Author Topic: Keeping the books ballanced  (Read 2148 times)

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Offline voknaar (OP)

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Keeping the books ballanced
« on: March 13, 2011, 08:47:12 AM »
So I've been playing for 4 months or so, off and on and played lots of scenarios learning different aspects of the game. Promptly forgetting them the next day. More lately on a game I've had minor success at missile combat which was hugely satisfying and helpful to experience. Although that was my only taste for bloodshed I've dispensed on targets it was a SM'd force so much of the victory was in the "i can actually command my men to do something successfully!" type of deal.

I seem to be hitting a brick wall as to how to fully balance the books keeping a military exploring expanding and colonising. I was wondering how some of the pros cope with keeping everything afloat. I had a game i abandoned because I had the worst possible luck in regards to minerals in the Sol system. So bad was my organisation and colony management i had lost four size 10k destroyers which was my first military ships, due to severe maintenance issues which in turn was due to a lack of 3 or 4 different mineral incomes in any serious capacity.

I know how to get colony's running and have had some minor amusement from the civilian sector but I've yet to be able to use them anywhere near as effectively as many people seem to be able to do. :( Some tips or what not to do's and advice will be very much appreciated
 

Offline sloanjh

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Re: Keeping the books ballanced
« Reply #1 on: March 13, 2011, 10:58:59 AM »
First, part of the whole intent of Aurora was to make it difficult to do the balancing act.  Steve wanted players to be making difficult tradeoffs all the time.

Second, that being said, I think many if not most players use SM-mode to bump up the initial HW minerals by an order of magnituded.  I resisted this for a long time in my games, but eventually I got tired of always having to deal with a Duranium crash.  If you don't do this, then the initial game is essentially a race to build enough automines and cargo capacity to be able to get off-world mines into a position where they can take over the Duranium (and sometimes Sorium or Neutronium or Mercassium) low when Earth goes dry.  Note that this might have changed some, since I saw in the release notes that Steve is now scaling the HW minerals by the population size.

For further info, you might try searching the boards for ancient posts (assuming they survived).  I know this was a big topic of discussion a few years ago (3? 4?), but don't remember where the posts would be.  I have a vague recollection of using the word "crash" in one of my posts in one of those threads, so that might be a place to start.

One more tip - in a conventional start, get a colony running on Mars (or equivalent if you don't start in Sol) ASAP.  Even if Mars doesn't have minerals, the wealth flow from shipping colonists there is important, plus the civie's profits are used to build up your civie shipping capacity.  I'm a little in trouble in my current game because the civies haven't yet taken off like they should.

John
 

Offline voknaar (OP)

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Re: Keeping the books ballanced
« Reply #2 on: March 13, 2011, 11:59:44 AM »
Thanks I'll have a look at what i can dig up.  :)
 

Offline Sheb

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Re: Keeping the books ballanced
« Reply #3 on: March 13, 2011, 12:05:17 PM »
Are the civis such a cash cow? I've never seen them bring more than 4-5% of my income.
 

Offline Zed 6

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Re: Keeping the books ballanced
« Reply #4 on: March 13, 2011, 12:55:11 PM »
I've never seen the civies do much either esp with Mars trade.
 

Offline randal7

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Re: Keeping the books ballanced
« Reply #5 on: March 13, 2011, 02:23:38 PM »
If you delay terraforming Mars there is considerable profit to be made shipping infrastructure. My current game, year 2053, Mars has almost 40m pop and I only built 500 infrastructure out of around 8000. I didn't ship much of the population, either. The initial shipping company has about 15 ships already.
 

Offline sloanjh

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Re: Keeping the books ballanced
« Reply #6 on: March 13, 2011, 02:44:43 PM »
If you delay terraforming Mars there is considerable profit to be made shipping infrastructure. My current game, year 2053, Mars has almost 40m pop and I only built 500 infrastructure out of around 8000. I didn't ship much of the population, either. The initial shipping company has about 15 ships already.

Yep.  At least in a conventional game.  I tend to run about 20% of income in the civie sector just before break-out in my conventional games, which basically comes from shipping pop and infrastructure to Mars.  All I do is ship 100 infrastructure to Mars and let the civies do the rest.  In my 5.2 game last month, they'd put a quarter billion population on Mars, and I still hadn't managed to get it terraformed yet.  (I was almost there.)  And I wasn't actually delaying terraforming Mars - it just takes a while.

John
 

Offline voknaar (OP)

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Re: Keeping the books ballanced
« Reply #7 on: March 14, 2011, 12:41:24 AM »
Hmm I've never really liked the idea of civ ships and mining colonies i can't control, but if they are that much of a benifit i'll have to do some looking into how to make the best of them. :-\
 

Offline Steve Walmsley

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Re: Keeping the books ballanced
« Reply #8 on: March 14, 2011, 03:04:53 AM »
Are the civis such a cash cow? I've never seen them bring more than 4-5% of my income.

Attached is a screenshot of the last year's income for the Eridani. Only 58% is from populations.

Steve
 

Offline Peter Rhodan

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Re: Keeping the books ballanced
« Reply #9 on: March 14, 2011, 09:44:15 PM »
I have always gone with the game minerals unlike the SM abusing softies around the place.
The main secret is to keep you military small at the start - I go many small 1grav 1 geo 2000T scout ships - and look for really good planets to put colonies on - I generally go for planets that are 2 jumps from earth early as later you can do Level 2 sector and get them in the umbrella...
Build 25kT freighters for shipping things around early.
Concentrate research on researching more Research, mines and construction early - I usually go 1 lab per scientist then add the rest to Research - I set Industry to build more labs at like 60% initially - scaling back as needed later (2066 in my current game and still running 30% labs) - I build Auto mines and Construction factories - only a bit of everything else early on.
Geo teams on all large bodies in the solar system - anywhere that has lots of Duranium and whatever else it is you are short of (there is always one) start moving Auto mines to. Look for systems nearby that have no good inhabitable planets but LOTS of minerals - I set up one as base and move Auto mines and mass drivers as needed and set up a cargo ship shuttle -
You will still hit a crash - lines of reports saying this couldn't built because of lack of Duranium and whatever else the other is - but just work through it!
 

Offline Thiosk

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Re: Keeping the books ballanced
« Reply #10 on: March 15, 2011, 05:41:12 AM »
Will civilians automatically build and move infrastructure?  I sure didn't see any activity, and ended up building it myself.  Or do I need to set up contracts?  I couldn't make head or tail of the contracts screen.

 

Offline Steve Walmsley

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Re: Keeping the books ballanced
« Reply #11 on: March 15, 2011, 05:49:28 AM »
Will civilians automatically build and move infrastructure?  I sure didn't see any activity, and ended up building it myself.  Or do I need to set up contracts?  I couldn't make head or tail of the contracts screen.

Here is the thread regarding the civilian trade system. You should read the whole thread.

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,1486.0.html

Steve
 

Offline Decimator

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Re: Keeping the books ballanced
« Reply #12 on: March 15, 2011, 01:00:50 PM »
I love civilian trade.  I seed worlds with 10-20 infrastructure and then the civilians take care of moving people and infrastructure from then on.

I also tend to get most of my income from civilian colony ships with posh first-class luxury accommodations in addition to their peasantcicle modules.  Luxury taxes ftw!
 

Offline voknaar (OP)

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Re: Keeping the books ballanced
« Reply #13 on: March 15, 2011, 01:40:10 PM »
Will civilians automatically build and move infrastructure?  I sure didn't see any activity, and ended up building it myself.  Or do I need to set up contracts?  I couldn't make head or tail of the contracts screen.



it wasn't appearent to me either but a site search yelded some results. All you ever wanted to know about civilian contracts but were afraid to ask! http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,1886.0.html This was just what i was wanting :D now to put it to some use.