Deck Conn Guides Hub

This hub is the map for every Deck Conn tutorial on the wiki. The game launched on Steam on September 1, 2026 as a single-player turn-based command sim: you sit in a Cold War-style nuclear corvette, read incomplete reports, and spend power you do not have. If you just bought it, start with Getting Started. If the first unidentified contact already has you staring at CRTs, jump to Combat or Ship Systems.

What these guides cover

Deck Conn is not an arcade space fighter. Funtime Electrics and MicroProse built a command fantasy closer to a 1971 Super Star Trek mainframe session than to a dogfight. You interpret coded HQ orders, run war patrols, choose whether to capture or destroy, and live with a crew that remembers the cheap calls. The pages below split that job into the searches captains actually type.

• Getting Started — install, first-hour checklist, reactor start, and what to ignore on day one.
• Controls — how the diegetic terminals, plot, and settings screen are meant to be used.
• Ship Systems — reactor, batteries, fuel, sensors, propulsion, weapons, and defenses sharing one budget.
• Combat — range, positioning, targeting subsystems, and fighting with imperfect information.
• Campaign — dynamic forever-war patrols, HQ orders, distress calls, upgrades, and promotions.
• Capture or Destroy — the reputation and salvage trade that shapes a ship’s legacy.
• Standalone Missions — classroom hunts such as Raccoon Hunt before you risk a campaign ship.
• FTL Jumps — the jump panel next to helm, paid in fuel and readiness.
• Review — launch-week read of what the game is, who it is for, and what is still unknown.

How to use this hub during launch week

Steam listed only three user reviews at launch, so public “meta” is thin. Treat every ranking on this wiki as a working model, not a solved puzzle. The systems tier list and tactics tier list exist so you can compare options; they will move when patches land. Check the Updates Hub before you rebuild a whole power doctrine around one lucky patrol.

A practical loop that does not waste the first evening:

1. Confirm the system requirements and that you are on the English interface Steam actually ships.
2. Finish the in-game departure checklist, then reread Getting Started against what you just clicked.
3. Run a standalone scenario with the power planner open in another window.
4. Only then start a campaign patrol using the campaign notes.
5. After the first capture-or-destroy decision, log it against the capture guide and the crew page so promotions are not random.

Pain points these pages exist to solve

New captains search the same cluster of questions: how to play, how to get more power, how to find contacts, how to complete a patrol, how to beat a ship that will not die, and how to protect the reactor when sensors go loud. The guides answer those intents with the official feature list plus launch-week press, not with invented keybinds or fake damage tables. Where the store page is silent, the page says so.

If you came here from a MicroProse trailer, watch the embed on Getting Started or the homepage reveal, then come back to a written checklist. Trailers show the CRT fantasy; they do not tell you which system to starve when a contact is still a smear on passive sensors.

Related hubs

Tutorials are only half the wiki. Rank subsystems on the Tier List Hub, read Crew before you stamp a promotion, grab launch context on Updates, and keep the Tools Hub nearby for checklists. Official store and social links live on the Links Hub.

Deck Conn rewards captains who treat information as a resource. Use these guides the same way: read the page that matches the problem on the glass, then jump to a sibling instead of scrolling a single wall of text.