446

You should have yourself in the ship you pilot. No need to transfer command unless you really need to?

447

Something was glitched, reloading the game fixed the issue.

448

Thanks. For some reason I wasn’t noticing the switch from supplies to cargo when I entered the screen.

449

I bought this back in 2012 and played it quite a lot then but set it aside because there wasn’t much to the game beyond the combat. I figured I’d wait until it was done to play again. The conversion above about playing on autopilot got me curious so I thought I’d try playing it that way. Holy crap, I hardly recognize the game now. So far I’m having fun playing it mainly as a strategic game. It’s very slick.

450

I can’t seem to tear myself away from this game. I had a true Qt3 moment last night and stayed up way too late playing it. It took me a while to learn to play the game but once I did it got its hooks into me. The battles are absolutely amazing to watch and play.

I have 2 colonies in the same system, a 100 hazard farming one at level 4 population and a tech mining one at level 3. They’re both in the same system and there is a third 125 hazard planet there I can also colonize later as well. They are unfortunately way out from the galaxy core which makes getting there and back a pain but it was the only decent place with good planets I had found at the time.

I have spaceports and orbital stations and weak patrols to keep the pirates at bay because they started raiding my system basically as soon as the first colony was up. So, I’ve been concentrating on building defenses first. I’d like to build heavy industry so I can build my own ships but I need my colonies to make a lot more money to support that and I’m not sure exactly how to to that.

What can you build to make a lot more monthly income from colonies? Farming isn’t exactly a big moneymaker. I have 2 Alpha AI-cores but don’t want to use them to govern my colonies until they are making enough money to bribe off the Hegemony inspectors when they come calling. I have a bunch of corrupt nanoforges I’ve found that will be useful when I get the heavy industry to use them. I’ve also found some good blueprints including a capital ship carrier I can’t wait to try out. But I need lots of money to support fielding one of those. I’ve been playing as a scavenger and I’ve put together a semi-decent fleet of salvaged crap ships but can’t wait to field some better stuff.

I’m considering making the colonies freeports so that their population will grow faster. That will degrade their stability though and I’m not sure if that’s a big deal or not. I’m assuming that having more population is the key to increasing the amount of money my colonies make each month?

451

Income comes from two places: exporting production from industries, and population. The primary source is from exports—population is icing on the cake.

Stability is useful as a colony matures (it increases income, and I believe it also reduces upkeep), but the growth bonus is much more important to a young colony.

452

Thanks. I found out that free ports will piss off all the other factions because you’re selling illegal stuff and they’ll start raiding you. So, I’m not going that route until I have a good fleet and defenses. I also found out that you can only build one industry at level 3 and only two at level 4. Looks like the max you can build is 4 even at level 10. I guess it’s going to be a slog to get to higher pops and decent profitability.

I’ve put money into increasing the growth bonus but it’s still not much.

453

I suppose if Scott_Lufkin and KevinC are playing this I better hop on board the bandwagon. We seem to play all the same games, though I think I post with a lot less frequency. I’m just a lurker at heart. See if I can’t squeeze this in this week.

454

refining and heavy industry make a lot of money. I’m making around 600k every month with 5 colonies, my first is making something like 250k. i would put patrol hqs on every colony in the system though, it makes it very easy to defend the system.

455

Nor can I. The more I play, the more I realize it is everything I’ve ever wanted in a space game.

That said, I’m nowhere near where you are – I’m still in the early exploring phase and struggling to get stronger/bigger. I’m learning more about the different ships and appropriate loadouts. The depth is incredible, but my progress is slow. What is best to focus on in the early game? Bounties? Missions? Trading seems to be of questionable value given the time involved.

456

I just put down heavy industry on my main 100 hazard planet and added a pristine nanoforge and alpha core to it. I’m in the process of upgrading it right now. I’m already seeing an increase in income. I also immediately got infected with a Luddic Path cell. I found their base location and am on my way there with my rag-tag fleet to see if I have enough to take it out.

I have patrol HQs on both my colonies in that system. After I put the heavy industry on my main colony I was out of Industry slots there so I upgraded the patrol HQ on the second colony. I figured since they were both in the same system that would cover things. It seems to have worked. The patrol fleets are bigger now.

I have a planetary shield now. How useful is building those things?

This! This right here! I’m so shocked at how great this game is. I mean, I played it back in 2012 but now it’s so much more than it was back then.

I don’t trade. I’ve gotten entirely to where I am by focusing on scavenging and exploring. I fight when I’m attacked or I need to (which ends up being quite a bit) but I mainly explore systems for ruins, domain probes, domain supply ships, research stations, equipment caches, debris fields, derelict ships, etc.

I almost exclusively do exploration missions that require surveying planets or derelict ships since there’s usually some other goodies in that system as well. I’ve found a ton of AI cores, blueprints, nanoforges, synchrotron cores, etc. from exploring and scavenging. I have all 3 levels of the scavenging skill and that increases my odds of finding rare items and ships when scavenging by 50%, which is huge.

Nearly all my fleet ships were gotten by scavenging. I almost never need to buy fuel or supplies because no matter when I am, I can scavenge more when needed. I love being able to play this game the way I want to play it.

457

I can’t agree more - this has been such an amazing experience, all the stuff I like in space/sci-fi settings all in one gorgeous package. And there is more coming! I had to make myself stop playing it, I was seeing end-game content without any end-game objectives and nearly just started over again. I’m in love - this is my favorite space/sci-fi type game, easily.

458

Looking forward to this hitting 1.0 so I can finally play.

459

You have to be willing to play dirty—attacking the odd convoy now and again, putting comm sniffers in systems of interest so you’re the first to get news of shortages, selling on the black market to destabilize colonies to generate events which drive prices up…

Trading is, as far as I can tell, one of the harder ways to play.

460

This is what I want to do. What is a good size fleet for this?

461

Incredible, when will it be on steam.

462

Comments above mentioned the pace of development, so ummm 4 years maybe?

:P

463

Supposed to hit Steam after it’s finished.

464

Any size? I did it from the start of the game and my fleet was pretty crappy then. You need a few good ships to be able to defeat automated defense systems on some things you find but most of them aren’t that tough and you can always come back later. Note that I’m playing my first game so I have it on easy difficulty for learning purposes.

I started getting expeditions from the other factions attacking my home world yesterday because they apparently are unhappy about my heavy industry producing a lot of stuff. For the first and second ones I’ve hung around the system to lend a hand to my system fleets if needed. Apparently it is not. The first fleet was defeated by a defense fleet before I even saw it. I got a -5 reputation hit from that even though they were the ones attacking me, which sucks.

The second expedition, from a different faction, I managed to locate before they even entered my system. When they saw me they immediately ran from me. I chased them into the system and one of my defense fleets caught them and then I joined in the battle. They had a few cruisers but I had a capital ship and wiped them out easily.

With my orbital works, pristine nanoforge and alpha AI, my shipyard is now producing ships with no defects, which is awesome. The first ship I custom built was the only capital ship that I’ve found a blueprint for. The Astral.

It’s a very cool looking ship and is a carrier so I need to find the right load-out mix of fighters/bombers. I’m not that happy with the default auto refit mix. Carriers are awesome in this game so I’m looking forward to playing around with my new toy.

465

Want to buy this, just have one concern, can I get this to display properly at 1900x1200? Or 1900x1080?