My Questions of Perplexity

[Harmonica]

Check you don't have any squads doing

'move to x
refuel from x'

on a loop.  That one got me the other day.  Luckily, C-A-D, and reload, and no data lost - can I say how awesome the game is at retaing game data on crashes, because it really is.

[Iamwinterborn (OP)]

Check you don't have any squads doing

'move to x
refuel from x'

on a loop.  That one got me the other day.  Luckily, C-A-D, and reload, and no data lost - can I say how awesome the game is at retaing game data on crashes, because it really is.

I'm doing a Conventional start, I currently have TWO ships finally out... and neither one is doing anything spectacular, one is surveying asteroids, the other jump points.   I think the NPR has discovered another race or a Precursor group that is actually staying the fight and not running out of missiles...

EDIT: Oh, one cargo ship doing "Load Infra Earth, Unload Infra Mars" on cycle.

[Father Tim]

EDIT: Oh, one cargo ship doing "Load Infra Earth, Unload Infra Mars" on cycle.

And there's your problem.  Any cycle that can be completed in less time than the increment advance causes chaos.

[Iamwinterborn (OP)]

And there's your problem.  Any cycle that can be completed in less time than the increment advance causes chaos.

 

But... but.... I have 5000 pieces of infrastructure to move? What tricks are there then?  Hit "6" increments of 5 days instead of 1 increment of 30?  Or does that not matter?

[Thiosk]

The real trick is letting the civilian community move them for you
moving infrastructure is for suckers! 

[Hawkeye]

Or:

Order the ship to perform one round trip
There is a little box below the order window where you can put in a number
Type 10 or 20 or however often you want the ship to do the jurney there
hit the "repeat" button

This will repeat all orders above x10 or x20 (whatever you typed in)
After the ship has finished those 10 or 20 or whatever round trips, you get a message in the event log.

[Brian Neumann]

Or:

Order the ship to perform one round trip
There is a little box below the order window where you can put in a number
Type 10 or 20 or however often you want the ship to do the jurney there
hit the "repeat" button

This will repeat all orders above x10 or x20 (whatever you typed in)
After the ship has finished those 10 or 20 or whatever round trips, you get a message in the event log.

If you do this don't forget to put in some fuel stops.  I will usually double the original order then double that and insert a refuel order, then add as many repeats of the total set as I think I need.

Brian

[Harmonica]

I've had another realisation about asteroid miners.       The shipbuilding rate can eventually be improved beyond the factory production rate (in many decades).       At that point, building mining ships would be much quicker than building hundreds of automated mines (and you wouldn't need any freighters).     

Even before you reach that point, though, is it not correct that since the shipbuilding rate does not scale exponentially with the tonnage of ships (even with vast multi-million ton ships), there will be a point where you can build a ship in a year or two that has a greater mining yield than the same amount of automated mines built in that period?

Someone help me out with the maths here 

For example, in my game I'm on construction rate 14bp, shipbuilding rate 750bp.      I can build a mining ship to yield 448 tons per year (per mineral) in 1.     26yrs - and I could build two of them at the same time.      In 1.     26yrs I could convert 170 automated mines, which would yield 3404 tons.      So this point, the mines are way better.      But sooner or later, with a bigger ship, would it tip the other way? (a ship ten times larger wouldn't take much longer to build, but would yield ~5000 tons)

[Hawkeye]

While this is basicly correct, you have to keep one thing in mind:

Auto-mines can work on any planetary body (except for gas giants), while asteroid miners only work on asteroids (and comets, I belive)

Generally, I prefere automines, simply for the versatility.

Also, you have to expand the shipyard to the size of your giant mining ship, which will cost you quite some minerals. This means, the ships you build will probably work a few years just to recover the minerals spent to get the ´yard to that size.

[Brian Neumann]

Someone help me out with the maths here 

For example, in my game I'm on construction rate 14bp, shipbuilding rate 750bp.      I can build a mining ship to yield 448 tons per year (per mineral) in 1.     26yrs - and I could build two of them at the same time.      In 1.     26yrs I could convert 170 automated mines, which would yield 3404 tons.      So this point, the mines are way better.      But sooner or later, with a bigger ship, would it tip the other way? (a ship ten times larger wouldn't take much longer to build, but would yield ~5000 tons)

You are correct about the way that large ships get faster to build.  If you want to see how this would work just create a design, even if it is to big to build currently and keep doubling the number of asteroid miners on the ship.  If you look at the far left column of info there is a box which says how long it will take to build the ship using current technology.  If you want to speed it up you can use your industry to prebuild some parts of the ship.  I am at work and do not have a copy of the game here, but also check on the mineral cost of the asteroid miner bay vs an auto mine to see which is cheaper.  I think it is the asteroid miner which means that if you use your industry to build that then the rest of the ship will take a very short time to assemble as it is going to be the bulk of the ship volume.

Brian

[Thiosk]

early in the game, asteroid mining is quite helpful because you don't have the mineral production to keep up with industrial output.  just haley's comet will help a lot in the early days.  in my current game i built a fairly large number of asteroid miners and plopped them in a neighboring system that would never run out of duranium.  Was a huge help.  They're now obsolete, but I leave them there to strip mine that asteroid (its the only mineral source in the system)

[Harmonica]

If you want to speed it up you can use your industry to prebuild some parts of the ship.

What's the process I would use to do this? I think I prebuilt some pieces before but I'm not sure they got used.  The only trouble is that it would take up valuable factory production time which I could be building mines or terraformers with.  My shipyards are mostly lying dormant or expanding.

Also, I had another thought, if I add extra slipways to my biggest yard, I could build increasing numbers of mining ships at the same time.  Although apparently it will take 2 years to add another slipway at this point (does this increase the larger they get?), my shipyard is rated for 164,000 tons.

Also, you have to expand the shipyard to the size of your giant mining ship, which will cost you quite some minerals. This means, the ships you build will probably work a few years just to recover the minerals spent to get the ´yard to that size.

Yeah! It's definitely a factor. It will take about 30 years to expand to the smaller mining ship design, and it will cost 100,000s of minerals to build.

[Father Tim]

What's the process I would use to do this? I think I prebuilt some pieces before but I'm not sure they got used. 

At the instant you click to add the build task to your shipyard (with the use prebuilt components tickbox checked), Aurora checks for components in your stockpile, and reduces the build time/cost accordingly for what's available.  Once ship construction has started, it's irrelevant what new components get added - they won't be used on any existing jobs.

Although apparently it will take 2 years to add another slipway at this point (does this increase the larger they get?)

Yes, it depends on the size of the slipway to be built.

[Dutchling]

I guess I might as well use this thread instead of creating a new one, so; a few questions:
-How do I create a player race so I can create a fleet for him to practice fighting? I don't seem to be able to give any fleets to NPR's or precursors during SM mode.
-Why do people use spoiler tags? You have to select whether you want the three spoilers so how could you possibly not know about them? At least people don't give them candy and clown names here...
-If you want to use AMM's, you need one fire control per salvo. Is this correct?
-If I use a conventional start, will my NPR's have a technological lead on me?
-What are Lagrange points?

[Brian Neumann]

In order of your questions.
To create a player race you need to be in SM mode.  Go to the system detail screen (F9) and in the bottom right there is a set of commands to use.  If you want them in a system you have already explored go to that system, click on the planet you want them on and then click on create empire.  On the screen that comes up in the upper left area there is a check box for making the race an NPR or a Player race.  If you set it to player race you will be able to control it.  You will need to switch back and forth between the two races so keep that in mind.

2.) You need 1 fire control per x launchers.  I usually go with 1 for 5 launchers.  Each time tick the fire control can fire on a new target without changing the targeting of previous salvo's.  If that fire control is destroyed then all salvo's that are still in flight lose their lock-on.  If the missiles have their own sensors they will keep flying but otherwise they self-destruct.

3.) When you use a conventional start the NPR that is created will have a normal start set of reasearch points.  In effect they will start exploring and growing imediatley so they do have a bit of a tech lead.  You will probably catch back up after a while however as most players invest far more heavily into reasearch than the npr's do.

4.)  Lagrange points are associated with gas giants.  They are form of insystem jump point.  From any lagrange point (lp) you can jump to any other lp in the same system without needing a jump engine.  You also do not suffer from the jump effect on your sensors/fire control.  It is a method to get from 1 star to another usually in multi star systems.

Brian