Galaxy Menu
En/Galaxiemenü
General
The galaxy menu, also called the galaxy view/overview, is an overview of the solar systems and galaxies in a universe. Each click into the galaxy view deducts 10 units of deuterium (exception: the system the planet or moon is currently in). Directly from the menu you can start several important in-game actions and also learn a lot about the players in your surroundings.
System Coordinates
At the top of the galaxy menu, the coordinates of a solar system can be selected. The arrows next to the number increase/decrease it by one step at a time.
The "Solar System x:y" Table
The table shows all 15 planet slots in the system plus position 16, which contains "Infinite Space" and is only used for expeditions. Empty slots can be colonized.
For some columns, a popup appears as soon as you hover the mouse over an entry. Here, in an edited screenshot, all possible popups are shown at once. More detailed information on the individual columns can be found below the overview; the column headers link directly to the explanations.
Example System
Solar System 2:9 Pos Planet Name (Activity) Moon DF Player (Status) Alliance Actions
The Individual Table Columns
Position
The "Position" column shows the coordinates of the planet within the solar system.
Planet
This column shows an image of the planet. Hovering over it displays the planet's name and its position. Clickable icons for all possible orders also appear. On enemy planets, these are espionage, attack, hold, and transport; on your own planets, deployment and transport.
Name (Activity)
The "Name" column consists of at most
Planet name ( activity indicator )
A "destroyed planet" temporarily blocks the slot in the system so that any existing debris field can still be harvested.
If your own moon is selected as the planet and it has a sensor phalanx with sufficient range, clicking the planet name lets you scan.
The display of an asterisk (*) or a number of minutes indicates how long ago the last activity on this planet occurred. An asterisk stands for 14 minutes or less; between 15 and 59 minutes, the exact time is shown. If nothing has happened for more than an hour, nothing is shown.
Moon and Debris Field
If the moon or debris field symbol appears in these tables, there is a moon or a debris field with at least 300 resources at this position. Hovering over the symbols gives you more detailed information. For a moon, you see the position, size and temperature; you can also start possible fleet orders here, just as with a planet. Espionage, however, only works for account holders with a Commander officer — for everyone else, this order is grayed out. For a debris field, the contained resources are shown; Commander holders can send recyclers directly to this debris field by clicking Harvest.
Player (Status)
By hovering the mouse over a player name, you can send them a message or a buddy list request. The current ranking is also shown here. Clicking "statistics" takes you to the part of the points statistics where the player is located.
A player's status is indicated by appended characters. In addition, the player name is highlighted in the color of the most important status. Vacation mode (blue) takes priority over long-term inactivity (dark gray), which in turn takes priority over short-term inactivity (light gray), which takes priority over the rest. All statuses except "strong player" and "weak player" (which always stand alone) can appear combined with each other, with (iI) always replacing (i).
Possible statuses of a player:
| Symbol | Meaning | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Player name | normal | The player has no special status and can be flown to normally |
| Player name ( |
banned | The player is temporarily or permanently banned. Details about the ban can be found in the pillory, which is linked at this symbol. |
| Player name (i) | inactivity | The player hasn't logged in for 7 days |
| Player name (iI) | inactivity | The player hasn't logged in for 28 days, or the account hasn't been activated yet |
| Player name (v) | vacation mode | The player is currently in vacation mode and therefore cannot be flown to. |
| Player name (n) | weak player | The player is under newbie protection and cannot be attacked because they're too weak. |
| Player name (s) | strong player | The player is too strong and cannot be attacked. Only players below 5,000 points see this status. |
Alliance
The player's alliance is shown here. Hovering over it shows the alliance's current ranking in the statistics as well as its member count. There's also a direct link to the alliance page and the correct page of the alliance statistics. If available, the alliance homepage is also linked.
Actions
The "Actions" column shows several icons that start orders:
| Symbol | Action | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Send espionage probe | Sends espionage probes to this planet. The number of probes can be set in the settings. | |
| Missile attack | Leads to another menu, through which interplanetary missiles can be launched at the target. This is only possible if the missile range is sufficient. | |
| Write message | Write a message to the player | |
| Buddy request | Ask the player whether they'll add you to their buddy list. |
Miscellaneous
At the bottom of the table you'll find information on how many planets are colonized in this system, along with a legend for the player statuses.
If you open the galaxy menu from a moon, the amount of deuterium available is also shown. This is important for potential phalanx scans. However, it doesn't matter whether you've built a phalanx or not.
Commander holders also see the status of their fleet slots and the number of available espionage probes, recyclers and interplanetary missiles.
Display Error
When switching to the galaxy menu, an error is sometimes shown saying that there isn't enough deuterium. Since this is related to the difference in time between the game server and your local computer, the recalculate button in the resource menu usually fixes this problem by requesting the current server data.
Trivia
The 10-deuterium cost for refreshing or switching the galaxy view was introduced with a certain OGame version, according to which the news at the time said something along the lines of: opening the galaxy menu now costs deuterium, a small amount taken to combat scripters who were putting excessive strain on the servers by permanently scanning everyone and everything — until code could be written to prevent this properly, this fee was meant to guarantee the game would keep running.
Adapted and cleaned up from owiki.de (GNU Free Documentation License 1.3), a general OGame community wiki — the conceptual explanation applies generally, but specific numbers/formulas may differ from the pr0game source code and are not verified.