Author Topic: Tips for new players  (Read 58851 times)

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Offline Hawkeye

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Re: Tips for new players
« Reply #15 on: February 20, 2010, 11:07:01 AM »
Quote from: "Tnx"
Alright here are some more nooby questions...
1. What types of ships should I be looking to build in the beginning?  So far I've got geosurvey ships and gravsurvey ships working..  I should be looking at military and commercial frigates to transport population and mining modules/colony stuff right?

You´ll need some frighters/colony ships (commercial). Also, the civillians will only build your actual commercial designs, so if you want them to start shipping stuff, you´d better design some of those.
For military, I usually go pretty light on that, until an indication pops up, that there is something hostile out there (Either a first-contact or at least alien ruins). This, of course, runs the risk of getting discovered by an NPR with basicly nothing to defend earth.

Quote from: "Tnx"
2. I seem to have a huge surplus of wealth in my empire's coffers.. Am I doing something wrong? I tried to put civilian contracts for researching but no takers :\

This is normal for a conventional start. In the years, where you research and build up, you don´t have a lot to spent the money on, later on, money can become more of a bottleneck.

Quote from: "Tnx"
3. Should I only be colonizing worlds with minerals? What about barren worlds that have no minerals? (I was thinking that maybe added population from the extra colonies would be worth the tax money)

Populations on worlds create trade (handled by the civillians), which in turn brings money (taxes on the trades, not taxes on the people). This is not a major concern right now for you, but will be later on and you better start soon, because it take quite a while to build up a decent colony.
Ralph Hoenig, Germany
 

Offline mavikfelna

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Re: Tips for new players
« Reply #16 on: February 20, 2010, 12:03:05 PM »
Quote
Tnx wrote: Alright here are some more nooby questions...
1. What types of ships should I be looking to build in the beginning? So far I've got geosurvey ships and gravsurvey ships working.. I should be looking at military and commercial frigates to transport population and mining modules/colony stuff right?

I like to get all of the "infrastructure" module techs purchased in my setup so I have things like the gate construction module 180, sorium harvester module, terraforming module, etc. And usually advanced cargo handling.

Then I create a ship for each type of module, geo and grav survey ships and 2 or 3 each of freighter and colony ship. If you're not using jump gates you'll also need to create a jump engine and a civilian jump ship large enough to handle your biggest ships.

For the 3 hauler designs, I usually have a minimal design, 1 cargo hold or cryo storage bay, and a couple of engines to give it some speed, a "standard" design, 5 cargo holds or 10 cryo storage bays, and a jump version of the standard design. I also make a small luxury liner.

I may or may not have a troop transport, but its usually a good idea. And it needs to be big enough to carry an engineering battalion. If I don't start with a ruin in my home system (you have to add it manually if you're using Sol) there's not a big push for having the troop transport available immediately.

A missile PDC and a PD escort, either ship or PDC, is also a good idea.

--Mav
 

Offline Tnx

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Re: Tips for new players
« Reply #17 on: February 20, 2010, 12:27:25 PM »
So are the minerals generated WHEN you scan the planet?  Like if I scanned it with the better geosurvey scanners I would generate more resources at that point?

On commercial freighters, do you guys build them really big? Should you update them with every new engine or other component when they become available?

Ok so these are the ships I've read about thus far for building up an empire:

Geosurvey/Gravsurvey, Colony Ship, Light/Heavy Freighters, Luxury Liner (These ferry people and give more tax im assuming?)
Missile Base PDC (These give planetary defense for colonies and such right?)

A fuel harvester (Quick question: Is there ever a danger of fuel running out?  It's refined from Sorium right? And since a fuel harvester gets it from orbiting a gas giant... doesn't that pretty much mean fuel is infinite?)

I've been seeing alot of options for ships/fleets:

Missile Ships with laser PD that shoot hostile lasers down.. Some people design a dedicated target painting ship, that seems to be an efficient use of ship space.  What about carriers/fighters?  Are those good too?
EDIT: I forgot to include Colliers that bring extra maintenance/missile reloads.. and fuel tankers to transport more fuel to the fleet.. any other logistical ships I am missing here?


On second thought, maybe there should be a sticky with all the best tips posted on the first post?  Or another with basic ship designs for the new people like me coming into this game?
« Last Edit: February 20, 2010, 12:56:04 PM by Tnx »
 

Offline Tnx

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Re: Tips for new players
« Reply #18 on: February 20, 2010, 12:37:05 PM »
Regarding map generation and the values of Local System Generation Chance and Local System Generation Spread, what should I be setting them as if I wanted maps similar to the "cluster" option in the space empire series?  

I drew an example to explain, the clumps of systems there are interconnected, but only have say one or two connections to other clumps, I hope my drawing makes sense.

EDIT: I'm sorry for the double post, I didn't think I would be able to edit my previous post because I remember it being hidden and then approved by a moderator, I guess that restriction has been lifted or something.
 

Offline Hawkeye

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Re: Tips for new players
« Reply #19 on: February 20, 2010, 02:05:22 PM »
Quote from: "Tnx"
So are the minerals generated WHEN you scan the planet?  Like if I scanned it with the better geosurvey scanners I would generate more resources at that point?

On commercial freighters, do you guys build them really big? Should you update them with every new engine or other component when they become available?

Ok so these are the ships I've read about thus far for building up an empire:

Geosurvey/Gravsurvey, Colony Ship, Light/Heavy Freighters, Luxury Liner (These ferry people and give more tax im assuming?)
Missile Base PDC (These give planetary defense for colonies and such right?)

A fuel harvester (Quick question: Is there ever a danger of fuel running out?  It's refined from Sorium right? And since a fuel harvester gets it from orbiting a gas giant... doesn't that pretty much mean fuel is infinite?)

I've been seeing alot of options for ships/fleets:

Missile Ships with laser PD that shoot hostile lasers down.. Some people design a dedicated target painting ship, that seems to be an efficient use of ship space.  What about carriers/fighters?  Are those good too?
EDIT: I forgot to include Colliers that bring extra maintenance/missile reloads.. and fuel tankers to transport more fuel to the fleet.. any other logistical ships I am missing here?


On second thought, maybe there should be a sticky with all the best tips posted on the first post?  Or another with basic ship designs for the new people like me coming into this game?

Minerals are created on system creation.

My freighters are in the 35.000 to 39.000t range, allowing for 5 cargo holds and reasonable speed. Build them too big, and the shipping lines will not be able to afford them (without you subsidising them). And no, I do not design ships for civillian use only.

Missile PDCs are indeed for planetary defense. I usually put some meson turrets on them as well, to provide some anti-missile capability on the ground as well
Obviously, you can build dedicated offensive and defensive PDCs (I do this for smaller colonies, that will not have the industrial power to assemble large fortresses)

As for fuel. In the beginning, when your stockpile is rising steadily, it will seem as this is nothing to worry about, but belive me, it will become one. The further you expand, the more fuel you are burning, and there will come the time, when you start burning more fuel than you can produce.

I usually try to combine the Collier/Tanker/Supply ship into one, so I don´t have to retool the shipyard quite as often.

As for your attempt at setting up the galaxy, I can´t help you there, as I play it as it comes (not sure you can even do it)
Ralph Hoenig, Germany
 

Offline Tnx

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Re: Tips for new players
« Reply #20 on: February 21, 2010, 12:49:32 PM »
Thanks for the tips Hawkeye.  Does anyone else have nice pointers they'd like to give for conventional game starts?
 

Offline Empty

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Re: Tips for new players
« Reply #21 on: February 22, 2010, 06:32:13 PM »
Quote from: "Tnx"
Alright here are some more nooby questions...
1. What types of ships should I be looking to build in the beginning?  So far I've got geosurvey ships and gravsurvey ships working..  I should be looking at military and commercial frigates to transport population and mining modules/colony stuff right?

2. I seem to have a huge surplus of wealth in my empire's coffers.. Am I doing something wrong? I tried to put civilian contracts for researching but no takers :\

3. Should I only be colonizing worlds with minerals? What about barren worlds that have no minerals? (I was thinking that maybe added population from the extra colonies would be worth the tax money)

If you have too much wealth subsidize your civilian shipping lines. They'll make more cargo and cryo freighters if you have some designs for them.
Don't spend too much though. It's best to have a nice buffer of wealth.

Also I usually build a few cargo ships and a whole lot of terraforming ships after building a few task groups of jump capable Geo and grav survey ships and jump gate construction ships (what's the in game classification for these ships anyway? Haven't figured that out yet.).
That way I can ship auto mines to potential mining locations and infrastructure to possible colony locations and terraform possible colony locations quickly.

Having more colonies is usually better.

Though I hate those messages about increased unrest due to the lack of living space. Any able planet administrator should be able to impose a childbirth ban or promote contraception just before the maximum living space is reached anyway. They live in a trans newtonian age anyway :P
 

Offline Tnx

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Re: Tips for new players
« Reply #22 on: February 24, 2010, 04:37:49 AM »
Hmm.. Instead of making terra forming ships, I've been building installations and shipping it to mars to terra form, I guess I'll need the ships if I want to terraform Venus or something huh?

Also, I'm on my way towards building up navy military ships, I'm looking at the designs of the game on trans newtonian starts, as well as the designs of other people on the forum but I'm not sure how to go about designing some good ships.. I wanted to make some main missile ships/laser defense/target spotters/etc, can anyone point me in the right direction?  Is there a steam group for aurora or some chat channel that everyone hangs out at? (figure I can get some quick help there)

EDIT: After reading Erik Luken's ship creation tutorial, I'm understanding ALOT more... I guess I'll just use these first generation ships for fleet training till I make better.
 

Offline Shadow

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Re: Tips for new players
« Reply #23 on: March 02, 2010, 07:57:53 AM »
Wait, what?

Quote from: "Tnx"
I tried to put civilian contracts for researching but no takers :\
Civilian research contracts? Where? How? :shock:
 

Offline Steve Walmsley

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Re: Tips for new players
« Reply #24 on: March 03, 2010, 08:51:33 AM »
Quote from: "Shadow"
Wait, what?

Quote from: "Tnx"
I tried to put civilian contracts for researching but no takers :\
Civilian research contracts? Where? How? :)

Steve
 
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Offline Tnx

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Re: Tips for new players
« Reply #25 on: March 03, 2010, 12:30:08 PM »
Ah sorry, that was back then when I thought "Supply X" meant you hire that type of building from the civilian sector for a price.  Now I know its for contracting shipping lines to move those buildings between colonies.
 

Offline Deutschbag

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Re: Tips for new players
« Reply #26 on: April 04, 2010, 07:21:49 AM »
Hi all. Newbie to this game, haha. I'm curious how to use civilian contracts? I've no idea what I'm doing with them...
 

Offline UnLimiTeD

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Re: Tips for new players
« Reply #27 on: April 04, 2010, 08:20:14 AM »
To make civilians ship something for you, you first need to have a civilian shipping line.
They will eventually form; If you want, you can subsidize them to expand those shipping lines.
Then, you go to the civilian/contracts page on a colony, likely your home, and Supply X.
This means whatever you supply, if it's actually available on the planet, is allowed to be taken and transported by civilians.
Afterwards, you go to the target colony, which in a standard start is quite often Mars, but can of course be any colony in any System connected with Jump Gates.
There, you go to the civilian/contracts page, and Demand X.
Now the civilians will start searching for those things, find them where you supplied them, and, if theres path from supply to Demand that doesn't lead through Unsecured Jump Points, they will start shipping that good.
You pay them with 'Wealth', an arbitrary good symbolizing the civilian economy.
You gain wealth by taxes, which can be your populations, Civilian mining operations, and civilian Freighters that freely trade consumer goods from one planet to another.
If you need a boost to your economy, you can research the matching tech (Expand Civilian Economy by 20%), or build financial Centers.

Overall, Civilians reduce micromanagement and produce wealth, but be sure to have your own transporter fleet for when it's really burning.
 

Offline Deutschbag

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Re: Tips for new players
« Reply #28 on: April 04, 2010, 08:38:33 AM »
Wow, thanks for the help. That's... a lot more intuitive than I expected. Haha.
 

Offline Chairman

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Re: Tips for new players
« Reply #29 on: April 07, 2010, 03:04:13 PM »
Hmm, been planning to build some bases to to place near my "wormholes",  but it seems to bee a problem with repairs on them, I presume they will need an overhaul sometime... seems a waste of time and money to build bases that need to bee transported back and forth every second/third year.
Does anyone use stationary bases in space anymore, like in Star Fire...
And about Star Fire, is there possible to build small strike fighters... Was always nice with those nice fighters that got killed instead of my ships...
All the fighter designes I seen is lika seing a russian heavy transport plane, Antonov An-225 of some 600 tons of lumbering death comming against you....  :)