Sizing colony ships

[gloob]

To my surprise I found this:

Red planets only cost 3 colony pods to colonize. Despite everyone sais it's 4. I think this is because if you send them colony ships in one by one, colonists die off too fast to use 3 ships. Every pod settles 350 colonists on a red 2, thus 3 pods (apart at once or in a single ship) will colonize any planet. Shazam.

Because of a 3 pod colony ship will do for every planet, you can start colonizing red planets efficiently using battle cruisers. Likely before you get mob centres !

The first colony ship you get for free will colonize a yellow 2 planet in a single turn. It will colonize a red 2 for about 800 pop, thus it must someway contain about 2.5 colony bays. If you combine this free colony ship with an extra (system) colony ship, you may get that attractive red 2 size 12 gas giant very very early.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Since low pop beginner planets are very slow to build their first Industry DEA, I tend to build mid-game colony ships with four pods, and colonize everything with those. They're expensive, in terms of the host planet's production, but less so than three separate ships, and the production cost difference between a three pod ship and a four pod ship is fairly low, compared to the acceleration of production and growth on the newly colonized planet.

[Daz]

Yep. Been there, done that. One more thing. When building system ships I put the cheapest system drive and make it slower so it costs less. Takes less time to build and you still get to colonize in one turn.

Also, your enemies tend to send one colony ship at a time, so just watch him landing the first colony on a red planet and just add one or two of yours.... voila... a new planet of your very own. Just dont use this with harvesters...

[Vince278]

Multiple pod colony ships IMHO are a waste of time and resources. I colonize all planets, even Red2's, with the smallest single pod colony ship I can build. Then I set a migration policy to it. It isn't long before it becomes a full-fledged colony. My empire growth rate then quickly overcomes others. My only challenge has been to support an empire that is growing too fast.

[Flinx]

Why waste money every turn paying teraforming costs? Use your magnate and captured population to colonize worlds which are yellow or red for you but green or sweet spot for them.

[Vince278]

I generally don't want to wait that long to expand. In the mid-game that works well though.

[Daz]

Flinx,

how do you know a world is suited for your magnates? You dont, cause you get to see that terraforming circles AFTER you colonize. You can get a match on gravity, but temperature is a mystery until you colonize....

[Flinx]

Originally posted by Daz
Flinx,

how do you know a world is suited for your magnates? You dont, cause you get to see that terraforming circles AFTER you colonize. You can get a match on gravity, but temperature is a mystery until you colonize....

Well the magnates have been added in the patch so this will not be a problem when it finally gets released.

In the mean time one can use rudimentary triangulation to estimate the suitability of a word for a magnate race.

e.g. The sweet spot for Audrieh is about midway between the sweet spots for Saurians and Geodic so planets which are yellow 1/2 for both Saurians AND Geodic (and red for everyone else) will be sweet spot or green 1/2 for the Audrieh.

e.g. The sweet spot for Rhea is above that of the Ichthytosian and to the left of the Etherean, so send your Rhea to planets which are yellow 1/2 for Ichthytosians AND Ethereans (and red for everyone else).

e.g. Darlock like planets with environments which are to the right of the Etherean and above the Saurians. Any planet that has both the Ethereans AND the Saurians as the best races to settle them will be good for the Darlock. There are lots of hot big gas giants that are red 1 for both the Ethereans and the Saurians and red 2 for everyone else (the X does not even show up on the environment panel) which will be yellow 1/2 for the Darlock.

[Flinx]

Graphically....