This is where you end up after logging into a game of SC. You will find most of the important information for your empire. Some of the more important menu items, like tech maintenance, recently have been incorporated into other menus used in the game.

Here is what the screen basically looks like if you are the first to log into a game:

Game Information
Update Count:	30	Last Update:	none	Next Update:	waiting for players
You are ready for an update	1 of 1 players are ready for an update
EmpireTotals
Minerals:	160	Fuel:	160	Agriculture:	160
Population:	160	Target Population:	160	Tech Level:	30.200827
Economic Power:	4	MilitaryPower:	0	Tech Development:	0.999688
Ratios and Usage
Maintenance Ratio:	1600.000000	Fuel Ratio:	1600.000000	AgricultureRatio:	0.999375
Total Build:	0	Total Maintenance:	0	Total Fuel Use:	0

You can go to the menus that you wish by clicking on the appropriate button.

End Turn tells the game that you are done with all of your actions for a turn. After update 4 in most games, if all players have hit end turn, an update is forced prior to the turn's time limit expiring. Some players feel those who don't hit end turn are beginners and make an extra effort to nuke them.

Quit allows a player to leave a game if no one shows up to play. This alleviates an earlier problem in not being able to leave a game and having an empire go into ruins.

Note:

The first three updates of short term games take a full five or three minutes in order to allow other players to join. A game is closed after the fourth update.

If an empire is absent for three updates, it automatically is treated as if it had ended a turn. If the empire remains absent for another 12 updats, it ruins.

If you are nuked, your SC score goes down a half point. If you ruin, you lose a while point.

Clicking on "Exit" returns you to the game list screen.

Update Count:

This tells you how many total times the current game has been updated.

Last Update:

This tells you how long ago the game was last updated.

Next Update:

This Tells you how long until the next update.

Minerals:

A count of the total amount of minerals your empire has available (helps determine your maintenance ratio and tech development). Each system produces minerals equal to the population of the system, or the minerals count, whichever is less.

Fuel:

A count of the total amount of fuel your empire has available. Like minerals, the production per system is the lesser of population and fuel count.

Agriculture:

A count of the total amount of food your empire has available (helps determine your population growth).

Population:

A count of the total population of your empire.

Target Population:

The total amount of population you have selected for your systems. (see Systems Menu)

Tech Level:

This is the level of scientific advancement your race has achieved. It is very important in terms of conflict resolution, as the battle rank at which you can build ships is equal to the square root of your tech level. It also determines the number of technological advances that are available to your empire.

Note:

The number of tech developments is determined by the square root of the tech level.

Economic Power:

This number represents how strong your empire is economically compared to the other empires. It is equal to the integer of [(Agriculture+Minerals+Fuel)/100].

Military Power:

This represents how powerful you military is in your empire. In Jaros' original FAQ, it was said to equal the integer of [(sum of the current BR of you ships)/100].
Eric Wang, writing at sc-talk Feb. 13, 97, said the code by David Hedbor for version had mil = int[SUM(int(BR^2)) / 50].

Note:

Tech development is calculated as the percentage of resources (both fuel and minerals) left unconsumed that turn, multiplied by the tech_multiple value for that game. If my resource total is 300 for my empire, and I use 100 minerals and 50 fuel, that is 50% resource allocation, so my tech development for the turn will be 0.5 * tech_multiple. The tech_multiple can be obtained in the game list.

Maintenance Ratio:

This ratio indicates the level at which your ships are being repaired. If this falls below one, your ships begin to fall apart due to neglect. For this reason, you will want to make sure that you do not build more ships than you can maintain. This ratio is determined as (Total Empire Minerals) / (Total Maintenance + Build).

Fuel Use Ratio:

This is the ratio between available fuel, and fuel that you are consuming. If this goes below one, your ships do not fight as effectively, since they do not have the fuel to freely maneuver. This is calculated as: (Total Empire Fuel)/(Total Fuel Use).

Agriculture Ratio:

This is determined by total agriculture and total population, so that if your population exceeds your agriculture, your population starts dying off. If your agriculture ratio is above one, then your population will increase if you are below your maximum population.

Total Build:

The cost of ships built during the current turn in terms of minerals.

Total Maintenance:

The cost of maintaining all of your ships this turn, in terms of minerals.

Total Fuel Use:

The total use of fuel by your empire's ships this turn.