A splash screen, containing the name of the game, a license, and a rotating icon. During this time the imagery pipeline is stabilised, and graphical assets are loaded.

What you do: wait.

A list of available Netrek servers is displayed, discovered on the local area network, or via the internet based metaservers. Against each server is a number of squares corresponding to how many players are on the server.

A pair of white objects are in orbit around each other above the list; when they pass close to each another the metaserver is checked again.

What you do: choose a server and left-click on it to log in, or middle-click on it to join the game as a guest mercenary.

A list of helpful hints, or tips, on how to get started.

What you do: read them, then click on Server List.

A server login screen. Shows the name of the server you have connected to, the server message of the day, and asks you for your name.

What you do: read the message of the day. Type guest and press enter if you do not want your statistics saved, or type a name and password. If someone else has already used your name, you won't be able to use it unless you know their password.

The ship and race, or team selection screen. Shows ships for each team you can join.

What you do: choose a ship and race by clicking on one of the ships. The ship closest to the centre is the best general ship, called a Cruiser (CA). The others have special improvements and weaknesses. Some ships aren't available on some servers. All ships of the same type are equal regardless of which race or team you choose.

The tactical view. Your ship is in the centre. A ring around your ship shows your shields are up.

• ship warnings, in red on the top of screen,
• game messages, from the server or other players, in the top half of the screen blended with the background so you are not distracted,
• a planet Beta Crucis that is not yet scanned, so we don't know what team owns it,
• your ship in the middle, ship number 8, with two torpedo explosions on the right hand side, with phasers shooting at enemy ship number 3,
• your torpedos that missed the enemy ship 3 are flying away,
• the status line, showing Speed 3, Fuel 6193, Damage 73%, Shields 1%, Weapon Temperature 8, and various flags.

What do you: play. Various keyboard keys do various things. See the tips screenshot for more information.

Press enter to swap to the galactic view. Your ship is in the centre of the small white box. The other boxed areas are teams or races. The circles are the planets. In this screenshot, you goal in the game is to take control of the red Romulan team planets.

• the planets have a number above them; this is the number of armies present,
• the planets have a name below them; the colour shows which team they belong to, and the bright colour means they have more than four armies, therefore they can be bombed or used by their owning team as a source of armies for taking other planets,
• the other ships show as tiny icons moving about.

What do you: play. All the same keyboard and mouse actions do the same thing, just that you can't see as much detail.

The white burst is a torpedo that has just exploded, it it has caused your damage to exceed 100%, so your ship has started to explode. The coloured ring around your ship is the start of the explosion. The green dots are more torpedos from the enemy that would have hit had you survived.

A short time later, your explosion has engulfed the enemy ship as it expands. This damages the enemy, though not always fatally. Your death is not in vain. You will be returned to the team and ship screen from which you would normally come straight back in with the spacebar. The supply of new ships is endless until your team runs out of planets.

Another three screenshots of a death are below; you have fired a phaser which missed, and the enemy ship number 4 has killed you with a torpedo and a phaser at the same time.That ship is caught in the blast radius and damaged, though not fatally.