Won't let me build Colony ships?

[aaatoysandmore]

What's required to build colony ships from your FIRST initial colony? I found percurser warp drive almost immediately when starting a new game and colony ships don't appear in the build menu of my colony build facility. No I am not trying to build from a Space Port or Space Station. I am trying to make it buiild from the Colony itself but they just don't appear in any menu.

I can't even tell if I have all the resources cause it doesn't appear in the menu and I can't see all the resources requred and that stupid encyclopedia is useless cause it doesn't tell you what you need to build one either. It just says you have to build them with 500m people minimum and on a COLONY and of course have precurser warp drive I suppose is another thing.

So what's up? this is my MAIN colony so it has well over the 500m required to build them. I have everything setup on automate atm and it's not building me any. I thought maybe I have to build something else first but as I said that stupid encyclopedia doesn't tell me anything.

Please help me [&o]

EDIT: ALSO, note that I have already researched "colonization" as well.

[Bingeling]

How large is the colony ship design compared to the max ship and max base size? It could be that one of them is a limit to its size, and that you need one more construction tech.

I have seen lots of questions about early colony ships, so there could be something strange going on as well.

[aaatoysandmore]

NM I figured it out myself. The stupid "predesigned" colony ship won't appear in the menu, but, when I desiged my OWN colony ship it appeared. All those years wasted because whoever wrote the encyclopedia doesn't tell you or say "oh by the way the predesigned colony ship we made doesn't appear in the game you have to design your own". Also, I couldn't believe the amount of resources that my initial colony DOESn't have to build a colony ship. I had to start all over and build miners first and goto certain places to mine all the crap I needed for my first colony ship. How rediculous that the game makes you do all that and doesn't at least give you your first colony ship for free.

But, thank you for trying to help Bingeling. I'm just frustrated now as I've lost all that time only because whoever wrote the encyclopedia wasn't more specific about building things and what they require and how to best get started building things. Isn't that what tutorials and tooltips are for? and suppose to be about? detailed instructions?

[Unforeseen]

I smell a troll.

[Bingeling]

I tested with some quameno with very large research, and the colony ship design did at least appear after the first tech appearing after the colonization tech. I think researching colonization possibly does not trigger the redesign.

[Unforeseen]

Deleted [Strange i clicked to edit this post, and when i submitted it created a new one]

[Unforeseen]

"I had to start all over and build miners first and goto certain places to mine all the crap I needed for my first colony ship. How rediculous that the game makes you do all that and doesn't at least give you your first colony ship for free."

Seriously? I'm sorry to sound mean, but either you are trolling or your playing the wrong game... mining is a HUGE aspect of this game. This isn't a game where everything get's handed to you on a silver platter, and it is ABSOLUTELY NOT ridiculous because it's not meant to be EASY. Your playing on Prewarp, it's meant to be difficult. You can't just spawn crap out of nothing, you need to obtain the resources necessary to build things and the facilities to build them and if you don't then your going to have a real short game.

In your other thread you complained about the pirates. Same game mode. Your playing Shadows content which is ALL ABOUT PIRATES.

[aaatoysandmore]

ORIGINAL: Unforeseen

I smell a troll.

Yeah, you it's you're upper lip. [:'(]

[aaatoysandmore]

ORIGINAL: Unforeseen

"I had to start all over and build miners first and goto certain places to mine all the crap I needed for my first colony ship. How rediculous that the game makes you do all that and doesn't at least give you your first colony ship for free."

Seriously? I'm sorry to sound mean, but either you are trolling or your playing the wrong game... mining is a HUGE aspect of this game. This isn't a game where everything get's handed to you on a silver platter, and it is ABSOLUTELY NOT ridiculous because it's not meant to be EASY. Your playing on Prewarp, it's meant to be difficult. You can't just spawn crap out of nothing, you need to obtain the resources necessary to build things and the facilities to build them and if you don't then your going to have a real short game.

In your other thread you complained about the pirates. Same game mode. Your playing Shadows content which is ALL ABOUT PIRATES.

What an $#*#! Just because a colony doesn't have prewarp you think they wouldn't make colony ships for local planets without all that micromanagement involve? One free colony ship wouldn't have made the game that much easier. Just a bit more fun getting started.

Besides you need to quit being a TROLL, everyone can see that you are as others are trying to help and explain.

[Unforeseen]

Ok first of all, not every star system is going to have "local colonizable" planets. Secondly, a free colony ship just doesn't make sense. Nothing is free. EVER, and if it is it wasn't free for SOMEONE. Ships require components which require resources to build. That's basic. There are games where you don't have to worry about that, but this one you do. You "might" find colony ship floating around in the black abyss somewhere but that about as free as your going to get.

I'm going to ignore your comment about me trolling. Your just mad because I think YOU are a troll for complaining that you had to build mining stations before you could build ships on a prewarp setting in a 4x strategy game.

[Spidey]

All you need, usually, is the colonization tech. The one thing that can get in the way, however, is that there's a size limitation even for planet-built ships. If you haven't researched any techs that increase the ship size limit then building a colony ship ends up being pretty hard.

And no, you don't need to build ships to do mining. You should have plenty of resources in your starting colony.

[Unforeseen]

ORIGINAL: Spidey

All you need, usually, is the colonization tech. The one thing that can get in the way, however, is that there's a size limitation even for planet-built ships. If you haven't researched any techs that increase the ship size limit then building a colony ship ends up being pretty hard.

And no, you don't need to build ships to do mining. You should have plenty of resources in your starting colony.

Depends on how the game had been going up to that point. In his other thread he complained about pirates. He might have lost quite a bit of those starting resources to them/fighting them.

[Spidey]

Yeah, but if he's short of resources then the ship construction starts just fine and stalls. What he's talking about is not being able to order the ship in the first place, isn't it?

[Unforeseen]

ORIGINAL: Bingeling

I tested with some quameno with very large research, and the colony ship design did at least appear after the first tech appearing after the colonization tech. I think researching colonization possibly does not trigger the redesign.

[Sieben_slith]

I'm new to the game and have only played pre-warp, so please correct me if I'm wrong. To build a colony ship you first have to research Colonization. The colonization ship should then show up on the design screen (you may have to click on "Show all designs"). You still may not be able to build it (leaving aside lack of resources) because the colony module has a size of 360, so you have to research through the fourth level of ship building (Component Prefabrication) to get a size 400 ship. You also need Warpfield Precursor, which is in the same research category as ship building (Energy and Construction), so it takes a long time. You can go without warp engines, but you may end up chasing your potential colony planet around the star since that colonization module doesn't leave much space for engines and fuel cells.

Have I got it right?

[Tormodino]

A colony ship does not need a hyperdrive for the first in-system colony (if you have it). You only need to research the first colonization tech. Having a cruise speed of about 12 is more than sufficient to get you to your target slowly, and comfortably

[Sieben_slith]

Well, I am wrong. You don't need to research ship size tech, your colony ships can be as large as a starting station (480). I ran a quick test to confirm it. Once you have researched Colonization you can build colony ships, but they don't show up automatically. Go to Designs > Add New > Role > select colony ship. As Tormodino posted above, 480 is large enough to add a colonization module, enough engines to get a cruise speed of 12 and enough fuel cells to reach (most) of the system diameter.

None of this is in the manual. Why didn't anyone simply say this in response to the OP? Instead he gets branded a troll. This has got to be the most unhelpful forum I've ever used. The art of teaching lies in understanding when and why your students don't understand, not in laughing at their lack of understanding.

[ehsumrell1]

ORIGINAL: Sieben Elfriend

None of this is in the manual. Why didn't anyone simply say this in response to the OP? Instead he gets branded a troll. This has got to be the most unhelpful forum I've ever used. The art of teaching lies in understanding when and why your students don't understand, not in laughing at their lack of understanding.

Hello Sieben;

It's unfortunate the direction this thread deviated to. But please don't judge our forums by a few
unnecessarily worded posts or user attitudes. Admittedly, it does happen at times, but overall You
will find that we are a very amicable community here. Distant Worlds is a complex game and has many
facets and game-play styles that can be quite confusing at times. That is why we have these forums, to
field ALL questions, and hopefully assist with proper responses, examples and answers to facilitate the
enjoyment and reduce the learning curve of this great game. All opinions are valid here, we just hope that
civility and respectful viewpoints come with them.
[:)]

[Spidey]

I'm not quite sure what exactly we're talking about here. The way I understood this topic, the issue was that AAAtoys had an initial colony ship design that just didn't appear in the build options. If not then why is he talking about a predesigned colony ship to begin with? So he probably has a design, it just isn't a legal build option for some reason.

But a fair few of the other comments in this topic make it sound as if he didn't have a design at all by, as far as I unstand the comments, talking about when the predesigned colony ship appears in the design list. Frankly, I'm not too concerned about that because any visit to the design list will include a warning if you have the tech for colony ships without having a non-obsolete design for them, and I'm reasonably sure the ship design assistant will make colony ships on his own.

[Aeson]

I'm reasonably sure the ship design assistant will make colony ships on his own.

I think it will only do so if ship design is automated and colony ships are set to automatic upgrades, which could be a reason why no colony ship designs appeared.