Random questions

[vorpal+5 (OP)]

1- Is retooling a SY costing something but time?

2- Can someone explain how to use load/unload minerals to reserve level without having a DB error? It is a chore to maintain minerals without it but I get errors each time I use it.

[DIT_grue]

1- Is retooling a SY costing something but time?

Yes, it costs minerals and wealth. What was it... ah, here we go: (BP cost of the ship class being retooled to) x (0.5 + (number of slipways x 0.25)).

[MarcAFK]

1) Retooling a shipyard costs duranium and neutronium, it costs far less to retool to similar ship than to a very different ship. Heres an example:
This naval yard:

Is tooled for the following:

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Johannes Kepler class Survey Ship    3 850 tons     67 Crew     302.25 BP      TCS 77  TH 25  EM 0
324 km/s     Armour 1-21     Shields 0-0     Sensors 5/1/0/1     Damage Control Rating 5     PPV 0
MSP 245    Max Repair 100 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months    Spare Berths 2   

SpaceX Velociraptor 25 EP Commercial Sorium engine (1)    Power 25    Fuel Use 8.84%    Signature 25    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 330 000 Litres    Range 174.2 billion km   (6221 days at full power)

Thales TSA TH1-5 (1)     Sensitivity 5     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  5m km
Geological Survey Sensors (1)   1 Survey Points Per Hour

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposesRetooling for the same ship but with Grav sensors instead of geo sensors is reasonably cheap:

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Rontgen class Survey Ship    3 850 tons     67 Crew     303.25 BP      TCS 77  TH 25  EM 0
324 km/s     Armour 1-21     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/6/1/0     Damage Control Rating 5     PPV 0
Maint Life 13.29 Years     MSP 246    AFR 23%    IFR 0.3%    1YR 3    5YR 39    Max Repair 100 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months    Spare Berths 2   

SpaceX Velociraptor 25 EP Commercial Sorium engine (1)    Power 25    Fuel Use 8.84%    Signature 25    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 330 000 Litres    Range 174.2 billion km   (6221 days at full power)

Raytheon EMSB EM1-6 (1)     Sensitivity 6     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  6m km
Gravitational Survey Sensors (1)   1 Survey Points Per Hour

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

However, Retooling for a totally different ship would cost more.

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Dagger - B class Missile Boat    3 600 tons     98 Crew     323.3 BP      TCS 72  TH 29  EM 0
402 km/s     Armour 2-20     Shields 0-0     Sensors 10/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 15
Maint Life 3 Years     MSP 56    AFR 103%    IFR 1.4%    1YR 9    5YR 140    Max Repair 42 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Spare Berths 0   
Magazine 80   

SpaceX Velociraptor HTX 14.3 EP Sorium engine (2)    Power 14.3    Fuel Use 110.41%    Signature 14.3    Exp 11%
Fuel Capacity 270 000 Litres    Range 12.2 billion km   (351 days at full power)

General Dynamics S4  Missile Launcher r1 (75% Reduction) (5)    Missile Size 4    Rate of Fire 240
Raytheon MFC 12-5 FC21-R100  (1)     Range 21.6m km    Resolution 100
S4 ASM Cranky Pidgeon (20)  Speed: 1 500 km/s   End: 243.3m    Range: 21.9m km   WH: 3    Size: 4    TH: 5/3/1

Raytheon ASS 12-5 MR21-R100 (1)     GPS 4200     Range 21.0m km    Resolution 100
Thales TSA TH2-10 (1)     Sensitivity 10     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  10m km

Missile to hit chances are vs targets moving at 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

[vorpal+5 (OP)]

ok thanks.

What about the mysterious question (1). Tangential question, if it is widespread knowledge it is buggy, how do you manage maintaining constant mineral supplies through your colonies without this order.

3 - Fuel Production research. Do you consume more sorium when you produce more fuel?

[83athom]

What about the mysterious question (1). Tangential question, if it is widespread knowledge it is buggy, how do you manage maintaining constant mineral supplies through your colonies without this order.

Several ways;
1) Use auto-mines on uninhabitable planets in that system with large deposits of resources, then mass-driver those resources to the colony you wish to grow.
2) Like 1, except you encourage CMC growth then purchase their outputs and MD those resources to your colony (CMCs have inbuilt mass drivers, so that saves you more resources). IIRC the number is around 10 to 20 100 million population on a colony in system. If you just drop infrastructure and Financial Centers on the colony, CMCs will pop up in time.
3) Create a Mass-Driver web/tree. This one is the hardest (and most redundant) method. You have many, many smaller mining planets, each sending their outputs to various depot planets (that usually also have mining facilities), which then they can fire/ship resources to other planets as needed/constantly. And then those planets at the end of the line can also shoot/ship off some resources on a needed basis.

3 - Fuel Production research. Do you consume more sorium when you produce more fuel?

Yes. That research just boosts the rate at which each facility can refine, not improving the Sorium/Fuel efficiency ratio.

[Paul M]

I am not sure why you are having an error.  But I use an earlier version.  I can say I set reserve levels all the time and then use the "load all minerals" command  to load a freighter with the minerals above that reserve level without a problem.  You can also use the load all minerals from one planet, jump to a different system use the unload all minerals to a planet with specific reserve levels set and then use the load all minearls to harvest off the minerals above that planet's reserve level and move to another planet in another system.  This also works for the same planets in the same system equally easily.

Mass drivers only work in one system, so I have some small self jump capable freighters that I use to distribute resources as I need them.  It isn't really a big issue since it takes time to build up stockpiles anyway so you have to issue orders to the freighter once or twice a year.

CMCs are interesting...so far even though the NCC has 2 major (25 million+) and 3 minor colony systems (11 million) plus 4 developing colony systems (<3 million) not a single extra solar CMC has showed up. Yet there have been new CMCs show up in Sol...and those systems have eligable rocks for the CMC.  As I understand it...there should have been something by now.  I'm a bit baffled by what is going on.  The wiki indicates the threshold population is 10 million...and I have Sol + 5 systems with that.   I suspect the logic is backwards, it should determine if a CMC is produced and then determine where it goes based on the ranking of the available sites or some random choice among available sites.

[83athom]

CMCs are interesting...so far even though the NCC has 2 major (25 million+) and 3 minor colony systems (11 million) plus 4 developing colony systems (<3 million) not a single extra solar CMC has showed up. Yet there have been new CMCs show up in Sol...and those systems have eligable rocks for the CMC.  As I understand it...there should have been something by now.  I'm a bit baffled by what is going on.  The wiki indicates the threshold population is 10 million...and I have Sol + 5 systems with that.   I suspect the logic is backwards, it should determine if a CMC is produced and then determine where it goes based on the ranking of the available sites or some random choice among available sites.

I guess the number is actually 100m on a single colony in system then, because my 2 extrasolar colonies that have over 100m pop in my current game (which I just lost because of Windows recovery) definitely has CMCs while the 3 others that only have 10-15m don't yet.

[Detros]

I guess the number is actually 100m on a single colony in system then, because my 2 extrasolar colonies that have over 100m pop in my current game (which I just lost because of Windows recovery) definitely has CMCs while the 3 others that only have 10-15m don't yet.

No, that much is not needed. According to wiki a system with 10M population is enough. Are you sure there are possible sites for CMC in those systems? It goes: Duranium or Sorium, 15k or more, 0.7 acc or more, less than 80 AU from the star and currently with no colony. If such places do exist you may just need higher economy to get more rolls.

I have posted

Yay for the first civilian mining colony established in other system than Sol. And this one is definitely not going to be used for selling ores to civilian market.

when I had just like "41M in 3 populations" in that system.

[Paul M]

The economy issue can't be that serious since when a comet in Sol was close enough to survey and was found to be suitable within 2 months a CMC was established.   I think it is this whole 50% chance per population, something I don't really fathom.   At the moment Sol has no sites so that is a major blocker.  Alpha C and the next most populus systems I'll look again but I am fairly sure both have at least one rock that is suitable.  The three smaller system (around 11 million population each) I think only 1 has sites that are suitable but it has lots of potential sites.

It is more than a tad frustrating at the moment.

[vorpal+5 (OP)]

Related to -1- the question is specifically on the order named 'load/unload minerals to reserve level', which is definitively buggy. Either it generates a DB error, or it never get erased from the list of orders.
The good news is that it is possible to emulate it with a unload all minerals and then a load all minerals. So this settle the issue for me, I can automate shipping lane and that's good 

New questions:

-4- How to I manage to initiate communications with NPR? I have some 400+ relationships with them and a diplo team. Subsidiary question, on which scale is relationship level, is +400 very good or just the beginning of friendliness?

-5- Are the extra minerals on a planet (in need of a geo survey team) generated beforehand, or a poor geo team can screw the chances of finding something... ?

[Paul M]

I can't answer 4 as the only NPRs I ran into communicate only via message packets of the nuclear sort.

As far as 5 goes the chance of new minerals is not given by the geosurvey team, only the time it takes to get to the point where the check is made for minerals depends on them.  So it will take a low skilled geosurvey team longer to conduct the surface survey but if there is additional minerals is purely random.  My understanding of the situation is:  after the ground survey completes (time based on geosurvey team skill) then each mineral is checked with a small chance of an effective change to the amount of mineral or availability or both.  The wiki confirms this as well.

Ground surveys are worth it but it is a crap shoot.

[DIT_grue]

-4- How to I manage to initiate communications with NPR? I have some 400+ relationships with them and a diplo team. Subsidiary question, on which scale is relationship level, is +400 very good or just the beginning of friendliness?

If you look at the list, it's pretty much "just the beginning of friendliness". Note that what you see is your empire's opinion of them; you never get to see exactly what they think of you, though you can get an idea from which treaties they give you.

[83athom]

-4- How to I manage to initiate communications with NPR? I have some 400+ relationships with them and a diplo team.

There is a "Initiate communication" button above where your relationship number is.

-5- Are the extra minerals on a planet (in need of a geo survey team) generated beforehand, or a poor geo team can screw the chances of finding something... ?

A bad Geo-survey team can mess it up. When a team based survey is done, it is essentially a second generation of mineral content which is added on top of existing minerals.

[Detros]

There is a "Initiate communication" button above where your relationship number is.
A bad Geo-survey team can mess it up.

No, though it used to be so. Now it just takes more time for bad teams.

[Garfunkel]

Yes, that is correct. It used to be that bad teams found nothing unless they got really lucky and then better teams found loads of stuff. Steve changed it so that time taken depends on skill and body size but the amount found is random, not based on team skill.