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You should create a commander following the prompts on screen, and choosing a green tile in which to place your commander when prompted. Your commander is your only point of influence on the game and is your only (direct) method of creating units and broadcasting messages. When it's destroyed, you're out of the game.
Hit the + Symbol in the toolbar. This will show the program editor pane and a number of toggles for whether your created unit will have wheels, a radio, a proximity scanner, etc. It will also show green squares around your commander - clicking one of these will build the unit you have designed in that location.
If your program successfully compiles, your unit will appear. If there was a compile error in your program, that error will be displayed above the editor pane. Unit creation requires that the factory unit (if using the interface, this is your commander, in future you may write units which can create other units) has the appropriate amount of resource. This is currently set at 10 resource per part (wheels/guns/etc are all parts)
If your newly created unit sets on fire, that means it has stopped running, probably due to a runtime error, select it to view the debug pane which will show you the compiled program and any errors as well as the current state of the stack. If you re-open the bot creation pane, you will see an option to reflash a new program on to the currently selected unit. Note that you can only change the program, not add/remove parts.
You can debug a non-crashed bot by selecting it and hitting the pause button in the toolbar. This will give you the same info as the crashed bot, except you have the option of hitting step through or play to allow the bot to continue. You can also insert a BreakPoint instruction, which will halt execution at that point in the program as if you'd hit pause.
Messages are arbitrary length (for now) arrays of data which get broadcast on a channel (at the moment every commander is set to channel 12 by default) and which all bots with a radio can read and send with the MessageRead and MessageSend instructions.
So for example a valid message would be 100 200 300 or 1 (5,6) (5,4) 88 or just 188 for example. This is how you will relay instructions and information to your bots in the field, and how they will communicate with one another.
To make things a little easier, the message box also has a few substitutions which you can use:
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LIDwill substitute in the ID of the bot that you currently have selected with a left mouse click -
RIDis the same as above but for a right mouse click -
LGPSwill substitute in the last left-clicked coordinates on the map -
RGPSwill do the same for a right mouse click
When you do any of the above clicks in such a way that what is currently is the message box makes a valid message (for example you left click a point on the map (8,90) when you have 123 LGPS in the message box), then it will immediately send that message without you having to click send manually (in this case it would send 123 (8,90). Any other time you want to send a message, just hit the send button. Obviously if the message requires an LID and there is nothing selected, the send button will display "More input required..."
Your commander will start off with some starter resources, but you will need to collect more from the crystal like formations scattered around the map. You collect them by having a unit with some resource capacity in one of the adjacent tiles to the resource. This will increase your resource by one arbitrary unit per second up to the unit's capacity.