Matrix Games Forums

I’m back playing the game after about 7 months and having a blast.
I’m playing with the Great Mod: STAR TREK THE PICARD ERA v2.0.

I have a few questions regarding the game, not mod specific, that I need some help with please.

I play on very hard and have almost everything manually controlled.

1. Resource Management:
I’m having a hard time managing my resources. In my last few games I’ve been running out of resources and it brought my expansion/production to a screeching halt.

There seems to be no easy way to manage this. You’d think there would be a menu showing your levels on-hand, what’s coming in and what’s being used. What you need to focus on, but as far as I can tell, none of that exists.

What I do: Make sure I have at least one source of everything that I have access to.
Focus on the key resources: Steel, Chromium, Polymer, Carbon Fiber & Helium early on.

I also have one or two constructors on Auto, so the AI can build stuff that I might miss.

Besides doing this, how else can I better manage this?
Again, it just seems that there is an interface missing that should help with this… And I’m not talking about the expansion planner, I use that, but it only goes that far.


2. Migrating population:
How does the ‘resettle’ of population work?
So my home world is at max and I want to move population to new worlds fast. All I can do is bump up the tax rate and choose ‘resettle’ right? Does passenger ships move your population?


3. Ship Design templates:
I like trying to min/max my designs. When I save my designs, they are saved as ‘.dwd’ files, yet mod templates are all ‘.txt’ that I can easily edit. Is there a way to open ‘.dwd’ files?
Currently I’m editing the ‘.txt’ template files to my liking, but it is a painful process, since I have to have the game running, design my ship or base, then minimize it and update the template to match. Is there a better way to do this??


Thanks for reading my rambling! Appreciate any feedback.

1: Resources:

In the key designs (the ones you build the most), take a look at the construction summary from the design screen. You will see resource totals to build one ship/base. Pay attention to chromium, silicone, carbon fiber as they are somewhat rare (and needed). Aim for at least two of each one used for your key ships, a few more for steel and gold.

Watch your resource totals in expansion planner. Do some have low levels? If so pay a bit attention to them to see if they are going up/down.

Spamming ships that are swiftly killed does not help in resources, and could explain shortages. How much is needed depends on play style.

2: Resettle is rude, it is "humans only", not "please go there". Passenger ships do all the migration, and I would 0 tax the small ones and just wait...

3: When you save designs, the idea is to load them later. The design templates are for the AI designer, saving designs to always use your own stuff. I have not bothered to ever try this, though.

I believe you for instance make "early frigate" for pre-warp that is a bit different. Then a "normal frigate" for the rest of the game. In the next game you just load up these and they are ready, and I belive the "normal frigate" should handle the fancy gadgets you don't have yet quite well (just ignore them).

How does the ‘resettle’ of population work?
So my home world is at max and I want to move population to new worlds fast. All I can do is bump up the tax rate and choose ‘resettle’ right? Does passenger ships move your population?

The 'resettle' option does not do anything for you as far as encouraging emigration of your empire's founding species goes. 'Resettle' attempts to make the population of (not the same race family) or (same race family but not founding) species move somewhere else ('exterminate' is essentially the same, except that instead of getting the populations to move offworld, it kills them). Passenger ships are what moves populations around; making them faster might help make emigration faster, but probably not by much unless you're getting a large jump in hyperspeed or range (e.g. upgrading from Warp Bubble Generators to Gerax Hyperdrives).

Raising the tax rate on the homeworld as much as possible while keeping the tax rate on the worlds you want people to move to low is the best, and really the only, thing you can do to get the population of your empire's founding species to move off the homeworld.

Besides doing this, how else can I better manage this?
Again, it just seems that there is an interface missing that should help with this… And I’m not talking about the expansion planner, I use that, but it only goes that far.

Aside from the expansion planner, the only tool I know of that can help is the Construction Summary, which is found in the Ship Designer under the list of all the components you've added to the ship, which lists the quantity and type of resources required to construct the design. Take note of which resources you need most for your designs, and focus on obtaining mines for those resources.

Also try to keep mines in close proximity to spaceports to reduce the time required to bring resources from the mines to the shipyards, and perhaps consider 'prepping' areas before colonizing them by building (or starting to build) mines for some of the more important resources in the area that you want to expand into.

Beyond that, you can try to give yourself more time between each new colony to allow the homeworld and established colonies to build up their stockpiles. There are two big reasons why your resources are running out as you expand: first, the private sector typically orders a lot of new ships each time a new colony is founded. Second, the private sector will typically ship a decent chunk of your existing resource stockpile to the new colony shortly after it is founded, as colonies need certain resources to develop, and if you build spaceports shortly after the colony is founded the private sector will also be draining your stockpiles to feed the station construction.

When I save my designs, they are saved as ‘.dwd’ files, yet mod templates are all ‘.txt’ that I can easily edit. Is there a way to open ‘.dwd’ files?

You might try asking around in the Modding subforum; people there are more likely to have played around with the files. I tried opening it with a text editor, and it appears that there are some parts of the file which are plain text, but some of the characters are not recognized, at least not by NotePad, WordPad, or MS Word, and Excel didn't recognize the characters either when I tried to import it as data from text.

I would also suggest that the *.dwd file is not really what you want. The readable portions of the file (when opened with any of the above programs) indicate that the file probably lists the specific components used for the design, whereas the templates want the general type of component.

Resources are hit and miss. You need all of them lol. Joking aside, I shoot for at least 2 each strategic. Except for gas which I spam mines. After that I'll pop up the expansion planner from time to time and see where I'm in shortfall (unfulfilled column), and then grab what I need. I always try and mine any lux I come across. The AI has a bad (good?) habit of scarfing up luxuries first. As far as builders, sometimes I let them go auto, but most times i'd rather let them sit. Auto builders will build crap all over that you may or may not want or need. I mean for gods sake how many research stations do I need? The AI seems to think about double my capacity lol.

I've found pirate smuggling the best way to keep growth going until you have access to all needed resources. You pay 1 extra credit for the resource and I have not found it to be too much of a burden. Just remember to cancel the contract once you are comfortable with your supply.

There's a quick button on the Selection Window (lower left) when you have the planet selected (Assign Mercenary Smuggling...pirate flag icon). You can also right click on the planet and choose "Assign Mercenary Smuggling". Choose "All Resources".