Two coalitions wage military operations against each other. Their forces are highly scattered in space. Player starts as a light space fighter pilot and grows in skill gradually up to the formation commander rank. FurtherTime Battle Server allows players to join and play online game at any time. Online game never stops - when no one player presents, server simulates battle operations.

Player might choose any of those according to his preferences. For example, playing missions step by step starting from pilot rank and ending as formation commander, player goes through variety of situations and flies different fighters. This is simulator. Being a commander there is no need to fly at all - one might prefer to coordinate and plan battle operations instead. This is strategy. Lastly, player is free to choose "hunter" mode to follow his own plan and to fight against everybody. This is arcade.

Action takes place in the solar system, in close vicinity of the Earth. More theaters of military operations are supposed to be introduced, such as far reaches of galaxy, nebulae, double star systems, and so forth. A journey from one theater of operations to another predicts a ship to be equipped with hyperdrive engine, which is known to be the only kind of equipment available at the stage making it possible to move faster than light. FurtherTime universe is being split for a long time by the war two main galaxy coalitions wage. The coalitions are The Core Empire and The Outer World Republic. Empire has been born in most ancient worlds in the core of the galaxy and represents a huge monument to powerful tyranny relying on military force. Republic is formed of many independent nations of outer worlds of the galaxy.

Military operations look to be highly spread in space, though most often so-called space battle stations play as attractive points for both the fighting sides. All the space vehicles can roughly be divided into four categories:

There are no planetary colonies and no military bases in current specification, but ability to plan military operations in planet's atmosphere and on planet's surface is supposed to be realized in next version. Also, neither landing onto the surface of the planets or moons nor take-off allowed. Action takes place in space only.

Player is free to choose and even to change the coalition he fights for. Those having some merit such as a number of successfully done missions are given higher military rank. The higher rank, the better star ship player may navigate. Those having officer rank might decide to command a wing of fighters instead of doing work themselves. Pilot's rank means player is to carry out predicted objectives of the mission. Officer's rank empowers the player to make decisions, plan wing operations and assign objectives to his subordinates, even if these directives might lead to situations completely different from those higher commander proposed. Officer may give himself up to the planning, though wing leader's star ship is always at his disposal. As the skill grows and player deserves more merit, the following ranks in the military hierarchy come into reach:

FurtherTime includes many missions ranging from simple training to large tours. Single player can accomplish step by step a sequence of missions of increasing difficulty beginning from pilot rank and completing the tour at fleet commander rank. Master develops local network game scenario. Clients connected receive the scene "as is" and act as light star fighter pilots given exact goals if they form a wing or given freedom to choose a goal. Internet online game becomes available to a player right after his registration at the server. After successful connection player receives current situation at the theater of operations and enters the game as pilot or commander depending upon his rank. Server game runs forever, so situation at any moment is determined by all the history of battles all ever connected players took part in. At the first instance of the start server generates the initial location and numerical strength of two sides' forces. To be more precise, each coalition is given one orbital maintenance station carrying number of ready-to-fly light fighters and some amount of repair, fuel, and weapon resources. Next, each coalition is given one heavy battle ship (cruiser), and two mid-size ships (frigates). Player registered first time becomes a member of a chosen coalition at pilot rank with one of free fighters being assigned to him. Pilot might want to find out current situation in place, some statistics, his coalition condition, and, if his rank allows him access to, his coalition plans. Pilot is able to receive an objective and enter the game as soon as connection has been established. After that, however, pilot is free to make solutions of his own up to complete ignorance of the objective given. Fortunately, there is a journal on the server, showing info about any one pilot of the coalition, where pilot's rank, skill, advantages, merits, loyalty, everything is clearly recorded. As pilot's skill grows and a number of merits makes it evident he is worth of being in command of military formation, pilot goes up to the next rank, which means the ability to plan and coordinate the operations of a wing or a mid-size ship. Fighters the wing consists of are either computer-AI-driven or manned.

Internet online game players are subject to have an exciting illusion about real continuous military operations being evolved "out there", so anyone taking part makes the history of the space war. There will be a possibility to choose among several internet battle servers from the list, each being a virtual theater of operations in its own galaxy or star system, separated from other theaters. Next, it will be of usual practice to the highest officers to transform a part of forces from one theater of operations to another.

FurtherTime graphic raster engine is based on OpenGL 1.1, which is integrated into Windows 98. DirectX 7.0 must be installed. FurtherTime has two regimes enabled - single play and local network play. FurtherTime Battle Server runs on the server machine. It emulates events local to specific theater of operations, but being connected to many FurtherTime Battle Servers throughout the world it integrates this theater into the entire FurtherTime universe.

The Earth's space proximity, Sun, Moon, planets of the solar system, far stars. One orbital maintenance station revolves around the Earth and another one - around the Moon. Orbital station is the main service and maintenance resource coalition has. Orbital station's military characteristics: reduced maneuver ability, heavy mid-range blast batteries, missile launchers, ability to carry huge amount of maintenance resources the fleet is need of, dock sockets for star ships of any displacement except of cruisers. Fleet is composed of heavy battle stations (cruisers), mid-size ships (frigates) and a lot of light fighter wings. Cruisers are characterized by very low speed and low maneuverability, ability to carry several fighter wings along with full complement resource set necessary for them, dock sockets for fighters and frigates, ability to perform large number of hyperjumps, and, at last, cruiser must be far enough from planets because of huge mass. Frigate characteristics: a bit higher maximum speed and maneuverability, much weaker weaponry, no ability to carry any ships, but just small amount of resources for them, dock sockets for fighters, relatively small number of hyperjumps. Light fighter characteristics: high speed and maneuverability, light short-range blast weaponry, docking ability, 2 hyperjumps, nothing in reserve: light fighter must return to base within 6-8 hours after start, otherwise it lacks shield power and exhausts life support system reserves. Cargo vehicles greatly vary on displacement, some of them have no crew. Finally to say, both coalitions have ships of all the types denoted, though relatively small divergence in characteristics always present makes it possible to differentiate ships of the same class but the opposite coalition from one another.

According to the scenario military forces of coalitions in the FurtherTime universe are highly scattered in space, so military operations might took place simultaneously in many different star systems, so-called theaters of military operations. But in the beginning the only one theater is accessible - solar system, the Earth's vicinity, where the first armed conflict has arisen upon the ground of unresolved conflict the Earth and Moon governing leadership position was the origin in. After some initial military preparations The Empire occupied the Earth, The Republic has fixed itself in the Moon. So, The Empire has its orbital maintenance station on the Earth's orbit, while Republic's station orbiting the Moon. In addition to this each coalition gathered to the scene by one cruiser, two frigates and some number of cargo ships of different displacement. Let's consider ships' peculiarities. Both the orbital stations have approximately equal power and carry about 100 light star fighters. These are divided into three categories:

Most common fighters' layout of orbital station is as follows: 40 fighters, 30 bombers and 30 interceptors. Distribution may be a little different, if a coalition relies upon interceptors in place of bombers, say. The same right has the opposite coalition, but none of them has exact information about the enemy's complement. The highest commander might conclude about how much efficient fighters of different kinds enemy orbital station disposes of based on recent statistics.

Since all the star ships have been strictly classified into several groups according to the most important characteristics such as length, mobility and weaponry power, ships of the same group but of the opposite coalitions still retain approximate balance of integral force. For instance, fighters, bombers and interceptors of the Core Empire could fulfil successfully the same tasks their counterparts of the Outer Republic do, accordingly. However there might be insignificant divergence in any one particular characteristic. For the integral combat effectiveness to remain the same an advantage in any characteristic is always compensated by imperfection in another one. To be more precise, total advantage of a Republic ship upon an Imperial one of the same group is zero in sum with its total disadvantage. A fighter of one coalition, say, may be faster than its counterpart, but must have weaker shield or be less maneuverable, or something else. The following is supposed to be always true in the FurtherTime universe: interceptor is faster and more maneuverable than fighter, which, in turn, excels bomber in those characteristics; interceptor has weaker weaponry and shield than fighter does, and bomber is most heavily shielded and armed.

An orbital station has a lot of functions. It carries several squadrons of light fighters, resources for its fleet, docks damaged ships for repair. Weaponry of the station is strong enough to ward off an attack of any enemy battle ship of any displacement. However, it cannot be used to play an aggressive role because of tether of the planet or moon it orbits. Heavy ships, such as cruisers or frigates perform offensive mission. According to the specification, cruiser is able to carry up to 24 light fighters, a lot of resources, has powerful heavy weaponry. In view of this lone cruiser is capable of executing various missions: offensive, reconnaissance, defensive, landing and covering. Heavy ships have to periodically return to the location near the orbital station for refuel and repair. Unlike frigate, cruiser cannot dock with a station, and even more, it must keep a distance to it, so shuttles are used to deliver any materials and tech personnel to cruiser. Shuttles also used on transportation routes linking orbital station with the planet. Regularly arriving shuttles supply orbital station with everything it needs for fleet- and self-maintenance: food, nuclear fuel, liquid gases (air, propellants), equipment, parts and materials. Departing shuttles load garbage, high-technological parts made in vacuum, wounded men. In addition to shuttles each coalition has heavy containers and freighters used to transport loads to far reaches of the galaxy. Cargo ship is quite slow and clumsy, but very huge and it's load might be of enormous weight. As a rule most huge freighters have a crew of 2-6 men and are even shield-protected. Middle cargo is usually unmanned; computer navigates it to the destination point.

The Core Empire fleet is located near the Earth, The Outer Republic fleet occupied Moon's close neighborhood. Front lines of the coalitions are formed of fighter squadron formations and are separated by a distance covered by a fighter in about 5 minutes. Main forces are much more far from each other, so for a ship to appear right in front of the enemy a short-range hyperjump is needed. This kind of travel dramatically reduces time required for one coalition to launch an attack against the second. For example, a bomber squadron might be given an order to attack an enemy frigate. Squadron makes a short hyperjump to quickly cover a distance from the Earth to the Moon and appear at enemy's position suddenly, attacks a frigate and by the second hyperjump quickly escapes. The total time of such a mission could not exceed 10 minutes, say. In case of using hyperjumps the distance from the Earth to the Moon (384,400 km) does not matter.

Space vehicles of the FurtherTime universe use ion stream as a propellant. Power source is a nuclear mini-reactor. Because of strictly limited mass of the propellant stored on board of the vehicles none is able to move or maneuver for a significant time. As soon as propellant completely exhausted refueling is needed. Still, even in case of a very light star ship (fighter) the period is long enough for a ship to perform its typical missions. While movement at constant speed requires a reasonable expenditure of the propellant, hyperjump sweeps away a huge mass at once since thermal dissipation done usually by radiative panels is completely insufficient for cooling reactor not to be overheated at its regime of significant thermal emission in making hyperjump. The only kind of effective cooling is to throw away propellant heated by reactor. Nuclear reactor onboard can supply power for a quite long time. However, any star ship must be equipped with a cooling unit. For instance, light fighters have radiative panels mounted on the hull. There are three main energy consumption systems: engine, shield and weaponry system. Shield system most often uses magnetic field to effectively deflect ion blasts. Neutral cargo ships, except of most heavy ones, have no shield. Blaster weapon is known to be the most common weapon in the universe. It usually operates as follows. A small amount of highly compressed gas is injected into the high-temperature chamber (10,000K), where it becomes ionized, then it is ousted to the muzzle, accelerated and fired. Muzzle velocity of the blast is near 500 m/s, blast's ionized condition preservation time - 5 s. From the one hand, while ion blast is hot enough, it burns through the hull of a space ship at the hit point. At the other hand, ion blast is easily deflected by the shield, if on. In a short time plasma expands and radiates most of its initial energy, so its temperature falls. After that such a cool gas stream could not damage a ship.