Much of the fun in Earth & Beyond™ will be the camaraderie and teamwork you experience with other players. In fact, some tasks can only be completed with the assistance of other players.

You can form a group of up to six players (five others and yourself). There are several ways to create a group in Earth & Beyond™. To create a group with a player on your screen simply left click on their ship. This will highlight them in your targeting interface. Press the GROUP button, located on your target interface, and they will receive a message stating you have invited them to join a group. If they press ACCEPT, a group will be formed and the player who issued the invitation becomes the Group Leader.

The second method of forming a group is by using the GROUP button located in the OPTIONS menu on top of the chat interface. Click the GROUP button to open the Group Interface. You will see buttons labeled 'Look for Group' and 'Find Group Member'.

Look for Group: Click the LOOK FOR GROUP button and your name will appear on the FIND GROUP MEMBER interface. The button will now display STOP LOOKING. If you press the button again you will be removed from the list and the button will revert to the Look for Group text.

Find Group Member: Click this button to see every player looking for a group. The players can be sorted by Name (default), Race/Class (R/C) or Level by left-clicking one of these three headers. Once you find a player, single click their name. Now they will appear in your target interface. Now press the GROUP button, located on your target interface, and they will receive a message stating you have invited them to join a group. If they press ACCEPT, a group will be formed.

The Group Leader can now invite other players to join the group as well. You can have a maximum of six players in your group, including yourself. You will see an interface on the right side of your screen that shows the status of all the other group members' hulls and shields. When you are in a group, your experience is allocated among all group members, with higher-level members receiving more experience than lower-level group members. Group members also receive bonus experience based upon the size of their group. You will see a message indicating your bonus award when you receive group experience.

There are two ways a player may leave a group. To manually leave a group, target yourself and type /group remove. If you are the Group Leader, you can remove another group member by targeting them and sending them a message of /group remove. The Group Leader can also disband the entire group by sending a message of /group disband. A full list of group commands can be found in the Helpful Commands section of this website.

The second method is to press the LEAVE GROUP button on your group interface screen. Depressing this button will remove you from the group. Group leaders can disband a group by pressing the DISBAND GROUP button.

There is a distress button for group members, located to the right of the formation button. If a member of your group presses this button, a distress message will appear in the chat window and a second target icon will appear to the right of their name (a single icon appears by default). This alerts group members of a person in trouble.

Group Buffs

Group "Buff" Bonuses
Each character archetype will now automatically share certain abilities with other group members. These bonuses are cumulative. The following table shows the bonus that each archetype will contribute to a group:

These bonuses are inherent to the archetype, always available, use no energy, and are automatically shared with all group members. For example, a lone Progen Sentinel will use 5% less energy when firing weapons. If this character groups with a Progen Warrior, they both will use 5% less energy firing weapons and take 5% less hull damage while grouped.

Bonuses are cumulative with a 1% diminishing return for each additional bonus of the same type. If two Progen Warriors group, they both will receive 9% (5% + 4%) less hull damage, while 3 Progen Warriors would receive a 12% (5% + 4% + 3%) bonus. Therefore, the maximum bonus obtainable of any one type would be 15% with 5 characters of the same archetype in a group.

Characters who are of a substantially lower level than the group average will not contribute their own bonus. In this case, all group members will receive a message to this effect. The new member will, however, still receive grouping bonuses from other group members.

The same proximity restriction rules apply to grouping bonus contribution as apply to group experience splitting. Therefore, if a player is unable to receive a share of group experience due to proximity or location restrictions, they will also be unable to provide a grouping bonus.

Group Formation Buttons

Group Formations
Once a group has been formed, the group leader has the option of initiating several flight formations. To initiate a group formation, the group leader clicks on the 'Triangle" Icon located above the list of group member names. Clicking this icon will bring up a series icons that represent available formations. The formation possibilities, from left to right, are:

• Pipe Formation
• Block Formation
• Slot Back Formation

The icons designating each type of formation indicate how a formation will look with a full group. For example, if a group of 6 people were in the Block Formation, 2 rows of 3 planes each would line up. Group members can accept the call-to-arms by pressing the JOIN FORMATION button, also located on the right side of the screen. Group members will now follow the group leader in formation in warp and impulse speeds. Pressing the BREAK formation button will cancel the formation and group members will no longer follow the group leader in formation. Group members may also leave the formation by clicking the LEAVE button.