Questions of the not quite capable.

[ZimRathbone]

I have a few random not-quite-capable questions:

1) What's the best way to balance the economy? Three years into a Trans-Newtonian game, I'm about to go into debt.  Am I just trying to do too much, too soon? Cut back on Military spending? Unfortunately, I started without tech researchers in two of the important fields, including the one that has the Wealth expansion techs.

You can research techs without having a scientist in that specialisation – its just not quite as efficient – if you use a scientist with 30% in another field then they will still carry out the work, they only get the 30% bonus to research points created (if they were researching in their specialisation  they would get a 120% bonus).  If I have a scientist with a large No of labs, they will quite often be directed towards priority projects outside their specialised area.
You could also try building Finance centres, and I often try cutting back on military & support spending (eg missile production, fuel generation & shipbuilding) unless I’m in (or going to be in) an active war

[blue emu]

I have just shipped a brigade of Engineers to a colony planet that has the components of a pre-fab PDC, as well as nine Alien (Precursor?) dig sites.  How do I get the Engineers to assemble the PDC or dig up the Precursor sites? Will they do it automatically?

[Hawkeye]

I have just shipped a brigade of Engineers to a colony planet that has the components of a pre-fab PDC, as well as nine Alien (Precursor?) dig sites.  How do I get the Engineers to assemble the PDC or dig up the Precursor sites? Will they do it automatically?

The digging up goes automaticaly.
To assemble the PDC, go to "industry", select "assemble PDC" and order the PDC assembled. The engineers work as if they were factories.

Note: There was a bug, that engineers would not start producing without at least a single construction factory present. I don´t know if this is still the case, as I am still on 5.20.
If it is, the work around would be to SM-in a single factory and SM-out it after the work has been finished.

[blue emu]

Thanks.   I'm guarding that alien dig-site colony planet with four Garrison Battalions, plus four Field Battalions (Hvy Assault x 1, Assault Inf x 1, Mobile Inf x 2) and a Brigade HQ.   Should that be enough to repel whatever guardians I might find in the nine Precursor sites on the planet?

[Hawkeye]

Argh! You peeked and spoiled the suprise!!   

Two brigades should be enough. Even if the guardians were on the very top end of the scale, those troops would give you plenty of time to ship in some reinforcements.

[blue emu]

Argh! You peeked and spoiled the surprise!!

Yeah, I'm an old Dwarf Fortress player, and the nasty surprise in THAT game was enough to last me a while.

I tried assembling that PDC base, and got a series of error pop-ups. . .  and all of my PDC pre-fab components disappeared! 

I used Space-Master mode to just slap down the PDC that I had been assembling. . .  is this a known bug?