Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: Equendil

On exploration:

Galaxies seem to be generated with "patches" of independant colonies and good quality continental planets (well it seems that way to me at least). Once you've colonized your local patch, you might well not find much of anything until your explorers move several sectors away to the next "patch".

To keep expanding steadily, you need to be able to colonize more world types. To that end, you either need better colonization modules, or independent colonies living on those world types. If you secure an independent colony on a desert planet, you can then build colony ships on that planet to colonize other deserts, even if you don't have the necessary tech. If the population of such a colony is hostile, don't waste time and send troops right away, it'll soon pay off. As a bonus to the ability to colonize more worlds, it also gives you access to different resources without mining stations.

You also of course, need a good exploration scheme, best start exploring in all directions, favouring dense sectors over sparse ones, even if it means skipping a nearby sector for the time being (least until you encounter another empire in that direction).

I know I had conquered a swampy marsh type world at KG-5 in this AAR game. So, you're saying that if I had built a colony ship on KG-5 I could've colonized marshy swamp worlds? .. wow, if that's true this opens up a whole dimension of colonization expansion that I was unaware of & not taking advantage of. For some reason, I was under the impression that you could only colonize non-continental worlds if there was already an existing colony, or if you first gained the required technology. This makes early conquest of independant colonies on non-continental planets a must.

.. thanks for the tips

More fuel cells on my starting is going to be a must, yanking the guns for troop ships & replacing with shield is an excellent idea. Making light cruisers is probably a good idea too, but I assume maintenence costs will be same as a cruiser? In that case, it might be better to make a big destroyer and save on maintenence (ends up with the same result but less cost, I'm guessing).

Light cruiser or big destroyer, it does not matter, if you put in the same components, they'll cost the same to build and maintain.

So, you're saying that if I had built a colony ship on KG-5 I could've colonized marshy swamp worlds?

Absolutely, though there seems to be a population threshold below which you can't build colony ships so they might not be available right away or you might not be able to queue as many as you'd like. The expansion planner does take all that into account mind you. If you can build a colony ship for marshy swamps anywhere, it'll show those as potential colonies, and it'll queue construction in the right place.

I decided to do a couple of last experiments before exiting this AAR for good. I went back to the 2763.09 turn and did two things: raised taxes to 20% (instead of 25%) in order to determine where the "point of diminishing returns occurs", and I also laid down a colony ship on a marshy swamp world to see if I had any new colonization options available.

As far as the tax rate, 20% brought me 64k one year later (over the original base of 62k 12 planets). Previously, 25% only got me 65k with the base being same. It seems to me the point of diminishing returns is roughly at or on/near the 15% tax bracket; any more than this and you'll get very little additional income for the price you pay in unhappiness. Thus, point of diminishing returns = 15% tax bracket give or take a percentage point.

I tried to lay down a colony ship in the KG-5 marshy swamp planet, but there was no colony ship construction options in the drop-down menu. In fact, many of my planets could not build colony ships. I think it has to do with the available population: planets that had more than 100k population had colony ship construction options available. Those less than 100k did not. As luck would have it, I had another marshy swamp world at Nauja in the Ilyseom system which I gained control of very early in the game, it had over 100k population, and it had a colony ship option in the drop-down. I built a colony ship here, but when it was done there were no addtional colonization options in the "potential colonization" tab (menu) at the top of the display. This might have been because I had not discovered any new marshy swamp worlds with my exp ships which sucked wind the second half of the game, or it might be some other reason. I don't know.

I started a completely new game using what I learned in this AAR. I re-designed all my main ship designs from scratch bottom-up, and added more fuel tanks for one thing. Made my exploration ships more expensive but it's paid off in a big way. One thing I noticed is that I was able to colonize a few independant colonies on marshy swamp worlds. I made a point of building colony ships on these worlds at the first opportunity. Screenshot below shows in the news panel "new colony ship build at nobea-1" which is swampy marsh world. I opened up the expansion planner which shows several unexplored world, many are ocean since I was able to colonize an ocean planet with an independant colony (which is not able to build colony ships yet as it's population is too small currently). The problem is, I have an empty marshy swamp world waiting to be colonized (Oldai, highlighted below), but as you can see there is no colony ship able to colonize it, even though I built a colony ship from a marshy swamp planet which shoulod be able to colonize it (should show up as an available colony ship in the box below). I'm not sure what's going on here? Is there something else I'm missing, why can't I colonize a marshy swamp world with a colony ship build on a marshy swamp world?

Colony ships only show up as "available" if they're idle ("no mission"). If they're moving, refueling, doing anything at all, they won't. You seem to have opened the expansion planner just after the ship was completed, but before it had "completed its mission" (moving into orbit after construction).

If there is any doubt, select on a colony ship, it will show what worlds it can colonize in the summary window.