ToD

[NoonStar (OP)]

Time of Departure.

How long does it usually take you to exit Sol? I've been in the system for over 20 years now.  Earth's resources have near run dry.  I'm trying to speed up the influx of materials from the neighboring planets.  Civilian mining complexes are springing up fairly regularly now.  I still have not put out my military vessel.  Working on getting some decent missiles to throw in it.  My JG constructor is nearly finished.  It will have been about 25 years though.  Do you normally get out much quicker?

[Erik L]

Within the first month if I've started with JP survey done, or in the first year if not.

[NoonStar (OP)]

I havnt seen drones yet.  Still have alot to learn. 

[ZimRathbone]

The trick is DONT use a Conventional Empire Start  when creating a game - you then have to research all the basic techs (which takes forever)   Use the Trans Newtonian Empire, and assign starting tech automatically & create the ship designs automatically too.  This will usually give at leeast the basics required to do a gravsurvy & create a number of jump capable designs

[Waffles]

On my current and first game, it took me roughly sixty years to reach anything outside Sol. Neutronium shortage is my biggest hinderance right now, damned mineral is hard to find.

[Steve Walmsley]

Time of Departure.

How long does it usually take you to exit Sol? I've been in the system for over 20 years now.  Earth's resources have near run dry.  I'm trying to speed up the influx of materials from the neighboring planets.  Civilian mining complexes are springing up fairly regularly now.  I still have not put out my military vessel.  Working on getting some decent missiles to throw in it.  My JG constructor is nearly finished.  It will have been about 25 years though.  Do you normally get out much quicker?

Usually within the first year if it is a TN start. The initial survey takes a few months and then I start exploring immediately.

Steve

[chrislocke2000]

About 12 years into my second attempt at the game now.  Managed to get out of the Sol system after about two years, the delay was largely due to the fact that I had run out of allocated research points to actually design a jump drive component before the start of the game.

My first extra solar planet was conolised just before the tenth anniversary of my start.  This was largely drive by the very poor levels of TN resources in Sol (Almost nothing on Earth and that already had key items like tritanium mined out, a few good deposits on Mars and one or two decent asteroids but thats about it) leaving me with colonies only on Mars.  This was killing my economy because of the lack of taxes on trade and colonist movements but seems to have stabilised a bit now that that has picked up.

As an aside, when you start the game do you reserve part of your starting research points to design and research relvant components or do you just insta design these? If I want to be on an equal footing the starting NPRs whats the approach to take?

[Brian Neumann]

I know with my games that I use all of my reasearch points for the background tech, and use the instant sm function to get the actual designs that are used.  Unless you are starting with a really huge (5billion) population you will need to do it that way or you will not have the points to do much reasearch.  This is also how the computer does it when you let it design your starting ships.  Try it out and see what you get.  If you let the computer design your initial ships, I usually reduce the starting total by 10% and keep track of those points on paper.  This lets me fill in major holes in the reasearch that the computer auto-generated.  I have had such wierd things as extremly good turret tracking speeds, and no beam weapons that could be put in them, stuff like that can often be filled in with fairly low point cost reasearch before you actually start the game.

Hope this helps you
Brian

[Steve Walmsley]

As an aside, when you start the game do you reserve part of your starting research points to design and research relvant components or do you just insta design these? If I want to be on an equal footing the starting NPRs whats the approach to take?

It's down to personal preference. I usually spend the points on background techs and then insta the components. Even once the game has started I will still insta components if they don't use any new background techs I have researched since game start. This saves me having to think up front of every component I might use.

Steve

[Sheb]

How do you assign starting research points?

[NoonStar (OP)]

How do you assign starting research points?

Go onto that thin little master toolbar. Go into the tab 'Spacemaster' and check 'spacemaster on'. Then you press f3 to get into your main screen and open up your research tab. Along with all normal research options, you will have a few extra ones. One is the 'instant' command. This instantly grants you a tech. There is also a little tab showing how many RP [Research Points] you have. It will keep track of how many points you spend. Of course you can go past this if you wish.

[Brian Neumann]

Go onto that thin little master toolbar. Go into the tab 'Spacemaster' and check 'spacemaster on'. Then you press f3 to get into your main screen and open up your research tab. Along with all normal research options, you will have a few extra ones. One is the 'instant' command. This instantly grants you a tech. There is also a little tab showing how many RP [Research Points] you have. It will keep track of how many points you spend. Of course you can go past this if you wish.

A note about this.  You only get the point total remaining if when you created the race you did not ask it to allocate the reasearch points.  If you did then they are already spent.  If you did not then there is a total remaining points left that you can spend while in SM mode.  This lets you know how many points of your initial points are still left and that is it.  Most people that I am aware of use these points for their background tech, and then when they are used up they design the systems that they want.  Once they have designed all of their systems they then use the "instant Rts" button to get all of these done before the start of the game

Brian

[Sheb]

Thanks!

[Erik L]

Go onto that thin little master toolbar. Go into the tab 'Spacemaster' and check 'spacemaster on'. Then you press f3 to get into your main screen and open up your research tab. Along with all normal research options, you will have a few extra ones. One is the 'instant' command. This instantly grants you a tech. There is also a little tab showing how many RP [Research Points] you have. It will keep track of how many points you spend. Of course you can go past this if you wish.

It's F2, not F3. And Ctrl-S is a shortcut to toggle SM Mode.

[voknaar]

I don't like using spacemaster unless its to fix a problem. for me its like bypassing a lot of the challenges of managing everything. I have 2 games one where i do what ever i like  and one where i go no SM. I'm still a cautious expander and very slow one too. I find it could take 10-20 years from start to grow into a extra-solar empire. Not looking forward to encountering other empires who are less apprehensive about borders and expansion, or combat.