In The Beginning (Starter Steps)

[BioFringe]

Having only started playing towards the end of A16 I can safely say that I'm not an expert but rather just simply a player that found himself a very deep game to spend tons of hours on. What I discovered most about this game is that there's a lot to discover so of course that lead to constant restarts to better my next game with any new found knowledge that I uncovered along the way. It was only natural that I saw a pattern for the early game so I decided to write it down for my own benefit and share what I have in the event that it might help someone else. So here is what I do at the beginning of any new game...

First 11 Steps

   
• Prepare Carefully (Mod)
• Land --> Equip Weapons --> Pause --> Save
• Setup Manual Work Priorities
• Setup Animals (Training & Master
• Unforbid Starting Item
• Plan. Plan. Plan. (I use the More Planning mod)
• Establish Stockpiles
• Establish DumpPiles
• Establish Zone
• Save --> Unpause --> Play
• Have Fun!

Here's a couple of these steps expanded upon...

   
• Plan. Plan. Plan. (see my second post below for my overall general thoughts on this stage)

Farm (Rich Soil)

               Corn
               Potatoes
               Rice
               Strawberries
               Healroot
               Cotton
               Haygrass
               Hops

          Kitchen
          Cooler
          Butchery
          Dining Room
          Rec Room
          Barracks & Bedrooms
          Hospital
          Workshop
          Laboratory
          Power Field
          Prison Barracks & Cells
          Cemetery
          Barns
          Defenses

   
• Establish Stockpiles

Temporary
          Items
          Produce (Cold)
          Meat (Cold)
          Meds (Cold)
          Plants & Drugs (Cold)
          Meals (Cold)

   
• Establish DumpPiles

Steel & Granite
        Marble
        Sandstone
        Textiles
        Raw Resources

   
• Establish Zones

Animal
        Clean
        Farm
        Haul
        Mine

That's about it. I've turned this into a simple spreadsheet so that I can just print before each new game and check off the boxes as I go. Fact is though that Step 1 & Step 6 can take me hours so it's not uncommon for me to have 2-4 hours invested in a game before I even hit unpause for the first time.

Did I miss something? Not do it your way? Let me know so we can discuss.

Hope this helps someone.

[Dr. Z]

Well I think you're overdoing the planning a bit. I usually build a main room where I put everything in and then gradually move everything in distinct buildings, so it takes me around half an hour before I hit start. Planning where to put your colony and having a clue of where to put the different rooms in the beginning is of course important to your survival, but planning everything down to the power grid is not at all necessary in my opinion wasting time you could spend playing.

[BioFringe]

Well I think you're overdoing the planning a bit. I usually build a main room where I put everything in and then gradually move everything in distinct buildings, so it takes me around half an hour before I hit start. Planning where to put your colony and having a clue of where to put the different rooms in the beginning is of course important to your survival, but planning everything down to the power grid is not at all necessary in my opinion wasting time you could spend playing.

lol. You caught a typing mistake on my part. I originally put Power Field then changed it to Power Field & Grid but decided to go back to just Power Field...somehow removed the wrong part and didn't notice. What I mean by power field though is just to know where I'm thinking about placing windmills, solar panels and my battery barracks.

You do bring up a good point though...don't over plan. I was trying to keep the list pretty much a simple bullet point list without much expansion of thought but this area could have used some clarification. Essentially I just put large squares, rectangles, etc in the general area that I'm thinking about putting something. I don't go into detail during the planning phase what-so-ever because I believe that half the fun is playing in real-time and seeing how things adapt over time. Therefore, my planning stage ends with a bunch of general shapes representing the spaces that I'm thinking about putting something specific like a hospital.

And yes, planning out your entire power grid would be overkill IMO

My own experiences though dictate that if I don't at least plot out the general areas for each building then what ends up happening is that I forget about something and then have to tear down stuff to accommodate. The planning stage is mostly about making sure that all my bases are at least thought of so as to minimize the frustration of re-construction during the game itself.

Hope that clears things up and thanks for taking the time to read and contribute. Much appreciated.

FWIW I ended up editing the original post to say Power Fields and made a quick note to reference this post for info on what I meant by planning.