Seems like Luck is Pretty Important In the Early Stages of this game

[Anthropoid]

. . . take for example, Industrial points (or to a lesser extent metal, or machines . . . the stuff you need to get your metal and industrial point production going). Sometimes you'll happen to find enough in the landscape, or for sale that you can charge ahead with your public mining and industrial base asap. Other times, you might be seemingly just screwed.

With only 50 some hours in the game so far, must be missing something here right? It seems like: some starts are damn near 'impossible' (even if they are not "hard" in the sense of surviving, and may well allow you to persist indefinitely with constrained prospects of growing in power or capacity); others you get lucky and your off to the races in no time.

Thoughts?

[solops]

Industrial points are not the problem. Everyone has the hurdle of building them up. The real problem is metal. You are dead meat if there are no nearby metal resources or ruins to mine. The only other way out of the metal trap is soil demetalization, a tech that takes time and luck to get. So yes, a bad starting position can totally ruin your day.

Water can be an issue on desert worlds, too.

[Anthropoid]

Industrial points are not the problem. Everyone has the hurdle of building them up. The real problem is metal. You are dead meat if there are no nearby metal resources or ruins to mine. The only other way out of the metal trap is soil demetalization, a tech that takes time and luck to get. So yes, a bad starting position can totally ruin your day.

Water can be an issue on desert worlds, too.

Okay, good to know that my sense that it is one of those games where you sort of need an "at least doable" start for it to be something more than a desperate protracted clinging to survival experience.

[Culthrasa]

The "you need to be lucky" can be offset by planet generation too. For example a high pop before the desolation will yield more scavenger sites, so more minerals. Also some worlds just inherently have more minerals then other worlds. So the type of world you play also plays a big factor.

More general, don't be shy to buy metal in the first few turns if needed. If that kickstarts your economy, it's worth it!

[Twotribes]

Worlds that were colonized for a LONG time and had mining on them will be metal poor.

[Anthropoid]

Worlds that were colonized for a LONG time and had mining on them will be metal poor.

Really, I had the impression it was the opposite of that. Okay, good to know!