Rules & Etiquette
The following are the basic rules of conduct that govern player interaction and activity within Dark Galaxy and in the Dark Galaxy forums/discord. Failure to act responsibly and comply with these rules within Dark Galaxy and the official Dark Galaxy forums may result in the termination of your account without any refund of any kind.
You may not use any sexually explicit, harmful, threatening, abusive, defamatory, obscene, hateful, racially, or ethnically offensive language.
General Rules
You may not impersonate any Dark Galaxy staff, including any forum moderators.
You may not violate any local, state, national or international law or regulation.
You will follow the instructions of authorised personnel while in-game or on the Dark Galaxy Forums/Discord.
You may not organise nor be a member of any alliance or groups within Dark Galaxy that are based on, or espouse, any racist, sexist, anti-religious, anti-ethnic, anti-gay, or other hate-mongering philosophy.
You may not give false information or intentionally hide any information when registering for your Dark Galaxy account.
You will not attempt to interfere with, hack into, or decipher any transmissions to or from the servers running Dark Galaxy.
You will not exploit any bug in Dark Galaxy and you will not communicate the existence of any such exploitable bug (bugs that grant the user unnatural or unintended benefits in game), either directly or through public posting, to any other user of Dark Galaxy. You will promptly report any such bug to Muffinman or a game admin.
Game Rules
Multiple Accounts
You may not have more than 1 account per Dark Galaxy instance. New accounts cannot be made for the purpose of scanning, feeding, spying, or any other reason.
Players found to be operating more than one account will have all their accounts banned and their IPs blocked.
Different players playing from the same IP address is permitted as long as it is cleared with DG admins beforehand.
Player Interaction
All player Interaction should be respectful in and out of the game. Friendly banter is fine as long as it is mutual and not designed to cause offense.
Use of colourful language is permitted but please be aware that children may also play this game. Admins reserve the right to rename any inappropriately named planets or fleets. See general rules above for more details on acceptable language.
Direct personal attacks on other players are not acceptable in game or on discord.
No abuse of the in-game messaging system is permitted. This includes sending abusive or spam messages.
Bugs
Players are not permitted to use bugs or exploits to gain an advantage in game. All bugs should be reported immediately on discord.
Scripts
Use of client side helper scrips is acceptable but they should follow the guidelines below:
- Scripts should not remove or reduce player Interaction with the game. E.g. should not automatically check Comms or scan planets.
- Should not fundamentally change how the game plays
- Should not make any decisions or take actions on behalf of the player
- Should not perform bulk actions which could harm the server or the adversely affect game performance. E.g. no mass XHR requests.
Etiquette
While not strict rules the following is regarded as good etiquette within the game. Be warned that most alliances take this etiquette very seriously and may choose to attack players or alliances who choose not to follow the below.
Unprovoked attacks
Attacks are part of the game and should be expected. That said, attacks should usually have a reason behind them. e.g.
- Player was inactive and / or had very large stocks on the planet
- Planet was taken for the purpose of securing the system against incoming enemy attacks
- Planet belongs to an alliance you are at war with or player you have an agreed war with
It's generally good manners to at least communicate with the player and / alliance leader of any planet you take for system security reasons. Offering another planet in exchange, or at least allowing the ruler to lift resources and pop is considered polite.
Do not be surprised if you take a planet without warning and are retaliated against.
If you believe it may be a genuine mistake than in general it's best if players and alliance leaders discuss attacks and give the other party time to rectify their mistake before going straight to war, but it isn't a requirement.
War declarations
It is considered good manners to declare war officially on the forums or discord. War declarations are given extra kudos for being funny, witty, themed and having good imagery. Long posts are acceptable and encouraged.
War declaration timing is up to the alliance leaders, it could be pre-attack but is usually done while fleets are in the air, for maximum surprise.
A bit of flaming and heated exchange is expected in war threads, but please keep all discourse polite and respectful.
War balance
It is generally considered bad taste to declare war on an alliance much smaller in terms of member count or asset score. Ideally all fights would be fair from the start, such that the better alliance wins, rather than the alliance with the most resources. Again this isn't a requirement.
It is permitted for other alliances to join wars on either side, though again it will show your alliance in a bad light if you join an already existing war on the winning side.
When a war comes towards its conclusion, both sides will often discuss peace before their players lose interest. It is up to the alliance leaders to decide when this might be and to agree terms for armistice. The losing team not accepting any terms means the war may continue, this should not reflect badly on the winning side.
The losing side choosing to fight to the death is also an admirable (albeit pointless) outcome.
If peace is agreed then it's considered extremely bad form to re-attack the same alliance later in the round, unless the other alliance provokes first.
Non-Aggression Pacts (NAPs)
Alliances/Players can agree not to attack each other or work to a mutual goal, e.g. securing systems, targeting an enemy. There is no formal option in-game to set this status and so it is up to the players to decide what the rules are, what may happen if the NAP is broken etc.. There is no limit to the number of NAPs that can be joined or how many players can be involved in a single NAP.
Some may prefer to put terms down in a formal document while others may agree terms just over chat. How this is arranged is up to the players. Actively breaking a NAP by attacking somone else in the NAP is usually considered poor form, but again not restricted.
It is important to note that as this is not a formal in-game status, ships from different alliances/unallied players, will still enter combat if at the same planet, so being careful and organised is a must.