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[Tarran]

1. Building ships components in opposition to building ships? What for? This is to stockpile parts and then build rapidly the ships? As components are build by industries, perhaps then it means that the shipyards will use this stockpile and thus build very fast (assemble) a ship? That would be a cool feature.

2. How do I load a ground units? Do I need a cryo bay as for a colony ship?

3. What is the difference between a cryo bay and a luxury accommodation?

4. How can I name a governor for Earth? I got to the command window, administrator category, I have several, one being A5 and Earth needs only A2. I select both item (the admin and earth), click on Assign and nothing happen. So?

Thanks in advance

(I'm posting here because I'm still not approved at the official forum, this s***cks ...)

1: I'm not sure, but from what I've read, yes, ships do supposedly build faster if you build components beforehand. The only problem is that those components will be wasted [or 70% of the minerals and wealth needed to create them if you scrapped them] whenever you obsolete them(why would you build obsolete stuff or put obsolete stuff on ships when you can build new and improved stuff?).

2: You need a troop transport bay. You can also build drop modules to drop your units from orbit. Remember though, they don't like staying in drop modules for extended periods of time. You may also want to add cargo handling systems as it usually takes a long time for units to load without them.

3: Luxury accommodations are far, far less space efficient. Their only use(and it's a dubious use at that) is specifically for Luxury liners(which act somewhat as colony ships) for civilians to build(you should never use them since they're almost useless in comparison to colony ships with cryogenic transports).

4: I'm not sure what the problem is. Well, are you sure you're doing it correctly(Open the Leaders window, set Leader Type to Civilian Administrators, select a administrator with high enough rank or higher rank then needed, select the planet, then select Assign in the bottom left corner)?

[forsaken1111]

I would think building components would be a way for other planets' industry to help your shipyard build ships.

Set components to build in cycle, and a shipping lane from planet to planet to pickup/drop off the components so your main shipyard uses them as they show up.

[Shade-o]

The point of building components in advance is that it lets your shipyards assemble them immediately, skipping the construction phase. It is time saving, especially if you standardise your fleet to use the same components; all using the same engine, same missile launchers, laser turrets. It's especially effective for terraforming and asteroid mining modules, since you'll probably use lots of those and they can't go obsolete.

[forsaken1111]

Well yes, but couldn't it allow other planets to help with your ship building too as I said?

[Shade-o]

Sure, but that's only if you've got a bunch of large, well-populated and heavily invested colonies which aren't too far away from wherever you're building things. And if that happens, then you can probably just get them to build shipyards anyway.

[vorpal+5]

components building: yes, it makes sense, that's a great feature indeed!

My problem with governors is solved, I did the same manipulation and it worked.

About troops, I just want to garrison, not make an orbital assault. Can they be moved with cryogenic facility or population transports?

1. Scientifics: How do I get more of them? I have only one and that's not optimal!

2. I see that civilian transports (I have 2 lanes, huzzah!) move infrastructures I did not build (that's cool!), these infrastructures are assumed to be built by the civilian sector, right? Can I borrow them for others uses? I guess yes... hehe

3. I'm confused by maintenance facilities and maintenance supplies. The latter are produced by construction factories... The logic would have said that these supplies are built by maintenance facilities, but it seems not, unless I'm missing something. So what's the use of maintenance facilities?

4. I have a stranded ship (nuclear engine failure) and she has not engineering capacity. When I tried to repair the engine with the crew, I got a message: no maintenance supply...So my question is, how to repair a ship with another ship? I guess I need something like the equivalent of a repair bay in Space Empire V?

[Shade-o]

-Troops can only be moved via troopships. Remember, it's not just the soldiers, but their huge powered armour suits, all their other equipment, supporting forces, etc. It's the difference between sending a bus and a tank into battle.

-Scientists (and all the other officers and special character) appear based on how many Academies you have. The more Academies, the faster you graduate more experts.

-Civilian shipping lanes will automatically move trade between planets. This seems to give you money. You can contract them to move goods between planets if you don't want to or cannot do it with your navy. For example, set a contract to supply 1000 Infrastructure at Earth, Demand 1000 Infrastructure at Mars, and they will slowly move them for you.

-Maintenance facilities are required for repairing and servicing ships. Each one increases the maximum ship size that the planet is capable of servicing. Maintenance supplies are like missiles, you must actually build them and get them sent out with ships. You already start with a ton, and each ship usually takes only a small amount. However, you might need to make more if you build lots of larger ships, or take extra for a long campaign.

-Repairing in space requires maintenance parts. Adding more engineering reduces the chance of passive wear-and-tear failure, and adds a bit of maintenance capacity for the occasion that something does break. In combat, parts are heavily damaged and require lots of parts to fix, which is what the larger maintenance storage is for.
If a ship has no maintenance capacity, then it basically has no means to repair itself. This could be from simply being designs to be disposable, or from all those components being destroyed in battle. So, you can either try and get a tow-boat, or abandon the ship.
If it simply has no spare parts available, but has capacity, then another ship can fly up to it and give it parts from its own store.

[Tarran]

About troops, I just want to garrison, not make an orbital assault. Can they be moved with cryogenic facility or population transports?

1. Scientifics: How do I get more of them? I have only one and that's not optimal!

2. I see that civilian transports (I have 2 lanes, huzzah!) move infrastructures I did not build (that's cool!), these infrastructures are assumed to be built by the civilian sector, right? Can I borrow them for others uses? I guess yes... hehe

3. I'm confused by maintenance facilities and maintenance supplies. The latter are produced by construction factories... The logic would have said that these supplies are built by maintenance facilities, but it seems not, unless I'm missing something. So what's the use of maintenance facilities?

4. I have a stranded ship (nuclear engine failure) and she has not engineering capacity. When I tried to repair the engine with the crew, I got a message: no maintenance supply...So my question is, how to repair a ship with another ship? I guess I need something like the equivalent of a repair bay in Space Empire V?

Troops cannot be moved by anything other then Troop Transport modules or Drop modules. The former is for trasporting and holding troops on ships. The latter is for dropping troops onto a planet from space.

1: It's completely random, it depends on your Military Academies getting lucky. See, scientists are considered officers, and MAs create 5 officers per year(and also crewmen, the amount of which is 1000/[Level of racial training level]. The racial training level can be changed in the View Race Details window which can be accessed via either the empires dropdown, or by pressing Ctrl+F2). So building more MAs will increase the amount of officers you get per year thus meaning you have a higher chance to get more scientists. Though this isn't a guarantee as what kinds of officers the MAs create are completely random.

2: Yes, they are built by civilians. Yes, you can borrow them forever. Or, in other words, they give them to you free. Though you can't buy any directly from the civilians that produce them at all. So you have to rely on civilian trading for free infrastructure.

3: I always turn off overhauls, so I'm not really sure. But I think maintenance facilities maintain ships in orbit with minerals from the planet directly instead of having to use maintenance supplies(which you have to build from factories) whenever a ship part breaks.

4: Once again, I always turn off overhauls, so I'm not really sure. But this is what I think is what you have to do: Your maintenance supplies on board have to exceed the maintenance supplies needed to repair the engine in question for the ship to repair itself. This means if the maximum maintenance supplies possible on the ship is less then the amount needed then the ship is boned and will have to be abandoned or towed back (via tug with a tractor beam) to a shipyard and either scrapped, refitted to a fixed design or repaired(which isn't a good idea since the engine will continue to fail and immobilize the ship). If you have a higher max but don't currently have enough you can just fly another ship to the stranded ship's position and manually move supplies (via the miscellaneous tab in the ship window of one of either ships). Ships can't repair other ships(which makes sense since the damage is internal, meaning past the layers of armor), however they can be repaired by shipyards. Though I recommend to fix the low amount of maintenance supplies in a new design and then refit the ship to the new design because it'll be a pain whenever the ship breaks down to drag it back to the shipyard again and again.

Prepostedit: Darn, beat by Shade-o.

[vorpal+5]

Thanks the both of you, you are really helping me enjoy the game!

The stranded ship (with Nuclear Engine failure) is a FAC, a 950-tons 'Patrol Boat' with a very low cost of 95 build points, so she has not engineering facility. As I don't know the tractor beam tech, I guess I'll have to scuttle her.

I have others FAC, so I guess it would be wiser to leave them in orbit of a planet and only use them in case of threat.

So if I get things right, Maintenance Facilities are to reset the maintenance clock of ships, and if they are damaged to repair them.

So there is no repair bay in Aurora, or even shipyard based ships (yes that would be huge). Is it possible to build a starbase with a shipyard?

I have discovered a potential colony in another system, but I wonder why would I need to colonize ... Yes I'm playing Devil Advocate here ...  Earth has still many minerals to mine, why would I want to send colonists to a barren and distant world exactly?

[OmnipotentGrue]

Okay, I'm going to try this again. I'll see what happens.

[nuker w]

Thanks the both of you, you are really helping me enjoy the game!

The stranded ship (with Nuclear Engine failure) is a FAC, a 950-tons 'Patrol Boat' with a very low cost of 95 build points, so she has not engineering facility. As I don't know the tractor beam tech, I guess I'll have to scuttle her.

I have others FAC, so I guess it would be wiser to leave them in orbit of a planet and only use them in case of threat.

So if I get things right, Maintenance Facilities are to reset the maintenance clock of ships, and if they are damaged to repair them.

So there is no repair bay in Aurora, or even shipyard based ships (yes that would be huge). Is it possible to build a starbase with a shipyard?

I have discovered a potential colony in another system, but I wonder why would I need to colonize ... Yes I'm playing Devil Advocate here ...  Earth has still many minerals to mine, why would I want to send colonists to a barren and distant world exactly?

Just send the convicts.  Heh heh... Oh, and some of your more useless commanders with them.

[Tarran]

So there is no repair bay in Aurora, or even shipyard based ships (yes that would be huge). Is it possible to build a starbase with a shipyard?

Nope.

I have discovered a potential colony in another system, but I wonder why would I need to colonize ... Yes I'm playing Devil Advocate here ...  Earth has still many minerals to mine, why would I want to send colonists to a barren and distant world exactly?

For one, each colony you have randomly produces and requires different trade goods, meaning that the more colonies you have the more you encourage trade(which means more wealth for you). Another is that, per-person, the growth rate is higher on scarcely populated colonies. And more people is almost always good.

[Osmosis Jones]

Another advantage is, when earth eventually does run dry, you'll already have an established mining colony elsewhere. It's always better to colonise, as infrastructure is cheap, and after you drop a few boatloads of colonists, some mines and some factories, they become pretty much self sufficient.

[forsaken1111]

Also, the more colonies you have the more civilian shipping lines will open up as there will be more work.

And you don't even have to do anything beyond the initial drop-off of infrastructure and people, as the civilian companies will ship people and infrastructure out.

[vorpal+5]

yep, you convinced me (I was already but wanted to hear from you): higher grow rate, bigger civilian sector, diversity of minerals... It's true that a colony don't cost much to set in Aurora...

I tried to colonize Luna ('The Moon'), thinking that I could have my bold colonists under Domes and Ceramsteel spheres ... but no, the poor 500 fellows died even with ample infrastructure ... So Aurora does not allow colonies if the colonists can't survive in external conditions? That's a bit restrictive ...

I have still problem with maintenance. My remaining patrol boats (no engineering bay by themselves) are now on Earth, and one got another failure. They are not repaired automatically by the maintenance facilities it seems. That's a bit a pain in the rear so ... What should I do to have these darn PT boats repaired and ready?

On a related note, it is very difficult to know what is the upkeep cost of stuff. For example what is the upkeep/maintenance I have to pay for my Mobile Infantry Battalion? And what about ships? Do they only eat maintenance supplies from time to time? I could use pointers on that, otherwise I run the risk of having a huge fleets that will sucks the wealth of my empire if I can't estimate that ... same from ground troops... Can I go overboard and train as much as possible or as they costly once recruited?