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[Greiger]

Well you do need to use SM mode for your beginning RP in the research and the BP in the quick OOB thingy to use all yer starting points.

You also need SM mode if your creating your own race and starting system.  Not to mention to get the atmospheric information back to the race's happiness levels after customizing your race's tolerances.

Every new game I make for example I just create systems til I find a world with the gravity levels I like (since you can modify just about everything else with terraforming as long as it has at least a little oxygen to allow you to create the empire.) Add HW minerals, create an empire, modify the empire to my liking, *gasping for air* then go into the race screen from the main menu, modify the race to my liking, then SM terraforming the world to the racial tolerances I set. (Usually hotter worlds about 45 to 50 C modified with CO2 or anti-greenhouse gases, with a higher than normal oxygen content)  Then I just go through using up about 3/4ths of the starting RP on base techs, *gasp* then making racial techs and using up the last of the RP to research them.  Then designing my base level ships and using the BP to insta build them in fast OOB creation.   All of that requires SM mode, and is well within the non cheating levels of the game in my opinion.  It only takes about 2 hours of your life away.

...really it's alot like rewriting the raw files for a custom race from scratch every time you want to start a new game.  kinda wish you could save that kinda stuff.

[Areyar]

hehe. yep. (hence the: )

I've wasted alotta time by now in SM. . .
Doing exactly the things you mention.

[Aldaris]

Is it possible to make human NPRs based off Sol?
How do you SM terraform?

[Micro102]

This tutorial........Is taking too long. 

[Greiger]

Is it possible to make human NPRs based off Sol?
How do you SM terraform?

That, I'm not sure of.  I haven't messed with the sol start settings yet.  I imagine you could use the sol start.  Remove all sign of the Playable Terran Federation on the planet with the SM MODs button in the econ window, and then create a new empire on the now hopefully empty earth, and check the box that says it's an NPR

As for SM terraforming you have to have a colony there first.  Then you go into the planet's environment tab under economics, pick the gas you want to set, enter the atm value you want for that gas then hit the SM Set Atm button.  That sets the planet to have that much of that gas.  Oxygen is unsafe at more than 30% the total atmosphere so you probably want to add nitrogen or some other harmless gas as well to get the total pressure ya want.  For temperature you just add CO2 to raise the temperature or  the "safe anti-greenhouse gas" to lower it.  Of course any greenhouse or anti-greenhouse(I don't know of any) gas works.  As long as it's not toxic.

[Paul]

Technically high levels of carbon dioxide would be toxic, but the game doesn't seem to model that. Still, I always use the abstract "Safe Greenhouse Gas."

As-is, you could live safely on a world with 97.5% carbon dioxide (4x atmosphere of 3.9 carbon dioxide and 0.1 oxygen) - which is rather silly, since carbon dioxide as low as 2% can be pretty bad.

[Kishmond]

This tutorial........Is taking too long. 

Just be patient. It will start to make sense. It will take more than one day.

[Greiger]

Yea even 'short' little skirmishes can take a few hours if it's combat ready ships on both sides.  For example fighting the star swarm like I am currently I'm fighting 40 or 50 tiny little 800 ton ships whenever a fight comes up.  And since they are such tiny ships and don't annouce when they are destroyed for some reason, every 5 seconds of game time I have to check all my ships fire control targeting to make sure what they are going to try to shoot at still exists.

That would be made significantly easier if the combat log said who was shooting at what and if the target was destroyed.  I do like how you don't really know what was hit on the enemy ship except for the leaking gas or fluid thing.  But you should be given some little hints at least. 

I feel it should tell if something happens that your crew should be able to observe. If the engines suddenly die on the enemy ship, you know either all the engines were disabled or you destroyed all the fuel storage. Right now it's hard to tell when that happens in 0km range knifefights.  A turret stopping moving means you either destroyed the turret directly or disabled a fire control that tick.  And even if the ship doesn't spectacularly blow up on destruction for no good reason (which I like the idea of) you would be able to tell from all of the above happening plus any ship lights or windows suddenly going dark, and escape pods launching.  Hell it would add some spiffy tactics if you could push a play dead button next to the abandon ship button to fake it.

[Micro102]

This tutorial........Is taking too long. 

Just be patient. It will start to make sense. It will take more than one day.

It makes sense, it's just it's not taking a day, for me it has been 5 days so far...

[Zangi]

This tutorial........Is taking too long. 

Just be patient. It will start to make sense. It will take more than one day.

It makes sense, it's just it's not taking a day, for me it has been 5 days so far...

The solution is simple, don't play the tutorial?  I don't think I've even considered messing with a built-in game tutorial... for years.  Its more fun and satisfying learning as you go.  At least thats my way of it...

[Areyar]

This tutorial........Is taking too long. 

Just be patient. It will start to make sense. It will take more than one day.

It makes sense, it's just it's not taking a day, for me it has been 5 days so far...

The solution is simple, don't play the tutorial?  I don't think I've even considered messing with a built-in game tutorial... for years.  Its more fun and satisfying learning as you go.  At least thats my way of it...

Truly. Tutorial is a dirty word. I really hate it when a game forces you to play through the mechanics of moving a model and panning a camera step by step. That stuff should either be obvious (gameplaywise) or in a thick, highly illustrated, manual. (or wiki nowadays)

I agree with you. having no idea what a game does is my m.o. as well. It reminds me of my earliest computer experiences. I had bought a secondhand (modded) C64 complete with a 100floppy stash of pirated games and various.
Most fun was selecting a floppy at random and trying to make sense of whatever was on it.
Memories of games as Phantasy are what makes me cling to DF in desperation. . . as well as a complete disdain for the graphics over gameplay ethos of commercial crap. And I'm crap at 'twitchy' games, so most console games are wasted on me. (99/100)
Learning new things is fun.

Helping de-bug and seeing a game develop is satisfying too.

[Micro102]

OK, finished the tutorial, have no idea where to start, i made some more cruisers to meet the wanted protection (it's off by 2 but good enough), made a ridiculously over armored and armed PDC but have no idea what to do with it, some freighters......I'm stuck.

Whats the first things you do?

[Emperor_Jonathan]

Explore nearby jump points a survey nearby bodies, then colonise nearby bodies that have minerals.

[Micro102]

So i just wait a few years until my surveyors survey everything?

Do jump points count as "bodies" when using the "survey closest 5 bodies" command?

When can i expect an attack?

I have en empty colony on mars, how to i bring people there and build a mine?

[Emperor_Jonathan]

So i just wait a few years until my surveyors survey everything?

Yes. You can check the F9 screen to see planets with minerals.

Do jump points count as "bodies" when using the "survey closest 5 bodies" command?

No, as a note a ship need the gravitational survey sensor, not the geological to survey jump points.

When can i expect an attack?

When you meet a hostile NPR and/or when you stumble across precursors in another system.

I have an empty colony on mars, how to i bring people there and build a mine?

You can use freighters to ship automated mines there and colony ships to ship population. Normal mines need population to operate, you also need to send construction factories to start building stuff.