Inactive shipping lines?

[Shadow (OP)]

Uh, when are the civilian companies supposed to wake up and start working? I deemed Mars a human colony about two years ago and built 1000 infrastructure on Earth before setting up the necessary supply/demand contracts to ask for its transfer to the red planet. But my only shipping line has done nothing but sit on its (mostly subsidized) 7500 wealth all that time. It hasn't built ships nor anything, despite I've designed a commercial freighter and commercial colony ship long ago.

What gives?

[sloanjh]

Uh, when are the civilian companies supposed to wake up and start working? I deemed Mars a human colony about two years ago and built 1000 infrastructure on Earth before setting up the necessary supply/demand contracts to ask for its transfer to the red planet. But my only shipping line has done nothing but sit on its (mostly subsidized) 7500 wealth all that time. It hasn't built ships nor anything, despite I've designed a commercial freighter and commercial colony ship long ago.

What gives?

I think they don't wake up until you have an actual populated off-world colony, although you might be able to get away with just having infrastructure on Mars (creating a demand for humans).  So you need to build a freighter and/or colony ship to plant a seed colony on Mars.  The other option is simply to go to SM mode, close then open the F2 screen (so that the SM buttons show up) then use the "SM Mods" button to plant a seed colony by hand.

John

[Shadow (OP)]

I've been shipping infrastructure to Mars using my own freighters for some time now, but I haven't sent any colonists yet. I guess I should take some people there.

[sloanjh]

I've been shipping infrastructure to Mars using my own freighters for some time now, but I haven't sent any colonists yet. I guess I should take some people there.

That should do it.  Note that in the conventional start I'm playing right now, it took them a few months (or maybe even a year or two) to wake up and build a ship after I'd populated Mars.  Basically, I just put 100 infrastructure there, shipped as many colonists as that would support, then left it until the civie line woke up.

John

[Shadow (OP)]

Turns out the civilian shipping line woke up before I managed to plop some colonists on Mars. They managed to launch two freighters and one colony ship within 6 months.

I seem to be having another problem, unrelated to this one: the Increment Time is being rather rebellious. I tell it to jump days or hours and it chooses to skip 10-30 seconds instead, for no apparent reason. I've checked the Events, and nothing's happening to warrant such small hops.

[sloanjh]

Turns out the civilian shipping line woke up before I managed to plop some colonists on Mars. They managed to launch two freighters and one colony ship within 6 months.

I seem to be having another problem, unrelated to this one: the Increment Time is being rather rebellious. I tell it to jump days or hours and it chooses to skip 10-30 seconds instead, for no apparent reason. I've checked the Events, and nothing's happening to warrant such small hops.

Read the tutorial on time increments, plus Steve's recent (within the last month or two) threads in mechanics about timesteps.  Basically, there are NPR out there that are fighting with each other.  The thing to do is just turn on "automated turns" and go have lunch while they fight their battle

John