Beginner’s Guide: Starting as a Star Hunter#

This page is for new players entering Infinite Lagrange, laying out the onboarding order according to verified game mechanics: first understand who you are in the game and how the core loop turns, then the rules for planning circles, resource gathering, base upgrades and fleet building. Where official numbers and flow details haven’t been published, this page explicitly marks them “not documented” rather than inventing them.

Who You Are: A Star Hunter#

Before entering the game, fix your identity: you play a “Star Hunter” active in a turbulent galaxy after the First Interstellar War — the Holy Star Empire has fallen, the Weiyang Convention has risen, and corporate powers like Norma Transport, Antonios and Jupiter Industries have grown, leaving power vacuums scattered across the systems.

A Star Hunter’s daily life is treasure hunting through system ruins, dealing with different factions and completing the tasks they entrust, trading them for resources and bounties. The official tagline “assemble your fleet, hunt the galaxy” sums it up well: you’re not a traditional lord or commander — you’re a hunter who lives off your fleet in the galaxy.

The Core Loop: Four Steps#

The game’s main gameplay is a closed loop; every action in the early game should be understood inside it:

For a beginner, the loop’s meaning is: don’t agonize over “which ship to build first” — take an agreement or mission first and give your first fleet something to do. Explore, hunt, turn in the task; once the first bounty and resources land, then talk about building and expanding.

The First Mechanism You Must Master: Planning Circles#

Every action starts with a “planning circle” (designating a target zone), after which fleets are dispatched to execute. This is the game’s most basic operating framework, and beginners underestimate it:

• Circle first, act second: exploring, gathering or fighting — designate the target zone first, and only then will fleets execute tasks inside it;
• The circle carries your intent: what you want the fleet to do is expressed through the zone you draw; where you place it decides the action’s range and direction;
• Planning comes first: where you build a circle and what it covers directly affects fleet travel efficiency and safety.

The most common beginner inefficiency is casually circling a zone with no clear objective, leaving fleets idling in place. Before drawing every circle, ask: what is this circle for?

The Three Base Resources#

All construction and expansion rests on three base resources: Metal, Crystal and Deuterium. The main way to get them is engineering-ship gathering — dispatching engineering ships to resource sites for continuous extraction.

The exact ratios, output values and consumption formulas between the three haven’t been published in official or verifiable sources, and this site won’t speculate. The pragmatic early-game approach: stand up gathering lines for all three types, patch whichever bottlenecks construction as quests and builds demand — whichever resource blocks building gets priority.

Engineering-Ship Gathering: Medium to Large#

Engineering ships are the main source of resources, and gathering capability ties directly to hull class. Two verified rules:

From this follows the early gathering route: keep basic gathering running with the ships you have while pushing your base toward level 4 — once large engineering ships unlock, gathering efficiency jumps a tier. Output and duration values for each ship class are not documented; in-game displays are authoritative.

Level 3 Base: The Resource Trading System#

Reaching level 3 unlocks the resource trading system, one of the most valuable early unlocks:

• Through the trading system you can exchange for the base resource you’re short on — whichever type is blocking construction, trade for that one;
• In the later game, plundering enemy bases is another way to fill resources, but combat risks losses — in the early game, weigh your strength.

Trading and gathering complement each other: gathering covers daily supply, trading covers stage gaps. Neither depends on luck — both are stable, controllable resource levers.

The Rhythm of Base Upgrades#

Base level decides which ship types, resource output and gameplay permissions you unlock — it’s the spine of early development. Two verified nodes:

One practical rule on upgrading: building upgrades have priority tiers — buildings marked “┃” in-game are required items for raising base level. When resources are tight, upgrade the “┃"-marked buildings first; don’t pour materials into non-essential facilities and stall your climb.

As for the complete unlock list per level and exact resource costs, no official comparison table has been published and this site won’t speculate — use the in-game upgrade preview screen as authoritative.

Assembling Your Fleet#

The fleet is how a hunter eats. Four things to understand about early fleet building:

1. Ships come from blueprints: every ship unlocks through a blueprint, and each blueprint has 5-7 subsystems you can modify. Getting the blueprint is only the start — modification space is the real progression.
2. Ships span 7 tiers: the warship tonnage sequence runs Frigate, Destroyer, Cruiser, Battlecruiser, Carrier — there is no “battleship” class in this game; plus two carrier-based types, aircraft and corvettes. Start from the low end and expand upward.
3. Command points are a hard constraint: ships in a fleet are limited by command points; raising Starport level adds more. Watch your point balance when forming fleets — don’t spend them all and leave no room to adjust.
4. Retire idle ships: unused ships can be retired to recover resources. Don’t hoard useless hulls — retiring for resources is the better deal.

Making the Fleet Stronger: Combat and Tech Points#

Ship levels rise through combat experience — to level ships, sortie. The tech points produced while leveling go into a ship’s core system enhancements, and the official guidance is explicit: concentrate tech points into core systems instead of spreading them evenly. Smearing tech points across every system is slower than dumping them into your main ships’ core systems.

Combat itself has rules worth knowing early: battles support free 3D camera observation, and tactics like ambushes and flanking maneuvers cut your losses. Combat isn’t pure stat collision — how you fight and from which direction both shape the outcome. Tactical details live on the Combat System page.

Join or Go Alone: Factions and Alliances#

Two choices affect the long-term experience:

The two routes don’t conflict: cooperate with factions for development resources while expanding allied territory alongside your alliance — run them in parallel.

Beginner Q&A#

Q: What do I do first? A: Take a bounty agreement or mission, draw your first planning circle, and dispatch a fleet. Getting your first fleet moving matters far more than theorizing the “optimal team comp”.

Q: Which of the three resources should I gather first? A: Stand up all three gathering lines and patch bottlenecks as quests demand. The official ratios between the three aren’t published, and this site won’t speculate — follow actual build consumption.

Q: When should I push for level 4 base? A: Treat level 4 as the explicit early-game goal — it unlocks both the Outpost Command Center (base relocation) and large engineering ships (gathering upgrade) in one go, the best value node on the ladder.

Q: How do I spend tech points? A: Concentrate them into your main ships’ core systems — don’t spread them evenly. Thinned-out investment only produces a fleet that’s mediocre everywhere.

Q: I’m out of command points — now what? A: Raise Starport level for more points; also check for idle ships in the fleet — retire them to recover resources and free points.

Undocumented Content Notice#

The following early-game content has not been published in official or verifiable sources, and this site won’t speculate: exact building upgrade order and resource costs, the complete unlock list per base level, the full level flow of the “Treasure Hunt Protocol” starter system, and the exact acquisition methods and counts of starting ships. In-game content is authoritative.