Commands are recognized primarily by their first three characters. For example, SCAN may be abbreviated SCA. Two commands therefore cannot be distinguished only by letters after the first three. Arguments may have their own accepted abbreviations; consult HELP command before depending on one.

HELP, CLS, SCAN, REPORT, IMPULSE, WARP, STOP, ROTATE, ORBIT, LOCK, NAVIGATE, WHO, FLUX

Combat and defense

PHASER, TORPEDO, MISSILE, MINE, SHIELD, CLOAK, DECOY, JAM, ZIP, DESTRUCT (and ABORT)

Planets and economy

ADMIN (and ABANDON), ATTACK, BUY, MAINTENANCE, NEW, PLANET, PRICE, SELL, SPY, TRANSFER, JETTISON

Communication and account

SEND (and FREQ), TEAM, SET, RENAME, ROSTER, X

Administration and frontend integration

SYS, DATA

The classic installation manual also documents RG# as a technical-support command that reported the configured Galactic Empire registration number, registration status, and test-drive day counters. It was likely active in an earlier classic release, but its command-table entry is commented out in classic 3.2e and it cannot be invoked there. ge-next does not implement RG# or the classic registration-security system.

Command context

Many commands depend on state that is not repeated in their syntax:

  • @ means the current scanner lock.
  • Planet trade, transfer, administration, and maintenance normally require orbit.
  • Standard phasers/torpedoes and hyper-phasers/missiles operate in different speed regimes.
  • Damage, ship-class capability, neutral-zone protection, jamming, nebulas, cooldowns, and the post-hostility exit restriction can reject an otherwise valid command.
  • ge-arena deliberately omits persistent-economy commands and changes the accepted command set while in the lobby, staging, play, and respawn states.

Exact syntax and availability differ by version. In-game help is authoritative for the running build.