Gameplay

Gameplay in Dark Colony plays out in real time, and focuses on two things: Preparation for conflict - and combat.

Resourcing
The main source of energy is the precious gas called Petra-7. With the use of the resource extraction units such as the Human Exploiter, or the Gray Brozaar, this gas can be collected from erupting vents and converted into Petra Units. Some Petra-7 vents are stable and provide long lasting supplies of the gas. Other vents, however, may either lay dormant or erupt during game play.

All city structures are built on a stable Petra-7 vent. Energy flows at a constant rate when a city is present. In the bottom right of the screen is the Petra-7 Unit energy meter, or "money" you have available to build structures, units, and upgrades. The number on the counter automatically decreases when a unit or structure is bought or upgraded. The number increases when a resource gathering unit is deployed on a Petra-7 vent, or finds an underground Petra-7 deposit.

Gathering resources
In order to gain energy, you must collect Petra-7. To collect Petra-7 you need a resource gathering unit. Most missions that allow for resource gathering start you with one of these gathering units. If necessary more can be built at the main city structure. If you want the energy to come into the city faster, more resource gathering units can be built to mine from other Petra-7 vents. Resource gathering units must be directed to and deployed on Petra-7 vents manually. Once deployed, they should be defended by units with combat capabilities because the gathering units have no defensive capabilities themselves. If threatened, these units can be un-deployed and moved.

When a resource gathering unit is built it does not automatically search for a vent. It is recommended that you scout out a vent with another unit before actually sending the gathering unit itself. This way is much more inexpensive if the exploring unit is lost. Also, the gathering unit usually has a very small vision radius in comparison to the other units in the game. Once a suitable vent is located, select the gathering unit by left-clicking on it. Then put the mouse cursor over the vent and left-click again. Once the unit has reached the vent it automatically deploys itself, unless the vent has already been taken. In this case, the unit occupying the vent must be destroyed to remove it.

Unit stats
When a unit is selected an inverted triangle appears over it. This is the unit1 s health indicator. The color of the triangle depends on the amount of hit points the unit has left. The color indicates the unit's health: green is healthy, yellow is damaged, and red is severely damaged. Some units have power in addition to their Health. These units have a circular bar of colors which show the level of power they have. A full circle of power goes from red to green, red being the lowest power, and green being the highest.

Fog of War
All terrain at the start of a campaign mission is not revealed, and thus black, until a unit of your team has explored the area. Once a unit moves towards the undiscovered terrain the darkness recedes, leaving the terrain visible both in the main game screen and the mini-map in the upper-right of the screen. After the unit has left the area, a fog of war covers the position behind it, darkening the main game screen slightly and showing only terrain, vents, and buildings, not enemy units. Certain units have a larger "vision radius" than others, and are better at exploring unexplored terrain.

Line of sight
Many objects in the game actually block your unit's vision, or in some cases shrink it. Large plants, rocks, and other terrain obstacles provide good cover for ambushes and other tactics.

Night and day
Like Earth, Mars has its own day/night cycle which is roughly 8 minutes real time for each phase. During the daylight hours the humans have the larger visual range, but at night, the grays have the superior vision.

Colony bases
Critical to most missions where you have a base in the game is the defense and maintenance of all city structures. The city structures are necessary for collection of resources, the building of units, and artifact extraction and research. Colony Foundations

Each colony, both human and alien, is built upon a five-sided plate. Each plate is positioned over of an existing Petra-7 vent which is mined continually, allowing a little money to trickle in. To be able to develop any of the units required to fight the war, the player needs to build a series of structures to enable research and construction.

Combat
Combat is real time and requires a separate article to describe properly.