I don’t know the best way - I just threw money at the problem. I established the port as an Open Port which makes it grow faster but has some other perils to doing so (opens you up to the black market and other factions can get upset over your economic plundering) but you’ll grow much, much faster. I also always dumped money into whatever UI widget let me expand the growth % as well.
I think building a farm is a no brainer, as far as I know it’s not an “industry” and thus you don’t have to worry about it taking up a “slot”. In fact, planets without farming are generally considered not good without other planets to get food to them? Or something? Get your farm going, get your space station/ground defenses running - then you can work on your heavy industry. That’s my (possibly totally wrong) advice.
EDIT: Also, don’t stray to far from your colony until it gets some defenses up, or pirates will have their way with you. Also, if you are at the point where you are colonizing, consider getting a commission with a faction to help with costs.
Farming is an industry which consumes a slot, but it’s also usually a good idea, and makes substantial money for me on good farming worlds.
Food shortages, obviously, will keep a colony from growing. Supplying your own food production means you’re never at the mercy of other factions.
What I’d do is add the Augmented Drive Field hull mod to your cap ship during refit, which will increase it’s maximum burn level by 2. That will allow you catch the pirates and get you around the galaxy faster. Saves time, fuel and supplies.
Incidentally, I just built one of these Legion cap ships myself. It is a beast and you are incredibly lucky to have found it early.
If you need 1000 crew for it I suggest checking out the cheapest place to buy them. In my game there are several pirate bases that I’ve bought crew from for as little as 12 per crew. You can check who has the best deal by hovering your cursor over the crew in your inventory screen and hitting the F1 button. Note you need to be in a system with a comm relay. This also works for any trade commodity.
What’s the hazard rating of the planet? Hopefully 100 or 125 at least? Anything higher will really slow down your colony growth and profitability. Do you have farmland on your planet? If you do then a farm is the way to go as a first industry. No other factions will be offended by you selling food like they are if you build heavy industry or fuel production. If you have ruins and no farmland then tech mining is nice.
I’d build a farm and then an orbital defense station and a Patrol HQ. Get those up and operational ASAP because pirates will be raiding your system a lot. Pump any money you can afford into Growth Incentives if you want to get your population to increase faster.
So I’ve been really having fun with this. I looked up, realized over an hour had passed and all I had done was fly between two planets in the same system and fiddle with my ship’s layouts. And it was unironically awesome.
I’m going to try the big overhaul mod tonight just to see what it’s like. But I’m not sure I love the sound of it adding a billion fighters or whatever. I guess we’ll see. In any case, I thought I’d ask if you guys have a list of personal favorite mods that you use? I can see the mod compilation on the forum, so I don’t need anyone to link that to me, but there are an awful lot of mods and I’m not sure if they’ve been curated in any way for quality.
So curate for me please :)
To be honest I want to save mods until I’ve gotten my fill of the game as designed, so to speak. I know a lot of people like to play with mods just because they want more content and want to play more now before it’s “done” and I respect that, but looking over the mods I didn’t see anything that was strictly quality of life stuff (I may have missed something, but the mods I saw seem to change things or add content rather than simply make small but cool changes, which is what I was looking for). I’m sure the mods are great, but I’m wanting to keep the experience to what the developers vision looks like for now.
Plus, I think a few mods he did incorporate already, such as the danger system to indicate how strong a fleet might be. So I’ll trust his judgement for now.
I am curious what others are using, though.
SlyFrog
492
Only mod I would want now is one that actually makes it into a game, with like a story or goal or something. Is there such a thing out there for it?
EDIT: That’s not sarcasm by the way. I want this game, but I really want there to be missions, goals, quests, stories, etc., rather than just a sandbox. If there are mods that do that, I’ll get it.
Oh yea I get that, I actually tend to dislike mods that deviate too much from vanilla gameplay, which is why I have skepticism about that complete overhaul mod before even trying it. If I like a game enough to even look into the mods for it, I’m already pretty happy with the vanilla gameplay.
But the game is such a sandbox right now that the idea of adding more factions or weaponry are pretty appealing to me, but these things need to be carefully curated in my experience. Since I know you’ve played Warhammer, Radious is a mod that for example ruins the game for me (I know it has lots of fans, and I’m glad they enjoy it) because every faction just gets everything. VC get ranged units and high tier anti-large infantry, Skaven get high leadership infantry, etc etc. The asymmetric gameplay is destroyed.
But I’m happy to try out mods, it’s just that in my experience their quality varies wildly!
That’s coming in the official game’s full release - it’s the only “mechanic” left on the road map to implement.
Hmmm. Yeah, I don’t think I’d like that either.
SlyFrog
496
Yeah, it’s just frustrating, because given the game’s current development pace, it feels like that could be the end of this year, or 2029. From what I can see, he really gives no roadmap as to even rough timelines at all, and he’s been doing this for like the last 10 years now.
I know the answer is just to wait and see if/when he finishes it - that’s why I thought there might be a mod that has essentially finished those parts for him.
Sometimes I wish I hadn’t looked in this thread or heard about Starsector until maybe a year from now. But then again, I had so much damned fun with it already and could keep having fun with it, so whose to say the right way to go there. I think I’m happier knowing it’s a thing I can look forward to and have already played/learned it so as new updates come out (slow, sure, but the last major update was 9 months or more ago, so hey, maybe not too far out?) I can have a reason to dive right back in!
cicobuff
498
Thanks guys for the colony tips.
I went into the forums and it would appear I’ll need some serious money for a proper colony!
Quick question, do the other factions build colonies as well? If not, I can just keep exploring until I have enough cash to colonize meanwhile.
The capitalship is a beast but it turns out that it drastically affected the my gameplay loop. The cost of running it is too high at the moment for me, even keeping it in storage cost nearly 4000/mth!
Edit: Another question. I have the blueprints, but how do I use them? Is there a place where I “activate” them or something?
No, they do not. You can take all the time you want. They won’t colonize the good worlds you find from under you.
You learn them by right-clicking on them in your inventory. But, to actually build something from them them you will have to do a custom production order from the command screen. That requires that you have a colony with heavy industry first. So, it will be a while before you can build your own ships/weapons/fighters. Keep an eye out for a nanoforge when exploring. They will greatly increase the quality of the ships you build when installed in your heavy industry. Also, you can install an AI core in your heavy industry for even better quality builds.
cicobuff
500
Thanks!
Another question. I have a gamma core. And the Hegemony scans me and I take a reputation hit. Do I really have to sell them?
Edit: Another one. Is there a downside to selling on Blackmarket? The tariffs are huge!
Wow thanks! That’s great info to know.
I did see the abandoned station and was wondering what I could do with it. Thanks for that huge tip!
Re: the Black Market. I guess I’ll pay the tariffs then. 30% is no joke though.
Is it possible to be commissioned by the Hegemony and use their build facilities also? I see on the screen that I could somehow see their planetary budget, which is kinda of odd.
So you’re telling me to break the law ;). Got it!
Also, do you guys accept the Hegemony’s commission?
If you play the tutorial campaign start, you get free use of storage on the Hegemony world that gives you the story quests once they’re complete. I also see that planet listed under my colonies although it doesn’t provide any monthly income.
I always sidle up to a pirate station (transponder off) to sell the real high value stuff like excess corrupt nanoforges and the like. Just be careful you do not sell them your duplicate ship blueprints. If you do then they will have access to those ship designs and will start building them to use against you (which is very cool). Same thing with weapons. So, be careful.
Also, for the cheap, crappy AI cores, turn them in via a comm communication at a Tri-Tachyon Corporation planet/base. You will get triple the value of the core from them and a rep increase.
I just found out that I can keep raiding to get nice stuff!
This game is turning out to be really nice. It’s what Space Pirates vs Zombies 2 should have been!
