Gameflow

[mrt1212]

So I'm on my 2nd game now after learning a few things from reading here but I feel like I'm repeating a few moves from the first go around that zap some of the challenge from the game

In the time between butting up against neighbor territory and your own and before you have the means of doing battle with consequence, there's a period of expansion where you can set up mining station after mining station and get ridiculous mineral production. Is this normal or am I just lucky having myriad star systems nearby that allow me to get over 150 minerals per month? Or is this an unintended outcome from goosing the game settings at the game creation screen by selection 1000 star systems and 200% habitable planets?

Additionally, I see that sectors get a bum rap round these parts but I'm making so much moola in energy and minerals that it's not hurting me at all. Is this...normal?

 

[DukeLeto42]

Your ships require mineral as well as energy maintenance. If you're making too many minerals to make use of, you probably don't have enough ships. Expect late game mineral production to get well over the 1000 per month mark... then again, your battleships will cost that much to build, so you'll be spending that income building up your fleet, supporting sector growth (I recommend ignoring sector complaints and forming your own opinion, particularly given all the changes to sectors since the game came out), and maintaining what you already have.

Also, the question for me is what year are you in, and how do you stand compared to your neighbors?

 

[mrt1212]

Your ships require mineral as well as energy maintenance. If you're making too many minerals to make use of, you probably don't have enough ships. Expect late game mineral production to get well over the 1000 per month mark... then again, your battleships will cost that much to build, so you'll be spending that income building up your fleet, supporting sector growth (I recommend ignoring sector complaints and forming your own opinion, particularly given all the changes to sectors since the game came out), and maintaining what you already have.

Also, the question for me is what year are you in, and how do you stand compared to your neighbors?

Still in the first century but have a full ship load of 76/76 - have only been sparring with some of the randomly generated fleets like ameobas and shards. In my first game I did see the consequences of having a huge fleet and the drain on resources but in my current game I'm way better situated to handle that just because of the absurd mineral income. Haven't moved the tech past destroyers yet.

I saw under the tool tip for fleet size that going over the cap affects maintenance but I just haven't felt the need to press above the cap since I'm mostly peaceful right now and don't want to bite off more than I can chew.

To me it just feels like there's a period of almost wild west expansion where the random fleets are the only thing standing in your way from creating a great resource base for your space empire.

 

[TerrBear]

Still in the first century but have a full ship load of 76/76 - have only been sparring with some of the randomly generated fleets like ameobas and shards. In my first game I did see the consequences of having a huge fleet and the drain on resources but in my current game I'm way better situated to handle that just because of the absurd mineral income. Haven't moved the tech past destroyers yet.

I saw under the tool tip for fleet size that going over the cap affects maintenance but I just haven't felt the need to press above the cap since I'm mostly peaceful right now and don't want to bite off more than I can chew.

To me it just feels like there's a period of almost wild west expansion where the random fleets are the only thing standing in your way from creating a great resource base for your space empire.

whats your strength in comparison to neighbours? how many neighbours have you met? Have you got fallen empires in your game? depending upon how far other races start from you yeah you can get a long while of easy/casual expansion, without knowing how large other empires are and their strength though you maybe setting yourself into a false sense of security.

 

[mrt1212]

whats your strength in comparison to neighbours? how many neighbours have you met? Have you got fallen empires in your game? depending upon how far other races start from you yeah you can get a long while of easy/casual expansion, without knowing how large other empires are and their strength though you maybe setting yourself into a false sense of security.

Ill try to remain vigilant because I havent really met the neighbors further up or down my specific spiral arm, only the ones adjacent on other arms.

 

[TerrBear]

Ill try to remain vigilant because I haven't really met the neighbors further up or down my specific spiral arm, only the ones adjacent on other arms.

I play really aggressive so I usually discover most other races within the first 100 years, you could always get trading star charts with the other neighbours if they're friendly with you but then you wont be able to survey those systems yourself, have you met any of the end game crisis in your last game? or an awakened empire?

 

[mrt1212]

I play really aggressive so I usually discover most other races within the first 100 years, you could always get trading star charts with the other neighbours if they're friendly with you but then you wont be able to survey those systems yourself, have you met any of the end game crisis in your last game? or an awakened empire?

No, I haven't run into either at this point. Will keep an eye out for some of those. In my first game I was buttressed up against a fallen Empire that treated me like a gnat on their ass.

 

[DukeLeto42]

Ill try to remain vigilant because I havent really met the neighbors further up or down my specific spiral arm, only the ones adjacent on other arms.

You need to invest in some exploration, unless you've turned spawning empires WAY down. By the end of your first 100 years, there shouldn't be much of the galaxy not claimed by an empire... except for around the xenophobe FE.

 

[Mauer]

You have enormous space to expand because of the 1000 systems and 200% habitability settings, I presume you also went with the regular number of AI empires of that size of galaxy rather than increasing it?

 

[mrt1212]

You have enormous space to expand because of the 1000 systems and 200% habitability settings, I presume you also went with the regular number of AI empires of that size of galaxy rather than increasing it?

I bumped up the empire count to 24 from the default of 21 - maybe the next go around I'll crank it up a bit higher to get the claustrophia in there.

 

[mrt1212]

So I restarted, did the 1000 systems again but bumped up empires to 31 AI empires. Definitely made a difference in the room to expand - less of it and have to be a bit more aggressive in putting down a frontier station or liberating nearby neighbor systems to be independent. Thanks for helping me find the settings that are more enjoyable to me!