Conventional Start Questions

[Lexusjjss (OP)]

Captain Noob reporting in! Anyway, I figure I'm about a solid third of the way up the learning cliff.   I've got the interface down, have constructed colonies and expanded over a few star systems.   And now I want to try a Conventional Start game, but I've run into a few problems:

- When I start a game with the prebuilt missile silos/PDCs on, whenever I advance time I get an infinite loop error and have to end the process.   I do want a measure of defense, any workarounds?

- I noticed that before you get Construction Factories unlocked, there's an installation referred to as, IIRC, Conventional Industry.   Is there any way to make more of these, since Construction Factories take forever early-game. 

- If I start conventionally, do NPR's start at that level as well? If not, it seems like they would have a massive tech lead over you. 

- Should I bother making a ship with Conventional engine tech, or should I wait for Nuclear/Ion?

- Any other startup tips? Favorite research paths? What to construct?

Thanks for reading, and I apologize if I missed smething obvious.   I still suck.  

[Paul M]

Captain Noob reporting in! Anyway, I figure I'm about a solid third of the way up the learning cliff.   I've got the interface down, have constructed colonies and expanded over a few star systems.   And now I want to try a Conventional Start game, but I've run into a few problems:

- When I start a game with the prebuilt missile silos/PDCs on, whenever I advance time I get an infinite loop error and have to end the process.   I do want a measure of defense, any workarounds?

This did not happen to me so I think this is a bug and should be reported in that forum.

- I noticed that before you get Construction Factories unlocked, there's an installation referred to as, IIRC, Conventional Industry.   Is there any way to make more of these, since Construction Factories take forever early-game. 

The only thing you can build in the start up phase is financial centres from what I recall.  But once you get TN tech developed then you can convert your starting conventional industry to the advanced version.  I convereted first 100 CI to 100 CF then converted 100 CI to 100 Mines and then 100 CI to 100 CF and then 100 CI to 100 Mines and then converted the last 100 CI to 65 Refineries, 30 Ordinance factories and 5 Fighter factories.  Conversion is relatively quick.

- If I start conventionally, do NPR's start at that level as well? If not, it seems like they would have a massive tech lead over you. 

So far as I understand it they start with TN technology so yes you are way behind tech wise.  As in "oh wow my ship just exploded and I never even saw the attack coming."

- Should I bother making a ship with Conventional engine tech, or should I wait for Nuclear/Ion?

Why not?  You will be waiting any number of years before you get that and you can explore your inner system with a tanker and geosurvey ship fairly easily while you wait.

- Any other startup tips? Favorite research paths? What to construct?

You could look at my AAR for possible pitfalls you might like to avoid.  I am fairly sure I blundered into every possible thing you should avoid, I was stumbling from crisis to crisis.  What determines things for you is the amount of goodies you give yourself early game.  You have to build a lot of "infrastructure" objects...research labs, mines, factories, ship yards and so that in a normal start you get for free so you need a lot of duranium and neutronium available to you or else you will hit a wall.  The civillians likely will come to your aid but it is still a good idea to make sure your starting homeworld has a good supply of those two minerals.

What I did tech wise was after I built up 6 research labs (having started with 2) was devote 3 to Construction/Production.  1 to Logistics and the other 2 to whatever it was I wanted.  This was for several years/decades my distribution. 

Patience is a requirement, nothing (good) will happen fast.

[Lexusjjss (OP)]

Oh, so that's what the "CI to Installation" construction order is! Thanks, completely whooshed that. 

As for the bug, I believe it was already posted, but I can't link to it as I'm writing this on a mobile.   It was in the first few pages of the most recent bug thread. 

I guess I'm kinda boned regarding starting NPRs, but once I tech up to TN starting, I should be on equal grounds with any generated afterwards, right?

EDIT: Gah, I don't normally spell this bad.

[Paul M]

Well as far as newly generated NPRs I don't have a clue.  It depends on if they are genated with respect to you or with respect to the game clock.  If the later you are equally looped since you take a long time (in my case 50 years) to equal the typical minimal starting conditions.

But a great deal depends on what your initial starting conditions are.  Just saying a conventional start doesn't mean that much since it depends highly critically on how many research labs you begin with.  That defines the minium time to get TN tech researched (also if you start with a scientist that has the CP speciality).  That is dead time when the NPRs will be advancing ahead of you.  After that well as you have to develop everything it does take a fair bit of time to get even your first ship operational. 

[DTF]

- When I start a game with the prebuilt missile silos/PDCs on, whenever I advance time I get an infinite loop error and have to end the process.    I do want a measure of defense, any workarounds?

Had this bug as well.  Delete all of the missile silos, enter SpaceMaster mode and 'cheat' them back in.  It has something to do with PDCs placed by the game at start not behaving properly - any other PDC built (or SM'ed in) is fine.

- Should I bother making a ship with Conventional engine tech, or should I wait for Nuclear/Ion?

- Any other startup tips? Favorite research paths? What to construct?

Thanks for reading, and I apologize if I missed smething obvious.    I still suck.   

If you like roleplaying it, you can build a vessel with conv.  engines.  But since all the useful equipment is unlocked with TN tech (i. e.  geosurvey scanners) there's no point to it beyond said RP reason.
I put 80% of my first research into trans-newtonian to unlock eveything else.  Techs to avoid mineral shortages should have priority after that.  Minerals, minerals, duranium, minerals, corundium, minerals!!! Conventional start forces you build up everything from scratch, which consumes A LOT of minerals.  Asteroid mining module and the mining production techs are crucial here.  Comets hold an absurd amount of high accessibility minerals, but require automines, asteroid miners or mines+orbital habitats to be mined.  Out of all these options, the AM module is the most economical in my opinion.  AMs are big - thus you will need a big shipyard, which points to commercial shipyards.  Dont go overboard with expanding your starting military shipyard as it will consume a lot of minerals, focus on commercials instead.  If you research the tractor beam (extremely useful), you can forgo adding engines and fuel storage to AMs, in turn increasing their production.

If possible, build a couple more research labs and spread out your labs over the most promising scientists to get them to train.  Give more labs to your PP guy (engine techs are always worth dumping a lot of RP into them) and the scientists researching in the CP tree.  And dont neglect the armor technologies - better armor means less HS spent on 'dead weight'.
Except for that few labs for training purposes, weapon tech trees dont get any loving from me for the first 20 years. 

[Lexusjjss (OP)]

Had this bug as well.   Delete all of the missile silos, enter SpaceMaster mode and 'cheat' them back in.   It has something to do with PDCs placed by the game at start not behaving properly - any other PDC built (or SM'ed in) is fine. 

Thanks! I didn't know if it affected all PDCs, or only the ones you start with.  :/

[Maltay]

Captain Noob reporting in! Anyway, I figure I'm about a solid third of the way up the learning cliff.   I've got the interface down, have constructed colonies and expanded over a few star systems.   And now I want to try a Conventional Start game, but I've run into a few problems:

- When I start a game with the prebuilt missile silos/PDCs on, whenever I advance time I get an infinite loop error and have to end the process.   I do want a measure of defense, any workarounds?

The game is sometimes generating ICBM PDC with the wrong design, despite what the Design screen otherwise states.  Specifically, the game will sometimes use the pre-v6.00 design which does not account for berthing or morale.  This causes all sorts of errors when you then try to play.  This also happens with Fast OB Creation (Shift + F9).  In a multi faction start, it will occur for some factions but not others.  I have yet to determine the pattern behind this error.