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[gimlet]

On the Research page it's "Starting RP".  To use them you have to go into Space Master Mode and then the Research page will have an "Instant" button below the techs - using that will give you the tech immediately and decrement the Starting RP.  (You probably have to close and re-open the Research page if the SM buttons don't appear).

[Tibbz2]

Ah right, I need to open my eyes! Cheers.

[Sirus]

Please note however, that you can go into the negatives for starting RP without any consequence or warning. If you don't want to give yourself to many advantages, keep track of how many you've got left to spend.

[gimlet]

Asteroids/comets - your choice is 1) ship Automated Mines there and either periodically send freighters to pick up the mined minerals off the surface or build and ship a Mass Driver there to fling mineral packets to earth. 2) Build mining ships (ships with Asteroid Mining Modules) and park them in orbit.   Pretty sure for both of these you have to Create Colony on the body - right click on it on the system map.

Planets/moons - the above plus 3) shipping population, infrastructure and regular Mines (ie create a populated colony).  4 (advanced) build an orbital habitat to hold the pop instead of needing infrastructure/terraforming, and ship Mines.

Ed:  For QUITE a while you'll only be able to build stuff on Earth, cause it takes a fair amount of population to run factories - it will be a few years before a new colony can really build anything itself.  Build your freighters with multiples of 5 cargo holds to make shipping installations (Factory/Mine/Automated Mine/etc) around less painful...

[Tibbz2]

Right, so how do I simply 'ship' things to other places? When I build things they are just set up on Earth and I can't find a way of moving them...

[Felius]

Please note however, that you can go into the negatives for starting RP without any consequence or warning. If you don't want to give yourself to many advantages, keep track of how many you've got left to spend.

Indeed. That number is just there to help you keep track. If you want to give yourself every single tech in the game the system will perfectly allow it.

For shipping you need to build freighters. To carry a facility it needs 5 freight modules. There are bigger facilities, but they can be divided in 5 modules worth of cargo.

[Sirus]

Be sure to include a cargo transfer system (or whatever it's called) in your freighter design. That will significantly reduce the time it takes for your freighters to pick up and drop off cargo.

[Tibbz2]

Ah yes, thanks 

[Flying Dice]

More specifically, build a commercial design (commercial engines, that is) with cargo modules in multiples of 5. A 5-hold freighter is a pretty standard design. You should also probably add a couple of the loading modules that speed up loading/unloading times. Once you've got your freighter(s), go into the Task Group window and order them to pick up X (facilities, minerals, missiles, pre-fab parts, etc.) that you want to move on the colony where X currently is, then to unload X on the system body that you want them on. If you're moving them between systems, you'll also need the orders for the transits between the load and unload orders. After the unload order, add orders to send the ship whereever you want it. If you're going to do multiple trips, add orders to return it to the 'load' colony and refuel there. Once you've got a complete order circuit, you can use the 'repeat orders' box to copy that set of orders however many times you need.

So for example you want to move 50 automines from Earth to a comet somewhere in Sol with a group of 5 freighters, each with five cargo holds, you would need 10 trips, as each freighter would carry one automine per trip (most facilities take up exactly five holds/25,000 tons worth of volume). So you'd set up the order circuit and use the repeat box to repeat the order set 9 more times, for a total of 10, and then go ahead and keep running the game while the freighters followed their orders.

[Tibbz2]

Thanks, however how many mines do you need/how do you work out how many you need?

This question also applies to everything in industry really, how do I know how many of what to build?

[Felius]

Thanks, however how many mines do you need/how do you work out how many you need?

This question also applies to everything in industry really, how do I know how many of what to build?

You want to be at least mineral neutral on the big picture, but mining more is never a problem, so you'd want as many as you can reasonably afford without crippling the rest of your production. It's best for most of them to be auto mines, since very frequently the most mineral rich bodies are the most inhospitable, not to say of the comets and asteroids. Venus for example tends to always be incredibly mineral rich.

[Tibbz2]

Thanks again 

[gimlet]

Haha, that's half the "game", making expansion strategies and carrying them out through unexpected resource bottlenecks.  You have to periodically monitor your mineral consumption rate, stocks on hand and unmined reserves vs consumption and plans, and when you see a shortfall move to overcome it - more exploration, more mines, cutting back production in a crisis, etc.   And it depends a LOT on what random minerals you have on earth and in Sol.

And be warned, you can use a LOT LOT LOT of minerals when you have all the spaceyards building ships AND expanding capacity, factories running, and building missiles/fighters full out.

In general the first X years (where X is pretty big - like 10-20) I estimate very very roughly 40%+ of industry is building automines, 30% building more factories, 20% building research buildings, the rest for everything else.  And then 100% building Finance Centers when you hit the Money Crunch

And don't worry, you WILL screw it all up your first few games.  1st game I lurched from problem to problem, 2nd game expanded production and mining and research rapidly and hit the Money Crunch really fast, etc.

Just keep in mind that if it's ruining your game you can fix it with Space Master mode - if the game you want to play is "build and test a fleet vs an enemy" and you run out of duranium before you noticed, give yourself the stuff you need.  Once you have the gameplay down pat it will be "fun" to recover from problems like that without SM mode, but it can be frustrating while you're trying to experiment with specific things.

[Flying Dice]

Also note that you can very easily circumvent the money crunch by doing a conventional start with 1-2b starting population. 25 or 35 years of pure income before you really hit your stride with T/N industry adds up to some pretty damn substantial reserves. Obviously the tradeoff is that Earth's resources run out at a much earlier point in the tech tree, but that just makes it more interesting.

[Tibbz2]

Awesome, thanks for the info both of you, very helpful