Starting Guide (or what I learned in my first 8 hours of play)

[Cassey]

Note:  This is a "morning after" report based on the initial pre-alpha release

First and foremost:  This is ONE HELL of a great pre-alpha.  My last run lasted several hours - simply amazing.  Although I posted a number of suggestions, I didn't find any hard bugs, and sooner or later figured out all the mechanics.

OK, onto a few suggestions for first timers (naturally based on my game play style):

1)  Don't build where you drop.  The biggest challenge (aka "Pain") in the game is raiders.  You need to think defense from the first moment.  Personally, I like to build in islands and/or in corners or somewhere else with natural choke points.

2)  Don't overdue it.  Its fine to mine a dozen squares at a time - don't mine a hundred.  We simply don't have fine grain enough control now, and you might (actually probably will!) find yourself starved for metal with a lot of it available simply because your crew insist on mining.

3)  Don't mind everything.  The rock you want (unless your tweaking your area for shape), has a fuzzy boarder - that rock yields metal.  Following #2 above, just go in a row or three.

4)  Try and use the geothermal generator - its simply SO much easier than fooling with solar panels and batteries and running out of power or having to micro-manage your power (e.g. Turning your comm system on only when chatting with ships).  Of course, its doable with panels, but geothermal is green-power too!

5)  I start off building a geothermal generator, a food machine, a table, some chairs, and mark a storage area.  Once the storage area is built, I delete the original one, which will pretty much force your crew to your new area.  Beds come next, and a few planting areas (2-3 is plenty).

6)  As soon as your escape pods land, hit space, pause, and look around.  Spend some time figuring out where "home" will be.  Hopefully that Geo-thermal vent (little black hole) is not halfway across the screen, although that is OK (just adds to the startup time a bit).  Use the "overview" Menu to set the priority for your workers.  I rather like using "Manual priorities" and setting them to 1-4 (1 is highest, as the green color will indicate).  Go ahead and place your generator and other starting building.

7)  Once your colony is established, and you have at least 1 (if not 3+) turrets up, build your research table and research the gun cooling item.  DO NOT start researching too early, or you will cripple your early building/mining/cropping speed.

  Use Dumping Areas to wall off your perimeter.  They are free, and where your crew will move rocks when you ask them too.  Net effect will eventually be a rock wall around your base which will really slow down the raiders.

9)  Make sure your turrets have a clear shot:  Mine away any mountains (black areas) that block their view.

10) Again, #2!  Its real easy to get carried away with too many planting areas (and later hydroponic tables) - you will work your crew to insanity.  I'm still working on balance, the image below shows where I stopped at 4am last night.

11)  Build a prison - this is just a small separately enclosed area with a few beds.  I've yet to have more than 3 prisoners at a time, so 4 beds (to be safe), should be fine.  The prison can share a wall with your safe zone.

12)  Place graveyards and hanging cages ("Gibbet Cage") away from your compound, you don't want to stress your crew looking at the dead.

13)  Later, when you have an extra body or two, assign one to cleanup.  It helps moral.

14)  Avoid specialist (the crew with a 11-14 skill but a lot of restrictions) - you will likely be better off having from flexibility.  Although a static Overview of assignments work for the beginning, I found myself tweaking things a LOT towards my current point in the game - mostly to control mental anguish (removing work load seems to help the fastest, although a few of my older crew can now only work about half the time).

15)  You need at least one crew with social skills to work the Comms.  Low is OK, it will just take longer to contact a ship, but they hang around for a good amount of time.  Do NOT draft the person, just select them, then right click on the Comm unit to set their task (I found the lower right corner of the Comm unit worked for me).

16)  Your a slave trader.  Get over it.  Nothing worse than 3 prisoners all with great social skills that can't do anything else.  Sell them.

17)  If you go Agricultural, like my game, buy slaves with high growing skills!  Also capture anyone you can (and yeah, the mechanic is to "arrest" all those folks walking by, even if they are disabled crash victims.  You will need to "draft" a crew to arrest someone, but they don't need to be armed.)

18) I grow crops, and lots of them, for sale.  Not uncommon for me to sell 1000 food at 10 each.  I use the money to buy better weapons for my crew.

19) Build a number (initially one of course, but later 4-5) equipment racks.  This is where the game will store weapons when you buy them, or collect them off of dead raiders.  Note that if your out of free space, your crew won't bother to collect things - that was a one of those "of yeah!" moments last night.

20)  Sandbag walls will at least slow down, if not stop, raiders allowing your turrets to shoot them.  I read this morning a suggestion to build sandbag walls in front of your turrets as well, which makes sense.  They are expensive to replace (metal being your limiting resource in the game).

21)  Pay attention to the mail messages that appear on the right side of your screen.  Most will just be electrical fires, but crash events (both material and injured potential future crew (or slaves)) can be very handy to address.  Of course, raiders are announced as well.

22)  Raiders:  Screw development when raiders are near.  Click on each of your crew, draft them, and make sure they have all the latest weapons (right click on a weapon in an equipment rack to arm a selected crew).  I found this a bit awkward from a UI standpoint and found that once armed, I tended to Escape back to no menu, then select the next crew.  Otherwise its easy to end up arresting one of your active crew (which is, btw, an easy way to get rid of unwanted crew).  Anyhow, once you have everyone armed, hopefully you will survive the raid.  Don't be surprised if you lose crew though.  I never managed to have more than 8, and typically floated around 5-6 due to raids.  I have mixed emotions over rescue attempts - I've lost more crew than I've saved trying that before the raiders are dead.

23)  Have fun, and don't be shy about restarting.  This screen was probably my 6th or 7th run as I figured things out.  Only had everyone die once.

24)  Speaking of dying:  another "oh yeah!" moment occurred as I watched my crew starve to death because they wouldn't build the blasted generator.  It was there, they built everything else, but wouldn't build the generator - then I noticed a stone in the area... moved it, and the generator was built immediately.

25)  Keep it Simple Stupid (KISS Theory of Management):  Some things just didn't seem worth it, like Sun Lamps.  Yeah, your crows grow faster, but they keep shorting out and starting fires.  To a lesser extend, solar panels and batteries - there is just a matter of having a lot of components, each which might spawn an event.

26)  Fire management:  Nothing wipes development out quite like fires, which happen often (If there is a roof option to prevent rain induced shorting, I haven't found it yet).  Fires travel, so I tend to put at least one blank space between major items.  You can plant flowers in that space later to help with depression.  Make sure Fire Fighting is set to #1 priority on all crew.

Anyhow, these are just some items I would have found useful, hope somebody else does.

[attachment deleted by admin: too old]

[Goeshi]

The sandbags in your screenshot seem to benefit the raiders more they they would your base. If your colonists were up against them then the raiders wouldn't come within range of the turrets, and if the raiders were up against them then the colonists would have no cover themselves ... or have you found it works out differently?

[Cassey]

Quite possible.  I'm very much still learning.   What I have noticed is that they stop for the protection, which allows my turrets to nail them - but that explains why it is so hard to kill them (typically 4-5 turret rounds).  I liked that they stopped, but didn't think about why they were doing it.  Suspect the rock wall would be better, just going to need to trim down my hydro-garden so they work on other things.

I have some time today.  I'll try redeploying those sandbags and see how it goes.

Thanks!!!

Update:  Removed the sandbags, built some a square away from each turret - works MUCH better!  Thanks again.

[DeltaV]

Also, your colonists are probably getting negative effects from being all crammed together in the one room. Try building individual bedrooms.

And how in the world do you need that many hydroponics tables? 5-6 is usually enough for ~10 or so colonists, unless you plan on food being your main source of income.

[SteveAdamo]

excellent guide Cassey!

i've taken the liberty of posting another from one of the folks on the KS campaign (Gavin):

Growing areas are terrain-dependent and do not feed many people. One to three will get you going, then switch over to hydroponics with sun lamps indoors. Dedicate one colonist to ONLY growing (he/she will get really good at it!); expand as needed.

Place your colony with your back against a rock wall and give yourself plenty of lead distance. Dig your buildings into the rock, line your front yard with solar collectors, and place turrets beyond them. Keep most of your batteries inside with you; build a small building for a few batteries near turrets.
Build multiple power lines for redundancy. Rampant fires can cut off your flow! Also, metal wall is barrier + protection + power line. Use it!

Turn off the com station when it is not in use. That sucker burns 200W! Also, do not sweat it when a ship enters com range - you have about a day to respond and do business.
Watch the approach vectors of raiders and place a line of turrets perpendicular to them, two tiles between each (to protect against explosives). Put sandbags directly in front of turrets: they generally last 2-3 times as long this way.

Cross-train multiple colonists in construction/repair and mining. This can save your bacon if/when someone dies! (I lost my best and ONLY miner in a roof collapse - learned this the hard way.)
People in the game are sensitive to "cramped quarters" and "ugly environments", even prisoners. Everyone stays MUCH happier if their beds are not touching any walls, their rooms are at least 4x6 (maybe smaller - more testing to do), they have a light source, and the flooring is carpet (can be dirt or metal plating for prisoners).

Also, when building/placing ANYTHING inside a room, place it at least one tile away from the wall! Just trust me.

When performing a large task, like mining out space in the rock wall, assign a bunch of colonists to it, even if they suck at that task. Getting a project done in a day is worth the reduced effectiveness in other areas.

When it comes to prisoners, definitely avoid beating them and executing them. You will absolutely KILL the morale of mild-mannered colonists if you do either of these things. If you find a prisoner that you simply do not want in your colony (such as anyone who will not do manual labor or has zero social) just keep them and see if you can sell them to the next slave ship.
Most profitable configuration I have found so far is to farm the heck out of hydroponics, sell the food to traders, and use that money to buy needed supplies and stay alive. (You can completely ignore farm traders when doing this.)

[Cassey]

Also, your colonists are probably getting negative effects from being all crammed together in the one room. Try building individual bedrooms.

And how in the world do you need that many hydroponics tables? 5-6 is usually enough for ~10 or so colonists, unless you plan on food being your main source of income.

Yes, food is my income source.

Didn't realize individual rooms would help - lots of walls, but Thanks!

Steve - Thanks for that repost.  Sounds like I really need to work on my bedrooms.  Great info!

[SharpKris]

i find individual rooms to be a tad wasteful but i do them still to satisfy my OCD.
also i find FEAR to be a much better way of controlling the general population thus making executions and gibbet cages very effective. the general difficulty would be snipers and m14 users arriving early on and filling you with holes, this could be solved with sharp turns and smart turrent placement to reduce their ranged advantage. also hydroponic FTW   

[Pendryn]

Yeah, but separate rooms negates the sharing a room penalty.

[Semmy]

Also, your colonists are probably getting negative effects from being all crammed together in the one room. Try building individual bedrooms.

And how in the world do you need that many hydroponics tables? 5-6 is usually enough for ~10 or so colonists, unless you plan on food being your main source of income.

Yes, food is my income source.

Didn't realize individual rooms would help - lots of walls, but Thanks!

Steve - Thanks for that repost.  Sounds like I really need to work on my bedrooms.  Great info!

well if you didnt notice that there own rooms are helping than i would advice you to read there thoughts. They are actually saying that it gives negative thoughts d-;

[Cassey]

well if you didnt notice that there own rooms are helping than i would advice you to read there thoughts. They are actually saying that it gives negative thoughts d-;

I get a -5 for cramped quarters with a 3x5 room, but that is livable.  Only breakdowns I'm getting now are for excess work.

Thanks all!

[Grimreaper1704]

i got a questing about your "Prison" i see you not wall up room for prisoners. Do they not brawl? i mean when u have 2 prisoners in the same room they not start to kill each other? 

[air805ronin]

i got a questing about your "Prison" i see you not wall up room for prisoners. Do they not brawl? i mean when u have 2 prisoners in the same room they not start to kill each other? 

I've only played two games so far, but I haven't had an issue having my prison be one room with three beds.  no issues with quarreling or fisticuffs.

[skittles32009]

Heres another bit for when your creating rooms- 32 squares will remove the "cramped environment" moodlet that reduces mood by 5. Bed location also makes a difference.So a 6x6 room, 5x7, 4x8, etc. etc.

i've only done a little testing, so it is very possible a smaller room will suffice with a bed placed in the perfect spot.

[Cassey]

Well, logged another 8 hours or so, just fooling around.

Added a few more thoughts, beyond those talked about in this thread.

A)  Don't crowd the game border.  Sometimes you may want to line a wall with things like batteries and you will lose access to repair electrical problems.  I provided a tunnel behind my walls to take care of that, which you can't do if you wall is against the game boarder.

B)  Metal is by far the tightest supply element.  Use it wisely, and trade for it when you can.

C)  At the attachment shows, a LOT smaller hydro-farm was needed.  As shown, it not only fed my crew of 15, but provided me plenty of trade food for everything else I needed (slaves and metal mostly).

D)  I went overkill on batteries, then had to overkill on solar panels to eventually get them fully charged.  Just like in real life, you need to balance the two.  I needed the panels to power both all of the turrets, for my duplicate food units, duplicate Comms, and to provide an alternative should my geothermal die (which it did once).  Basically, I wanted to be functional even if one of the key components died - but that took a lot of power.

E)  Fooled around way past any normal "end", added Captain quarters, and a Royalty Suite (complete with its own food dispenser and outside entrance).

F)  Played one little trick that annoyed the pirates:  At the opposite end of the map I found a steam vent.  Places a geothermal generator over it and used it to power a few turrets.  Played hell with the pirates.  I also added two rooms, a mess hall, and a storage area.  Found that when I was mining in that area, the crew would sometimes camp out there since it was closer than my main base.

G)  Played this on a 250x250 (largest) map, which can really tire out your crew running back and forth.  That was part of why I did F, but I also found dropping a few beds around the map helped. 

H)  Running on a several year old quad processor, never saw CPU go much above 33%.

Final, ridiculous, map attached.

[attachment deleted by admin: too old]

[sigmaone]

It seems to me that things tend to short out in the rain. Can anyone confirm this? Had anything short out? I've only ever built my sun lamps inside, and they never short out. In my most recent game, I built a shed for my batteries, and for my geothermal generator. They never shorted out . My nutrient paste machine, however, shorted out routinely, and my comm console did as well, until I placed that under a roof.  Perhaps its worth the risk of shorts for the sake of fewer walls. I don't know.