Super noob questions

[FroBodine]

I am brand new, and it will become obvious with all the questions I will post to this thread.  Starting with:

1. Why are all the supplies forbidden when I first land?  Am I supposed to unforbid them, so my guys can use them?  Or, is there a reason to keep them forbidden?  And, generally, why would I want to forbid something?

2. A couple visitors arrived, and walked around my camp.  One was a trader, the other a warrior or something like that.  How do I interact with these visitors?  I could not figure out how to do anything with them.  They walked around for a while, then left without doing anything.

3.  I built a solar panel, connected the power conduit to my room, and built a cooking stove.  At night, I saw that all my power was gone, and the cooking table was not powered.  So, I figured I had to build some batteries to store power for overnight and rainy days.  I built two batteries adjacent to the solar panel.  Do I have to also run a power conduit to my building for them to work?  I did that, but the cooking table still lost power at night.  Not sure what I'm doing wrong here.

[TwixFunSize]

1. All the unforbidden stuff is useful when you first start. You only want to unforbid something if it is completely worthless and you dont need it.

2. Currently you cannot interact with visitors. it will hopefully be in the game soon.

3. When the sun goes down the solar panel doesnt give off anymore energy. Their are batteries that you can build (you have to hook them up to the power grid) that will store power for the night.

I hope this helped you!

[FroBodine]

Thanks.  Then why do all those items start the game as forbidden?  I don't understand. 

I did build the batteries.  My question was do I need to run a power conduit line from the batteries to what I want to power?  Or do I just build them adjacent to the solar panels?  Also, I had batteries, but my cooking stove still powered down at night.  I was not sure why it did this.

[AwesumnisRawr188]

They have to be right next to the solar panels. Click the power conduit and you can where the blue lines run, and that's what's on the grid. The batteries must be right next to the panels, or a power conduit to be connect.

Also, they have a gauge on them that fills with yellow as it's filled. Completely yellow means it's full, and no yellow means empty, and no power. You can also check how much power is stored by clicking a solar panel and looking next to Stored power.

[Thunder Rahja]

Batteries don't have to be right next to the solar panels--they need only be connected via power conduits. Rain will cause batteries to explode, so I recommend you make a building over them. Keep in mind that some walls have power conduit built-in, so you can connect directly to the building that houses your batteries. Just remember to connect the batteries to a powered wall--either by building it adjacent to the wall, or connecting with power conduit between. The batteries will power anything that is connected to them.

See below for an example of a working solar power system.

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[FroBodine]

Thanks everyone!  Very helpful.  So, is there a reason all those items start as forbidden?  Why would I ever want to forbid anything, since it seems like first thing you do when you start a new game is to unforbid everything.

More newbie questions to come, as I play and learn this fun game.

[StorymasterQ]

Generally, you'd want to have things behind an angry raider forbidden, or your colonist would go to haul them and get gunned down. Also, things too far away would waste your colonists time.

[Architect]

Also by leaving things forbidden at the very beginning, you are able to force colonists to use the closest materials to where you start building. I know I very rarely build where my colonists actually land, so I leave those resources that land with me forbidden and unforbid the ones near where I build.

[absentminded]

 I also have a 'noob' question and this seems the place, is there a button or anything to select all colonists?

[vagineer1]

I also have a 'noob' question and this seems the place, is there a button or anything to select all colonists?

Double click on one on your colonists and it selects them all.

[absentminded]

Cool, thanks