character, you will be in your new ship, orbiting a planet. To land, use L. After entering a command like L, you will see it appear at the bottom of the screen. You must then press your keyboard's Enter key to issue that command.
Whenever you land on a planet, you will start at the spaceport. This is where your ship remains while you walk around on the planet's surface.
To move from room to room on a planet, use N, S, W and E for north, south, east and west. When you enter a new room, you will be given a description of the room. In the description will be mentions of other commands that can be used in the room. For instance, when you are in the market, you can use BUY and SELL to trade cargo.
To get back to your ship, return to the spaceport and use O to enter your ship and return to orbit.
Once in orbit, you can travel to other star systems. Use M to bring up the galactic map. Then click on a star system to select it as your destination. Use J to jump to the other system.

Trading Cargo
While you are on a planet, you can visit the marketplace to buy and sell cargo. Cargo is kept on your ship. Check your ship's card to see how much cargo space you have and how much is already used. Check your deck of cargo cards to see what cargo you already have, if any.
In the Market, use BUY to see a list of what goods are traded on the planet. You can click on a card to select that good for purchase. You'll need to fill in the amount and then press Enter. Assuming you have enough money and available cargo space, the goods will be transferred to your ship at the spaceport.
You sell goods, the process is the same, but use SELL to bring up a list of goods traded. You will only be able to select cards that represent goods that you have in your cargo bay. Click on a card and then enter the amount to sell.
The price of a good on a planet depends on the resources and needs of the population. In addition, economic cycles will cause the prices to change depending on the current state of the planet's economy. You'll want to make sure you are selling your cargo for more than you are buying it for. So it will be necessary to find planets that trade in the same product, but have different demand levels.
You can discard cargo at any time by using DISCARD followed by the amount, followed by the name of the cargo item.

Paying Taxes
Taxes in Rebel Dawn are steep. This is why the galaxy is at war. You must pay taxes on goods bought and sold at Republic and Independent planets. If you do not pay taxes, you are considered a smuggler and will be wanted by the IRS. The worst offenders will find that IRS ships attack them.
You can pay taxes to avoid trouble. To do so, use the PAY TAX command. For example:
pay tax 423
You can see how much you currently owe by looking at your character card on the left side of the screen.

Missions
You can find missions by going to the spaceport bar on some planets. On some planets, missions are available in different rooms.
When you are in a room where missions are available, use MISSION to ask around to see if someone will offer you a mission. If you are offered a mission and wish to accept, use ACCEPT to take on the mission. This mission will now appear as a card in your missions deck on the right side of the screen.
There are several different types of missions: cargo, delivery, message and bounty. Cargo missions take up on space in your cargo bay. Delivery missions are smaller items or information that don't take up any space. Both of these missions are automatically completed when you arrive at your destination. Message and bounty missions are completed when you find your target, typically in the spaceport bar of the mission destination planet. When the target appears in the room description, use DELIVER MESSAGE or ASSASSINATE to complete the mission. To assassinate someone, you will need a personal item weapon. You success depends on your combat skill.
Most missions have some level of danger associated with them. This could increase your chance of getting attacked by a police, military, IRS or organized crime ship. Even after a mission is complete, the attitude of one of these factions will change to reflect the missions you choose to accept.

Buying Personal Items
Most planets have shops. You can enter a shop and use BUY or SELL to buy and sell personal items such as weapons or souvenirs. Most items are always available. Some items are unique in the galaxy, or available in limited numbers. You can discard an item at any time by using DROP followed by the name of the item.

Storing Cargo in Warehouses
You can move cargo from your ship to a warehouse if one is available on the planet. Just go to the warehouse district and use GET and PUT to see a selection of cards. Click on the card and fill in the amount.
Cargo left in a warehouse on a planet will remain there until you pick it up. It will cost you $1 per unit to transfer cargo to the warehouse and $1 per unit to transfer it back to your ship.

Banking
You can leave money in a bank if a planet has a bank. Go to the bank and use DEPOSIT or WITHDRAWL and the amount. Money in a bank will be safe as you travel. You must return to that bank to access your money again.

Hiring Crew
Spaceport lounges are good places to find crew. You can use HIRE to look for crew members. Once you take on a crew member, you must periodically use PAY CREW and an amount to pay your crew. If you do not pay your crew, morale will drop and they will eventually leave you. You can use FIRE to remove crew members.
Crew are used in space combat and other ship-related tasks. You'll want to assemble a crew with diverse skills and pay them regularly.

Buying Spaceships
If you would like to upgrade to a better ship, you'll need to find a ship lot. Once there, you'll need to trade in your ship with SELL SHIP. Then you can use BUY to buy a new ship. Different ships have different amounts of cargo space, speed and armor. In addition, ships have modification bays. These can be used to outfit your ship with weapons and other modifications. The more bays you have, the more you can add to your ship.

Buying Ship Modifications
You can go to a shipworks store to buy ship modifications, including weapons. You can only outfit your ship with as many modifications as you have modification bays. Use BUY to purchase a new ship modification. These come in handy during space battles.

Space Battles
While you are orbiting a planet, you may see some other ships represented by ship cards around the planet. These will be police, military, IRS and independent vessels. To attack a ship, click on it and press Enter. After playing for a while, some ships may have a reason to attack you based on your affiliations in the game.
Once you enter attack mode, the screen will split between your ship and the enemy ship. You will also see a deck of cards under each ship that represents the options each has during combat.
You choose your action by clicking on a card under your ship. Then the enemy will choose an action. If your goal is to escape, use the Run action. If your goal is to disable the ship and take its cargo, then keep hitting the ship until it is disabled. Then you can Grapple the ship and Board it. Fighting will take place between your crew members and the crew of the other ship. After they are all disabled, you can take the cargo.

Traveling Without a Ship
In addition to a spaceport, each planet has a Spacelanes terminal. From here, you can purchase passage to any other planet in the galaxy with a Spacelanes terminal. However, if you own a ship, the ship remains on the planet you left and you will need to go back to retrieve it. If you have any crew, don't expect them to stick around if you leave the planet without your ship.

Talking to Non-Player Characters
From time to time you will walk into a room and see that you can use the TALK command to chat with a non-player character (NPC). This is a game entity, and not another live player. You can get useful information from these NPCs.
Once you use TALK to talk to an NPC, you can prompt them with one or two words. For instance, you might type "job" to ask them what they do. If they reply "I guard the office," you might then ask "guard" to find out more about their job, or "office" to find out more about the office. Not all words in their answers can be used to prompt responses, but usually the obvious ones like "guard" and "office" will.
To stop chatting with the NPC and return to normal gameplay, use BYE.

Trading With Other Players
You can trade cargo, personal items and money with other players who are in the same room as you. Start by chatting with them to decide on a trade. Then one of your must use the TRADE command to initiate a trade. Use the words to and for to separate the items to be traded and the name of the person to trade with. Here are some examples:
trade 5 medical supplies to bob for 20 water
trade 50 to bob for 5 water
trade 5 water to bob for 75
In the cases where no cargo good or item were mentioned after the number, it is assumed that the number means money. So in the last example, 5 units of water will be traded for $75.
Once one player has initiated the trade, the other player must confirm with CONFIRM TRADE. They can also use REFUSE TRADE and the first player can use CANCEL TRADE if they are impatient.
You can also give money to another player with the GIVE command. For example:
give 400 to bob

Creating and Joining Guilds
To create a guild, you must first go to a Guild Hall area which are only on some planets. Then use the CREATE command to make a new guild. For example:
create Black Knights
It costs $10,000 to create a guild. Once you have created it, that Guild Hall area will now house the offices of your guild. It may also house the offices of other guilds as well.
To recruit others for your guild, you can talk to them. When you want someone to join, use INVITE. For example:
invite bob
If the person wants to take you up on your offer, they need to use JOIN GUILD to accept your invitation.

Getting in and Out of Prison
If you are attacked by a police, military or IRS ship, and you are captured, you may end up in a Republic prison. You may also lose your ship, crew, cargo and money. To get out of prison, you can pay the fine with the PAY command. If you do not have the money on your, you can use BAIL to call a bail bondsman to lend you the money. You can also instant message another player to come and give you money.

Using your Journal
You can buy a journal at some shops. Once you own one, you can use the READ and WRITE commands to store up to 9 small pieces of information. For instance, "write 4 Meet joe on day 6872 on Mera" will store that message on page 4 of your journal. "read 4" will then display the message. Note that journal data is not stored on the server, but on your own computer. So switching computes will mean that you lose your journal entries.

Using the Wall Star Journal
Once you buy a copy of the Wall Star Journal, you will be able to tell the price of any good on any planet for the date of the journal. Use RESEARCH to do this. For example, "research mera energy crystals".

Using the Market Map
This item will add functionality to your galactic map. When you select a destination, you will see which goods are traded on that planet.

Saving Your Game
To save your game at any point, use SAVE. Your game will also automatically be saved every five minutes.
To leave the game, use EXIT. This will first save the game, and then take you back the login screen. From there you can close your browser window or safely surf to another page.

Complete Command List
To see a complete list of all possible commands, check out the Command Reference Page.