Colonization: What to Prioritize, When to Start, Build order?

[shepard1707 (OP)]

So, I feel like I've started to get the hang of fleet movements, organization, and alot of the logistics.  Howevern managing colonies has continued to elude me.  There dont be so many tutorials on the particulars of colony set up, either.

So .  .  .  anybody got any tips for me?

[xenoscepter]

It's not too hard really.

 - For asteroids, just add Underground Infrastructure and stir. (I don't know if asteroids benefit from Terraforming or not.)

 - For planets, add Infrastructure and stir... then Terraform if you want to.


Basically colonies provide three things, two directly and one through proxy.

 - Minerals, obviously only applies to colonies w/ minerals.

Geological Survey Sensors and Geosurvey Probes (Missiles w/ Geo Sensors on 'em) will help you find out which bodies have mineral deposits

 - Population, you get this by following the steps above.

 - Wealth, gotten by proxy as citizens give wealth directly and produce trade goods.

For the purposes of trade goods you only need at most 25 million colonists to produce them all, but more colonist produce more so more is better.

And finally, the colony cost determines how much Infrastructure / Underground Infrastructure you need for a colony.

See the wiki entries:

 - Here: http://aurorawiki.pentarch.org/index.php?title=Infrastructure (Infrastructure)

and

 - Here: http://aurorawiki.pentarch.org/index.php?title=Terraforming (Terraforming / Colony Cost)

for more information.

Cheers! 

[Father Tim]

--  Whatever you're running out of
--  Right now
--  Whatever you feel like

* * *

Empire (and colony) management is largely just alleviating the current disaster as best you can, while trying not to cause too many additional disasters.

[Steve Walmsley]

Empire (and colony) management is largely just alleviating the current disaster as best you can, while trying not to cause too many additional disasters.

[Garfunkel]

Colonizing Sol:

1. Drop Infra on Luna and Mars, 500 is a good amount to start.
2. The civilian shipping line will start hauling colonists to them.
3. Earth will produce more than enough Trade Good Infrastructure to keep both colonies growing so you don't need to worry about anything else.
4. Let them grow to 100-500 million people before switching them to Stable (from Destination) in the Civ/Team tab as that means their Trade Goods production is high enough that you're getting nice trade income in addition to taxes.
5. Terraform first Luna, then Mars - focus on getting one done completely before starting with the other.
6. Once they are colony cost 0, they will start growing fast on their own, but I wouldn't turn them Source (from Stable) until they are over 1 billion or bigger.
7. Once at least Luna is CC0, you can expand to Mercury. Once Mars is done, you can expand to Europa and move terraformers to Mercury.
8. Rinse & repeat, the point is that you never have to build Infrastructure yourself, as the civilians will produce it for free and ship it over, creating wealth for you, and once colonies are CC0, their old Infrastructure will be moved to new colonies, allowing the newer colonies to grow faster - but you don't want to throttle this process by creating too many colonies at once. You can fiddle with Destination/Stable to finetune things a little bit but only once a colony has 25 million people or more. Exact numbers depend on how big your Earth is and how active your civilians are.

Colonizing outside of Sol:

1. Drop DSTS on future colony sites. Four is a good start, ten is better. This will make sure that there are no surprises lurking in the system.
2. Drop 2x GAR battalions as well. They can squash any unrest in the colony from overcrowding and lack of PPV in the system. Outside of Sol, these can be harder to deal with.
3. Decide what type of colony this will be:

• Earth-like, or to be terraformed
• Limited by infrastructure
• Special Underground or Orbital

4. Bring in enough colonist-holding stuff as per objective decided above
5. Civilians will transport colonists though for special cases you need government colony ships.
6. Bring in your PPV assets: FlaK barges, Orbital Weapon Platforms, Meson PDCs, System Patrol Ships, Planet-based Fighters and so on.


Basically, you need colonies for 3 things:

• Pop growth as smaller colonies grow faster than bigger ones, though massive ones grow massively even with tiny percentual increases.
• Source of wealth through taxation, trade goods and travel.
• Source of cheaply mined minerals since regular Mines are the cheapest method of mining.

And a possible fourth reason is for RP, meaning Role Playing. All colonies need security and security requires awareness. Deep Space Tracking Stations are the cheapest and easiest way to have awareness of a system. Garrison Battalions are the cheapest way to keep the colonists in order. Ship Bureau has plenty of examples of the kind of things I mentioned at point 6 above. You want security because colonies are important investments and you don't want to lose them to a hostile neighbour coming over for a visit.

Colony Cost 2 or lower planets can be easily terraformed to Earth-like so the colonists won't need Infrastructure. Colony Cost from 2 to 5 can usually be terraformed but it'll take a longer time, whereas CC above 5 can still be feasible but you should think long and hard if you really want to waste the time and effort to do it. Do note that Terraforming can be its own end-game goal, like turning Venus into an Earth-like planet.

For special cases, you can use Orbital Habitats or Underground Infrastructure. OH are good for planets were Colony Cost is ridiculous, like Venus at 25, because the higher the CC, the higher the requirement of environmental workers to keep the colonists alive - on a Venus colony, you will never have enough workforce to be able to actually DO anything until you terraform it. UGI is for places with too low gravity for Human tolerance where you still need to have actual people live & work. To be honest, I've only ever used OHs for vanity projects and I've never actually used UGI since Asteroid Miners and Auto-Mines are far less of a hassle and not that expensive.

So there is no need to commit to an expensive and massive terraforming project or to build loads of OHs since it's usually cheaper and definitely easier to put down a Mass Driver and five hundred automines.

[Father Tim]

OR. . .  don't do any of that.

DON'T use 'Real Stars'.  There's no 'interesting' space terain near us, so you won't find any with 'Real Stars' turned on.  No nebulae, no black holes, no exploding supernovae, no SPOILER.

DON'T start in Sol.  Use SpaceMaster to create a random system, alter the atmosphere of a body of suitable gravity*, and create a new species unique to that world.  Make every start unique so that you actually learn the processes instad of following the same Sol road map every time.

DON'T use the generic human species if you do start in Sol.  Specifically, narrow the grav tolerance (say, +or- 0.67 or 0.5) so that Luna cannot become Col Cost 0.0.  The Earth-Luna economic superhighway is (in my opinion) a HUGE bug, as it badly distorts an empire's initial wealth.
     The secondary goal here is to restrict Luna to Low Grav Infrastructure (LGI), so that solar system colonization is not a single cascading waterfall from one (nigh-)ideal body to the next.  Having your oldest daughter colony as a source of LGI is also helpful as you move out into additional star systems.

DON'T use mass drivers.  This is a game about ships moving around in space.  Why avoid realistic traffic?  Assign one frieghter to each mining colony to 'load all minerals' and then unload at Home / Capital / Earth / New Home / Dirt / whatever, refuel, and cycle orders.  Space (and Aurora) is much more interesting when you have dozens of ships moving back and forth across the system map.

Likewise, DON'T build the 'doomstack' of 500 freighters to move installations around and jump colonies orders of magnitude.  Set up one or two or a few at a time to cycle orders to move (additional) contruction factories, mines, maintenance facilities, or whatever to (each of) your colonies.  It may not be as efficient as "Colony Starter Pack Mk I, mod 2A" but it's a hell of a lot more fun to fill your game with traffic.
     Unless, of course, you really hate programming all those cycling orders.  Personally, I find "Load X at Y, Unload X at Z, Refuel at Y, Maintenance Check at Y, cycle orders" to be pretty quick and not at all bothersome.

- - - - -

Okay, Garrison Battalions ARE pretty sweet.  I use them for all my colony protection/unrest reduction needs.  They are so efficient at it I literally never pay attention to colonies' PPV demands.  Garrison troops come with the added bonus that their unrest-reduction is based on their defense value, so as tech improves (Ground Combat Strength, specifically) their effectiveness improves.

Likewise, Deep Space Tracking Stations (DSTS) are super-handy for removing interrupts caused by "New Contact!  Contact Lost!  New Contact!" chains.  Just don't go crazy with them, because the stack-overflow bug is still there and it WILL kill your game to SM in 999,999 DSTS "just to see what's there."


= = = = =


My point  (and I do have one^TM), is that the best way to play Aurora is the way in which you have the most fun.  Concentrating on "the most efficient way" or on "ultimate weapon systems" or "perfect tactics" is a mistake.

The problem with "hyper-efficient Aurora" is that THE most efficient way is to cheat, and the next most efficient way is to abuse all the exploits in the software, and the next is to exploit only some of the quirks, and so on, down to the 'just use SM to change this one thing' level.  What exactly you consider "fair" on the spectrum of exploit vs smart tactics is a personal decision.  Do you build resolution X sensors because X is a lucky number, even though you (the player) know that a certain spoiler race uses size X ships but your empire has no idea?  Is it "fair" to luckily spot that spoiler at max range because they conform to your (empire's) superstitions?  Would it be more fair to use a different resolution?

What about armoured missiles?  They seem like a good idea.  They ARE a good idea, but unfortunately one the AI can't handle.  The same with super-armoured ships.  The AI generally won't change targets once engaged, even if they are pounding uselessly on Battleship B's shields when they could kill Cruiser C easily.

If you just want to kill the (computer-controlled) enemy ships as quickly and easily as possible, guess what?  You can and you will.  It's easy:

Code: [Select]

1.  Spot the enemy
2.  Learn their size(s)
3.  Learn their speed
4.  Identify their weapons
5.  Learn their ranges
6.  Build new sensors perfectly tuned to enemy sizes
7.  Improve your ships speeds to be faster than the enemy
8.  Build new weapons to out-range the enemy
9.  (Optional) Improve you fleet defenses to counter the throw weight of your enemy
10. SPOT the enemy without them spotting you;  LAUNCH a massive missile strike;  EXPLODE the enemy ships mere seconds after they realize they are not alone;  RELOAD and do it again

It may take two or three campaigns to learn how to easily 'win' Aurora. . . but then what?  Is it going to be fun for you to play the exact same hyper-efficient strategy over and over again?  It certainly wouldn't be for me.

So now we are back to "How should you play Aurora?  Roleplay it."  Only build ships with systems is in multiples of three, because your race is trilaterally symmetrical.  Build ships based on historical Peruvian naval vessels.  Build ships based on Drake's Royal Cinnabar Navy universe, or SFB's Neo-Tholians or some chunk of Star Wars.

- - - - -

How should you colonize other bodies?  I think the most important rule is to not let your species' grav tolerance extend too low; it opens up too much real estate.  Likewise, avoid tolerating anything below -200 C for temperature.

Try to set some 'realistic' rules for your empire.  Maybe you fully exploit one system before moving outward.  Maybe you only settle Col Cost 0.0 bodies.  Maybe you only terraform for ten years before moving on.  Etc.

= = = = =
= = = = =

*Anywhere from 0.5 G to 3 G.  I then modify my species' Grav tolerance after creation to keep the lower limit at no less than 0.33 G.

[Garfunkel]

Father Tim is right in that Aurora is flexible enough to accommodate a multitude of playstyles and, like Dwarf Fortress, it has no end-game goal and you have to make your own fun. There is also no one correct way to play or "win".

Personally I think that it is important to play a couple of games where you try to be as efficient as possible, in order to learn the mechanics of the game - whether it's shipbuilding, combat, economy, or whatever. Then, you have the knowledge you need to have a good time playing as wacky as you want.

[Jorgen_CAB]

I almost always reduce the Grav tolerance to 30%... that is probably most realistic for permanent human colonisation of any world. This makes every terrestrial planets that you can colonise that much more valuable even if at relatively high.

It also prevent me from using Luna and Mars as an early start for colonisation forcing the exploration to find a new good world to colonise.

I think that makes for a more interesting Sol start in general.

Otherwise I think most have already said what the important things you build really is.

The only other advice I have is that the less resources you spend in military stuff the more resources you have for expanding and investing in research etc... It is quite important to know what minerals are used for what and make sure you have a continual influx in the right proportions. Having at least some strategical reserves are quite crucial as you might need to over-consume some resources for a short time or overcompensate for some reasons until you can get income in line with expenses.

Don't base long term strategies on the income of high yield low valued sources... just view them as a bonus that add to your strategic reserves. Make sure to start exploiting world with large reserves with decent accessibility, especially for Duranium and then with Corrundium as you need that to build more mines.

You might often feel that you want to quickly strip mine high yeald low value worlds instead of dumping mines on low yield high value world. I say you probably should not do that as that is generally the source of crisis down the road. Instead make sure you have a steady secure income and take your time mining those high yield worlds, at least 5-10 years or even more is fine for most asteroids, comets and even longer for moons. This way you are investing into the future and a stale income rather than chasing the next rush just to get to the next crisis.

Try to have a balance between factory output and mineral income and a reasonable part of the industry continually building mines/automines. Expanding the factory production as population increase on Earth is a balance between that and Research or Yard workers. This obviously depend on how short you are on population though. If population start to become a problem you can start replacing mines with auto-mines and maintenance facilities with maintenance modules.

It is worth effort to keep sending in population to a world until their are roughly 100m people as after this the number of actually usable population for work related tasks will remain roughly the same until you have around 300m people. Any world with around 100 million should definitely be a source for new colonies. If yo want to build up a world above 100m... try to ship in more from the main world until you hit around 300m people after which you can allow normal growth and migration to take over again.

[bankshot]

One question though about hostile colony worlds.  Lured by endless Duranium and Corundum (28M and 59M @ 0.5 access) I established one of my first colonies on a cost 9.5 world.  After learning there isn't much you can do to heat up a world with an albedo .85 world that has a temp of 34 kelvin my colony fleet performed a heroic spacelift, moving around 20M colonists from this moon to another whose albedo of 1.14 gave it a more balmy temperature of 42 kelvin.  This process was made much more difficult by my civilian fleet's insistence of moving millions more colonists onto a world I was desperately trying to empty.  I had to resort to deliberately moving enough infrastructure over to keep the source world overpopulated during the transfer, resulting in countless unnecessary deaths.

I've since done a bit of terraforming and colony cost reduction, so the cost is down to 7.87.  The population is now up to 57.4M but I have noticed that I'm now slowly losing manufacturing workers.  It looks like the manufacturing percentage goes down more rapidly than the base population goes up.  I'm currently at 3.83M workers, with a 6.7% rate and have had to move several construction factories off of the system to alleviate worker shortages as the population rises.  Is this expected?  I 'm currently researching more colony cost reduction tech and have left a a few token terraformers so conditions will slowly improve, but seeing worker shortages worsen with increasing population did strike me as a bit odd.

[Father Tim]

Yup.

More pop means a larger service sector.

Civilians want to dump pop on the nearest body with room, so either co-ordinate your Infrastructure removal with pop removal, or brute-force it with significantly more Imperial lift capacity than the civilians use.

[bankshot]

I've seen and expect the ratios to move towards service center expansion, but on lower colony cost worlds this change seems to be slow enough that expanding population always increases the absolute number of manufacturing workers - the rate just gets slower as the colony gets bigger. 

But in this colony's case population expansion is causing the absolute number of manufacturing workers to decline.  As an example:

38.3M population, 10.7% manufacturing rate = 4.08M manufacturing workers
50.9M population. 7.8% rate = 3.99M workers
57.4M population, 6.7% rate = 3.83M workers
58.1M population, 6.6% rate = 3.81M workers

So 20M popluation gain caused the loss of over 200K manufacturing workers.   During this time terraforming efforts reduced the colony cost from about 8.1 to 7.87. 

[Zincat]

Trying to colonize very harsh worlds is something to leave for when your tech is higher, you have a large amount of terraforming modules, and you can afford it.

Automines are a much better solution. Or large mining stations (in C# aurora should be even better) When I was a new Aurora player, I too tried to colonize too many planets, too quickly, even planets that were very hard

Nowadays what I colonize are
1) Planets with low colony cost and large mineral deposits
2) Planets with low colony cost and in strategic locations (very high amount of minerals in system, or powerful research anomalies). Also strategic locations for fleet bases (will be more important in c# Aurora)
3) Planets that can be colonized very easily, for wealth. So, in or close to highly populated systems and low colony cost. Or, 0 colony cost (you find a few around..) Case in question, Luna and Mars even if they have zero minerals

Anything else can wait. Also, In c# aurora you'll be able to prevent civilians from migrating people to planets you want to evacuate, so that will be better as well.

[L0ckAndL0ad]

As I'm lazy and love Civilian Mining Complexes, I pick a system looking for following qualities:

1. The best planet that's suitable for my population which has lots of various minerals available in huge numbers, the more the better, regardless of availability score. This will be the local hub which should get 10 mil population as soon as possible. As an example, my current biggest colony has all but 3 mineral types available, total 51m units. Most minerals are 0.1, with Sorium being 0.7 and Duranium 0.4.

2. System has at least some amount of planetary bodies that fit the rules of Civilian Mining Complex directors board. Civilians like the bodies with 0.8+ avail Duranium or Sorium, 25k units+. Or at least 0.7 avail / 15k units ones. Look here for more info. These bodies should have some other good deposits as well, because the civvies will mine everything on the planet.

3. Being close to the homeworld. That's my personal preference, because I don't like going wide. I go tall instead.

So, here how it goes. You colonize one planet in a system, get 10 mil population there, some industry. Then, with time, civilian sector will build mining complexes within the system and you'll be able to buy and send the minerals from those to your local hub automatically using Mass Drivers. Civilian Mining Complexes build Mass Drivers and Mines by themselves, and can do it faster and at no cost for your government. You just have to pay for the minerals they mine. This way you'll have to worry only about local hubs, which gather minerals for you. The less hassle the better.

[Gabethebaldandbold]

Depends a lot on what kind of economy you are trying to achieve, how are you going to roleplay, and what lies in the galaxy as a whole.
I like to start with a small population, an STRIP MINE THE SOL SISTEM, MAY NO PEBBLE WITH A SINGLE GRAM OF MINERALS BE UNTOUCHED AND I DONT CARE HOW MANY ASTEROID MINERS I NEED TO BUILD, OR HOW MANY MINES VENUS NEESS, IF I HAVENT MINED 75%OF ALL MINERALS BY THE 150th YEAR I HAVE ALREADY LOST!!!!!!!!
Also I dont like to colonize anything that cant hold a proper atmosphere, unless it has a good quantity of minerals. Big doomstack of efficient freighters usually can keep up with automated mine shenanigans, and big big fleet of heavy duty fuel harvesters handles fuel. Asteroid miners hop them rocks and teach 1 mineral asteroids who is boss.

[Gabethebaldandbold]

Also, build Starports, it really speeds the civilian economy, those numpties have never heard of cargo handling sistems