Civs

[x2yzh9 (OP)]

How do i get them to start doing stuff? Currently, there's no civilians at all. No civilian shipping lines, even though i have a mars colony and stuff, i have commercial shipyards and the like. What do i need to do for them to start hauling cargo and such stuff?

[Jarhead0331]

Design civilian ships, ie. freighters, bulk haulers, luxury liners, etc. and the Civilian Lines will spring up and start buying/using them.

[Beersatron]

When designing the Freighters try and keep them below (and I need confirmation on this figure) 2000 buildpoints as this is the maximum starting wealth that a Civilian line starts with.

[AtomikKrab]

I have had those for years, no civilian lines... maybe I need to get those starports built on my colonies?

[sloanjh]

I have had those for years, no civilian lines... maybe I need to get those starports built on my colonies?

Did you start with a conventional, or a TN start?  There's beginning to be some suspicion that the conventional starts might be bugged - civie lines seem to not be showing up in some games (like mine) after many years.

In a recent post (I think in the bugs thread), Steve said that there's a prereq that you have at least one populated planet besides your homeworld.  After that, there's a certain % chance of one showing up every 5-day - I think it worked out to about 1 every 7 years on average.  This is about how long my game has had a populated planet, so the jury's still out on whether we think it's a bug.

It sounds like Spaceports don't have any effect on civie lines appearing, but I noticed in one of the tutorials what their use is - they cut load/unload times on the planet by a factor of (1+space_port_level).

John

[x2yzh9 (OP)]

A TN start.

[boggo2300]

I've never had civ shipping lines start without having a commercial spaceport built, not sure if it's actually the way it works, but I was a fair way in, and had mars pretty solidly colonised with no shipping, then built a commercial spaceport and within the year, 3 lines....

Matt

[AtomikKrab]

well I just started having civilian asteroid mining enterprises pop up, so I assume it's passed, no lines yet but I think I need a second colony with a spaceport, and that's a little ways off due to materials

[sloanjh]

well I just started having civilian asteroid mining enterprises pop up, so I assume it's passed, no lines yet but I think I need a second colony with a spaceport, and that's a little ways off due to materials

Civie mining isn't the problem - I've got a ton of them (and it uses a different part of the code) - it's the civie lines.  BTW, I've had a spaceport on both Mars and Earth for ages.

John

[boggo2300]

Well I've been known to throw a subsidy at a line to try and prompt it to do something.....

Matt

[sloanjh]

Well I've been known to throw a subsidy at a line to try and prompt it to do something.....

Matt

Which gives me "Please select a shipping line", of which there are none

I'm beginning to really like the idea of an SM (or even non-SM, if the start-up funds come out of government wealth) button "Create new shipping line".  I also thing the probability for creation should be bumped up, or the first line should appear automagically if certain criteria are met (e.g. when the first colony is big enough to have trade goods show up on its trade screen).

John

[Steve Walmsley]

When designing the Freighters try and keep them below (and I need confirmation on this figure) 2000 buildpoints as this is the maximum starting wealth that a Civilian line starts with.

They start with 1500, although you can give them extra money through subsidies. It is a good idea to have both cheap and expensive civ designs. The shipping lines will occasionally decide to buy a new ship and will generally pick the most expensive of the type they want (currently colony, freighter or liner). If they don't have enough money they will pass up on building anything so a cheap design is worth having. On the other hand, if they do have plenty of money you want them to buy the most expensive option available as that will generate more money in the long term so an expensive design is a good idea too.

Steve

[Steve Walmsley]

Well I've been known to throw a subsidy at a line to try and prompt it to do something.....

Matt

Which gives me "Please select a shipping line", of which there are none

I'm beginning to really like the idea of an SM (or even non-SM, if the start-up funds come out of government wealth) button "Create new shipping line".  I also thing the probability for creation should be bumped up, or the first line should appear automagically if certain criteria are met (e.g. when the first colony is big enough to have trade goods show up on its trade screen).

My intention was that conventional starts should have a single shipping line but I have found a bug that prevented that. It's fixed for v4.81 so new conventional starts will have a shipping line.

I think there is an SM-only Add Shipping Line button in v4.8

Steve

[Balibar]

Do the Civilians respond to mineral shortages?  In real life, a shortage of any mineral would raise the price for that mineral and provide incentive for civilians to exploit the high price by setting up a mining operation.

[mrwigggles]

Do the Civilians respond to mineral shortages?  In real life, a shortage of any mineral would raise the price for that mineral and provide incentive for civilians to exploit the high price by setting up a mining operation.

No, they appear randomly one to 1-million chance. If this number rolls under your racial wealth they forum a new one, and a check is made every 5 days I think. They also expand their mining operation with a roll of one to 4-million, if its under your racial wealth they'll pop a new mine.

I would like to see civvie mining mass driver packets in the system view.

As for shipping lanes appearing. I seem to always get enough to to never have a need to build colony ships, and they take care of my misc. delivery needs. I tend to use my cargo fleets for mass repeating jobs, like take x from a 400 times.

I also have about 8 ships they can use. They have a crap luxury liner, a crap jump capable luxury liner, modern jump luxury liner. A crap colony ship, a modern colony ship, a crap freight a modern freighter and a crap geo ship.

They mostly build the crap freighter and colony ships. I've made those obsolete to encourage the sales of the modern one, as the system I plan on colonizing jump point is at pluto orbital line. And thats a two month journey for them.