Impact of resources?

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Impact of resources? - 4/5/2010 10:08:57 AM

YourConscience

Posts: 57
Joined: 4/5/2010
Status: offline

I am playing a game where I set the amount of pirates to maximum. And they are constantly destroying all my mining stations. Now, how important are they anyway? I didn't find any way to tell whether I am running short on Hydrogen, for example, or anything else. How do I find out?

Also, I could simply add lots of shields and lasers to my mining stations, effectively making them little starbases. But that would make their maintenance huge. How do I find out whether it's worth for me?

On a side note: it would be nice to change the behavior of the zoom-hotkeys (Del, End, ...) such that they always center on the currently selected ship/item. It's annoying to press such a button to zoom in only to end up somewhere in deep space.

On and while I am here: For some reason whenever I give a destroyer the command to retrofit to a new design they don't do anything. Is that supposed to be here?

Other than that, I find it's a great game and only needs work on the UI.

Post #: 1

RE: Impact of resources? - 4/5/2010 11:54:00 AM

Fishman

Posts: 795
Joined: 4/1/2010
Status: offline

It's usually worth it to arm them, because you don't have to pay this cost, it is borne by the private sector, and not you. It's best not to try too hard, however, because you don't want them to be completely indestructible until you make the Final End Game version with the best extraction techs, as you cannot upgrade them or scrap them.

If the ship isn't doing anything when ordered to retrofit, the nearest space port it wants to retrofit at is backlogged. This happens a lot, and you will need to find a free docking port before you can retrofit, as the order won't queue and requires an immediate free yard.

As for great game, well, it's a great game CONCEPT. The implementation needs work as it's all but impossible to conclude a game before something corrupts it.

(in reply to YourConscience)

Post #: 2

RE: Impact of resources? - 4/5/2010 12:16:55 PM

tuser

Posts: 29
Joined: 3/31/2010
Status: offline

I'd never play at max pirates.. pirates improve their ships with your tech so they remain a pain throughout the game if you don't colonize everything and eradicate them.
Losing a few mining bases and freighters here and there doesn't matter much, but you should keep an eye on your resource supply&demand situation. If you lose one of very few suppliers for one resource you may get into trouble. Colony income depends on regular luxury resource supply. Those supplies can't just be bought somewhere, but have to be transported from an actual mining base to every colony. Same for strategic resources and shipbuilding - if it takes forever to obtain those resources, your shipyards stall. If galaxy wide supply becomes low, your maintenance costs will skyrocket. I've seen 3 to 5 times the regular costs just because of one resource becoming scarce.
Another consideration is the wealth of your private sector. If they run out of money, they can't replace their losses anymore. You don't want to run out of freighters.

(in reply to Fishman)

Post #: 3

RE: Impact of resources? - 4/5/2010 1:23:03 PM

YourConscience

Posts: 57
Joined: 4/5/2010
Status: offline

Yes, I know all this. What I was trying to convey is that despite for the prices and galaxy stocks in the expansion planner, there is no more immediate or direct way to observe where or when I am going to have a shortage. At least have an advisor popping up and saying: "Hey, at this rate soon there'll be no more Hydrogen! But we need 500K per Month!" so that I can make it a chief task to send an entire fleet protecting the construction ship which constructs the new gas mining station.

Also, the non-upgradeability of mining stations is a real bummer. This needs to be fixed asap. Or is there some hidden way to scrap one, after all?

(in reply to tuser)

Post #: 4

RE: Impact of resources? - 4/5/2010 3:58:06 PM

FerretStyle

Posts: 157
Joined: 3/30/2010
Status: offline

Its worth it to arm your mining stations, but you need to arm them good. It actually isn't too expensive to do so either.

I'd suggest you double the shields on your mining stations and then put enough guns on it so the maintenance is about 200 more than the default. This should easily fend of a single pirate, but will have trouble if two attack it at once or one right after another. So you may need to send backup every once in awhile but I find it a nice compromise.

Also, pirates aren't too expensive to pay off for "protection" so you might want to do that if they're being too bothersome and you haven't found enough of their bases to blow up.

(in reply to YourConscience)

Post #: 5

RE: Impact of resources? - 4/5/2010 4:48:41 PM

Shark7

Posts: 7937
Joined: 7/24/2007
From: The Big Nowhere
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: tuser

I'd never play at max pirates.. pirates improve their ships with your tech so they remain a pain throughout the game if you don't colonize everything and eradicate them.
Losing a few mining bases and freighters here and there doesn't matter much, but you should keep an eye on your resource supply&demand situation. If you lose one of very few suppliers for one resource you may get into trouble. Colony income depends on regular luxury resource supply. Those supplies can't just be bought somewhere, but have to be transported from an actual mining base to every colony. Same for strategic resources and shipbuilding - if it takes forever to obtain those resources, your shipyards stall. If galaxy wide supply becomes low, your maintenance costs will skyrocket. I've seen 3 to 5 times the regular costs just because of one resource becoming scarce.
Another consideration is the wealth of your private sector. If they run out of money, they can't replace their losses anymore. You don't want to run out of freighters.

I do play at max pirates because every victory you get over them improves your galactic standing. Until I'm ready to eradicate all the alien scum from the galaxy, its good to get along with them and lower your chances of early wars.