Colony builder's quide !~!~!~!

spiceant

i made a litle quide for making colony's, i see barely anyone do this succesfully or not use colony's to their full potential and there are still plenty of newbie's out there that dont have a general idea of how they want to play the game.

i am going to assume you figured out the most of the how-to's in the game and are wondering what-to-do (or how did spiceant get his brown medal)

Early Game:

(rephrased on 6th september 10 minutes after midnight, dutch time) you will want to put your character points according to what you are going to do, if you are going to colonize far away from sol youll be relatively safe from most invader´s, but you wont have the unlimitet colonists found on earth. (or the server doesnt allow earth to give any colonists at all). if this is the case you should most often get 10 charisma and 5 wisdom, you will need the charisma to get the most colonists from starport´s, since you dont have the unlimitet colonists of planet earth. now if you plan to colonize near planet earth you will want 10 wisdom and 5 charisma, since you have the unlimitet colonists nearby and thus dont need the extra colonists from star port´s, one important directive is to spare as much fuel as you can, wich is achieved by the 10 wisdom.

early on in the game you start with 10.000 credits and one of the worst ships. you may want to get into having the ability to start trading really soon. to do this you first go to the nearest station and start taxying them around to their destinations untill you can get the merchant freighter (the thing with point defense) then you go on doing trade runs untill the point where you can buy 60 cargo hold's (75K credits) and about 30K extra to buy 80 spice/equipment. now that you have 80 cargo and credits to buy spice/equipment you can start searching for a trading route, these are usually litle to much more efficient in earning money and dont pull you away 25 hop's away from your colony's.

to find a trading route first find yourself a system that is connectet to atleast 4 other systems (preferably close to sol and it doesnt really matter how many systems are nearby but it increase's the chance of a trading route) if the first system you check doesnt have a station go to the next closest system wich has 4+ (unexplored) systems next to it. if your current system has a station in it wich buys spice and sells equipment (or uranium) or buys equipment and sells spice try to find an adjecent station (one warp hole away) that buys what the other station sells and sells what the other station buy's.  once you have found a trading route mark it on the map with 2 flag's of a color you wish to use for trading route's, put one flag on station A of the trading route and another on station B. then if station A sells equipment buy it and go to station B sell your equipment there and buy spice (or uranium) and return to station A and sell your spice (or uranium) there. ( a trading route is a good one if it has 50% or above in suply's and demand also for spice/equipment route's 20% or above is nice with 10 charisma)

while exploring mark every system with a starport in it with a flag wich you wish to use for systems with starport's in them.

now when i mention sell or buy i mean HAGGLE THEM TO DEATH! this is where the 10 charisma come's in good handy, it increase's your ability to haggle, i repeat clicking the 5% button when i buy or sell untill the vendor get's angry with me, usually a vendor is angry when they say something without the word sorry in it like: "this offer is not negotiatable" "im not going any lower". if the vendor use's the word security or swindler in a sentence this mean's the vendor isnt going to trade with you anymore within the hour and it is not safe to haggle there within the next 5 hour's after he cools down again. now trade untill your trading route's suply/demand (on average) sink below 35% or untill you have 850.000 credits, if you dont have 850.000 credits yet find another trading route. otherwise go to a station and buy a galaxy whale, full shields, cargo and do trade runs yet again.

when you have cash floating do not forget to convert spice into fuel, its important that your spice conversion is used to the max of its existance so the /spice (-o-meter) alway's give's you a number below 150, to maximize the amount of fuel you have.

early mid game:

now that you have a galaxy whale with full cargo and shields (and probably a piece of weak weapon) you should decide what exactly you want to do as a colonizer, you can do many thing's, you can make load's of money by capturing a spice planet and building it into spice heaven, colonize an earth planet in your corp's system to suply them with colonist's, colonize a volcano planet to suply your other colony's with turret's or to suply you with a lot of nuke's.

basic planet colonizing: you should certainly on planet's with neutral and below morale boost's alway's keep atleast 10 medicine's in your refinary, for each 100 colonists. at the end of a colony when it reached 5000 people and you awnt to maximize its use (for example experience building on an arctic) let it research (directorship government) advanced architecture because that double's the amount of experience it make's. on desert planet's you may want spice mining for double spice harvest. each time a bio dome upgrade complete's update its amount of medicine according to the amount of people and ferry people to the dome to maximize the colony's efficiency. once a colony, wichever it may be you may want to raise it's taxe's untill its morale is barely increasing. or you leave it unchanged if you want to be sure it stay's in unity.

basic planet colonizing II: you can make 2 choice's on where you want to build your colony's, either as close as possible to the sol system for unlimitet colonists or as far as away as possible so your colony's dont get attacked as much as they do near sol. when you colonize near sol you can get your colonists there but if you are far away you can't. if you colonize far (4+) away you may want to explore around for starport's to see where you can pick up colonists, you may want an earthlike planet to grow colonists for you. also keep in mind the location of starport's nearby systems so you can buy every resource you will be buying in the future.

basic planet colonizing III (defense): if you build your colony's near sol you can expect them to be invaded succesfully or not, at the moment i generally surround my bio dome with 1 line of mine's and the rest of the space around the bio dome with turret's (ATLEAST 40 IF YOU BUILD NEAR SOL). notice that you will need a solar cannon to succesfully defend against half decent invader's. when placing a colony with security in mind you may want the closest starport to be 3+ hop's away so it will cost invader's to invade and then go to the nearest star port to refill shield's. this isnt very practical though.

basic planet colonizing IV (defense addition III): you will probably want to defend your colony by the most succesfull means possible. it is best if you have good experience with invading colony´s yourself, it is the best way of knowing what is and is not good for defense. from my experience putting up solid blocks of turrets is NOT the best way to defend, because if the invader make´s a mistake and runs into them he will be bumped back. but if you leave hole´s in your block´s of turrets chance is an invader will fall into it and will be beat up heavily, its a good thing to set up your turrets so that invader´s get trapped inside, when they make a mistake. keep in mind that NO COLONY is safe from a or more dedicated resourcefull and rich invader´s.

basic planet colonizing IV (addition I): when building your colony's far away from good old trusty sol you may want to have 7 or more stations close to your colony, and unless you use earth planet's to grow people for you neither put colony's close to eachother because those 7+ stations cant suply colonists for 2 or more colony's. do not ever put a bio dome on a planet if you dont intend to put people there right away, otherwise you will be wasting precious time in wich your colony's can not be invaded.

ocean planet: i dont use these planets so much anymore, i use them like oil derricks at some time's and like earthlike's... their special structure add's 50% research efficiency wich is okay but it harvests not so many good resource's and doesnt have many other advantage's.

Volcano planet: this planet is a hot and grim planet literally and virtually, many people saw me the good guy launch nuke's and they wantet not to see me again after that...! this planet will require a lot of macro management because its people die constantly and it doesnt gather many usefull resource's. at most time's i have prison government 0% taxe's. to keep the morale above neutral i use this building order -> refinary -> bio upgrade -> radio receiver -> solar cannon -> bio upgrade or broadcast receiver (depending on if i can gather all the required resource's for bio level 3) followed up by weapons factory and lava mill. if luck or patience allow's i go research with 5K people (under directorship government) for 2x nuke's and or 2x turret production.

Arctic planet: this planet is a cold but good planet for making experience once you have it build up entirely, maxing out at 1000 xp per hour. the government would be democracy 5% tax for me (untill bio grade 3 is complete then 0% tax). building refinary->bio-dome(2)-refinary(2)-solar cannon-HeaterCore-bio-dome(3). where i use the harvesting capebilitie's to make most of the resource's for the bio dome 3 and the heater core, putting construction and harvesting as high compared to each other so that the planet harvestet almost every required resource by the time the structure finishe's. because i use these planet's for building experience unity morale is awesome, it double's production (of experience) to achieve this democracy government (at all time's) is almost a must.

earthlike planet: i dont often use this planet type because i build my colony's as close as possible to sol (wich hold's earth where you can get an unlimitet suply of colonists) but if i do (in a distant (away from sol) system) i fill it with 800 people put it on 0% tax democracy and take every colonist i need that take's the population count above 800.

mountain planet: i use this kind of planet to make any resource i have to few of in the system i am using, prison government 0% tax with refinary -> ref upgrade -> atom smasher. use the atom smasher to generate resource's you need. i dont invest to much in these planet's.

desert planet: i use desert planet's as heart of my bank account, i colonize and build it up so i can finance everything i want to finance. the disadvantage of this planet is if you want it to make much money in the future your going to have to invest some in it first. do note that its the best to have these planets within 1 or no jump's away from a station that buy's spice (and doesnt lie in a spice/something trade route so that people wont take the % demand down). my way of building a desert planet is to (as alway's) build a refinary first, a bio dome upgrade and then a solar cannon. then followed up by building bio dome upgrade 3 and spice miner (all in prison 0% tax government). if i feel lucky i put it after i have 5000 people on it i research (with directorship government) untill i have double spice harvesting, but this doesnt alway's come quickly.

paradise planet: dont use these planet's, their plain useless and overrated, arctic planet's are litle worse but not invaded by tons of capable people, these planets do not get un protection, forget about them.

greenhouse planet: a unless you build these far awaaaaay you cannot depend on the special structure that hide's it from the radar, it has very negative reproduction rate for people and if people remember where it was while it was under un protection the colony is doomed. i dont use these planets at all.

rocky planet: i dont really use this planet, its a nice planet for taxe's because the combination of artesian well broadcast receiver weather prediction and everlasting democracy allow's for 15% taxe's and above, build it like described at the arctic planet, i dont use these planets much.

late game: (5 day's before server re-bang)

now later in the game you may have gathered a lot of money and or nuke's, you you have produced a lot of nuke's and if you are lucky you have a whole colonized corporation well defended and all. you may have wantet to kill npc's and player's earlier on. but it become's time you put everything to its best use, if you are rich get UN comission a star cruiser graviton beam and get loaded with nuke's and or negotiators and hunt! keep watching out for your planet's as turret's may be disappearing at random or even entire corp's start invading your planet's.

near the end of the game you may want to turn the government of your arctic planet('s) to prison to get the 50% production boost to get a whoopig 1500 xp per hour, this will quickly destroy morale though so watch out that you dont do this untill you are sure the morale decrease's by the time the re-bang already occurred.

(Addition II if you or your corp has a few xp generating planet's you'd be smell like experience, a good reputation and therefor starports will happily give you colonists. go to the nearest star port and load yourself with colonists, then go to the nearest desertet colony and (preferable earth/ocean) capture it and leave your people there, either ferry more people to it or set it to prison government/0%tax and let them make experience for you. dont bother defending it, it isnt worth THAT much. you can take it back when it is invaded again, because no-one will probably bother taking the colony back. the newbie's that were active at first (invading desertet colony's over and over) should disappeared for the most part now.

Addition I and II added on 4rth of september - 1:20 after midnight - dutch time

Addition III and a an edit added on on 6th september 20 minutes after midnight

Me, Myself and no-one else

Ipps

Very good guide spiceant, thanks for posting it!

Stump

Hummm... well, ol' Stump be durned.

Ol' Stump'll applaud yer grand effort, ye obviously went t'some trouble in makin' that. But ol' Stump's praise'll stop there I'm afraid. There be some major issues with yer guide that ol' Stump t'would disagree with, 'n some ol' Stump's never heard tell of.

The main function o' Charisma is how many Colonists ye be able t'attract at a Lounge, secondary be a slight improvement o' yer Colonies moral. This be straight from the Starpedia, and there be no mention of it impactin' yer hagglin' odds at the tradin' post. Get yerself a Persuader art-y-fact or two iff'n that be the main purpose o' takin' all that Charisma... most people jettison them so ye should be able t'buy em cheap enough. Warp fuel usage be one o' the most important things in the game, 'n subsequently unless ye be free with yer credit card ye should be takin' 10 Wisdom.

Yer guide t'defendin' a colony leaves alot t'be desired. Suggestin' 40 turrets might be adequate fer defense t'aint sound advice. Aye, it'll keep out 98% of the passers by, but they ain't the ones ye should be worried 'bout. Iff'n ye just want t'keep them out likely 10 would do.

'N what's this about keepin' Medicine on hand???? That be a new one on ol' Stump. Where did ye get this tidbit of info? It may be true, and it may not... ol' Stump can't say fer sure, so t'would be good iff'n ye could site a reference.

Now, ye do make some good points. Ol' Stump agrees it be a worthwhile thing t'do some researchin' on planets ye take the time t'build up a ways. Consider Advanced Architecture t'be 'bout t'same as havin' another planet just like the one ye just built. With 5000 pop, 100% in Research, and in Directorship, ye shouldn't have'ta wait no more than 48 hours t'get most ev'rything ye t'would want on the planet... most times less.

Keep playin' keep learnin', 'n as ye go keep updatin' yer guide. Make're a work in progress. Tis a good thing ye care 'nuff 'bout the game t'take the time t'try to help those startin' out.

spiceant

the medicine tip come's from the bartender and KLUMP who went into a litle more detail about it.

from my experience 10 charisma > 0 charisma when it come's to haggling, i just have more succes haggling with 10 charisma then 0 charisma. with 10 charisma i usually get about 35xp per hop of a trade route with 0 it's average at 16xp

i dont have to much experience with defending a colony like the best so some help on that would be nice.

Me, Myself and no-one else

Tempunaut

Good gracious, I've written dissertations shorter than that... applause must be given for the effort!

I think character attributes are best decided if you have a plan for what you might be doing in the upcoming game. Wisdom is highly regarded as by far the best, and most will plough 10 points no questions asked right into it as it enables you to play for longer. I have learnt however that in the long run neglecting the other attributes, especially charisma, is not the best choice. Charisma definitely helps in haggling, (it is mentioned in starpedia) and the effect on colony morale does help to reduce the time required to get to the all important Unity on your arctic worlds. However, if I am planning to have a bit of an action round, killing npc's and the like, then I would max out dexterity, as you don't want ya ship handling like a fridge when you've got a sethdar up yer jacksie!

Your advice on trading is generally sound, although perhaps putting flags on every system with a starport would make the map a huge mess! I use pink for IG worlds, blue for my important planets, white for artifacts, red for planets that I may at some stage invade, and that's about it! You can browse around systems in the map with your mouse to find starports easy enough.

Your planet descriptions are good, although I'd have to agree with Ol' Stump about your advice with the medicine. The barman will tell you that medicine will save lives, but I think your stockpiles of paracetamol will only come into play if there is a disaster and it reduces the amount of deaths. If you are gonna be building near Sol, then you really should expect to get invaded reguarly unless you have some sort of nightwatch timetable arranged with your corp buddies.

But other than that, the guide brings up some good points about how one might go about acheiving a good top 10 position!

 

Dragon45

The point that most people do not seem to get is that you CANNOT, ever, rely on security through obscurity. No matter where you build all your colonies, no matter how far or whatever, some 13 year old kid who stole his mom's credit card to buy an IG ship and a crapload of warpfuel and neut scanners will RUIN your day. The ONLY way to adequately defend a colony against someone who knows its there is it plant a CRAPLOAD of turrets (150 preferably) and mines, and go offline as little as possible. Oh, and join a corp with people from widely varying timezones. This way, there can always be one person on at all times to defend your colonies.

And it is very doubtful that colonies are a quick way to make exp. All the top 3 players I've ever talked to got their exp from killing everything they came across, good and bad, and invading colonies , no matter where they are or whom they belong to. That's how people get those Sethdars and Imp Cruisers after a day of the server being open.

Ipps

I agree Dragon45, you can't rely on security through obscurity, although it definitely does help.

And I also forgot to mention one thing that a disagree with that Spiceant posted; I find it's better to have 10 wisdom and 5 charisma because in my experience warp fuel has been much more valuable than anything gained from having a higher charisma. I even like to get 3 Oracles of Wonders if I can because that takes off another 1.2 (I think) gallons per warp

AtmaDarkwolf

Medicine matters...

 

When u set up a volcanic world..try to set up 2 or 3 of them.. put 1000 medince on one, 100 on another and none on the third.. the one with 1000 medince will ave 5000 ppl and probaly about 500 med's left in a few days, the one with 100 will problay stay stable(no pop loss) for a day or two, and the one with none will have a huge negitive population gain. (The above is if you are activly building and making the biodome upgrades, etc. Prision and 0% tax usualy)

 

Pretty much 1 per 5 med's to pop is enough to guarantee a positive population growth. I know this cuz I love volcanic planets, and always get one or two when I played.. I love having 50 nukes per volcanic in various places around the galaxy.

spiceant

if you are close to sol 10 wisdom may be better but if you dont use the earth colonists your going to need the 5 extra charisma to gather people from star ports.

perhaps i should add that?

Me, Myself and no-one else

Dragon45

Spiceant, it would take litterally a friggin a second to add that. Why ask? :P :P

anyway.

As I was saying, security through obscurity is something that we have seen, time and again, does not work (hint: think of real-life corporations).

DA_MadAce

I'm using the topic and tip's you people gave to put them on my StarPort fan-site.
If you don't agree with this got to http://blastacor.tripod.com and mail me.

May The Force Be With You.
DA_MadAce
visit: http://blastacor.tripod.com