What is Etiquette and Customs for multiplayer Luna? Well my good friends who are new to this game and don't know I am going to teach you how to successfully host a competitive game on ICO. So here I am assuming you have logged into ICO and want to host a match. The image below will provide you will all you need to know

Alright well what are you looking at here exactly newer players. When you are on this screen there are three things you need to notice.

1. Host New Game: This is where you choose what map you want to host, generally in multiplayer Random - Huge/Large (Single) is customary of choice. Mainly because this game is more revolved around team work than individual score. Also it is put on single because if it is on Multi it overextends the game time far longer than it should be.
2. Game Name: The proper way to title your games is something like 4s, 5s, 4's, 5's, four's, five's. You get the point what this means is that this is the amount of people you want in your game per team. If you see something like 4s it means the host wants it to be a 4v4.
3. Game Options/Victory Options: look below at the image this is the most important part!

Game Options

This is the Game Options menu make it identical to this one and I will explain why.

1. Locked Team: This is so you don't have any backstabbing shenanigans going on while in the game. Only off in FFA's.
2. Normal Fleet Size: Large fleets cause to much lag, and small fleets are barely worth using.
3. Pirates off: Pirates were found either to easy for veteran players, or to difficult for newer players to handle. And it just turned into a spamfest of who got spammed the most. It was just seen best to keep it off from having another variable decide who won the game.
4. Quick Start: The slow start is hell and boring, this was placed to quicken the pace of multiplayer games.
5. Faster Settings: Make the game faster and make them not last hours on end, this is mandatory, because anyone who actually plays this game seriously competitively does not want to sit behind a computer for 5 hours and have 30 minute long battles. Newer players like the slower settings, but this is not single player this is multiplayer.

This may seem strict to you that is because it is, but the next few options are more lenient as it depends on the type of game you want to play.

Victory Options

• Diplomatic Victory: It's purposes as with every single one of the options up here depends on what you want to play. This victory type involves sending envoys, making pacts with allied empires, and creating alliances. Whoever scores the most points wins the game.
• Research Victory: Essentially you have to research a bunch of tech, once you do you will unlock this outrageously powerful upgrade tat once finished will win you the game.
• Flagship Victory: You gain a flagship, keep it alive.
• Occupation Victory: There is a planet in another star system guarded by a bunch of Vasari. Kill the Vasari and take the planet and hold it for 10 minutes.
• Capital Victory: Almost all of the options above are not used as they are merely for fun. But Capital Victory can be used for competitive purposes. Should you download a custom map you will be spawned with your team which will allow you to use this option to speed up the game. As once you lose your capital planet you lose, and bombarding your enemies capital planets will win you the game.
• Allied Victory: Mandatory. On all game types. On on FFA's may this be turned off.

Matchmaking

Now you are going to learn the beauties of matchmaking and how to draft a team. As this is almost necessary so this way your game is not a complete mess. Now what is Drafting, Drafting is essentially how you pick your team mates. But first you need to know something as it will help you organize yourself into teams much easier. Once your teams are selected or even once you enter a match "Automatically put yourself onto team 10" why? This will make it much more easier for a captain to see who is available for being drafted. Now onto drafting.

There are multiple ways to draft or matchmake a team and these are the three most common ways.

1. The 1-2 Method: This is used when teams are fairly balanced. But you may want to separate two players from being with each other. So lets say we have A pro who hosted a 5v5 match, and another pro joined right afterward and a bunch of newbies joined after the pro. The 1-2 method separates the pros and the newbs are equally distributed amongst the teams.
2. The TvB method: This is called Top verse Bottom. Its exactly what it sounds like. The top half players verse the bottom half, used for when teams are fairly balanced. In a similar manner to the 1-2 method.
3. Captains: This is the most complex method. So let me create a scenario for you. Its a 5v5 game, and there is a lot of veteran players. 1-2 and TvB will not work. So now you have to elect captains to balance out the teams, usually a Captain is someone with experience. Two captains generally get chosen by people who elect themselves, usually three people calling for captain is not a problem. The captains will then move to another team that is not 10(The number really does not matter).
1. The Number: But who gets first pick? Well this is done by "sending the number" which is where one player will volunteer himself to send a random number between 1-10 to another random player that is NOT a captain, the person that sends the number CANNOT be a captain. the reason why he sends the number to another player is to ensure no cheating is done. So in this scenario player A sends the number to player B. Player A decided the number is 3, the person who SENT the number will say "The number is sent". Then the two captains will say a number between 1-10. Whoever is closest to the number gets first pick.
2. Picking your teammates in a 5v5: The Captain who got closest to the sent number bets first pick(Lets call him Captain #1). However, he only gets to pick one player. Captain #2 gets to pick two player. Captain #1 gets to pick two other players. Then Captain #2 gets to pick two more players. Then the last unpicked player will go to Captain #1's team and is essentially the fat kid. So the picking order looks like this 1-2-2-2-1(fat kid).
3. Picking your teammates in a 4v4: it works almost the same as above so lets use the same captains shall we. Captain #1 once against got first pick so we gets to pick his team mate, but once again only one. Captain #2 gets to pick two people. Captain #1 once however now gets to pick two people. And the fat kid(aka last player who did not get picked) goes to team #2. So the picking order looks like this 1-2-2-1(fat kid).

And now you all know how to NOT be the fat kid. GO AND MAKE ME PROUD.

Q/A

1. Who is Luna? You mentioned him at the top: Well im sure you know its me, Mayall, but that is my ICO name Luna Ascendant.
2. What do I do if there is an AFK host: Type in chat that you will host your own game.
3. What do I do if there is an AFK in my game: Boot them, there is a button to the left of there name that if you click it will boot them.
4. Why is this guide needed?: Because until we get matchmaking we pretty much have to ghetto host our matches this way.
5. What is proper matchmaking?: Something like a ladder, it will keep score of all the games we played, perhaps give us our own elo, and automatically match us with people of our own skill level.
6. Why is 1v1 not as popular as 4's and 5's: Because 1v1 maps are imbalanced heavily, where one player could get four crystal extractors and another could get two. Or militia count could be high for one player and low for another. Its not as bad in 4s and 5s.