Aeson
Posts: 784
Joined: 8/30/2013
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quote:
Even construction-ship projects are stalled.
It's actually not all that abnormal for construction ships to stall even when the overall resource situation is fairly decent, because they're most likely operating in regions of your empire which are relatively short on available resources and so may not be able to obtain sufficient supplies of some resources before they try to construct a station.
As far as your issue goes:
How many space ports do you have? You can get away with just working off your home space port for quite some time, which funnels a lot of resources into it and tends to prevent shortages when constructing ships. You also don't need a space port in every system or over every colony or even in every sector, though it might eventually become useful to have something like a midsize spaceport in each sector. If you have space ports that you don't currently really need, especially if they're in areas where you don't have many nearby mines, you might consider scrapping them, as this should reduce the distribution problem your freighters face. If you're currently building space ports over worlds, have shortages stalling construction there, and have reasonably nearby completed space ports, you might consider cancelling the spaceport construction until you're more able to afford extra stations. Also take a look at your construction projects and ask yourself which ones are really necessary and which ones can be put off until later. If you're at peace and don't have significant pirate issues, maybe doubling the size of the fleet can wait and you can cancel the 50 destroyers you ordered, or maybe that mine off in the middle of nowhere can be cancelled in favor of work on a mine which is more immediately useful.
You can try assigning resource missions to independent traders, although be aware that this can potentially impoverish your private sector, and also know that this will make the pirates wealthier and thus more of an issue (and won't be possible if they're not in the game). Try to focus on specific resources, if possible, rather than issuing a general resource bounty. You don't really want to be paying that smuggler a bonus for bringing in a load of Questurian Skin when the space port construction is stalled due to a lack of steel. You may also want to focus mission assignments on locations where the projects can be completed quickly if only that last 1000 steel arrives or some such thing. I would also strongly suggest thinking about where you would get the greatest benefit from a smuggling mission. That completed space port with a backlog of 15 frigates you don't currently need which is stalled on a few escorts isn't a priority. Your only colony building desert- or volcano-capable colonizers which keeps stalling? That is a potential priority.
While it probably won't help you now, it might interest you to know that you can add mining engines, gas extractors, luxury extractors, and cargo bays to state ships (e.g. escorts) and order them to mine worlds, which causes the ship to collect resources from that world. If you allow the ship's cargo bays to fill, it should return to the closest space port (or perhaps closest colony) and drop off its cargo, at which point it should idle until you next issue it a command. However, since you're already seeing construction stalling due to shortages, it's likely too late to build state mining ships or reconstruct old ships as state mining ships, as they'll just be buried in the queue. You can also do this with construction ships to allow yourself the ability to correct shortages of specific resources manually without waiting for a freighter to go visit the ship with whatever it ran out of by locating a nearby source, ordering the construction ship to stop work, ordering it to mine the source for a little while, and then ordering it to repair the station it had been working on. You can also force the construction ship to return to a nearby space port to try to pick up additional resources by ordering it to stop work on the station and then ordering it to repair the station.
Retiring ships at the nearest space port should provide the space port with the resources which went into building the ship which you retired, and so if you have obsolete or unnecessary ships floating around you can move them to an area with a shortage and a space port and scrap them, which will hopefully give enough of a resource boost to help complete whichever projects are stalled. This may be worthwhile as an alternative to upgrading military ships if you have relatively modern construction stalled but at a point where you could push the new ships out by scrapping a few old ships. It's also a possible, though expensive, means of transferring resources from a space port with lots of resources to a space port with few resources, but it's not really worth it; instead, you may want to consider manually ordering construction at specific locations where you know you have the resources and just letting the other stations catch up later. It can be useful to take a look at the construction summary in the ship design menu, as this lists the total quantity and type of resources required for a new vessel of the type.
You can also make your designs smaller, although this will not help your current situation. It can help prevent it in the future, as it takes significantly fewer resources to build a size-200 Small Space Port than a size-500 Small Space Port at each new major colony (for that matter, early on you're perhaps best off by going with a very minimal small space port consisting of only one docking bay, one construction yard, one of each manufacturing center, a commerce center, an energy collector or two, and any other required components for a valid design, and perhaps a small number of shield generators, armor plates, and weapons if you're going to bother with building a space port at relatively new colonies - something like this is relatively affordable, it goes up quickly, and it doesn't require too many resources all at once), and there's really little good reason for any civilian freighter or miner to be larger than size-300 or so, and you can likely get away with keeping the ships much smaller. You may also want to check the costs of the individual components to see if some of them are less resource-intensive than others, or if you have better access to the resources required by missiles than you do for the resources required by torpedoes or some such thing. Also, try to space out refits rather than ordering everything into port for modernization all at once. You may also want to consider only buying small numbers of new ships at any given time rather than fulfilling the advisor's requests for 30 new battleships whenever you have the money for to pay for them.
quote:
because the Securans and Shandars are taking over the galaxy!
Securans and Shandar tend to be relatively peaceful. If you already have an adequate chunk of the galaxy to build on once the shortages are resolved, you may want to just sit back and let time deal with the issues in most areas.
One further piece of advice. Take a look at about how much territory a new colony claims for you. Then take a look at where your potential colonies are and, if possible, where your opponents' potential colonies are (Shandar like volcanic worlds, Securans like desert worlds; Marshy Swamp and Continental Colonization are early in the tree and are also fairly common native planet types, so you might keep an eye on those as well, but most empires are unlikely to be expanding to non-native colony types early in the game unless they found an independent who can do it). You don't need to colonize everything as long as you can colonize enough stuff to keep your competition out of an area, and it might be worth taking a planet which isn't as good overall if it is better placed to lay claim to other potential colonies and resources or to block your competitors from expanding into an area - Securans might find it rather difficult to move into that cluster you have your eye on if the only desert worlds within the colonization range limit of their empire are in a location that you can cover with just one colony, and it might be worth taking that colony just to prevent their expansion even if it has a relatively low quality despite there being nicer potential colonies further into the cluster which cannot quickly prevent expansion.
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Help! I grew too fast! - 
RE: Help! I grew too fast! - 
I've retired all my capital ships, half my cruisers, and half my frigates. Still, every single construction project I have is stalled for lack of resources. Nothing that requires building anything works. 
I may take the radical step of retiring my entire navy, given that the Securans and Shandars aren't likely to attack. I've now got two empires of Ackdarians to deal with, however . . . I'll keep your advice in mind when I play a new game . . . which may be really soon! 
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