Editing Netrek (section)

== Game play ==
The ultimate goal of the game is to capture all of the enemy's planets. Game play is normally between only two teams, the other two quarters of the galaxy being known as "third space", referring to the third-party nature of the non-playing teams. When two teams each have at least four players, the server enters "Tournament Mode", or "T-Mode", in which planets can be bombed and captured. Once one team has only two planets remaining, a twenty-minute count down timer for their automatic surrender begins. Capturing a third planet will freeze the counter, while a fourth will remove the threat of automatic surrender.

If one or both teams have less than four players, the game enters "Pre-T Mode", in which a team wins by simply having 4 more planets than their opponents. In this mode, stats are not saved, and the Pre-T galaxy is erased when "T-Mode" exists. On some servers, "Pre-T Robots" fill in empty player spots to create a 4 vs. 4 game, but get replaced by players as the players log on.

Players join and leave the game as they wish. Pickup games can be as short as ten or fifteen minutes, but are normally much longer. "Clue Games" are games between experienced players, which are usually timed for an hour with a half-hour of overtime, and a scoring system is used to determine victory.