- 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.