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Resource questions from a new player - 3/15/2013 9:14:56 PM

robc04_1

Posts: 146
Joined: 1/15/2012
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Hi there,

One of the most difficult thinks to get your head around in the beginning is what resources you should make a priority to acquire sources for. I looked at all of my starting stockpiles and the resource requirements of the starting ships. It looks like you start with enough resources to build quite a lot of the beginning ships.

I queued up a couple to produce and looked at the expansion planner. The resources required by the ships I started building didn't seem to be reflected in the resource demand anywhere. So, using the tools of the game is there any reasonable way to determine what resources are important to find sources for first?

Looking at the resource requirements of the ship designs doesn't seem like a very efficient way to come to grips with what resources to acquire.

Edit: It looks like you could see what resources are reserved when the construction is started, but that isn't a great tool for planning resource acquisition.

Thanks

< Message edited by robc04 -- 3/15/2013 9:18:21 PM >

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RE: Resource questions from a new player - 3/15/2013 9:27:48 PM

ASHBERY76

Posts: 2136
Joined: 10/10/2001
From: England
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The most important is getting caslon fuel bases around your territory early and luxury goods to make happy planets.The rest are best used by your private mining ships so you do not waste money having too many mining bases in my experience.Just checking the planner sometimes to check if you are short of strategic resources, but this rarely happens.

< Message edited by ASHBERY76 -- 3/15/2013 9:28:34 PM >

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RE: Resource questions from a new player - 3/15/2013 9:34:30 PM

Bingeling

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Joined: 8/12/2010
Status: offline

For a new player, letting the AI run constructors is not a bad idea. Unless you want to do that part yourself, of course.

There are some common resources you need quite a lot of. Steel and fuel. In general, 1 source for every strategic resource is a good idea, and it is easy to figure out if you have that by the expansion planner.

From my experience, the two I keep an eye on is carbon fiber, polymers, and maybe silicons. Depending on your race, these can be somewhat rare, and securing sources of these is a good idea. If you don't need them, maybe the others do, which makes them nice to own yourself. These (and ultra rares) are resources I may consider placing a "crap" colony in order to get them inside my area of influence.

As for looking at reserved. There is a full component summary in the design.

http://bildr.no/image/1415842.jpeg

You can see there is a certain amount of the three mentioned. Carbon fiber, silicon and polymer are not very common, the rest are no problem to get hold of.

< Message edited by Bingeling -- 3/15/2013 9:37:53 PM >

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RE: Resource questions from a new player - 3/15/2013 10:03:07 PM

Gargoil

Posts: 389
Joined: 1/6/2008
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: robc04

Hi there,

One of the most difficult thinks to get your head around in the beginning is what resources you should make a priority to acquire sources for. I looked at all of my starting stockpiles and the resource requirements of the starting ships. It looks like you start with enough resources to build quite a lot of the beginning ships.

I queued up a couple to produce and looked at the expansion planner. The resources required by the ships I started building didn't seem to be reflected in the resource demand anywhere. So, using the tools of the game is there any reasonable way to determine what resources are important to find sources for first?

Looking at the resource requirements of the ship designs doesn't seem like a very efficient way to come to grips with what resources to acquire.

Edit: It looks like you could see what resources are reserved when the construction is started, but that isn't a great tool for planning resource acquisition.

Thanks

1) Private sector builds ships too - so they use resources.
2) Building mines, bases, etc takes resources.
3) Ships use Caslon and, maybe later on, Hydrogen as fuel.
4) Your private sector can trade away (and trade for) resources.\

Caslon and Steel are used in huge quantities. In the expansion planner, check not only demand, but also stockpile. If there is not much of a resource, and not many sources, sooner or later your going to have a problem. Sometimes you even run into a problem with a resource you seem to have in sufficient amounts because it has not been transported by the private sector to were it is needed. It will eventually, but in the upcoming Shadows expansion this is to be improved (I think it will be part of a patch, even for those that do not buy the expansion.)

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RE: Resource questions from a new player - 3/15/2013 10:27:48 PM

robc04_1

Posts: 146
Joined: 1/15/2012
Status: offline

Thanks guys for the tips. So I guess learning what resources are important to get a hold of just comes with experience. I had been looking at the component summaries to get an idea of what resources are needed. The expansion planner is a good tool to see what you have and how many sources, but not effective for determining what you will need.

What would help is if on the component summary screen a tooltip showed how many of the resources you had. Otherwise you have to remember what your stockpiles are or jump back and forth between screens to see what is needed / what you have.

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RE: Resource questions from a new player - 3/15/2013 10:30:14 PM

robc04_1

Posts: 146
Joined: 1/15/2012
Status: offline

Another good addition would be to have a graph that can show what your resource stockpiles were over time so you can see how they are trending.

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RE: Resource questions from a new player - 3/15/2013 10:48:48 PM

Darkspire

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Best tips I can give is to not build any colony ships till you have at least a few sources of steel and carbon fiber and select the mining sites in your own systems where possible with the constructors.

Darkspire

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RE: Resource questions from a new player - 3/16/2013 4:26:20 PM

robc04_1

Posts: 146
Joined: 1/15/2012
Status: offline

I'm pretty sure I understand the workflow for resources, but I would like to confirm it with you guys.

The private sector will mine resources on their own using resource gathering ships, but resources will be gathered faster if you build a mining station. Then the private sector will pick those up and drop them off at a colony / starport. When construction is queued up at a colony, any resources available at the colony are reserved. If some resources are not available, the construction project will wait (without warning) until those resources are delivered from another location.

How does it choose the location, the closest one that has unreserved resources?
Does the location have to be know by you, or does your location have to be known by the empire where the resource is located?
If it is another empire, can it be any empire that doesn't have a trade embargo against you and isn't being blockaded?

The cost of constructing the ship looks like it is the cost of the resources + some small labor cost (the cost appeared to be more than just the sum of the resource costs). There isn't any cost difference if the resource was located in your own empire or another one, right?

Do you have to pay for fuel when you refuel at a refueling center?

Thanks for the help!

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RE: Resource questions from a new player - 3/17/2013 6:39:30 AM

feelotraveller

Posts: 1040
Joined: 9/12/2011
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Yes, in general that is correct.� Mining ships only have their mining engines/extractors working at half the rate of bases, and they have to travel back and forth (although late game you can stack mining ships with lots of extraction components...).� Spaceports also try to keep minimum levels (varies with race and I think spaceport size) of each resource on hand.� Deliveries from mining bases�usually go to the nearest spaceport and then on from there if needed elsewhere.�

I think that the�ship/bases costs are still calculated as outlined in this post�http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2717671� Basically in addition to resource costs there is small size factor involved.

You always pay for fuel whether at home or away.

Edit: rereading I realised I missed bits...

To engage in trade you need to have visited ('named') the system where the resources will come from/go to but you do not have to have explored it for the resources or even to have uncovered the base yourself. Somehow your private sector will always know if there are resources for trade. Any empire can be traded with as long as your can trade with them.

So embargo will stop but also if you tick option to not engage in trade in empire policies, or if you are at war, etc.

Also with that link... I think that the construction costs follow the schema for the maintenance costs. It would be worth checking if this tallies with what you see in the game if you are interested.

On the locations for needed resources... it is a bit annoying at the moment. In simple cases with an abundance of reserves the closest seems to be chosen but once demand is high sometimes locations far away with little of the resource are chosen again and again as well as the nearer locations. Rumour has it that this will see improvement in Shadows though.