Matrix Games Forums

I bought this game two days ago and I am trying to get into it.

I am playin an 'epic' scenario, starting with a single colony at low tech.

I found a ship graveyard with capial ships, and sent a few construction ships to repair them. I think the AI also sent a fourth one on its own.

They are now busy repairing those ships for quite some time, but I don't see any progress in the shipyard view. The percentages of the progress remain constant. Speed seems OK at 200 (does this indicate the speed of the buildin?)

I wonder if they are lacking some supply, and how I would be abe to see that.

All this time no mining installations are built, because all 4 construction vessels are at the graveyard. And the AI doesn't build new ones (I have all settings on 'advice', because I want to learn and keep an eye on what happens.

Repairing abandoned vessels takes a really long time (game years usually) but it doesn't use any resources afaik. [:)]

ORIGINAL: Theluin

Repairing abandoned vessels takes a really long time (game years usually) but it doesn't use any resources afaik. [:)]

Only the World Destroyer requires resource shipments.

Otherwise, the length of time is dependent on the number/cost of components on the ship that need repairing. There's nothing at all that you can do to speed it up.

FYI, you can attack a derelict ship under repair without penalty - so if an unpleasant neighbour is repairing a capital ship - shoot his constructor ship up to make him bugger off - or just shoot the ship.

Thanks. Indeed, after a while the ships were finished and they gave me the strongest vessels in the neighbourhood, at least for now.

I have a follow up question: I leave the building of everything to the AI for now, but I noticed that it didn't build any troops, so one of my colonies was easily conquered, and now it is heavily defended on the ground.

I could destroy everything that flies from the enemy over there, but my AI is still not producing the infantry that would enable me to reconquer it. Is this common, and should I start building myself?

Another question: my AI is now building much less than in the beginning, and my money is piling up.
Should I start buying expensive technology that is offered by my neighbours, or should I leave that decision to the AI? I don't think I am ready yet to dive into the whole tech tree.

Check that the AI is actually set to recruit troops. There is a tick-box under Colonization in Empire Options as well.

You can also still manually recruit troops while troop recruitment is automated.

The AI is usually very good at recruiting troops on your homeworld, so you can transfer them from there to other colonies.

The AI does not care too much about money, it cares about cashflow. Once it has built a lot, maintenance kills off the cashflow. In the latest versions, the AI will use a portion of cash on hand to shop once a year or something like that, so that the negative cashflow AI with loads of money at least builds something.

I have never noticed a lack of troops from the AI, but it prefers to build them at the large colonies. But if money is really short it will start disbanding them.