Colony ship design

[vmxa1]

That is what I would expect. I am still fiddling, but I am strongly leaning towards doing all colony ships and colonization myself. I am sick of seeing a planet had a few hundred pop and not grow to get the first full point.
Why does the AI not drop enough people to get to full point or even better?

[smellymummy]

Proteus_MST:

what I meant was about being able to tell the difference not for our own (ie, you/me, the player) system ships, but those of the AI. maybe i missed something, but I can't see what ships they got just by clicking on the AI system. all it says is how many ships that system has. which leads me back to what i originally wondering, if there is some info somewhere in the game that lets us know the status of the AI fleets (compositions, weapons, etc). I don't think there is, but from the gamers tip in the manual (p 115), it mentions to analyze your enemy. not sure how we can do that, short of knowing what the AI builds.

and then the only way for us to know what the AI build is by reading the label of the task force and remembering the image model of each ship class for each race. but this only reveals ship class, and ship mission.

vmxa1:

the AI actually does drop enough colonist to reach 1 pop point, or so it seems. Build up 4 colonization ships into your reserve, then set a Red 2 planet to be colonized. the next turn the AI will probably be sending all 4 (or maybe 3) colony ships to settle that planet, since a red 2 planet needs more than one colony ship before it reaches the 1 pop point mark.

also, I've noticed the viceroy AI is somehow managing to get population on planets on its own. keep an eye out on some nice planets in your systems, or near them, and you'll see out of nowhere that they start gaining your own race population! I don't know why it does this, but it does. the AI will just keep sending population there, much like if you manually sent an outpost to it, and then set the planet to receive migration ... but without the apparent outpost ship being built or setting migration to on.

the best example of this I can remember is when I took over the guardian systems (the ones with the 'paradise' planet). other times it would happen out of nowhere, but always would be on good planets (green, sweet spot)

anyway, I still take care of colonization manually, feels better

[vmxa1]

Yes I know it will "migrate workers, but it has does so too slowly and I have lost control of planets. It also was not creating enough food to feed all the people.
I have since corrected these problems, now that I know how and that I need to do it.

[yoink15]

BTW:

All ships need some kind of system drive, even orbitals (and non-combatants...like colony ships). Here's why: don't think of system drives as simply propulsion systems...it's also the power plant for the ship. Just like in real naval vessels...the ships engines (be their nuclear or diesel) provide not only power for the turbines, but also electricity to power the rest of the ship's systems.

The manual told me this.

It also told me (on page 25 in the middle of the page, regarding the game's built in "reminder timer") "GAMER TIP: Always set your priorities. Live human encounters are beneficial to your well-being and add balance to your world."

Ooooooooooooooh! *THAT'S* what I'm doing wrong! Thanks for that!

-Yoink

[canamrock]

lol If you want to get those Yellow and Red worlds colonized faster and cheaper, make one ship with a larger hull size and multiple colony pods. Also, this ensures that Green worlds will have a larger starting population. I hope that helps.

[Main_Brain]

Colony I -Destroyer with Sysspeed of 15 (Improved thrusters) 1ColonyPod
Colony II Cruiser Design ~Turn 100 most of your WOrld should be able to build those pal's (obsolete destroyer design)
2Colony Pods sysspeed 25
In combat those are sitting ducks except you can retreat fast enough... but as I never saw a lone colony ship survive anyways good drive or not..

[Dracil]

Interesting thought, putting more colony pods and starting out with massive colonies.