play-the-game

Imported from Final-Factory/finalfactory-agent-kit (kit/.claude/skills/play-the-game/SKILL.md). Install upstream with npx skills add Final-Factory/finalfactory-agent-kit --skill play-the-game. Copyright stays with the author.

Play the game

Goal: make steady, real progress toward winning (a Singularity Vessel flown into a black hole) the way a good human player would: automate early, keep research running, stay alive. Work in goals of a few minutes each, tell the player what you are doing, and check in between goals.

The loop

1. Orient.
   • game_status: health, position, fleet, alerts, current objective.
   • research_status: active tech and queue.
   • inventory(craftable=true).
   • look_around(radius=64) where you are, and near the base if you know where it is.
   • screenshot to see what snapshots miss.
2. Pick one goal from the priority list below. The first line that applies wins.
3. Tell the player in one or two sentences what you are about to do and why.
4. Do it, using the matching skill when there is one. Verify every step against the game.
5. Report what changed, with coordinates, then go back to step 1. After three or four goals, or whenever something surprising happens, ask the player whether to carry on.

Priority list

The tutorial

On a new game with the tutorial on, the objective card walks you through the basics. Do what it asks, in the honest way. Never press a card's Complete (skip) button unless the player asks, except on the final "Tutorial Complete" card, whose Complete button is how you finish.

The early cards, in order, and how to do them:

1. Move: move_to anywhere nearby.
2. Mine 75 Bauxite: fly to a bauxite asteroid and mine(item="Bauxite Ore", count=75). You already start with 75 Iron Ore and 75 Silica Ore.
3. Craft 4 Bats: craft(item="Bat", count=4).
4. Frenzy, Afterburner, Plasma Bolt: abilities on the hotbar at the bottom of the screen. Afterburner: run_commands(["ability.afterburner"]). Frenzy and Plasma Bolt: take a screenshot, find the ability's hotbar slot, and click it with pointer commands through run_commands (for example pointer.moveto|<px>|<py>|screen then pointer.click), then point at the target and click (Plasma Bolt: press and hold). Frenzy only charges about two minutes after the Bats are made. An ability stays selected after a cast: right-click (pointer.click|1) to put it away before you place buildings.
5. Destroy the nearby enemy camp: the card's arrow points at it. Fly in with your Bats; they engage on their own. Fly out again if your health drops and come back once it regenerates.
6. Research Mining Logistics: the card completes only when the tech is active, so use research(tech="Mining Logistics", start_now=true).
7. Mining Station, Construction Bot, place it, remove it, place it again, Solar Panel, Miner Bots, take 5 ore, Connector, Cargo Hold: the starter-mining-outpost skill covers all of these. The card asks you to remove and re-place the station once: deconstruct it, then build it again.
8. Atomic Printing, printer, filters: research it, put an Atomic Printer at the end of a belt from the Cargo Hold, set_recipe(recipe="Low Density Structure", ...), add an output Connector and set its filter (configure(kind="filter_item", value="Low Density Structure", x, z)).
9. Automation, Assembler, Ship Assembly, Ship Assembler: an Assembler on the printer's output set to "Plasma Engine Parts" (filter its output), then a Ship Assembler after it set to "Miner Bot". Its bots fly to your mining stations by themselves.
10. Second station on silica: starter-mining-outpost on a Silica asteroid; the Ship Assembler fills it. Miner Bots you craft by hand far away land in your fleet instead; give them with give_ships.
11. Circuits, Inserter Bot, Mass Drivers: a printer on the silica station set to "AI Controller Circuit"; an Inserter Bot placed with its arrows pointing away from the printer; two Mass Drivers within 40 tiles of each other, each with its own Solar Panel, the first aimed at the second with aim_mass_driver.
12. Asteroid Science: set the Ship Assembler to "Asteroid Research Bot", place a powered Asteroid Research Station near an asteroid.
13. Open the map and the fleet panel: ui(action="open", panel="map"), then ui(action="close", panel="map") (it counts when closed), then ui(action="open", panel="fleet").
14. Tutorial Complete: press its Complete button (ui, or a screenshot and a pointer click).

The late tutorial keeps asking for iron and bauxite. Take ore out of your stations and Cargo Holds with take_items before flying off to mine by hand.

The long arc

After the tutorial the objective card follows this arc. Each step is a goal for this loop:

1. Automate Bats: a Ship Assembler set to "Bat", fed with AI Controller Circuit and Plasma Engine Parts, with a Ship Yard. They stock your Defense Platforms.
2. Research 25 technologies: keep the queue full.
3. Produce Medium Density Structures from printers: an iron printer line; the mall does this.
4. Find a planet: usually in the Derelict biome around the start. Fly out in stages, look around and screenshot as you go, and check enemies before you commit.
5. Automate planetary research bots: automate-research, Part B.
6. Produce Organic Compounds from greenhouses: Greenhouses research; seed it from Comet Fragments.
7. Find a star: more common in Nebula biomes; the minimap shows the biome.
8. Automate stellar research bots: Stellar Science, a Stellar Research Station within 72 tiles of a star.
9. Construct a Dyson sphere: Dyson Platforms around a main sequence star, filled with Dyson Bots.
10. Find a black hole: far out, beyond about 1,000 tiles.
11. Place a Dark Star Gate near it and power it.
12. Launch a Singularity Vessel: feed the gate its five stages (endgame-victory).

Each of these is several sessions of work. Break it into goals, and check the research it needs with research-to first.

Defence

• Keep Bats in your fleet when you explore. enemies shows what is visible; camps far from any player are dormant and do not show up until you get close.
• At the base: a Defense Platform (Defense Platforms research) holds up to 20 combat ships and pulls them from a Ship Yard. A Bat Dock attached to it keeps requesting Bats. Feed it from an automated Bat line.
• Laser Turrets fire using Capacitor charge.
• If a camp keeps attacking one spot, ask the player before you go and clear it.
• The defend-base skill has the full plan: signal, perimeter platforms, warnings and repair.

Rules for this skill

• Play honestly. If the game refuses an action, read the reason and change the plan. Never try to work around a refusal.
• Automate anything the game consumes continuously. Hand-craft only to get a line started.
• Keep research running. An empty queue wastes every research bot.
• Stay 60+ tiles away from running Ship Assemblers so their bots are not pulled into your fleet.
• Save only when the player asks or agrees (run_commands(["game.save|claude_playtest_<name>"])).
• Stop and ask the player before: deconstructing a working line, attacking an enemy camp that is not threatening you, flying more than a few hundred tiles from the base, or spending most of a scarce resource.

Failure modes

• Stuck on one goal for a long time: after about five honest attempts, report what blocks you and move to the next item on the priority list.
• A tool keeps reporting "still running": wait_for the chain id; if it never ends, check the game with game_status and a screenshot.
• Your health keeps dropping with nothing visible: something small is shooting you. Move away; you regenerate after about 10 seconds without being hit.
• Frames that never build: you are out of range, have no Construction Bot, or lack the item.