Galaxy View, and Unemployment

[Elvin (OP)]

Two questions in this thread:

Firstly, my galaxy view looks like this at the moment ( click for fullsized picture):



Now, having seen something that looks like a proper galactic map in the screenshots forum, I'm concerned as to why mine is totally useless. I haven't been able to do anything with it, asides from find a button that makes a long line connecting two groups of three, what I assume are star systems, ontop of each other. Have I missed a button somewhere?


Also, I'm currently facing a huge unemployment problem on all of my planets and colonies. Asides from initial terraforming work, I have nothing for these colonies to do. I put down some mines, but often there aren't enough minerals in that one place alone to be useful. Even on Earth, ( where I am facing a mineral crisis of Duranium) I can't find enough jobs for everyone to do. So what do you guys create to avoid paying out billions in Social Security pay?

Thanks!

[AtomikKrab]

maintainace yards or research facilities


also hold shift, click and hold and then drag to move systems around

[rubicon]

Of all things, if you have not done so already, read through the tutorials, the tips and suggestions pages and it would not hurt to read some of the campaign fiction such as Steve's Trans-Newtonian Campaign. What ever you do, don't give up. There are so many things to do and discover in this game you will be pleasantly surprised. This is what the big gaming company's should take a lesson in as far as fun is concerned. You won't be disappointed. It's like playing with lego's when you were a kid. Opps, what I am I talking about I'm still a kid @ heart.

[sloanjh]

Now, having seen something that looks like a proper galactic map in the screenshots forum, I'm concerned as to why mine is totally useless. I haven't been able to do anything with it, asides from find a button that makes a long line connecting two groups of three, what I assume are star systems, ontop of each other. Have I missed a button somewhere?

I've added a "Galactic Map Questions" FAQ (in the FAQ board) that should help.  Let me know if it's insufficient (and how
[/quote]

Having a surplus of workers is a good thing - if you've got a shortage then your manned industries will be less efficient.  Typically, you want your (inhabited) colony worlds to have some industry.  Colonies typically fall into three categories:

1)  Great minerals (including Duranium>0.6 or so), low terraforming cost (colony cost 2.0 - 4.0, without high pressures of bad gasses).  On these you'll want to put a lot of manned mines, since they're 1/2 as expensive as auto-mines.  Note that it takes a lot of shipping to ship the mines there, so you'll want to build lots of cargo ships with 5 cargo holds (the size of a mine).  More recently, Steve put in the ability to pay to have the civies cart your stuff around, but having a cargo fleet is still a good thing.  Ummm you are shipping stuff (mines, factories, ...) to your colonies, right?  These are good colonies to offload the mines from your homeworld when it begins to run out of minerals.

2)  No minerals, but REALLY low colony cost (less than 2.0).  These are mainly populated because they're easy to terraform, and so can be trade centers.  I tend to ship ~100 factories to them, then set them to building their own industries (more factories, or terraformers, or automines for mining colonies in the same system, or ...).  Note that you'll have to ship in the minerals that the factories consume, but a single cargo ship full of minerals goes a looooong way.  These used to tend to be research colonies, back when each world could only work on one project at a time.  One thing to consider is building financial centers on these worlds (assuming you need them), since they don't require any minerals.  These can also be factory worlds if there are unmanned mining colonies in the system that can deliver minerals via mass driver.

3)  High minerals, high colony cost or uninhabitable.  These are "mining" colonies with no people, just automines.

John

[Elvin (OP)]

Thanks for the replies guys! I now have a workable galaxy map, ( FAQ is good by the way) and feel like I can be doing something with all my spare workers. Time to decentralise my industry. Good thing I build far too many cargo ships a while back.