CI? Task Forces? Overwhelming!

[Father Tim]

Conventional Industry is the answer to the question 'Since you can't build installations without TNE, and you can't mine TNE without installations, how did your empire ever get started in the first place?'  CI is the entire technological history and output of your race before it became 'high tech'.

Ten Conventional Industry is also 1 mine, 1 construction factory, and 1 fuel refinery.  Nine-point-nine-nine CI is 0 mines, 0 factories, and 0 refineries.

[Father Tim]

To the other discussion, in my current 5.02 game, one jump from Sol, I discovered an Alien race with just one planet, that either has a population of around 50 million top, or no real industry.
During the last 10 years, they didn't build a single space ship, nor did their emissions rise by any noticeable amount.
they are obviously either a bug (I had a one billion start), with extremely low pop, or pre-TN.

Just a bad roll (for the NPR that is).  Fifty million pop is 1 research lab and a couple hundred RP to start - at that rate it'll be another thirty years before they finish all the basic techs needed to put a ship together.  While they might as well be pre-TN, they're not, since the AI to run Conventional Industry, and decide how much of it to turn into mines, construction factories, ordnance factories, fuel refineries or small craft factories just doesn't exist yet.  Pre-TN empires have so many 'holes' in their knowledge and abilities, writing code to account for it is a nightmare.

[Steve Walmsley]

There are pre-industrial NPRs in the game. They don't do anything but wait to be invaded though

Steve

[UnLimiTeD]

Oh, then I should better be getting my Troop transports going.
And I was nearly allied with them...

[Judicator (OP)]

Edit: Never mind I got it.

A question to the more experienced players as well as newbies. When you're starting a real game, no SM mods aside from using up initial tech points, do you alter anything at all to your tailoring, ie adding more shipyards or research labs? I was curious because I am not going to alter anything but 4 shipyards and 20 labs seem a bit small for a 500 million pop considering they're so damn expensive

Also, how many research labs do you usually cap off at? And is the military academy max level 10?

Should I consistently keep adding factories as time passes on? How much is good to cap off on?

[AndonSage]

I haven't tried changing the parameters you talk about.

Would also be interested in what experienced players have to say about your other questions.

[Hawkeye]

Edit: Never mind I got it.

A question to the more experienced players as well as newbies. When you're starting a real game, no SM mods aside from using up initial tech points, do you alter anything at all to your tailoring, ie adding more shipyards or research labs? I was curious because I am not going to alter anything but 4 shipyards and 20 labs seem a bit small for a 500 million pop considering they're so damn expensive

Also, how many research labs do you usually cap off at? And is the military academy max level 10?

Should I consistently keep adding factories as time passes on? How much is good to cap off on?

Generally, I play with a conventional start.

I put in as about half as many labs as aurora would give me, if I had a regular start, i.e. 10 for a 500m population or 20 for a 1000m population, because otherwise, the game goes realy, REALY slow.
Other than that, no changes (I usually have enough time to build/expand my shipyards, because I have to research the various starship techs first anyway).
Oh, I forgot, I up the minerals on my homeworld by a factor of 5 to 10 for a conventional start or I run out of some minerals before anything gets done.

After converting conventional industry, I put 10% to building factories and 10% to mines. I also put 30% to building new labs (and have my best Construction/Production scientists research better research rates constantely). This leaves me with 50% for other stuff.

[Kurt]

Edit: Never mind I got it.

A question to the more experienced players as well as newbies. When you're starting a real game, no SM mods aside from using up initial tech points, do you alter anything at all to your tailoring, ie adding more shipyards or research labs? I was curious because I am not going to alter anything but 4 shipyards and 20 labs seem a bit small for a 500 million pop considering they're so damn expensive

Also, how many research labs do you usually cap off at? And is the military academy max level 10?

Should I consistently keep adding factories as time passes on? How much is good to cap off on?

I typically like high pop starts (1-5 billion), and I usually have to add research labs and remove shipyards.  You have to be careful adding labs, though, because you can easily outstrip your available population and funds.  I also increase my homeworld's resources, usually 2-5x.  

You can have as many military academies as you can build, there is no limit that I'm aware of.  

As for adding industry and research labs, that is very dependent on the game conditions.  If you have enough scientists, money, and population to use more labs, then by all means build more.  For industry, the calculation is simpler.  If you have excess resources in your stockpile, and your stockpile is going up, then build more SY's, industry, and ground troop training facilities.  If your resource stockpile is shrinking, then build more mines.  

Kurt

[James Patten]

I'm currently playing a game with Conventional Industry (using 5.14).

I started the game with 2000 systems and Precursors turned off, so that any NPR races would have less of a chance to find me, and the nasty wormhole aliens wouldn't pop through to wipe me out.

I had 1 billion starting pop and the normal number of research colonies, and added a zero to the end of all minerals (putting them in the 100,000 range), except for duranium which was already in the 100,000 range, so I doubled it.  I also put 2 ruins in system, to give humans the idea that they weren't alone.

I'm almost 25 years in, and am over 10 years from running out of my lowest mineral.  I was also fortunate enough to have minerals in the millions on Venus and TItan, almost so I don't have to go out system.  However I'm going to soon, my first jump ship will be ready in about a year.

I really like the civilian sector now - they turned smart!  I'm colonizing Titan, and now the civilians wait until there's enough infrastructure to plop their 50,000 colonists down, instead of sending them to their deaths.

[waresky]

Oh, then I should better be getting my Troop transports going.
And I was nearly allied with them...

ehheeh "Dang dang dang! ehy Grunt! c'mon onboard!Alien wait for us!".."

Lol..and Unlimited going to war..eheh nice NPR encounter..a nice "school" War time.

[Octavian30]

I'm old school - all my starts have been either by the book with no mods on my part or with a lower NPR rate.... and I limit starting tech to 2000
In my current game earth has 15 years of Deuranium left - everything else is gone - none of the planets had any resource greater than about 200,000 and none more than 2 - nearly all unimportant stuff like Vendarite and Corbromite.... except Venus had Deuranium at about 3mil but concentration .5 - 4 out of the 5 surrounding systems had no planets and the 5th only had 1 non-habital planet - sigh......
I am currently short of Deuranium - have eased my shortages of Neuronium and Sorium -am not producing anywhere enough fuel - barely keeping my freighters going - my entire combat fleet has spent the last ten years or more sitting in Earth orbit doing nothing to save their fuel... been at it about 40+ years game time - 2 friendly aliens - several precursor systems - 1 swarm - finally got my first sorium harvesters going - 2 that harvest 500,000 fuel a year which is a start on my fuel shortages.... another just built - 3 more coming....
have 30 labs on earth - research rate 500 - am working on 600 -
and I am having a BALL !!!!
I am re-tooling my main naval yard to build a 28,000 ton Battlecruiser that goes at 10,000K has 8 size 9 launchers and torpedoes and AMM - YES!!! look out you precurser skummies!!!
I have 4 16,000t CVE's that now move at 4,500k - 6,000T DD's, 9,000t LC's and 12,000t CAs that all do 8,000k - 30+ gunboats with 4 damage Torpedos (don't ask why torpedos) but they move at 11,000K!! CT's with 3 fire control and 6 size 1 launchers as FLAK ships that move at 10,000k - fighters that move at 11k with a size 5 missile... and now that the sorium harvesters are working I am going to move on the first bunch of Precursers.... finally -
and I have troopships to move my troops in behind....
Because of hte lack of resources - nearest planets all being 2 or more jiumps away and so forth - this has been my toughest game to date - but also my best so far!