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I'm picking this game up relatively quickly, it only appears dense at first but is pretty easy to understand after a while. I still have questions:
1. This is mainly out of curiosity but do construction yards build the component first and then assemble the ship?
2. I noticed that components have a "cost" but I'm not exactly sure what it means. Enhanced Armor for example costs "480k" but what does that mean? My previous understanding was that the cash value you see displayed is how much each component is going to cost based on the current market prices of strategic resources. Am I misunderstanding something?
3. What determines construction speed? Relatedly, I understand that building a colony ship on a fresh planet is going to be very slow, but why exactly?

4. Does the auto-designer take into account empire resource availability?

5. These have to do with troop invasions because I'm wondering if I'm missing something. Invading planets is really really slow. I spend 20% of a war quickly defeating the enemy fleet, and the remaining 80% is spent laboriously shepherding troop transporters in order that they load up properly. Is there any way to streamline this process? I really wish there was a command that just said "disperse and collect as many troops as you can, then meet here."

Is there any way to gauge how many troops I need to conquer a planet ahead of time? I understand you roughly want twice the amount but I often find myself surprised by either the strength of my own troops or the native population guerillas.

I thought I'd address the issue of slow troop loading by having every ship incorporate a troop component, but this usually mean that they pointless throwaway 5 battalions into a capitol for no reason. Is there any way to stop my ships from doing such a stupid thing?

Thanks!

Welcome, there are some not so basic questions...

Some sort of quotations in bold...


1. This is mainly out of curiosity but do construction yards build the component first and then assemble the ship?


I never payed that much attention. Sometimes there are components in store, but I have never noticed if those are for ships in queue, or just not yet mounted. Ships are for sure assembled before all components are ready, though, since you can see ships missing just a few components if you got resource shortages.

2. I noticed that components have a "cost" but I'm not exactly sure what it means. Enhanced Armor for example costs "480k" but what does that mean? My previous understanding was that the cash value you see displayed is how much each component is going to cost based on the current market prices of strategic resources. Am I misunderstanding something?

I never noticed that value...

3. What determines construction speed? Relatedly, I understand that building a colony ship on a fresh planet is going to be very slow, but why exactly?

I think construction speed is a feature of the yard technology. The stuff at the bottom of engineering. I am too lazy to open the game, though. Planetary construction is a function of population. It does not make sense that a tiny fresh colony can make a construction ship as fast as a 14000M capital planet. I go with "they are done when done", and have no control beyond that. And I don't build planetary projects on small colonies if I want them built anytime soon.

4. Does the auto-designer take into account empire resource availability?

Considering how stupid R&D is, I would say: For sure not.

5. These have to do with troop invasions because I'm wondering if I'm missing something. Invading planets is really really slow. I spend 20% of a war quickly defeating the enemy fleet, and the remaining 80% is spent laboriously shepherding troop transporters in order that they load up properly. Is there any way to streamline this process? I really wish there was a command that just said "disperse and collect as many troops as you can, then meet here."

The main issue in loading this area is that planets are stripped bare of troops. Shadows should improve that, one could hope. Combat takes time, and that is how it is. Bombarding defenses should help, but may carry other penalties.

What I do to manage transports is: Troop transports in separate fleet, but I keep a non transport lead ship. This is because ships in a fleet default to moving to their leader. So if I don't order the fleet around, single ships can get orders like "attack", "refuel", "load troops", and once done they will ponder what to do and head to leader. If I want to move the invasion fleet, I can just order the leader to move, not interrupting those on special orders. The fleet members will all follow unless they have something better to do.

To load my transports, I tend to automate them outside fleets. So after emptying a few, I go to the ship list and click through the transports removing and automating those needing refill. At intervals I revisit the troop carrier list, and any non fleeted, automated ship with "none" order (or attacking a ship), will be full, while those refueling or loading, are not yet full. The only issue with this is that the nearby area is stripped of troops, which is not ideal if the invasion fleet is near the front. Hopefully that problem is soon just a memory of previous pains.

Is there any way to gauge how many troops I need to conquer a planet ahead of time? I understand you roughly want twice the amount but I often find myself surprised by either the strength of my own troops or the native population guerillas.

I have not played that many games in legends... In my latest AAR I got spanked and lost my invasion force [&:]. On the next try I arrived with a huge force. The strength of the fleet (in troops) is in the selection box. I just attacked with 1 transport to see the defensive strength, before joining with the rest when I saw that I had enough strength present. Losing 60 troops because you needed 70 kind of sucks... Losing 6 or whatever of a transport is not so bad. I am also sure experience helps in judging the need for troops.

I thought I'd address the issue of slow troop loading by having every ship incorporate a troop component, but this usually mean that they pointless throwaway 5 battalions into a capitol for no reason. Is there any way to stop my ships from doing such a stupid thing?

I hate non transports with troop components, but once in a while some extra capacity for poorly defended targets is handy. If I run AI designs and got troop capacity on my fighting ships, I make sure to never have them automated. Having the troop compartments only in troop transports, also helps keep the troop carrier part of the ship list tidier, which is useful with the way I fill my transports.

Also keep in mind that when loading, ships have to dock. If you want to reload the invasion fleet at your recent conquest, do you want 10 transports with 10 compartments, or 100 destroyers with 1 compartment each, to dock at one of the 3 docking bays of a colony? With AI designs and mature colonies, reloading the invasion fleet can take a significant amount of time, AI transports are not that large.

1.Components are produced by manufacturing plants and assembled into a ship at a construction yard. (Occasionally this is simultaneous...)

2. The 'cost' listed for components is that of the tech research required for the component. (Just the exact tech not a cumulative tree investement...)

3. Construction speed based on the speed of construction yards that your technology allows. It simply 'is' this speed most cases. However when construction takes place at planetary construction yards potential speed is tripled. If a colony ship is being built population is additionally factored in slowing the construction down when the population is below a certain point (from memory fullspeed threshold is 10000m?). Colony ships also build much more slowly than other types - this was done to slow down expansion speeds. Construction speed also is/can be influenced by racial characteristics and leader bonuses.

4. No, I'm pretty sure that it doesn't.

5. No I don't think you are missing anything simple. Bingleing's advice is solid. I try to have all my transports fully loaded an in position (short jump away) before the war starts. If I need more troops I'll give the reload order as soon as they have deployed their current load and add them to a fleet with a leader that stays put where I want them to return to.

Troop strenght varies so does terrain and buildings are possible. Normally 3 or 4 to 1 is a ball park figure.

I only use troop transports. I keep some with smaller troop capacity around for taking weak colonies.

Hope that helps. [:)]

The reason I automate "loaders" rather than tell them to load troops, is that ships tend to need multiple attempts to fill their bellies unless there are lots of troops nearby. Automated troop transports have "load troops" as their primary activity until full. I think the only thing that interrupts them are refueling when needed.

There can of course be more than on invasion fleet.

It is worth paying attention to troop strengths (quick view on the fleet), as troop strength can be very different. In my last game I was doing some chains of attacks with the same troops, leaving some behind as garrison for each step forward. According to the AAR they started with 301 troops at 3387K strength. Not exactly crack troops averaging just above 10. There was a few extra that had confused themselves onto a battle fleet (stupid AI designs), but they don't really matter.

After battle 253 were lifted, at 4035K strength. Keep in mind some could be reduced strength too (ready to be patched up by the transport's medical center). After next battle 211 is picked up, and strength is still over 4000K. I think 30 is the max troop strength, and they don't need that many battles to get there. Three battles and average went from 10 to 20 strength.

The good thing is of course that I suspect that if you have AI troop recruitment, the AI will happily sack your crack troops (at colonies) while you have fresh low strength troops elsewhere. Luckily the AI sacking troops in transports was an early legends issue only

Thanks for the tips on #4 Bingeling. It sounds tedious still, but workable. I still wish I could get a better sense of how many troops I'll need for each planet in order that I may portion out my troops accordingly. How do I designate a leader for a fleet though? Does it mean assigning a character? Also, what did you mean about the AI sacking your troops?

Feelotraveller, it seems like a very odd feature to include the cost of research you've already undertaken. Why would you need to know about that after the fact while you're designing?

Regarding colony ships, is issuing build orders through the expansion planner a good idea or does it make sense to build those manually at select colonies?

Cheers

I also have a few other questions, sorry for the block:
1. Does retrofitting at a yard or repairing by construction ships use up resources?
2. How exactly do trade routes work? I assume that's what the [empire color] dotted lines are for. How does a resource go from a mining station to being used? Does each port keep a stock?
3. How does the percentage availability of a given resource affect extraction, does it just make it faster?
4. Do mining stations extract luxury goods too? It also seems like mining stations are largely the same as colonies in regards to resource extraction, right?

Troop stuff is a chore, mainly because you may want rules like "at least 20 troops in the capital" and if you want rules like that for all your main colonies, giving a non-targeted load order will mess up your troop distribution. If the fleet sits at your capital when you give the load order, I doubt there will be more than a few left there (as long as the fleet needs a number of troops).

There appears to be new troop types coming in Shadows, and I assume you won't have the same troops attacking and defending in a perfect world. I at least hope for some "defensive troops" that has bonus in defense and can't be moved or something...

The fleet leader is the one with the star. With a fleet member selected "set as fleet leader" or similar is a choice alongside leaving the fleet (at right click). If you want to relocate him easily in the selection box of the fleet, give him a ship that is clearly different from the transports.

The AI tries to balance its budgets (which leads to huge cash stores, since it does not spend enough). If it has positive cashflow, it wants to build ships, and hire troops. If running negative cashflow, it wants to drop troops to reduce the maintenance from them. It does not agree with me on who to dismiss first...

I usually order my colonies by the "left menu" on the main map. The lists of various stuffs. Colony locations is the ones I use the most (in early game). I don't usually pay attention to where the ship is built. After early days it hardly matters, and in early days you don't have much choice. The AI seems to prefer eh large colonies, and if you don't spam order them, they will be built there. The exception is if the ships need a race that is not your default, and is only present in small numbers. Like an ice race in your mostly human empire.

The questions above:

1. Does retrofitting at a yard or repairing by construction ships use up resources?

I assume the old component is deconstructed (turned into resources), and the new component is built. The net usage of resources is probably as you can view from the component description. I have never checked, though...

2. How exactly do trade routes work? I assume that's what the [empire color] dotted lines are for. How does a resource go from a mining station to being used? Does each port keep a stock?

That is a sad state, I would love a proper trade network in this game... As far as I know the lines are more or less random, maybe having some relation to where actual transport happens.

I think colonies (and in particular spaceports) have a "desired store". They will pick freighters to supply them what they need. And mines have materials present. It can be quite annoying to see a large freighter travelling 5 sectors to deliver 27 steel. Just because the colony only was 27 short, and the closest free steel stock was 5 sectors away. The freighter algorithms could be improved a lot, but it works the way it is, and is the same for all.

All movement of resources is in a freighter (apart from fuel in fuel tanks, but that is never unloaded). Or maybe you can build a giant tanker (lots of fuel), and retrofit the fuel tanks away at the destination? [&:]

3. How does the percentage availability of a given resource affect extraction, does it just make it faster?

I never remember the rules, but a 88 mine will give twice as much materials per week as a 44 one. And they only run out of stuff by random events. So faster extraction is the same as more materials.

4. Do mining stations extract luxury goods too? It also seems like mining stations are largely the same as colonies in regards to resource extraction, right?

There are 3 types of resources (gas, solid, luxury), and the same 3 types of extraction units. The normal mine has both luxury and normal mining components, and the gas mining stations got both luxury and gas mining components. That is, the AI designed ones does, what you do is up to you. As far as I know, colonies are "poor miners", less efficient than the mines. The speed of mining depends on the number of mining components, though (for mining stations) ((and also on the quality of the resource)).

ORIGINAL: Bingeling

The reason I automate "loaders" rather than tell them to load troops, is that ships tend to need multiple attempts to fill their bellies unless there are lots of troops nearby. Automated troop transports have "load troops" as their primary activity until full. I think the only thing that interrupts them are refueling when needed.

Ah, I'll have to try that. [8D]

ORIGINAL: bouchacha

Feelotraveller, it seems like a very odd feature to include the cost of research you've already undertaken. Why would you need to know about that after the fact while you're designing?

Regarding colony ships, is issuing build orders through the expansion planner a good idea or does it make sense to build those manually at select colonies?

Cheers

On 'costs' I agree. If it wss my game I would ... oh wait, that way madness lies. [;)]

Colony ships are usually best ordered manually. A larger colony can finish mulitiple colony ships before a smaller one completes its first. The AI will spread them around without regard for this (early game it is better to queue two colony ships at your homeworld than let one get assigned to be built at a recently founded colony) nor the proximity of the construction location to the colonisable world (I find it can matter a bit later game). Also there can be times when you want a particular colony to build the ship so that it has a particular race on board.

I usually focus colony building at the major colonies, by not ordering many ships at once. The AI seems to prefer to build at the big colonies, but if you have 5 in building it will spread them around as long as there are 5 colonies able to build them.

There are many things you can optimize, spending lots of efforts on "the right ship to the right colony" is not high on my priority list. It is annoying to get a few extra colonies of an alien population, if you were stupid enough to grab a large colony in war, though [X(]. Need more population policies...

ORIGINAL: feelotraveller

ORIGINAL: Bingeling

The reason I automate "loaders" rather than tell them to load troops, is that ships tend to need multiple attempts to fill their bellies unless there are lots of troops nearby. Automated troop transports have "load troops" as their primary activity until full. I think the only thing that interrupts them are refueling when needed.

Ah, I'll have to try that. [8D]

The only "catch" I have noticed is that the behavior when full of troops is "do nothing". Which means that they will hang around in the system where they last loaded troops. Which is fine, but not ideal during war, as systems with troops tend to be recent conquests. The same systems that the enemy loves to visit, and troop transports do involve themselves in local battles (by attack stance).

Also, if you have non fleeted destroyers/cruisers (with troop compartments), finding them can be a tad annoying. Otherwise the reloading ones stand out nicely when you sort "troop carriers" by fleet.

Where they sit around tells a story of your troop levels. If you like garrisons it is a bad sign if they park themselves 5 sectors away.