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[Thaago]

Ooohhh that makes more sense. Yeah if you are either lacking in blueprints or aren't rolling in money yet, then D mod ships make more sense.

For me the trouble came during the long buildup times of the stations, where I needed to pump out ships for my own fleet to fight the invaders.

[tinsoldier]

The first things I built on my colony was the farming and tech mining. 30 days later and I was already at 5% of the food production market with a size 3 farming colony. That's pretty darn goofy.   

Anyhow, a couple months later and I was already getting expeditions sent after my colony. I could bribe them away for 100k a shot, but that was more money than I had to burn on something like that. Now I'm up to size 4 and $135k/mo and we're receiving expeditions regularly (but not back to back, per se). Basically I just go exploring for a bit and keep an eye on the countdown and rush back when necessary to fight them off. Unfortunately the defense fleets and pickets are pretty useless at this point. They can pick off the stragglers but I don't trust that they're big enough to properly defend the place so I don't even take the chance. If this was Nexerelin then I would just invest in a few defense fleets OR if I could just leave a bunch of ships around to serve as the defense fleet then that'd be awesome too. It's not clear what I am supposed to do to get a defense fleet that actually has some meat on it. I've unlocked the plans for a few big capitals/carriers but they're not being used.

[Arcanestomper]

You should build a starbase. They aren't that expensive and they will wreck expeditions.

Also if you go to the Doctrine and Blueprints tab of the command screen you can configure whether your defense fleets are weighted towards quantity or quality, what kind of classes they use, and prioritize certain blueprints.

[TaLaR]

My only quality large ship blueprints are Odyssey, Heron, and Falcon;

Isn't this quite close to what you need?
Herons are top carriers for speed 8 fleet.
Falcons are among best AI combat ships, with Eagle and Hammerhead being the other two.
Odyssey is a miss without large weapons blueprints, but otherwise Conquest and Odyssey seem attractive - to have fast speed 8 patrols that catch interlopers easily.

Of course the real question is how all of them fare in autoresolve...

[uzsibox]

Anyone found an administrator yet? I'm managing 5 colonies and the hit on stability is pretty significant.

[SafariJohn]

Check comm directories. Like when you want to hire an officer.

[Algro]

For blueprints, I got the trident-longbow bomber set and Astral carrier, but I only have these and nothing else special. That said, this carrier beats the hell out of the everything, nearly all expeditions end in failures because of my defense fleets. My problem was that the scale of battles was getting too large that it breaks the game, two expedition fleets + three colonies worth of 300% fleet size makes the biggest battles ever so far in Starsector.

Just think, the enemy fleet of 8 or was it 10 conquests utterly destroyed my star fortress. Then me with my 6 and ally 3 Astral carriers destroyed them in return, then their cruisers (in another engagement), then their frigates (another engagement x2), then their logistic forces of 50+ fuel tanks and transport ships creating the escape loop I said before.

800k worth of stuff was consumed that month, geesh. This seems quite late game if the battles you fight lasts up to 20-30 minutes.

The expeditions are either too large and too regular, it must be toned down in systems with multiple colonies.
It should be changed so that your influence/your colonies influence with other factions determine the fleet size and regularity, those with open hostilities with you should be the only ones with regular war (expedition) fleets coming your way.

(Did I mention my single system dominates ALL resource production with 30% market share on almost everything? My fuel production is 55% of the entirety of the market in my main three-planet system alone and when you add my other colonies it's a total of 80% faction market share! Yay for more expeditions !)

I wish the player had the option to send expeditions around the sector to quiet down them pitiful factions.

Back to the topic, the player gets too much power in the sector in the late game. 80% domination is no joke, its a monopoly. We need limitations based on planet size and colony size to be more in line with the other default factions.

[Megas]

Good news:  After I toasted the Persean League expedition, everyone has left me alone for a long while, giving me time to take out an annoying Pather base lowering my colony stats, then explore and take down bounties for more income (and repair reputation lost from killing invading factions).  So far, exploration of new worlds was only low class planets and no new blueprints.  I have upgraded spaceport to megaport, and will soon plan to upgrade orbital station (to battlestation) and patrol HQ (to military base).  Soon, the colony will upgrade to size 5.  My colony produces more than enough of the resources I need to support my fleet, and I do not need to pay tariffs for them.  My colony's income is floating around 180k credits (assuming I do not buy from stockpiles or order new ships and weapons).  I think my colony is almost entirely self-sufficient (I need a source of volatiles from somewhere) and is almost ready to kill off weaker invasion fleets without my help.  After I explore more, I will plop more colonies down to be even richer.  I think my first game has been saved, and I could not have done it without max colony skills (Industrial Planning and the other one next to it).

Noticed that my battlestation's weapons are randomized, sort of like a random ditto fighter (like Mokujin or Combot from the Tekken fighting games).  In my first fight against Diktat invaders, my station had Tachyon Lances.  In the next fight against the League, my station swapped out lances and used Autopulse Lasers (and I am not sure if I have the blueprint for that weapon).

I have looted enough ships and weapons that my fleet is strong enough to take on endgame fleets, but not strong enough to defeat them without taking casualties.  I have Reinforced Bulkheads on all of my ships without officers.  I am seriously considering taking more Industry skills to make the zombie style of combat more effective.

I need to explore more to find more blueprints, and maybe better places to build more colonies.

@ TaLaR:  The only good energy weapon I have for Odyssey is Tachyon Lance.  I have not found enough weapon blueprints.  Heron is good.  Falcon is good as a destroyer substitute, but is not too strong as the backbone of killing huge endgame fleets.  I have Hammerhead and Medusa blueprints (but I do not rely on them in my current fleet).

Anyone found an administrator yet? I'm managing 5 colonies and the hit on stability is pretty significant.

I found an unskilled one hanging around in my colony (after check comm directory), and hired her on the spot.  Perfect for backup help after I build another colony later.

@ tinsoldier:  Orbital station is a big help to lean on when fighting invaders personally.  If you want bigger fleets, you want to grow your colony size fast.

[Draba]

That said, I think the main reason why the factions are invading is because their own production sucks. Its very easy to in mid/early game out produce the AI and *** them off.

Yep, factions have tiny production/bad access.

How much does it cost compared to repairing them?  Since my fleet is not too powerful, I will take casualties, and any pristine ships I have will be damaged (unless I take the Industry that reduces (D) mods taken by one).
anything else fun.

Shipbuilding is really cheap.
If you have 1-2 colonies it's easy to get 150-300K profit and production to match. A hammerhead is 20K a pop, with weapons maybe 22.
I spammed Heavy autocannon/4 tac laser/ITU/PD AI/hardened shield/turret gyro hammerheads with HIL/2 graviton/3 dual machine gun sunders and could just ignore any losses.
Still don't have the friggin hypervelocity driver blueprint, wanted the range + EMP.

Of course the real question is how all of them fare in autoresolve...

Does anybody know roughly how autoresolve works?

[sicksock]

Yeah the 'expedition fleets' should really mercenaries/privateers so there's no penalty for destroying them yourselves.

There should also be some kind of 'defensiveness' counter for colonies which have defeated expeditions. For example that if your colonies defeat an expedition of 'size 1', most factions will not send a fleet until they can afford/justify sending a fleet of 'size 2'. With each size becoming more dangerous but also more expensive and time consuming for the faction sending it. Defeating an expedition should also dissuade all non hostile factions from organizing one for a time dependent on the size of the fleet.

As it is in my current game I have a godly home system with three colonies: a size 10, 100% farming/industry/mining world, a size 9, 200% superrich mining world and a size 6 150% moon with more industry on it, everything with max starbase, planet defense and fleet HQ.

As a result the most populated, developed and defended system in the sector is a constant 5 way warzone with massive fleets constantly fighting all over the system. Massive expedition fleets exceeding the home fleets of their own factions fight with defense fleets (and each other's merchant convoys) and endlessly throw themselves against star fortresses. To date the only damage to the system's industry has been from luddite terrorism, mainly because destroying their starbases is such a chore (another sensible addition would be allowing the player to place bounties on pirates/ludd bases, I'd happily drop a mil to take them out to save me from doing it).

Colonies themselves grow too quickly with good management. Once a colony is solvent (costing about 300k in my experience) it's seemingly optimal to dump all it's income into growth and in a matter of months you can be making half a mil a month from a freeport with good resources.

I think a good way to address this would be to have a 'demographics' function where you needed to improve the quality of your colonies and not just their size. AKA attracting/training suitable quantities of miners, engineers and intellectuals to fulfill your lofty dreams of empire. This could have feedback where your colonists might have loyalties or beliefs which makes them difficult to manage (aka hiring luddic farmers to boost your agriculture but then they openly revolt when they find out your heavy industry has [redacted])

[Megas]

My super colony is the sole planet in the system, with the nearest suitable colony location about ten or more days away.  I picked it for the glut of resources, three stable positions (for all three relays), and proximity to core worlds.  (Hegemony, so I cannot go wild with cores.)  The only resource the planet is missing is volatiles.  It has 175% hazard, but with high Industry and everything established, it has finally become the (nearly) self-sufficient gold mine.

The system is relatively quiet, but it is slowly getting more traffic, and the Remnant frigates that used to haunt the system seemed to have vanished.

I think a good way to address this would be to have a 'demographics' function where you needed to improve the quality of your colonies and not just their size. AKA attracting/training suitable quantities of miners, engineers and intellectuals to fulfill your lofty dreams of empire. This could have feedback where your colonists might have loyalties or beliefs which makes them difficult to manage (aka hiring luddic farmers to boost your agriculture but then they openly revolt when they find out your heavy industry has [redacted])

I do not want Ludds of any sort in my colonies, especially if they can impose Luddic Majority (because I presume my player is not a believer).

I imagine everyone wants clean air and water, not just the Luddies.  I am half tempted to colonize a low hazard Terran planet just to have a vacation resort, even if it does not have too many resources to exploit.

[tinsoldier]

@ tinsoldier:  Orbital station is a big help to lean on when fighting invaders personally.  If you want bigger fleets, you want to grow your colony size fast.

Yea I know, perhaps I wasn't clear but I don't have any trouble fighting the expedition fleets with or without the battlestation (mine was just upgraded to star fortress even). The issue is that the largest system defense fleet I have seen had only two or three dominators, maybe a venture or couple condors plus some rabble. That's not enough for me to feel comfortable with the idea of them defending against a fleet of multiple conquests and carrier heavy fleet compositions. All this to say that the point I was really trying to make is that the one thing I can't control effectively (defense fleets sizes and quantities) is the one thing I need to not have to baby sit my colony. I know all about the doctrines and I've bought just about every upgrade... it's just that the organic system fleet growth is sloooowww and I wish I could artificially boost it up by investing cash or spare ships into it.

I've only been investing growth incentives to get up to 15% or so, maybe I'll just dump a cool million into that and see what happens.

[sicksock]

I do not want Ludds of any sort in my colonies, especially if they can impose Luddic Majority (because I presume my player is not a believer).

Me neither, thats why it would defiantly add something to the game to have demographics impact colonies. EG:

 - Do you accept a wave of tens of thousands of ludd colonists to quickly grow a colony in exchange for luddic path cells being stronger down the road?
 - Do you recruit a former tri-tachyon manufacturing group to bring your orbital industry to the next level despite rumors of pirate connections?
 - Do you want a naval academy run by ex hegemony fleet commanders indoctrinating your navy with anti AI sentiments?
 - Will you attempt to shun all conventions and forge your own path and empire with the pitfalls and difficulties it may impose?

I think that the cornerstone to good 4x gameplay is giving the player meaningful decisions. Not only decisions of optimal value or risk/reward but decisions of morality and philosophy.

[Eji1700]

While i understand the value of keeping things simple, I do think that "put money into the colony and get whatever you want" could use a few more steps.

Thoughts:
1. Having ships require resources, and not just cash, to build would help a lot.  Want low tech ships?  Cool, you just need ore.  Want high tech? well you might need a source of transplutonic.  This should extend to colony facilities as well.  The basic star base shouldn't require more than cash, but the 2nd and 3rd tiers should require resources.

Now you can always import this as long as you're not at war with everyone (or maybe smuggle it if you are) but that would be factored into the price and make the ships much more expensive and difficult to produce (both for your personal use and for your colony).  So it's still "put money in, get stuff" but if you want to spend the time to figure out resources, you can save a lot of money and get stuff faster.  It could also lead to caring more about trade outside of the numbers, or gearing up a trading fleet solely to go scrape all the organics or transplutonics or whatever you can find so you can haul it all back and setup a new industry or build a specific ship.

2a. Further I think there should be more thought to really making a mini faction, not just a colony.  Maybe this is already there and i'm not getting it, but I like the idea of having a world that's solely just there to feed the rest.  Some super bountiful land that's maybe costing me money to run, but is feeding my other 4 planets.  This then lets me justify setting up on some hellhole to mine it for all it's precious ores.  I get that a full blown 4x is not the goal here, but allowing that sort of functionality adds a lot of interesting gameplay.  You can asses planets differently, but you can also have enemies disrupt your trade routes or cripple your empire from hitting one super important planet.

2b. To expand, outposts for resources might be nice.  Limit them to only working in sector, but you've literally already got mining and research stations in the game, so why not allow  the player those?  Let me harvest the gas giant for something interesting so it's more than just an expensive place to survey, and doesn't require a full blown colony to manage.  Think of it as the tiles adjacent to a city in civ, which you then upgrade with workers.  I should really be looking at the entire system more than just the planet, and right now I don't feel that.  These should probably be very costly to setup/maintain as well, so it's more "i can trade my income for X resource if I have Y feature in the system" vs "Spend more money for more"

3. Tech levels should probably exist in some sort.  I was hoping there'd be more blueprints for colony tech.  Possibly some [REDACTED] tech that makes settling various planet types easier.  Yeah you can settle that boiling hot nightmare planet, but it's going to be hard to make a profit.  Maybe you find some tech later that now lowers their hazard rating by 50% if you can get a specific structure built (which again should require certain resources).  These should not be super common and never generic (no -5 to all types sort of thing).  I want to one playthrough have to search for nice planets, but maybe another  I find something that makes barren worlds way easier to colonize and now i'm looking at them differently.  Another I find something for gas giants and get extra lucky and a second one for lava.  All of this leads to a less solved minigame, which right now is "look at hazard rating first".  That's still a fine starting point, but as the game goes on I should have to reevaluate what i've seen.

4. More stations please.  This has nothing to do with anything else but god are they a great addition.  It just kills me there's only 3 (sorta 4) types in vanilla.  If you get the chance it'd be great to see faction specific variants and more.  They're an amazing addition

5. Since there's a post on it- planet size should matter.  In a 4x it's normally because you can get more population, and each population makes 1 of each resrouce, then modified by the planet itself and the upgrades on it.  I don't know if you want to bother with a full population system (it's kinda messy) but you might want to just do a simplified version, where a planet has say 1-5 production points depending on size, so larger planets get a larger modifier (eventually, colony needs to grow into it).

Alternatively you could have planet size specific industries, or just make it so a smaller planet can fit fewer industries vs a larger one.  There should ideally still be a reason to care about small planets through, rather than just hoping for the lottery to pay out with a large terran.

[Megas]

From the looks of things, unless the player wants to abuse Alpha cores, then maxing all of the colony skills is a must just to have enough colonies to match a major faction.  Even if player (as Baltar) wants to abuse Alphas, I expect the cores (as Cylons) to backstab the player (possibly as a bad ending) in a future version.

I am considering taking that Leadership skill that gives +2 stability at level 3, which is effectively +1 to number of colonies you can own.  I do not care about the raid defense and offensive bonuses, but I want to have lots of bases.