How many colony ships do you need?

I would not ask a brand new colony to build another colony ship as its first task - it likely won't have enough population yet to really take advantage of it. Depends on many factors of course ...

Colony ships disappear after they drop their people. If you see one just 'sitting around,' then it's in orbit around a planet, waiting for you to hit the Arrow button, load some people on it, and launch it out of orbit.

At the start of a game, I'll typically have Earth crank out 5-6 colony ships and put ~200 million on each one. Anyone else? That's of course after setting Military spending to at least 75% (for about the first year) so those colony ships come out every few months.

O.K. thanks for the info.

A colony ship is more than just a transport vessel.
It contains all those little bits and pieces that you need to house and protect your colonists and while you are at it why not let them canibalize the ship for power sources, building materials and all those hi-tech materials needed to get a colony off and running.

Here's a quick pointer. Change your allocation slider for military in the beginning. Dedicate as many resources as you can (while not neglecting research entirely) to military and all your colonies will build colony ships rapidly. Now, colonize the planets you see and have all colonies work on colony ships. By the time you find the next colonies, you'll have ships ready, or near completion, which will save you time and money!!!

~SDC~

Building colony ships on low pop planets is worthwhile if you have to beat the ai to a given world.

#1 Truzen,

Populations to load on colony ships:

PQ15-17 1

PQ18-19 111

PQ20+ 223+

The above numbers maximize the tax revenue received per planet. They are valid as of 1.03; google the forum to see if updated numbers are available for 1.04 & 1.05.

~SDC~

All good suggestions. Learn something new every day on this forum!

DefZep: So you load 1 million people on a colony ship going to PQ 15-17 world? Doesn't it take a while for that pop to grow to anything useful? Other than beating the AI to the world of course ...

#6 Def Zep

The only problem I see with this is that I am building colony ships as fast as I can and have no idea where they are going to end up because I do not have enough exploration done when the colony ship is built.

My last two games I went to sending all colony ships out with 100 million colonists. I guess that since most planets fall within PQ 15-17, that I should put only 1 million on each ship?

If the numbers you listed are to maximize tax revenue, what is the effect, if any, on maximizing production. I am not really sure how production is calculated...

Concerning the slider allocation - I usually find myself adjusting everything so that that the ratios are evenly split up - I think it is not too bad to have soil enrichment or those banking centres as early as possible. Or does that hinder initial expansion way too much ( as you may have already guessed, newbie posting here ) ?!

Khan,

Yes, it will slow you down a lot. You want to get as many planets as possible as fast as possible, period. Nothing else matters in the early game. I wait a *long* time before I build any social improvements.

Crank taxes to 50%, spending to 100% until you run out of money (it will be a while).
Military around 75% and Research 25% (whatever can get colony ships out in 2 turns on Earth).

Just pump out the colonies. All new colonies will also build colony ships. Usually mix in about 3 scouts in there to search for more systems and resources. I will regulary put only 50-75 mil on a colony ship because the most important thing is to get that system on your side, not the AI. You can transfer more people to the system later if needed.

I do this until all 15+ PQ planets are colonized and I have a couple extra colony ships around.

Then I move spending to 40-50% military and 50-60% research and start moving up the teach tree and getting some contructors, defenders and star fighters up and running. At least one constructor per resource I know about.

During this period I'll also check out any 14 PQ planets that look good, especially in a stratigic spot.

I only turn on Social spending when morale starts to drop (thus needeing PQ enhancement or other structures) or the time just "feels right" or it's time for a trade good. You certainly don't want to wait too long or else your economy will suffer, but you don't really need any until your initial expansion and "getting caught up in tech" phase are over.

Note this is on Challanging or lower and obviously the many factors of each game can change things drastically but this has worked for me in most games. In my latest game (my first above normal) I've been playing tech catch up with the Drengin of all things and I'm just barely keeping up so I may have waited a little too long to switch to research but I am keeping up.

Thanks a lot for the advice, bonscott ! Going to try that out now... let´s see if I don´t get my **** kicked this time - never thought that one could crank out colony ships in 2 turns during the first phase !

No prob. The key is to watch your money. At 50% taxes and 100% spending you will be losing money each turn. No biggy, might as well spend it and I don't believe in leasing except for emergencies.

Once I get around $0 or -$100 or so I'll move spending down until I'm breaking even. Will slowly lower tax rates down as morale starts to tank.

If you can get those trade routes going early then you can keep taxes up around 40-43% for a long time. Trade, trade, trade is all I can say. Heck, my current game I have 8000 bucks and make 300+ a month. I don't have enough to spend it on!

300+ / month.... that makes me think a lot LOL ! btw, been playin the first couple of turns tryin out that balancing issue.... I must say, it´s going A LOT smoother now. Found out that this game can be fun even above "sub-normal" for me

#8 Drizzt,

It does take some time to develop the population with only 1 colonist, but planets at this PQ level are money-sinks until the basic infrastructure is built. Also, too high a population on these planets acts as a "speed-brake" on your overall development, since it is these system's morale which plummets once taxes exceed 20-25%. (Sol and other PQ20+ planets can easily take tax rates of 50%+ while maintaining an acceptable morale.) In the early game, you are better served putting your efforts into better quality planets.

The goal here is to (a) define borders and (b) maximize ROI (return on investment).

By the time the basic infrastructure is built (Soil Enhancement/Bank/Research Lab/Fusion PP/Mfg Center), the population will have grown to 75-100 and will start to fully utilize the improvements.

Larger populations do produce more IU's, but (generally) this results only in a 1-2 turn improvement in completion rate. If you need to rush something, you can make this time up by purchasing and/or leasing it. You will usually have more cash available to do so, since Earth has not been so depleted (settling 100+ colonists on every planet), and thus a greater number of taxpayers have been contributing to revenues (and at a better rate).

The only detriment to this approach is conquest. Aside from Earth, most planets will not be able to field TR's/Combat TR's until mid-game. But if you have a Sol-equivalent PQ system alongside the PQ15-17's, it will keep pace with Earth and allow 2-3 TR's to be fully embarked.


#8 Zorven,

Build a Scout as your first ship. Send it in the opposite direction from the Hero. Build a 2nd one on your first colony. With 2 Scouts and the Hero, you can uncover most every system nearby before colonizing.

This is actually a timesaver - you don't want population embarked on colony ships and unable to grow or produce taxes. Leave them on Earth until you need them (produce the colony ship, but don't launch it).

Population size does affect production, but not enough to worry about on sub-PQ18 worlds. There are no published figures on production, but usually only PQ18+ worlds will benefit from populations greater than 100 at start.



~SDC~

Very interesting analysis Def Zep. Will try some of your suggestions in my next game. I'm definitely finding it true that the PQ 15-17 planets are the "speed-brake" in that their darn morale sinks so quick. But in some games (like my current one) there are no planets that started greater than 17. And that includes all the AIs. Not until Soil Enrichment, Habitats, etc. did they rise into the 20's.

#15 Drizzt,

Some starts are like that. I had a game once where Earth at PQ15 was the best planet for about 2/3rds of the map. A good rule of thumb is to colonize those planets equal to or greater than its PQ, to prevent the "speed-brake" effect.

~SDC~

#14 Def Zep


Wow, that's a great idea about building the colony ship but not launching it. I hadn't thought about it that way, I figured "I've built it, better launch it." was the way to go.