Tips for new players

[Erik L (OP)]

I figured out this tip.  I am not sure if new players will find it here(I would not), so if you guys agree that it is sane - maybe there is some better place to place it?

So here we go:
I find it helpful not to design any colony ships.  This way shipping lines are forced to use luxury liners, which takes much less people in a single run, but generate greater profit.  It might also be helpful to obsolete freighter design when you feel that you had enough of civilian freighters for now.  This will force shipping lines to build more luxury liners.

Why?
Because this way you:
1.  get more income.
2.  do not need to produce any infrastructure beyond initial ammount, as colonies grow slowly enough to be supported by civilian infrastructure.
3.  have plenty of time to plan and deploy necessary defence forces.

Put an EM scanner larger than size 1 on it. Or Thermal. Then the civ lines won't build it since it is no longer a civilian design.

[sloanjh]

1)  I suspect that this idea would make off-world colonies grow MUCH too slowly - they don't grow quickly enough for me as it is.
2)  Forcing your colony ships to be military designs turns on maintenance and breakdown rules for them.

John

[xeryon]

The downside to that plan: Your colonies will have so little population for a long time that they won't generate a need/surplus for trade goods (and render freighters near worthless).  If you let the number of ships get too high in general you are going to have a substantial slow-down in game turns.

Do to a bit of a glitch, you can generate considerably more revenue from civilian shipping lines if you run 1 day increments.  For some reason civilians don't recycle their shipping queue until the end or beginning of the next time cycle you select.  If you run a 5 day cycle and a ship ends it's route on the third day it won't leave port until the 1st day of your next 5 day time cycle.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

Note that only makes a difference on very short runs, like Earth-Mars, and only if your trade production is not tapped out.

[vonduus]

Hi guys&gals.

I have this system I found, two hops away from my home colony, that will be the perfect hub for a grand mining operation: It has five wormholes connected to some accesible and very mineral-rich systems.  But the system itself consists of only two gas giants, and a few moons, none of them habitable.  So I thought: this I where the orbital habitat module would come in handy.  I want a populated colony, because I want it to be my new sector capital, with a commander that can bring a heavy mining bonus to the operations.

The idea was to set up an orbiting colony on one of the giants/moons, to act as a resource collector/sorium mine and as sector governor headquarters.  But then I saw how big the module is: 250. 000 tons!!!!

How do you guys build these monsters? In my game I am some 30 years in, and one of my shipyards has expanded almost continually in all these years, but it has only around 150. 000t capacity by now.  I reckon it will take another 10-20 years to grow it into its appropriate size.

How do you guys manage to build orbital habitats? Is there something I have missed? And I am wondering, if I built one, would it fit in the jump gate?


Now, if it is the case that I must wait for my shipyards to grow bigger, are there other ways to establish a sector command center on an uninhabitable world?


And in any case, where do I find the "create new sector" button?

[Icecoon]

1. I guess the best way to expand your shipyards is to set them to expand at start and then forget about it.

2. Everything can pass a jump gate, only jump engines have limitations.

[Shooer]

As long as the design has an OH it can be built by construction factories.  Anything and everything will fit through a jumpgate.

There is no new sector button, you make a new sector by building sector command centers in a new system.

[Garfunkel]

There is a menu where you select which systems belong to each sector. The system where the Sector Command is built is automatically added but all other systems need to be added manually.

Orbital Habitats can be built by construction factories as said but you will still need a pretty impressive tug to haul them around. So while it's entirely possible to create a OH the size of several millions of tons, building it will take some time and moving it will be a long-term project as well.

[vonduus]

Oh, I see, I can build my orb-hab in my factories.  Thanks a lot.  I will follow Icecoons advice anyway, my ships tend to become quite big, perhaps a noob problem?

But the information about sector commands may not be so welcome, for this means, if I understand it right, that I will have to build the sector command on a planet, because it is not possible to have orbital factories in space, right? I have seen that almost all other planet-bound activities can be duplicated in some space versions, but not the factories.  Sector bonuses are quite good I believe, but having to terraform a crappy planet with no minerals, or haul a lot of infrastructure there, and factories, just to get one, well, he better be a very good governor, then.

[Icecoon]

You can always dump there some construction brigades. They construct on their own without factories.

[StarJaunter]

Everyone says to concentrate on missiles first, well I tried creating designs and they are saved as I can bring them up as a starting point for future missile designs.   But they are never added to the possible Ordinance I can build under the Industry tab.

Am I skipping a step?

[Erik L (OP)]

Everyone says to concentrate on missiles first, well I tried creating designs and they are saved as I can bring them up as a starting point for future missile designs.   But they are never added to the possible Ordinance I can build under the Industry tab.

Am I skipping a step?

Do you have Ordnance factories?

Do you have the droplist changed from Installations to Missiles?

[davidb86]

Did you research them? Designs from the missile window still have to be researched, or use instant if you are in SM mode.

[StarJaunter]

Figured it out.   Till now I have been using instant to create tech items.   The missile screen lacked its own instant button.   When you create a tech item it puts an option to research it in the appropriate category.   Seems simple but the tutorials just have you use the instant button built into the tech design screen so I didn't know that was how it worked properly till now.

Thanks

[Erik L (OP)]

Figured it out.   Till now I have been using instant to create tech items.   The missile screen lacked its own instant button.   When you create a tech item it puts an option to research it in the appropriate category.   Seems simple but the tutorials just have you use the instant button built into the tech design screen so I didn't know that was how it worked properly till now.

Thanks

The Instant RST (I think that's what it is called) button on the research tab will give you all designed racial tech.