Matrix Games Forums

I've tried on a number of occasions to get into this game but I always get stuck and basically give up.

The problem is I can never work out why some construction has stopped. You get no messages, help is useless, tried the forum but what I've seen or read makes no sense. How can I simply work out why construction has stop. Obviously it is lack of material somewhere but working out what.. well I be polite and say, difficult unless I'm missing something basic.

Second, If I send a construction of to build say a gas mining station why does it not carry the materials it needs to do given availablity of that material[&:]

The answer to the second question...
Usually a construction ship, unless it is repairing a ship, goes to a planet and gets the material it needs, and then goes to the place where you want the station.

How many construction ships do you operate?
The reason I ask is because there may be a lack of raw materials if you have 2 or 3 construction ships only. I operate a fleet of 15 ships or so: it helps my fuel problems and generally gives me the materials I need.
There does appear to be a bug in the game whereby construction just halts, but you should not have encountered it that many times. I have only done so about 3 or 4 times.
And it may not just be construction ships. I tend to be overkill on infrastructure...

Some of the guys better aquainted with the Interface might be able to tell you how to read the displays and see if there is a way to know what you are stuck waiting for material-wise.

I never really bother checking my cargo for specific resources, it's too much hassle.

Instead, simply make sure that you check your expansion planner showing you the resources that you are short of. You can find out by sorting the resources by  'Your demand'.

If you are short of any resource, you can then look for a source of this using the bottom window in the expansion planner. Select one of the sources and click, 'queue nearest construction ship to build mining station here'.

If you do this regularly, you should be able to avoid running out of resources.

If resources aren't getting to your space ports, then there may be a reason for it. As TJ pointed out, there may well be a bug here, but I haven't encountered it myself. Other reasons may include, a lack of freighters due to war or pirating, a lack of fuel which will slow down your entire civilian fleet, thereby slowing the transport of resources. Or building too much, too quickly. This of course, will use too many resources for other things. You have to wait between building things.

The whole resource allocation system could be made more transparent of course, but it's just another part of the steep learning curve. It takes a while to get it down.

Good luck Chris, and let us know if you have any more questions. I hope we're being helpful here.[:)]

Very good Igard....great instructions there for Chris. [:)]
I was going to comment almost exactly what you said.

Yap, he got me shut up also....that's a hard thing to do [:D]

Don't give up dude, this is too great a game to do that.
I thought I couldn't run my empire properly too at first, but I noticed that if you wait enough, it should all fix itself up. I suggest you set everything to auto and accelerate time. The AI should get you out of the crisis in a year or two. Same for any cash problems, give it time and it should sort itself out. After all, your empire has a life of it's own, it doesn't just stagnate when you're not clicking stuff.
A famous quote from the legendary Protostar:War on the frontier: "time heals all wounds, even verbal ones"

Cheers

Don't listen to this guy, he has enough patience to enjoy even Universal Combat. I had to rely on his advice and saves to take some baby steps with UC.
Aside from that DW and UC alike are definitly worth it [:)]

Thanks guys but nobody as of yet has answer my original question. How do you find out what you are short of when building stops. As I said I can make no sense out of it.

quote]ORIGINAL: tjhkkr

The answer to the second question...
Usually a construction ship, unless it is repairing a ship, goes to a planet and gets the material it needs, and then goes to the place where you want the station.

[/quote]

That's what I thought but why woild two sepparte construction ships ordered to build a gas mining station at different locations not carry enough materials. Surely the ships should wait until they have or go to another loaction and load there. As it is there have been sitting at the build site waiting for 3 components to be finished.

ORIGINAL: Chris H

Thanks guys but nobody as of yet has answer my original question. How do you find out what you are short of when building stops. As I said I can make no sense out of it.

ORIGINAL: tjhkkr

The answer to the second question...
Usually a construction ship, unless it is repairing a ship, goes to a planet and gets the material it needs, and then goes to the place where you want the station.

That's what I thought but why woild two sepparte construction ships ordered to build a gas mining station at different locations not carry enough materials. Surely the ships should wait until they have or go to another loaction and load there. As it is there have been sitting at the build site waiting for 3 components to be finished.

For starters, if you're building at a Spaceport, look at the Cargo for the Spaceport.
You can do the same for a Constructor or Planet also I believe.

There is also a way to look at the item being constructed to tell which components need to be built and what materials are needed for those components.
I can't tell you how to do that right off as I don't really use that feature, but I'm sure someone else on here has used that.

Sometimes if a Constructor doesn't have everything it needs, it will be waiting on a Freighter delivery.
This can take some time.

The construction stop bug I thought was fixed a few patches back.
A fix for this is to select the Constructor (if this is the case) and send it somewhere else.
Stop it as soon as it stops building and begins to maneuver to leave.
Now have it "Repair" what it was building - you should be good to go.

There is also a way to look at the item being constructed to tell which components need to be built and what materials are needed for those components.
I can't tell you how to do that right off as I don't really use that feature, but I'm sure someone else on here has used that.

You can check this via the designs screen. Check the design you want and you have a button there that shows a summary for all the resources needed for that desing (it sums up the resources from each component that makes the design).
That's indeed half the story; the other half is to check the reserved column in the cargo for whoever builds: planet, spaceport or constructor ship. If the reserved quantity is higher than the current amount than the constructing facility waits on it to continue with the construction.

Hi Chris, like I said at the top of my post, it's a bit of a hassle to check your resources. That's why I always follow those rules I posted to maintain a good allocation of resources throughout my empire. Thus eliminating any construction haltages.

There is no easy way to tell what resources you're short of. The game doesn't calculate it for you for a specific build. You must find out yourself. Even after you've found out what resources you're short of, there's not much you can do about it, since it's controlled by the civilian run private sector.

To find out what resources are needed to build a design. Go into the design screen, select the design you're building and click 'Edit'. In the ship design screen you should see a button called, 'Show Construction Summary'. This will list all the resources required to build that design.

You can then check each resource with the cargo of the Planet/Spaceport/Construction ship to determine whether you have enough resources to build.

Like I said, I think it would be cool to have this more transparent, or have a tool that tells you what resource you're short of. But at the end of the day, there's still not alot you can do about it when it all relies on you to maintain a good flow of resources for your private sector.

Anyway, I think that's the answer you're looking for, but not the answer I like to give. It's just not viable nor is it fun to check this all the time.