Artemis F.A.Qs
What is Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator?
It's cooperative social game in which up to 6 players assume the role of officers on the bridge of a spaceship. The basic game doesn't have a story; it randomly generates a sector of space and places the player ship in it to seek and destroy enemy vessels while protecting friendly vessels and stations. Artemis comes with a scripting system that allows players to write plot-driven scenarios.
So like Star Trek, then?
Yeah, basically. Or Battlestar Galactica or even Galaxy Quest. The idea is to capture many of the best tropes of Hollywood space battles and put the players in the position to try them out for themselves. It's "Star Trek through the Rock Band filter", to quote one reviewer.
What are the available roles?
A bridge crew consists of a captain (whose only designated station is the optional Captain's Map), as well as 5 stations: Helm, Communications, Weapons, Science, and Engineering. If you have more than 6 players, Artemis 2.3 added the option to play a carrier, with a Fighter station for each pilot. Some players have invented "unofficial" stations like First Officer or Information Officer, to either fill in where needed or access information on the Internet.
I don't have 6 players available to play this game. Can I play it solo?
Artemis isn't really designed to be played solo. While it is possible for one player to play all of the roles, only the most experienced player would even attempt this, and then only to test out a new release or mission. At a minimum, you should have at least two players, and the game works best with three or more. Two players can play Helm and Weapons, which are the only essential roles that are required to win the game. A third player should play the Captain, and coordinate actions between Helm and Weapons.
If you have between 3 and 5 players, you can double up on roles. The Captain can take a second role, by starting up one of the other stations, usually Science, since that station is similar to the Captain's Map. Other crew members can select more than one station for their console and switch between them. Popular combinations of stations are Helm/Comms, Weapons/Engineering, Weapons/Science and Science/Comms. Since Comms is the least critical of the crew stations, often that station can be skipped if you have only 5 players available.
Another option is to play Artemis online. Games set up across the Internet can often have many more than 6 players available. See the Artemis forums to advertise that you are looking for a crew.
I'm in game, what do I do? How do I run my station?
Artemis is played almost entirely with the mouse (though the helm station can opt to control heading with joystick or keyboard). Players click on a "scope" readout on their station to set heading or select an enemy ship to target, and click through menu interfaces to control things like communications and power allocation. See the individual station pages for help information, basic use, and advanced strategies.
How do players connect to the game?
As in inherently social game, Artemis was originally designed for in-person LAN play, but as of v1.3 it can be played over the internet.
What is a good voice chat client to play Artemis online?
Using a Google "Hangout" is a nice way to both see and hear your crew, and brings online sessions closer the the spirit of the social game that Artemis is intended to be.
For a less bandwidth-intensive option than Google Hangouts, Ventrilo works great. It's easy to install and has many available public servers.
Artemis crews have also used Teamspeak.
Can players play against one another?
As of version 1.1 PVP (or BvB for Bridge versus Bridge) is supported. Version 2.0 added a considerably more complex PvP mode. Players can choose which ship they wish to connect to during Server Setup.
What about multiple ships cooperating with each other?
Yes, although multiple bridges are expected to each buy their own bridge license, if everyone has not purchased their own separate copy of the game. Versions 1.1 through 1.7 supported 6 bridges, and all versions since 2.0 support 8 bridges, with a unique Co-Op mode that changes the victory requirements to better match cooperative play. That means that Artemis can be played by up to 48 (or more, with fighters) people at the same time!
What's all the stuff out there in space? What are all the things that show up on the scanners?
See the Artemispedia for a discussion of all the in-game elements.
What are the classes of enemy ships? What are their abilities and stats?
In brief, there are three enemy races; Kraliens, Arvonians, and Torgoth. The Kraliens are the main attacking force, but they have 2 allied races: the Arvonians have carriers that launch fighters, while Torgoth have massive capital ships that are slow, but powerful. As of version 1.4, there is also another enemy race, the Skaraans, whose ships are not only more powerful, but have random special abilities. See Enemy Ship Statistics for more detailed information.
You mentioned a carrier. Are there other races and classes of player ships?
Yes, multiple classes of player ships have been in the game since v1.6. You can choose everything from a light and fast Scout to a heavily armed Dreadnought. Artemis 2.4 introduced a new player race, the Ximni, with their own unique classes of ships. And Artemis 2.6 added Pirates to the game, with three new fast and hard-hitting pirate ships. See Player Ship Statistics for more information.
In PvP, you can choose to pit different ship classes against each other, or force all crews to pick the same ship, to even the odds. Games which use a fleet of ships, each with their own role in the overall battle, can be a lot of fun. Such games are common at conventions, or online, or anywhere a large enough group of players can meet up.
What other ships or creatures might be encountered?
There are several neutral or friendly ships which either wander around the sector performing their own tasks, or even help the Artemis in battle. Many of these ships will get into trouble or may request help from player ships. Comms should be directed to keep an eye on communications traffic so the player ship can respond to distress calls. Friendly ships are an optional feature that can be excluded from a mission if all you want to do is fight enemies.
Although monsters have been present in Artemis since 1.41, and BioMechs, a hybrid spaceship/monster that appears as a neutral enemy race were added in 2.0, version 2.2 added a bunch of new monsters, which can be protected or hunted for resources. Like friendly ships, Monsters are an optional feature that can be turned off if you do not want them. See Space Monsters for more detailed information.
What is the range of beams and torpedoes?
The range of the beams is 1000 units. Torpedoes have a range of 5000 units, which effectively covers everything Helm and Weapons can see. See the pages for beams and torpedoes for more hard numbers on the weapons.
Are beams more effective against shields? Are torpedoes more effective once shields are down?
No. Torpedoes, beams, and mines are equally effective against shields and against unshielded hull. One caveat to this is that an accurate shot with manually fired beams can partly bypass shields and do direct damage to enemy subsystems without knocking out the shields. Conversely, EMPs target shields directly but do little hull damage, and PShocks do only one point of damage to shields, but will destroy an unshielded ship in one shot. See the weapons page for further details.
What is beam frequency? Which frequency should I set beams to?
Shield frequency is a measure of the strength of the enemy's shields at various frequencies across the electromagnetic band. A high bar means that the shields are highly effective at dissipating directed energy in that frequency. Conversely, a low bar means that the shields are weak to beams on that frequency. Tuning your beams to a frequency that the shields are weak against can make a great deal of difference when in prolonged battles or when engaging multiple targets at once.
What port does the server use by default?
The default port is TCP port 2010. Use port forwarding to allow access to the server through a firewall over the internet. The port number can be changed in the artemis.ini file, via the "networkPort" setting.
Can Artemis run on Non-Windows?
Some users have reported success with Wine based solutions.
Linux: Ubuntu 10.10 with Wine 1.3.34 (1.3.37 works too) runs Artemis 1.55 as a server, NOTE this requires a non-default apt repository, see http://www.winehq.org/download/ubuntu for more information. Wine 1.2.2 does not work. References:
NOTE my laptop runs faster as a server under Windows than Linux, this is probably due to 3D drivers.
Mac OSX Wineskin, see How to run Artemis on the Mac
Artemis 2.0 has been ported to iOS and Android and is available in the App Store and Google Play Store, respectively.
What are the sizes of the map/sectors?
How big is a sector? 100,000 x 100,000 - The entire sector is 100,000 meters on a side (100 kilometers)
How big is a grid? 20,000 x 20,000
The hypotenuse of the whole sector? 141,421 (So, at bearings 045, 135, 225, and 315, from corner to corner)
The hypotenuse of a grid? 28,284
The Artemis is about 100 meters long.
The beam range of the Artemis is currently 1000m.
External views are cool but how to I get a First Person View like an FPS?
As of 1.70, editing Artemis.ini is no longer necessary - "Clients and servers both now have a toggle button called "3d Chase Camera" that lets you choose a chase cam OR an "out-the-window" view. Simply click that button to see things "like an FPS".
Fighters use a first person view by default.
What do the Options settings in the Client stations affect?
See the Client Options Screen on the page on Server Setup.
Clients and servers both now have a toggle button called "3d Chase Camera" that lets you choose a chase cam OR an "out-the-window" view.
Comments (3)
Longbowman said
at 12:45 pm on Nov 15, 2012
Under OPTIONS in the client stations, there are three setting for Damage and a setting for "true" coordinates. Can further explanation be given to what real differences between all of them are?
Longbowman said
at 6:38 pm on Dec 15, 2012
As to the damage options, at least on the console that I was playing on, if option 2 is selected, when a hit or a damage it taken in battle, the screen breaks up and becomes unstable which makes seeing the controls rather difficult. Option 3 makes the screen turn bright red and also makes the controls hard to read but not as bad at option 2. Option 1 gives no change in screen appearance when damage is taken.
Xavier Wise said
at 10:17 pm on Mar 8, 2013
On the details regarding chat clients;
I regularly play online with people from around the world (details are posted on the Artemis forums each week) and we use always use teamspeak3. The TSN RP Community also uses teamspeak 3. I have found that voice communication is essential in games. I do not think being able to see others on my crew would give any real benefit to the way the ship operates however. I would be interested to see what is most popular for online communication.
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