Interesting
Posts: 120
Joined: 4/4/2010
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1. More luxury gas extractors components make you extract more luxuries resources faster and allows you to prioritize/filter what your cargo is holding. The same happens for having more gas/mine extractors, but it extracts too fast already for those resources. More extractors is much more efficient than having multiple mines scathered around. Make uber efficient mining stations, with ridiculous cargo size and weapons/armor for each luxury resource. This way you just need one, one place to secure, one place for your freighters to go too, enough of each resource to supply a colony for years with each freight travel. Also due to how you cant control or make more freighters.
2. The ammount of cargo componenents in mining stations is interesting: if you have just one cargo component of 500, then once you extract 500 or just over it the mining station will stop and it will only start again once the PRIVATE feel the need to send a freighter over there, and the queue is pretty long (you always need more freighters than you have and the ones you have are always busy), so the more total cargo you have the less time you spend with the miner doing nothing. If you have 50 cargo components, it will keep working untill the 50 x 500 space is filled, wich will give you time for many freighters to come and go.
3. As soon as you get a new colony, freighters will move resources from one colony to another, even if you are not building anything. The new colony will also send resources to your old colony. If your old colony has a starport, then the resources will divide ammongst Starport and Colony. Picture it like water filling empty spaces, trying to reach a balance. Im telling this, because once you know it, you can control it.
4. Freighters transfer resources based on roles, a Small freighter will transport luxuries, medium freighters will transport strategic resources and large freighters will transport fuel. Even if the large freighter has 5000 cargo, it wont use that much, even if the small cargo has space for 1000 cargo, it wont use that much as well.
5. If you set flee when atacked, most of the time it will be too late, if you set flee when shield is lower than 50 or 20%, and the enemy is a space creature, it wont flee, because space creatures ignore shield. Space Creatures are nasty. Make ships with high armor, specialized in hunting space creatures. I name them "Hunters".
6. When starting a new game and looking for colonies, the best thing to do is send the explorers to star systems, and manually watch them while zoomed out. Once they get in the system, the name of the system will appear, and if you check the expansion planner, if a new colonizable planet doesnt appear, right away you select the explorer and send him to another system and keep doing it. If you dont, then the explorer will explore inside the system, going back and forth between planets just to scan its resources, and depending how far apart and how many planets/asteroids are there, it can take a long time to explore that system. But as I said, if you are looking just for colonies, it takes just the hyperjump time from start to star.
7. Build research stations only on Black Holes. And nowhere else.
8. Resort bases are only worth when one of your colonies start reaching full population, before that, you will just waste maintenance resources.
9. Build 2 types of mining stations and gas stations: A "Luxury version" for each, with more luxury extractors, cargo space, weapons and shields: this way you will be able extract more luxuries faster and whenever the freighters "Divide" them between colonies, there will be enough to last a long time. The "normal" design for strategic resources and gas, also with weapons and shields, but less everything. Dont build mining stations indiscriminatelly: in the beggining they drain more than they generate, you dont have enough freighters or demand for resources. Focus on getting mines for luxuries, and not those you already have, those you dont already have. You dont need many sources, just one source of each, well protected, with lots of cargo and fast luxury extraction.
10. When I started playing I asked everyone what was the most cost efficient way to defend your territory. Noone could answer me satisfatorily. Then recently I realised a new strategy: Instead of building static bases, giving weapons to freighters or building a bunch of escorts and frigates I made an army of explorers.
And here is why: The missions you can assign to ships are based on ship role.
I designed explorers so they could be usefull 100% of the time, instead of doing unecessary patrols or escorts, wasting fuel, and paying maintenance/upkeep. Explorers with guns. Exploration in the beggining is crutial, you need to get colonies/luxuries/ruins before everyone else. The only threats you get in the beggining, are space creatures, pirates and other races, nothing that 2 or 3 200 size explorers cant take on. All the time they are exploring, always on the edge of my territories. Each time a threat appears, select 2 or 3 close by and send them in. 3-5 weapons each, 1-2 shields each. Instead of paying maintenance for extra command centers, reactors, engines, thrusters, fuel cells, etc and let them rot while being unused like it happens with bases/escorts/frigates, for explorers its like a swiss knife. Always being usefull while exploring, good for taking out pirates/space creatures on the way if there is any. All for the cost of just the weapons/shields maintenance, instead of the full package.
11. Another strategy, make a custom explorer, this time, add a longe range radar to it, one more reactor and enough energy collectors. Keep it inside a star system at the edge of your territories, standing still. It works as a mobile outpost allowing you to see any ship movements in its range, use it to find pirates and other threats. You put it in the closest system to an yet unexplored area, this way you can discover pirate bases. This thing is much efficient than making a long radar range in a base, besides, is mobile, so you can decide where you want to "look at".
12. Mobile miners are worthless. You dont choose where they go. I kept track of many mobile miners for a long time, just trying to understand what the AI was doing and I noticed they were sent to mine resources I already have mining stations on, or resources my colonies already have thousands of. The miners offen got themselfs in trouble, going back and forth, using fuel, being slow, with limited cargo... Costing maintenance.
You, as the player, have to be in control, to know what is a good investment and what isnt. If you need a certain resource, then its worth having a mining station there and securing it. Do not rely on private miners.
If you are full of hydrogen, then the gas miner goes and mines hydrogen, instead of choosing a Caslon source nearby that you have higher demand and such.
Mobile Miners should have a self destruct button and you cannot avoid having the AI trying to build them.
< Message edited by Interesting -- 4/11/2010 11:11:37 PM >
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