Help! How do I use my first technology?

[yoink15]

Hey fellas,

I'm hopin' someone out there can help a Moo3 newbie who's struggling to process the butt-load of information that the game throws at you.

Okay, I been playing the game off-and-on for about 4 days now, and I'm still trying to figure out how the technology tree works (among other things). My sitrep told me that I'd developed "Hydroponic Farms" and that they were ready to use. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. Okay, so how do I use them? I couldn't find an option to build "Hydroponic Farms" anywhere...not in the planetary queue or in the DEA area queue. So what's the deal? Do all my agriculture zones just "automatically" get Hydroponic Farms?

Help!

-Yoink

P.S. I like this smiley ----->

[PaulNAdhe]

You don't use Hydroponic Farms, your viceroy uses them.

He'll build one in a Bioharvest DEA sometime soon and then he'll tell you about it. It took me a loooong time to figure this out.

Maybe it would be helpful if on the SitRep when a new tech is ready there is some indication of whether it belongs to me or my viceroy would eliminates the confusion. As it is, whenever a new tech comes along I have to go to a planet and see if I can build that tech. Tedious.

[yoink15]

So what...I can't even choose to build Hydroponic Farms if I want to? You've got to be kidding.



-Yoink

[TheMaestro]

Yeah, for the most part your viceroy's will build whatever planet upgrades are available to be built...so you don't need to really worry about them as much.

Just make sure you always upgrade your ship designs, and make sure you use good task force management.

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Originally posted by TheMaestro
Yeah, for the most part your viceroy's will build whatever planet upgrades are available to be built...so you don't need to really worry about them as much.

Just make sure you always upgrade your ship designs, and make sure you use good task force management.

[PaulNAdhe]

Originally posted by yoink15
So what...I can't even choose to build Hydroponic Farms if I want to? You've got to be kidding.

Afraid not. Hydro farms, soil enrichment, they all belong to the viceroy. You'll get to build the astro univ and some pollutions stuff later.

But, the thrill of building that first hydro farm belongs to the viceroy.

[Yodasplat]

why do you care so much about personally building Hydro-whatevers?

That's just stuff that grows your pop and improves production. Who cares about building them?

All it means to me is more money for spies, more money for ships, more money for military grants, more task forces I can build and more empires I can politically force to give me stuff and I can militarly subjugate

Battelships, railguns, plasma guns, shields... that's the juicy stuff

[Oddible]

This is a truely confusing issue - It would seem that some planet build items DO appear in the Planet build queue list (the one right under the Military Queue in the planet screen) but others do not. I can see the Vicery Building the Hydroponic Farms but I haven't been able to select these to be build. I suspect that if I had gotten there early enough I would've seen the item in the list and could've added it to the queue but since the number of planetary improvements is relatively small in the early game, the viceroy always starts building things immediately as the become available.

[Bluekkis]

there is a micromanagment mod around that let's you build all those farms and such

[Killazer]

I dont know why you would even want to do that. An Emperor does not concern himself with such small matters

What I would love is that vicroys had some kind of in-game graphic representation/personality and you could execute them publicly on the planet or something if they went too far against your wishes

[darcy]

An Emperor does not concern himself with such small matters

Why is it in the game then?

[Killazer]

Because it affects bioharvest output? The Emperor's concern is with setting the policy of the planet, not telling every little peon what he/she must do or even developing relatively small projects; that ist he viceroy's job. Of course, if the viceroy goes too far the Emperor has full authority to intervene.

But like I said, it would be awesome imho if the viceroy's (at least one per system) had some more personal representation and u could execute them and stuff... would be cool

[ZargonX]

Yes, the basic division is that certain things that affect the entire planet fall under the realm of the Emperor, whereas regional things are under the control of the viceroy. Hydro-Farms can be built in any Bioharvest-DEA and will be built as long as there is enough funding in the "Normal Econ. Activities" section. Whereas something like a Pollution Control Center (whatever it's called...) effects the entire planet, it can be selected to be built by you, the Emperor, at your choosing. So, unless you really want to personally build a hydro-farm in every single one of your Bio-DEAs by hand, I think the system works out pretty well as is.

Oh, and if the Viceroy isn't building it and you've had the tech for a while, try upping the "Planetary Development Grants" in your main empire budget.

[yoink15]

Okay...

Perhaps my second post expressing my disbelief that you couldn't build Hydro Farms on your own is more an exclamation about how *that isn't mentioned anywhere in the manual or encyclopedia*!!!

If it wasn't for you guys, I wouldn't have known that Hydro Farms get built automatically.

See...there are a dozen other tech advances I'm sure I'm going to come across...how am I supposed to know if *I* can choose to build them, or only the *viceroy* gets to build them?

I'm totally happy to let the viceroy build all my farms for me...but I'm upset about is that I didn't even know he was going to do that.

-Yoink

[vmxa1]

Basically if they are improvements to existing DEA's you will not be dictating when to build them, the Vircory will determine it. Things like Deep Mines, Automated Mines, Soil and the like. A simple color coding or highlight could be used to alert you to the fact that it will be handled without you putting it in the queue. In fact a hyperlink for the tech could have that info.