Aurora 4x

New Players => The Academy => Topic started by: Person012345 on October 22, 2011, 09:13:36 PM

Title: Moving minerals
Post by: Person012345 on October 22, 2011, 09:13:36 PM
Is there a way I can get my civilian lines to move minerals from planet to planet for me?
Title: Re: Moving minerals
Post by: scoopdjm on October 22, 2011, 09:19:38 PM
step 1: search (unless already done)
step 2:????????????
step 3: profit!

better known as the df process

in all serious though I'm in my third campaign and if it doesn't give you the option to do it in the contract menu then ur probably outta luck, srry.  Although assuming you got some big-#@& freighters it's usually not to big a deal to do it urself.
Title: Re: Moving minerals
Post by: Person012345 on October 22, 2011, 09:29:01 PM
Quote from: scoopdjm link=topic=4257. msg41791#msg41791 date=1319336378
step 1: search (unless already done)
step 2:????????????
step 3: profit!

better known as the df process

in all serious though I'm in my third campaign and if it doesn't give you the option to do it in the contract menu then ur probably outta luck, srry.   Although assuming you got some big-#@& freighters it's usually not to big a deal to do it urself. 
Still learning the game, and it's one of my first, started a conventional start, ended up doing things a bit backward since I didn't know what I was doing.  As a result I don't yet have a commercial shipyard, and big ass freighters are out of my build capacity at the moment.  It would speed things up if I could ship some minerals to where I need them to be.  :3

Although I'm getting the idea of it now.  To be honest, I'm not really sure I even have any minerals to ship, looking at it.  I thought I did but forgot about some construction I'd queued.  Which might be why I don't have the option of shipping any I guess? Well, some civvies have set up a mining colony on Charon, so maybe I'll be able to once I've set them to give me their delicious minerals? I'll do that search you suggested.  >. >
Title: Re: Moving minerals
Post by: scoopdjm on October 22, 2011, 09:30:33 PM
Ok, well first question where are you shipping to? mars I assume?

my bad, I assume your shipping to earth?

I would either a. build a small freighter and have it repeatedly ship or b. build mass drivers, which basically throw smeg intra-system. If you have a productive quality on charon you could build the mass driver their or build one on earth and ship that their. Also keep in mind you need a mass driver on earth or you'll likely end up killing 99.999% of your starting pop.

EDIT: I don't know about cmc's (civilian mining colonies) they usually don't show up for me.

EDIT EDIT: well, i guess that it works on that if its civilian you can buy the minerals for 250 wealth a year. I don't think this transports them however
Title: Re: Moving minerals
Post by: Girlinhat on October 22, 2011, 09:55:41 PM
Mass Drivers or player-controlled ships.  Civilian shipping lines will help push colonists and infrastructure, but they don't care about minerals, which I'm thankful for.  The last thing I want is for a civilian superfreighter to take all my corrundium and move it to some backwater outpost...

Mass drivers are preferred, they cost no fuel and almost zero management.  Just turn them off if you think you might be under attack, if the enemy bombards you and destroys your mass driver, then you'll be in for a lot more bombardments~

Also mass drivers are safer now, there's several "Oops!" Events that stop you from killing yourself like that.
Title: Re: Moving minerals
Post by: Person012345 on October 22, 2011, 10:02:35 PM
I gather you have to transport the minerals yourself from civvie mining colonies.

And an example - I was planning to ship some tritanium to mars to help get it's construction industry going, so I can build some mines so I can get the resources.  I could do this on earth, except I'm already building mines for earth on earth (like I said, doing things backwards because I am just playing around and getting used to how to do things - my first time colonising, I didn't realise I actually needed construction factories ready to ship to mars so that it could build things, I didn't realise I'd need mines etc.  All very trial and error atm).  Also, when it starts producing resources, I'd like to know my options for moving them and such in the future (whether it's possible to use civvie lines, or whether I have to do it manually/with a mass driver).  Additionally, I have one civilian shipping company which is dying and I want to give it some things to do as well.

Edit:
Quote
Mass Drivers or player-controlled ships.   Civilian shipping lines will help push colonists and infrastructure, but they don't care about minerals, which I'm thankful for.
Ah, so there is no way to move them using lines? Fair enough.
Title: Re: Moving minerals
Post by: scoopdjm on October 22, 2011, 10:05:24 PM
Well for your example it is really better to just prefab 50 auto mines on earth ship em to mars then ship the minerals back       EDIT: if ur just after resources just auto mine stuff.
Title: Re: Moving minerals
Post by: sloanjh on October 22, 2011, 10:59:26 PM
I gather you have to transport the minerals yourself from civvie mining colonies.
If you switch them to "purchase minerals" rather than "collect taxes" (don't have the game open, so names might be off), then you'll be able to set a mass driver target.  Put a mass driver on Earth and you can tell them to target Earth.

To move minerals from Earth to Mars, the simplest thing is to load them in a freighter using the "Load X tons" command.  A couple of gotchas:

1)  The number you enter will stay there and can cause silly things like "Move to Mars x1000".  You need to have a valid "Load X" command selected in order to set the number back to 0 (normal mode).

2)  "Unload" unloads all the minerals of that type onboard, so you don't have to do anything like "Unload X".
John
Title: Re: Moving minerals
Post by: Ashery on October 23, 2011, 03:21:47 AM
Well for your example it is really better to just prefab 50 auto mines on earth ship em to mars then ship the minerals back       EDIT: if ur just after resources just auto mine stuff.

Except that civilian shipping will actually generate wealth for both you and their company by moving colonists around. I've heard people recommend starting a colony on Mars even if there are no minerals for the sole reason to jump start the civilian sector.

Note that automines take twice as long to produce as their manned counterparts. So, while you'll certainly be building a significant number of automines to take advantage of uninhabitable, but resource rich worlds, realize that, in terms of upfront production costs, manned mines can produce the same amount of minerals at 0.5 accessibility as automines can produce at 1.

As far as moving construction factories, I'm the type that has a centralized industrial sector. Hell, the only non-mining industrial buildings I have that are currently not on earth are nine terraforming stations and a genetic engineering center (Found in ruins) on Titan and four ground control training facilities on Luna (Nice little "exploit" to take advantage of a smegty civilian governor that has a 30% training bonus. Required me to build a small orbital habitat, though, but it's still far cheaper than the equivalent increase in production through straight facility construction). Oh, and a level two sector command in the system next to Sol, but that's actually going to be my future industrial center (Once I vent 13atm worth of gasses). Nothing like 9mil duranium at 0.9. What's funny, though, is that that sector command has been constructed entirely by engineering companies. Currently taking a couple months under two years to build each level.
Title: Re: Moving minerals
Post by: Yonder on October 23, 2011, 09:27:26 AM
Except that civilian shipping will actually generate wealth for both you and their company by moving colonists around. I've heard people recommend starting a colony on Mars even if there are no minerals for the sole reason to jump start the civilian sector.

That's one of my strategies. I also set my gravity tolerance so that I can colonize Luna and do that as well.

I generally have a very healthy shipping industry by the time I leave Sol.
Title: Re: Moving minerals
Post by: Thiosk on October 23, 2011, 03:30:34 PM
I have requested a logistical tool to make mineral transport, distribution, and monitoring of minerals somewhat easier, without involving civ industry, and Steve seemed amenable to the idea.  I was hoping for 5.44 but he's a little busy modeling his insane plot to impart newtonian physics unto Aurora :)
Title: Re: Moving minerals
Post by: scoopdjm on October 23, 2011, 05:25:20 PM
How, dare you sir! Do you realize the punishment for heresy (against steve) is DEATH!?!?!?

although I would agree that would be nice.
Title: Re: Moving minerals
Post by: Girlinhat on October 23, 2011, 06:51:27 PM
I've not quite understood the importance of economy yet.  I know that you get taxes and such from colonies, and that research stations use these taxes, but what do they do otherwise?  What's the important of the cash economy?  I've been entirely concerned about the hard resource economy of moving mines and building ships.
Title: Re: Moving minerals
Post by: scoopdjm on October 23, 2011, 06:58:36 PM
Well this is how the cash economy works:

income:
You get income from trade taxes and cmcs or civilian mining colonies, you also get income from other things but that's irrelevant.

Spending:
When you do ANYTHING you spend cash, whether it be building ships or anything else.

Result:
You can check your cash by pressing (F2) and lookin in the top right, it'll be in the blue bar on top.
usually you generate ALOT more cash than you spend so usually it doesn't matter, but you can use this cash to subsidize shipping lines or buy minerals from cmcs

Debt: IF you do go into debt you'll see a negative number like -48,000 when you go into debt it doesn't do too much but it does slow things down proportionally
Title: Re: Moving minerals
Post by: Thiosk on October 23, 2011, 07:00:00 PM
Everything you do costs some cashmoneydollars.  So when you're doing your early buildup, taxes cover everything nicely.  Once you research the industry techs-- research rate, construction rate, mining rate-- each installation is now consuming 20% more cashmoneydollars for each bit of output!   Once you get some serious factories put together and a lot of research bases, we're talking about some SERIOUS increase in expenditure.

I've generally seen my money building steadily, then PLUMMETING to crisis levels.  Financial installations generate cash equal to about 1 million people, so they're a great way for breaking even when populations are low.  They also cannot be moved.  As you extinguish mining worlds of their hard resources, consider dropping off some construction factories and requisite material to gradually convert the planet to a financial world.  Those places will generate BOATLOADS of cashmoneydollars.
Title: Re: Moving minerals
Post by: scoopdjm on October 23, 2011, 07:08:13 PM
pffffffft, my explanation was better.

in any case know that finances are mui importante
Title: Re: Moving minerals
Post by: Girlinhat on October 23, 2011, 07:23:01 PM
Ah, I guess I never got so far ahead that my economy was in trouble!  I was always planning to make Mars into a paradise world for the custom species "Marzoids" and have them produce all my monies (or a lot, at least) because Mars has no minerals to speak of.  I'll keep that in mind though, to get a growing economy...
Title: Re: Moving minerals
Post by: Person012345 on October 23, 2011, 08:47:34 PM
Ok, so new question.  I've started a new game, to take it slightly more seriously now I have some idea what I'm doing.  However, this time my civilian line just seems to be sitting around doing nothing.  I have contracts set up, I also recently established a titan colony, but the civvie line is just sitting there with it's 1500 wealth and not purchasing any of my designed commercial vessels.  No doubt I inadvertantly did something last game that I didn't do this game, but does anyone have any idea why? It's a problem because for some reason my government freighters won't load infrastructure from the earth, where it's being produced (it was the same in the last game where the civ line delivered it fine), so the civvie line is the only way I know of delivering it atm.  But as I say, they seem content to sit on their money.
Title: Re: Moving minerals
Post by: metalax on October 23, 2011, 09:15:01 PM
First, check the build cost of your designs is less than the shipping lines available funds.
Second build a freighter of your own and some infrastructure (build the infrastructure yourself from the industries tab) and move it to a colonizable world. I'm not entirely certain but I think that civ lines don't look at supply and demand contracts and decide to build a ship to fulfill them. Instead they need to see a situation that they can fulfill that is already present, such as available space for colonists on another world.
Title: Re: Moving minerals
Post by: Din182 on October 23, 2011, 09:15:59 PM
Ok, so new question.  I've started a new game, to take it slightly more seriously now I have some idea what I'm doing.  However, this time my civilian line just seems to be sitting around doing nothing.  I have contracts set up, I also recently established a titan colony, but the civvie line is just sitting there with it's 1500 wealth and not purchasing any of my designed commercial vessels.  No doubt I inadvertantly did something last game that I didn't do this game, but does anyone have any idea why? It's a problem because for some reason my government freighters won't load infrastructure from the earth, where it's being produced (it was the same in the last game where the civ line delivered it fine), so the civvie line is the only way I know of delivering it atm.  But as I say, they seem content to sit on their money.

Make sure the freighter is cheap enough for the civvie to produce it. And make sure that your freighters have empty cargo, and have orders to both pick up and drop off the infrastructure.
Title: Re: Moving minerals
Post by: Person012345 on October 23, 2011, 09:28:15 PM
Quote from: metalax link=topic=4257.   msg41856#msg41856 date=1319422501
First, check the build cost of your designs is less than the shipping lines available funds.   
Second build a freighter of your own and some infrastructure (build the infrastructure yourself from the industries tab) and move it to a colonizable world.    I'm not entirely certain but I think that civ lines don't look at supply and demand contracts and decide to build a ship to fulfill them.    Instead they need to see a situation that they can fulfill that is already present, such as available space for colonists on another world.   
Yeah, I figured they might, that's why I put a population on titan, to spur them into doing something, but it didn't.   

Uh, noob question, how can I tell how much my designs cost a company? I think that might be the reason (the design by this stage is pretty big for a start up company I guess), and I'd be happy to subsidise them up to the required wealth level, but I don't know how much it would cost them.   
Title: Re: Moving minerals
Post by: Din182 on October 23, 2011, 09:34:19 PM
Look for the build cost on the class design screen.
Title: Re: Moving minerals
Post by: Person012345 on October 23, 2011, 09:37:02 PM
Build points?
Title: Re: Moving minerals
Post by: metalax on October 23, 2011, 09:39:20 PM
Build points?
yes, BP on the ship summary is the cost that the civilian company pays to build their ship.
Title: Re: Moving minerals
Post by: Person012345 on October 23, 2011, 09:41:50 PM
Quote from: metalax link=topic=4257. msg41863#msg41863 date=1319423960
yes, BP on the ship summary is the cost that the civilian company pays to build their ship.
Well that's not the problem then.
Title: Re: Moving minerals
Post by: Person012345 on October 24, 2011, 06:53:49 AM
I cancelled the contracts I had and they built something.     

Edit: Though it's a colony ship, and it's still not doing anything.     But at least it's a start.   

Double edit: they started transporting colonists now I shipped adequate infrastructure, but they only have the one passenger ship.    Will they likely ever build cargo vessels or are they just being a passenger line?

Triple edit: Seems they were just lagging and have built one.  But yeah, fixed it by cancelling all the contracts I had open
Title: Re: Moving minerals
Post by: Girlinhat on October 24, 2011, 07:38:58 AM
The civilian shipping tends to do good with colony ships and cargo ships, eventually.  I usually don't bother with colony ships of my own, I just make a design and let the civilians handle it.  A bit slower, but meh, they do the work for me.