Spaceport vs star base over colony: resources shortage.

[Shark7]

I use star bases over most colonies while reserving space ports for for hub systems in my play through. One thing to watch for is not to over-design your star bases, in order to keep maintenance costs down. They really defeat the purpose if you are spending more to maintain the star base than your colony collects in taxes.

As far as resources, if you look at the resource text file that you can mod, you can see how much of each resource a colony will require. It's also completely adjustable from this file if you so desire.

Also, space ports draw in resources to themselves, since they are building the ships. The more space ports you have, the more resources you need have to keep the space ports 'fully stocked'. If you have too many space ports, they are constantly vying for the limited amount of resources and will constantly cause shortages of resource stock, which in turns drives up your maintenance costs. And if you have too few space ports, the logistics lines from your mines to the space ports (which is where the stuff is generally hauled to first) are too long, causing delays which causes shortages which drives up maintenance costs.

It really does require a lot of careful thought and balancing. Too many space ports and they will always be starved for resources. Too few spaceports and your freighters will always be choked up trying to load/unload, burning up huge amounts of fuel, or running out of fuel on the trip slowing the delivery.

My new rule of thumb is to have very cheap star bases with medical/recreational facilities over all planets for the bonuses, but have only 1 space port per grid square. So far, this seems to be striking a good balance for me.

[Dragnov]

ORIGINAL: Shark7

I use star bases over most colonies while reserving space ports for for hub systems in my play through. One thing to watch for is not to over-design your star bases, in order to keep maintenance costs down. They really defeat the purpose if you are spending more to maintain the star base than your colony collects in taxes.

As far as resources, if you look at the resource text file that you can mod, you can see how much of each resource a colony will require. It's also completely adjustable from this file if you so desire.

Thanks, that's the file I have been looking for. I will fiddle around and see what happens.

My "Colony Customs" star bases are bare bones and cost only 500 maintenance.

It's new game now and I am sticking to Homeworld plus one colony for testing purposes and the issue is still there:

I have noticed reaaaaally vexing thing: my freighters are sucking my colonies dry (all critical resources are reserved the moment they are hauled in) in favor of Homeworld - like Caslon - but I have mines in same system sitting at stocked up tens of thousands of said resources! Between my Homeworld and Colony 1, they have got only 25k Caslon (23k on HW, 3k on C1 which is now reserved) but the gas mines around have like 300k stocked up! Makes me wonder what the hell is going on here.

[Bingeling]

I wonder what is happening too. The homeworld (spaceports) does suck up resources, but that is the way it is. This should not prevent the colony from having the meager resources they ask for if they are present.

So if you indeed have the problems you describe, my best guess is that you have a resource shortage from lacking mines, or that your freighters are prevented from doing their work (lack of fuel, pirates).

Keep in mind, that it should be natural to have a delay of building a new (tiny) star base right away, as the colony would require materials for the construction to arrive.

If you look in the colony inventory, you will see amount stored and reserved for each resource. The building project will put the needed materials as reserved, and if the two values are the same, it means that the colony has no units to spare (all are reserved).

So if you get "shortage of chromium", check your colony/spaceport inventory, and see if there is anything free. I would guess you will have some reserved, and a lower amount in store.

[Dragnov]

ORIGINAL: Bingeling

I wonder what is happening too. The homeworld (spaceports) does suck up resources, but that is the way it is. This should not prevent the colony from having the meager resources they ask for if they are present.

So if you indeed have the problems you describe, my best guess is that you have a resource shortage from lacking mines, or that your freighters are prevented from doing their work (lack of fuel, pirates).

Keep in mind, that it should be natural to have a delay of building a new (tiny) star base right away, as the colony would require materials for the construction to arrive.

If you look in the colony inventory, you will see amount stored and reserved for each resource. The building project will put the needed materials as reserved, and if the two values are the same, it means that the colony has no units to spare (all are reserved).

So if you get "shortage of chromium", check your colony/spaceport inventory, and see if there is anything free. I would guess you will have some reserved, and a lower amount in store.

Thanks, Bingeling, though I have already went through those sanity checks:
1) there are no pirate or wars disturbing my freighters whatsoever

2) quite a few freighters seem to be idling around with no mission

3) I have more than a dozen mines that seem to be sitting at full stockpiles and don't get any traffic

4) quite a few freighters fly around with fraction of their cargo capacity

5) I am NOT building any ships or anything that would drain resources on Homeworld, neither is private sector

6) Homeworld has stockpiles going from 90k (Caslon, my main fuel) to 600k of other goods

7) Colony 1 already has its small star base built, so that is not the cause of shortages

8) (NEW with Bacon mod) I have manually ordered transports from Homeworld to Colony 1, so it had the shortage penalty removed for a month or two

9) Freighters keep draining resources from Colony 1 and hauling it to Homeworld for no apparent reason

I have no idea why Colony 1 is stripped of everything when Homeworld is full of resources and so are numerous mines.

Freighters seem to prioritize stripping Colony 1 even if it means only hauling 50-300 goods at a time when I have got mines with 10-40k untouched stockpiles.

[Bingeling]

9: Freighters are moving to homeworld, because stuff should be moved to the spaceport. There is no need to have it sitting around on colonies.

Why they don't take stuff from mines instead is a different question...

What are the actual shortages you got?

[Dragnov]

ORIGINAL: Bingeling
What are the actual shortages you got?

I would say nothing, because homeworld has hundred of thousands. Colonies are drained of everything and by that I mean everything. Even Lead which my Homeworld seems to have 700k of?

[Bingeling]

Colonies does not need lead. They want luxuries and the strategics that are race specific (two kinds). A little fuel is also nice, of course, to refill visitors.

Resources are gathered at spaceports, and distributed from there (in the usual scenario).

[Dragnov]

ORIGINAL: Bingeling

Colonies does not need lead. They want luxuries and the strategics that are race specific (two kinds). A little fuel is also nice, of course, to refill visitors.

Resources are gathered at spaceports, and distributed from there (in the usual scenario).

You say that but for some reason lead is listed when the yellow shortage message appears, which kills happiness, development and pop growth.

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: Dragnov

ORIGINAL: Bingeling

Colonies does not need lead. They want luxuries and the strategics that are race specific (two kinds). A little fuel is also nice, of course, to refill visitors.

Resources are gathered at spaceports, and distributed from there (in the usual scenario).

You say that but for some reason lead is listed when the yellow shortage message appears, which kills happiness, development and pop growth.

That means that you don't have enough to cover your shipbuilding needs. You may not be ordering military ships, but if you look you probably have civilian ships queued that are waiting for resources to complete. Also, your colonies can produce Construction Ships and Colony ships even without a spaceport present. So my guess is that either you just don't have enough sources of lead yet, or your civilian economy is expanding rapidly, ordering new ships to be built at a rapid pace.

I've found this to be especially true in the early game, as the Civilian economy never starts a game with enough freighters, mining ships or mines to cover your needs, and will order dozens of ships at a time. In one game I had over 50 freighters queued for building at my spaceport within the first 5 minutes of game play. That requires an enormous amount of resources you probably don't have stock-piled.

What you need to do is go into your expamsion planner and click the first 'Unfulfilled' column twice. This will bring the most needed resource to the top of the list. You can then order your construction ships to build mines to acquire that resource and start getting it built up. Just make sure you have at least one source for every resource you need. If more are showing up short, then you need to order more mines for that type of resource.



Edit: I seem to be having forum issues today. [&:]

[Retreat1970]

Colonies does not need lead

They do. Every resource. Colonies need resources to build bases, constructors and colony ships.

[Dragnov]

Perhaps somebody could volunteer to receive links to my screens through PM and post them for me? So you guys can take a look at what might be the issue (can't post links or images due being new to forum).

[Hattori Hanzo]

ORIGINAL: Retreat1970

Colonies does not need lead

They do. Every resource. Colonies need resources to build bases, constructors and colony ships.

about Colonies: they also need resources (a lot of them) for population growth and for their proper development.

[Hattori Hanzo]

ORIGINAL: Dragnov

Perhaps somebody could volunteer to receive links to my screens through PM and post them for me? So you guys can take a look at what might be the issue (can't post links or images due being new to forum).

hello Dragnov, I'm interested to receive the links for your screens and to post them here for you.
please send me a private message.
also I would be interested to receive from you a "save file" of your actual situation to help you in better understanding what's happen.

[Bingeling]

ORIGINAL: Dragnov

Perhaps somebody could volunteer to receive links to my screens through PM and post them for me? So you guys can take a look at what might be the issue (can't post links or images due being new to forum).

You can put the image on any image hosting site, and insert them here with the image tags. That should be possible even if "new".

[Dragnov]

When I tried using the image it gave me that error. Have to wait 7 days after my 10th post.

I will send the save and images tomorrow, gotta call it early night.

[Dragnov]

Alright, I have sent the savefile and images of colony overview to Hattori Hanzo.

[Blabsawaw22]

I just read through this entire thread and I think I've experienced that situation before but not lately.

I remember that you have to have mines as close as possible to ports and I do remember that even when I had mines with fuel and resources, sometimes my freighters would fly 200 miles out of the way to get stuff when they only had to go a short distance.

anyway,

1. you need to post that save file here. Or message me as well with it and I'll post it up also.

2. you are playing with mods right? I can't remember if I read that earlier.

3. go to policy settings and click off the "trade with other empires" and see what happens after 10 minutes..
as this will force your empire to only use it's own resources. I can't remember if it turns off buying or selling to other empires though. Or maybe both? I'll have to test it again.

But I need your save game file and I'll try playing it.

I used to use starbases built on top of Fuel planets and had Gas components that filled up to 30,000+ cargo bays. That is one of the things I used starbases for. But I can see using them for planets and rec bonus and medical bonus.

Oh, I also used starbases for building ships as when You put Cargobays, construction yards, and docks, they do build ships there when you tell it to build ships there but the resources have to be delivered to the starbase by freighters which eventually will do it and even more important are starbases with construction yards, docks, etc and you can use them for repair bases! You can select a fleet and right click on the starbase and say "repair here" etc..

post your save game, I want to try it.


Gosh It feels like a year since I've played Distant Worlds again!

[Hattori Hanzo]

here the image received from Dragnov - my apologies for the delate in posting it here on the Distant Worlds forum.. I experienced a damned "web-blackout" of some dyas.. [:@]

[Dragnov]

No worries Hattori and thanks, though: I sent five images and a save. Did they not get through in that PM?

These forum kinks... D:

[Hattori Hanzo]

hi Dragnov, you sent me 5 times the same image.. [X(]

savefile received but I cannot open at the moment because I do not have the right mods installed in my Distant Worlds directory..

also I'm a total noob at mods (I always play Distant Worlds vanilla for this reason): can you explain me exactly wich mods I have to install to open your savefile ?