Newbie help

[Baro]

Hey guys I have a few general questions.

First of all, how do you scrap or delete ships? I'm massively in the red and I need to reduce upkeep!

How do I tell the AI to protect certain systems? I'm colonizing a nice system but the colony ships are not being escorted and the system has zero military. I like to keep things mostly automated since the interface is pretty bad, but is there any general sort of priority or "flag" I can put in a system to tell the AI to actually patrol there while things are being colonized?

I can build defense platforms at my homeworld, and I can build them on colonies after they finally build a spaceport, but is there any way to just build a station around a planet or in space where I want? Say I want to defend a cluster of mining stations, can I build some sort of defense base? Are supply bases or repair bases possible?

The game is constantly telling me I need more construction ships, but most of them just hang out in my home system not doing much. Why do they want so many??

Is there any way I can flag systems as off-limits to the AI/private sector? There's a few systems with pirates and monsters and the idiots keep building stations and trying to mine there then get chased away.

I'm just starting out and very confused!

[Wenla]

ORIGINAL: Baro

Hey guys I have a few general questions.

First of all, how do you scrap or delete ships? I'm massively in the red and I need to reduce upkeep!

1) Select the ship you want to scrap
2)Control + right (mouse) click on empty place
3) You get a list of possibilities, select:
3a)Retire
3b)At nearest shipyard (so you can get some money back when scrapped (IIRC)) or
3b) Immeditially (don't remember the correct word, but choise means "delete now) (no cash back)

[Deldk]

ORIGINAL: Baro

Hey guys I have a few general questions.

1. First of all, how do you scrap or delete ships? I'm massively in the red and I need to reduce upkeep!

2. How do I tell the AI to protect certain systems? I'm colonizing a nice system but the colony ships are not being escorted and the system has zero military. I like to keep things mostly automated since the interface is pretty bad, but is there any general sort of priority or "flag" I can put in a system to tell the AI to actually patrol there while things are being colonized?

3. I can build defense platforms at my homeworld, and I can build them on colonies after they finally build a spaceport, but is there any way to just build a station around a planet or in space where I want? Say I want to defend a cluster of mining stations, can I build some sort of defense base? Are supply bases or repair bases possible?

4. The game is constantly telling me I need more construction ships, but most of them just hang out in my home system not doing much. Why do they want so many??

5. Is there any way I can flag systems as off-limits to the AI/private sector? There's a few systems with pirates and monsters and the idiots keep building stations and trying to mine there then get chased away.

I'm just starting out and very confused!

1. Wenla already explained how to do this.

2. There is no possibility of setting a flag, you do manually need to send a fleet to patrol. In theory your ships should be able escort your colony ships, in reality in hardly ever happens, and you shouldn't count on ships on "auto" to do it. because if pirates there are usually more this in the system than your escorts or worse kaltors which you cant do much about unless you have a few ships with torpedo weapons. both scenarios leads to you losing both colony ship and escort.

3.Yes there is. having selected a construction ship. find where you want to build your station and right click on the place. then choose build you get a list of possibilities.
I don't know if repair bases are possible as the usual classification for those ships are only built around colonised planets, if some1 else has tried to design and build 1 they should be able to say if it is possible or not.
Supply bases you are able to get by building the supply ship at a colony, and then flying it to the place you want. never used them before so don't know where the best place for them would be, but I guess at caslon or hydrogen source.

4. you mention you are constantly in the red, and if you don't have a positive balance your construction ship wont build anything. the game telling you it need the construction ships is probably because the game really wanting ships to build all the stations on its "to do list" but in reality not being able to build it because your cash flow is bad.

5. nope there is no such option, would be good to have though. only option you have is paying off pirates, and destroying monsters, or destroying both pirates and monsters.

PS. to kill monsters, I usually use fleets of 5+ ships with mostly torpedoes, as you cant let the monsters get close. and even then I either loose 1 or it gets badly damaged.

[WoodMan]

2. At the start of the game build two extra Destroyers (you usually start with one) and then go to your ships and bases list, choose category Military ships and sort by role, find your Destroyers and assign the first one to New fleet, then the next two to 1st fleet (to join all three in a fleet) and click the automate symbol (blue swirl) on each one to make sure they are not automated.  While your colonyship is being built send this fleet to the colony, in the early game I've found that 3 Destroyers can handle most Space Creatures and the occasional small group of Pirates that guard colonizable planets.  It can save you wasting 5000 on a colony ship [:)]

Obviously as you go through the game you need more but these 3 ships won't cost much upkeep early on and should be decent enough to get you your first 5 - 8 colonies and also if your Empire is compact you can quickly rush them to aid your automated escorts and frigates anywhere in your Empire if you need to.

I play with Space Creatures and Pirates set to Few, so if you are playing higher settings maybe you will need more ships, but with those settings 3 Destroyers is fine for this job.

[Baro]

Thanks for the help guys.

Is there any way to scrap massive amounts of ships? Doing them one at a time is very slow, I wish I could just select a ton of ships from the ship screen and order them all to scrap. My income in suddenly -50,000 and I need to save money! I don't know where my money is all going since I automated just about everything. I guess the ship building AI is bad and will build its self into massive debt? My tax income is about 38,000 and my ship upkeep alone is over 50,000, plus about 40,000 in other expenses. I don't quite understand all the expenses or how to get more money short of colony-spamming.

I think a big problem is that my scouts keep finding tons of ancient capital ships and stations and claiming them.

[Wenla]

ORIGINAL: Baro

Thanks for the help guys.

Is there any way to scrap massive amounts of ships? Doing them one at a time is very slow, I wish I could just select a ton of ships from the ship screen and order them all to scrap. My income in suddenly -50,000 and I need to save money! I don't know where my money is all going since I automated just about everything. I guess the ship building AI is bad and will build its self into massive debt? My tax income is about 38,000 and my ship upkeep alone is over 50,000, plus about 40,000 in other expenses. I don't quite understand all the expenses or how to get more money short of colony-spamming.

I think a big problem is that my scouts keep finding tons of ancient capital ships and stations and claiming them.

One method I use to save money is that when I start a new game, I uncheck "Automate troop recruiting" at options screen and I check it again after meet first time an other race (or even wait until there are hostilities). When automated, AI recruits fast and much, needed or not.