New Player

[Zed 6 (OP)]

Hi everyone. New player here. I am enjoying the game immensely. There is a lot of work put into it and thanks for letting us play it.  The tutorials have been very helpful in learning the basics. And the forums have a lot of answers from other players. I statred with 5.02 but have updated to 5.14. Some questions /comments so far.

My leaders seem to die off/retire  way too quickly. Especially annoying is a survey team which is just starting to get some rating to it and the team leader dies off. (The team leader usually has the best rating). Never does it seem to be the newbie/lowest rated  on the team. Anyway to stop them dying off?  Maybe have a mandatory retirement age so they stick around longer, but not forever.

Maintenance failures. Are military vessels more susceptible to failures than commercial ships? This seems backwards to me as real military vessels are way more better maintained than any commercial ship. Commercial ships only fix things when absolutely necessary. Is there any way to reduce the odds of maintenance failures?

In a 5.02 game right before I updated, I found a planet that had lots of minerals but it's colonization cost was "N/A" Does that mean I can't colonize it at all?  Tried asteroid miners but they apparently only work on asteroids. Is that true? What would be the best way to mine such a planet?

Is there a shortcut to the System Generation and Display page. Found this thru the Galactic map by double clicking on a system. Also the first column on this page either has an "M" or an "S"-. What do these stand for?

What's the best page for seeing what's been surveyed or not? On a system level.

All for now  thanks

ps one other comment: I know after reading the post that the screen resolution is not going to change. However I still would like to voice my opinion on this subject albeit late. Other than very high end and expensive laptops, the resolution is not supported. The 2 software solutions did not work for me as they are haphazard at best and not reliable in which windows will work. The suggestion of buying new equipment was not thought all the way thru. I do have a 22" monitor at home which works just fine but I also travel for a living. Dragging a monitor along is just not practical. Luckily I am able to use XP and the floating desktop. But I don't believe this is available on windows 7. I fully understand Steve is not going to change it and he made the game for himself primarily, but once it's made available like it is to everyone on the internet, maybe some consideration should be given for the future.  Just my 2 cents.

[sloanjh]

My leaders seem to die off/retire  way too quickly. Especially annoying is a survey team which is just starting to get some rating to it and the team leader dies off. (The team leader usually has the best rating). Never does it seem to be the newbie/lowest rated  on the team. Anyway to stop them dying off?  Maybe have a mandatory retirement age so they stick around longer, but not forever.

No.  There has been talk about making longevity race-based, though.

Maintenance failures. Are military vessels more susceptible to failures than commercial ships? This seems backwards to me as real military vessels are way more better maintained than any commercial ship. Commercial ships only fix things when absolutely necessary. Is there any way to reduce the odds of maintenance failures?

Yes.  Put engineering sections in your ships.  Note that the important number is the estimated time until exhaustion of maintenance (don't remember exact name), since big ships break down faster, but have more spares.  You should tune this to ~3-5 years.  Note that maintenance for commercial designs is abstracted away - tracking it in the game led to a lot of bookkeeping for little game play reward.

In a 5.02 game right before I updated, I found a planet that had lots of minerals but it's colonization cost was "N/A" Does that mean I can't colonize it at all?  Tried asteroid miners but they apparently only work on asteroids. Is that true? What would be the best way to mine such a planet?

This means that the body can't support a population of your race, probably due to the gravity being wrong.  You can still put an unmanned colony there with e.g. automines and a mass driver and/or listening post.  I prefer automines over asteroid mining ships, btw.

Is there a shortcut to the System Generation and Display page. Found this thru the Galactic map by double clicking on a system. Also the first column on this page either has an "M" or an "S"-. What do these stand for?

F9

What's the best page for seeing what's been surveyed or not? On a system level.

F9

John

[The Shadow]

"S" means the body has been surveyed, but doesn't have minerals.

"M" means the body has been surveyed, and does have minerals.

A blank in that column means the body hasn't been surveyed.

Personally, I find it easiest to use the system map to tell what bodies have minerals and which don't.  The minerals tab has an option for highlighting bodies with minerals with a green circle, and also has a tree showing the exact amounts.

[AndonSage]

Zed,

Just in case you wondered, the F9 System Generation and Display screen can be used to place a colony on any system body. Just click on the system body where you want the colony, and click the Add Colony button at the bottom of the screen. One thing to understand, as a new player, is that a colony does not require population. You can place a colony on an asteroid, so you can mine it, but you won't be shipping any people to it.

[Zed 6 (OP)]

Thank you for your quick and highly useful replies. In 19 months so far in a new game- 5 leaders have med problems, one had a med problem and retired (scientist) and 2 dead- one accident and one natural causes. Ought to be an option to turn that off and let them automatically retire at 90.  

[The Shadow]

You can also create a colony by right-clicking on the body on the system map and selecting "create a colony".  Or just by unloading colonists or mines or the like.

[Judicator]

You can also create a colony by right-clicking on the body on the system map and selecting "create a colony".  Or just by unloading colonists or mines or the like.

This is absolutely essential if you want to mine an asteroid/comet. They won't mine until there's a population on the asteroid/comet, even if it's a population of 0.0 they will still mine out minerals there. On the map, zoom to the asteroid/comet to be mined, right click on it, scroll down to the last option, and then click 'create population' and there you have it. Once that's done simply have the miner go into 'extended orbit' around the asteroid/comet. And don't forget to put a mass driver on the asteroid/comet to be mined AND MORE IMPORTANTLY ONE ON YOUR HOME PLANET. But if you feel like using a ship to transport the minerals from the mine you can use a freighter if you plan on doing it manually via ship.

By the way, for an easier time, next game, just tick off the overhaul and maintenance button so you don't need to worry about that.

[Zed 6 (OP)]

Is there any point to colonizing Mars (the only colonizable body (for people) other than Earth.) Most of the minerals in the Sol system are on Venus.

[AndonSage]

Is there any point to colonizing Mars (the only colonizable body (for people) other than Earth.) Most of the minerals in the Sol system are on Venus.

Civilian shipping will produce wealth for you, if they have another colony with people to trade with.