Oversight system

[janamdo]

Is there a way to get a quick oversight what is going on in the home system where i start ?
The ships are automated for explorers and explore all possible locations in the homesystem and the same for the constructionships who also automated and building mining systems.
At a certain point in the the homesystem i want to know if i exploited the system complete.
I don't get the feeling now that i even control the homesystem, what a startingpoint is for expension in space

A poor helpsystem? : a possible resort locations...as menu .. ok let me find out what this is, but not to find in the helpsystem or is it to be found under screen explanation?

[Bingeling]

Don't focus on exploiting everything. That is not needed, but mines in the capital system benefit from any ships protecting the other mines and capital itself. You need enough resources, but not more than that.

The AI should makes sure you have enough mines, if you want to help it a bit, maybe manually queue some extra fuel mines (caslon early on, and hydrogen later).

To see all mining locations, use the expansion planner. Focus the main table on resources by galaxy priority, sort by distance. Those at distance 0 should be in the capital system, and in general all locations in the systems of your colonies are colored green. But even if you have 10 asteroids with steel at home, you don't need 10 steel mines.

To quickly see scenic and research locations, look at the left menu of the main map. You can view many things through this, and two of them are for scenic locations and research bonus location. Mouse over the list items shown to have their location on the map shown by a blinking circle or something. Going through the left list to know what can be shown, will benefit you later when looking for other things. Personally I don't have it open all the time, but use research location, scenic locations, potential colonies, fleets, and spaceports at various times.

[janamdo]

Yes, thanks for this answer
Still i have the feeling of not controlling this home system ..still not sure if all resources are exploited..is there a way to check this ?
To see the potential of the system for resources and what is exploited now.

[Bingeling]

Again, this game is not about exploiting every resource. You should aim for one good source for each resource, and maybe one spare of each. And more for the most used strategics like steel.

Add to that a lot of caslon mines early on, and later hydrogen, for fuel.

The expansion planner shows all resources you can access (use the galaxy priority to see all resources, even those the AI think you have enough of).

If you want a quick overview of the resources in a system, check the systems overview in the selection panel with the system selected. That one will show what resources are in the system, but will no indicate whether there are 1 or 14 steel sources, for instance. Just that it has steel.

The AI does a fine job in making sure there are enough mines. And then some.

[janamdo]

Thanks!
Still a difficult game to start , because it tells not how to begin in your homesystem and what the initial state of the home system is.
Well i can't read about this..or is it explained in a tutorial ?..the manual gives no clue about this

The tutorials are isolated information..and there is no tutorial to find with.. "start on a home colony" and explains how to start and how possibly to proceed and explains the flow of operations
Example: you start on a colony on a planet in a system without knowing what resources are to find for building up your empire.
You don't have a ship to explore the objects in the system and for that you must first build a spaceport where you can build your explorer ship to see what resources are in the system.
The most import resource(s) for your empire is....??? and can be mined and for mining you need a construction ship to build a mine
The explorerships can be automated for your system, where all resources can be found by the exploreships to maximize the amount of resources to find.
Like this...

[Max 86]

Also focus mining on resource shortages. Do not worry about exploiting every resource, just the ones you really need. That means to manually control the building of mining stations after locating the resources you most need. Identify those first.

Also, if you need help getting started there is a Newbie guide that helps a lot. tm.asp?m=3508583

The initial state of your home system can be determined by the menu bar on the left edge of the screen. Cycle thru those to determine what ships you have, bases, potential mining and colony locations, etc.

[janamdo]

Thanks!
Potential mining ..what are the conditions for this to able to see potential mining in the system
If i not have explored the system..then there is no potential mining ?... must be

I can try to find this out with trial and error in the game itself , but beter is to read informatio about this..yes the empire navigation tool
Nothing about a explanation what "potential" is
Is this game .. crap?

[unclean]

You need to explore first, yeah.

Most important strategic resources to go after early on are Steel, Lead, Carbon Fibre, Polymer, Silicon, Hydrogen, and Caslon, since you need them to grow your colonies and keep your population happy, and you need a lot of Gold, Helium, Tyderios and Chromium for construction. Past that you can look at the construction summary on a design and see what you need.

Anyways resources aren't scarce for long in this game, so you can consider them exploited when their price is at 0.8 in the expansion planner, since that gives you the lowest maintenance.

[janamdo]

Thanks!

It is step by step ..learning more about this game
A good introduction should be very helpful.
I must say the fun of playing this game is something less....caused by the poor documentation
But on this forum .. i can learn more

[janamdo]

But luckily there a nice people on this forum who are willing to help me .. i read also other post too

[janamdo]

The expansion planner has 2/3 choices i don't understand yet
- Resource targets by Galaxy Priority --> ?
- Resource targets by your Empire Priority --> ?
- Potential Colonies --> only after visit of a a explorer ship ?

Frustrating this ..a game where i cannot find what the screens are standing for
If this is the case then i loosing quick my interest

[janamdo]

The galactopedia should have a search box ..where i can type : whatever i want ....well the galactopedia is not helping me when i look at the expension planner screen... in the middle of the screen .... no idea what Resource targets by Galaxy Priority --> ? ..- Resource targets by your Empire Priority --> ?
Stupid ... this brings me not further the information about the drop down list?

[Gilmer]

I think some of those screens won't show the resources you need because you haven't discovered a source yet. Yes, I find myself frustrated a lot, because things aren't obvious to do. Like how many ships do I need to protect my 2nd colony. I had 6 and a group of about 12 ships showed up and beat my fleet of 6. So I should have had more, so I quit that game in frustration.

[feelotraveller]

ORIGINAL: janamdo

The expansion planner has 2/3 choices i don't understand yet
- Resource targets by Galaxy Priority --> ?
- Resource targets by your Empire Priority --> ?
- Potential Colonies --> only after visit of a a explorer ship ?

Frustrating this ..a game where i cannot find what the screens are standing for
If this is the case then i loosing quick my interest

Here's how I think of them:

Potential Colonies lists the planets discovered by you that can be colonised by your empire (with your current colonisation technology and/or the races in your empire). It will update as you add races, technology and discover more planets.

Resource targets by Galaxy Priority lists the resources you have discovered that the AI thinks would be good to mine to sell to the rest of the galaxy (independents/pirates/other empires). A handy feature of this list is that it lists all resources known to you.

Resource targets by Empire Priority lists the resources that you have discovered that the AI thinks your empire needs the most. Location of resources is important - having a resource in the right place can be more important than having lots of it in the wrong place...

What the AI thinks you need can vary from what an experienced player thinks they need. [:)] The two lists will be used by constructors left on auto to decide where to place mines.

You can limit these selections by resource type (drop down list on right). The galaxy map is handy in seeing the distribution of resources.

Probably the best way to figure out what these lists do is to observe them during the course of a game. Note when they change and think about what might be influencing those changes.

Or you could just ignore them, which is what I do a lot of the time. [:D]

[janamdo]

Thanks !
I understand it now better.
To see what resources are needed for your empire is vital information
Only when the resource is explored it can be used.

In the homessystem there is a red warning of a shortage of a resource... the expension planner seems to be working only outside my homesystem?
Oversight of resources inside or outside the homesystem is needed [:)]

[necaradan666]

In the expansion planner sort by the distance column it will show all resources sorted by how close they are to your various spaceports.

Resource locations in systems where you have colonies will have green text.

Yellow text shows which resource locations have nearby space monsters or pirates.

[janamdo]

Another point i don't get at the start in the homesystem is the behaviour of the explorer ships?
- explore this system
- nearest unexplored system
- all systems in sector F

nearest unexplored system seems to be not working ?..the explorer ship is staying in idle mode

[Bingeling]

The explorer probably lacks a hyperdrive and has no unexplored system within range. This makes it drop the order once it finds it has nothing to do.

[janamdo]

Th explorer ship can explore all systems in sector F, but cannot explore the nearest unexplored system..that is a contradiction..or not ?

[Bingeling]

Not if there is no unexplored system in range, and sector F is in range. I am not sure how "unexplored system" works, if it needs to be a true unexplored system, or if it also picks up systems that has only been visited and where resources are not known.