Re: Building Colonies???HELP!
 

You can build on domed colonies. Let me guess, the build time says "never", doesn't it. If it does, then that means that you have zero population on that planet. You need to transfer some pop. over from one of your other worlds. And next time, remember to put population on you colony ships (with the transfer cargo button, an up arrow and a down arrow on the same button). Or use the "colonize" command whilst the colonizer is over a populated planet. Moving an empty colonizer off the planet before hitting the colonize button results in empty colonizers.

Hope that helps!

Re: Building Colonies???HELP!
 

I bet you colonized "red dot" worlds, having compatible planet type but incompatible atmosphere ...
These ones only have domed colonies, and space is restricted accordingly, but you should still have from 1 (tiny planet) to 15 (huge) spaces for facilities. Else you have a strange bug http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Try to colonize "green dots" and large planets to have more room http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif (I've read that having a gas race can help here, as gas planets are fewer but larger).

Re: Building Colonies???HELP!
 

and in all cases, make sure that your colony ship has a little "yellow person icon" in its status window to show that it is carrying colonists

as dumbluck correctly says, either manually transfer the colonists on board when at a habitable planet or press the 'C' keyboard button to do the same

Re: Building Colonies???HELP!
 

Just FYI, there might be a way to get default population with a colonizer just like SE3. There is a line in the settings.txt that may or may not work.

Automatic Colonization Population := 0

I've never bothered to change it, but maybe this would make all colonies start with the set default population? Then again maybe it does nothing. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ 29 April 2002: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]</p>

Re: Building Colonies???HELP!
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
Just FYI, there might be a way to get default population with a colonizer just like SE3. There is a line in the settings.txt that may or may not work.

Automatic Colonization Population := 0

I've never bothered to change it, but maybe this would make all colonies start with the set default population? Then again maybe it does nothing. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ 29 April 2002: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]<hr></blockquote>

Yes this is correct. The "Automatic Colonization Population := 0" line in the settings.txt file will make it so you don't have to load pop onto a ship. I just tested it for the trial of it. I just put 5 in the place of 0 and I built a colony ship and sent it to a planet without loading pop onto the ship and then colonized the planet, and it had 5M pop on it even though the ship itself had none on it. So if you don't want to bother loading cargo change this setting to however many million people you want on the planet at first. Although this is cheating, if I were to change it for a game I would only put 1 in place of the 0 to make it longer before the planet got a good sized pop on it. But I would still considar it cheating as it takes away some of the realizim from the game.

Re: Building Colonies???HELP!
 

Ah yes, the Newbi Can't Build Colony question yet once again. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

We really should post a quick guide to newbie questions on one of our web sites for these new players. They would benefit a lot from it, and it would also give us something to do that would help everyone.

Your question is often asked, and as you can see, answered. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Best of luck with the game, and welcome to our little addiction.

Building Colonies???HELP!
 

I have tried to build colonies outside my home-system, but they all show the "doomed-colony" symbol, and so I cannot build anything on them.

Can somebody tell me how to build a thriving colony outside my home-system?

Thank you.
S.P.

Re: Building Colonies???HELP!
 

Atrocities, perhaps this is right up my ally. As always you ideas are well founded. work willing, I'll start working on this in the next few days.

Re: Building Colonies???HELP!
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>
We really should post a quick guide to newbie questions on one of our web sites for these new players. They would benefit a lot from it, and it would also give us something to do that would help everyone.
<hr></blockquote>

But that would ruin our "faqracing" games=-)

Re: Building Colonies???HELP!
 

Well, duh! I've only had SEIV for less than a week, but I had fairly quickly figured out that sending a colony ship didn't necessarily mean sending any colonists. But I had stupidly assumed that I had to send a population transport along with the colony ship to establish the base population. As a consequence, all of my colonies started with 300M inhabitants, and as I put them on pretty hospitable worlds, I got great overall population growth. ButI was wondering how those other races managed to colonise without my ever seeing any transports, and why their colonies seemed so small. Duh. It didn't even occur to me to strip out some engines from my colony ship to make storage space!

As it turns out, my tactic (fast colony ships paird with fast population transports) was good for getting large colonies quickly in distant systems, but I wonder if I'd have done so if I'd known!

Re: Building Colonies???HELP!
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Lord Balzingo:
Well, duh! I've only had SEIV for less than a week, but I had fairly quickly figured out that sending a colony ship didn't necessarily mean sending any colonists. But I had stupidly assumed that I had to send a population transport along with the colony ship to establish the base population. As a consequence, all of my colonies started with 300M inhabitants, and as I put them on pretty hospitable worlds, I got great overall population growth. ButI was wondering how those other races managed to colonise without my ever seeing any transports, and why their colonies seemed so small. Duh. It didn't even occur to me to strip out some engines from my colony ship to make storage space!

As it turns out, my tactic (fast colony ships paird with fast population transports) was good for getting large colonies quickly in distant systems, but I wonder if I'd have done so if I'd known!<hr></blockquote>

You don't even need to strip out engines, the colony module includes some cargo space.

Re: Building Colonies???HELP!
 

Maybe a "New Player Frequently Asked Questions" thread should be started. It could then be "Bumped" once a week with instructions in the "Bump" with a kind of list of the FAQs in the order they appear. I would recommend spelling out “Frequently Asked Questions” in the name of the thread since not everyone knows what “FAQ” means.
The first FAQ would be the empty population feature.

Just a note: the Empty Colony issue crops up repeated even with experianced player, (well it does for me). It occures when your sweetheart has asked you to quit playing and spend some time with me for the third time. Generaly this issue crops up about 1am. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Building Colonies???HELP!
 

Lord Balzingo, sorry if we offended you, its just that we had to have some fun on this one. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif This is the most asked question and ALL of us fell pray too it ourselves and had to ask how to colonize at one time or another.

Re: Building Colonies???HELP!
 

"Duh. It didn't even occur to me to strip out some engines from my colony ship to make storage space!"

Actually, you don't ever need to do that. Stock SE4, the colony ship can max out it's engines and still carry one cargo bay. More importantly, the colony module itself can hold cargo.

Phoenix-D

Re: Building Colonies???HELP!
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr> I'm still struggling with "atmosphere converter."
<hr></blockquote>Unpleasant planet:
An atmosphere converter
Improves conditions.

Re: Building Colonies???HELP!
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by capnq:
Unpleasant planet:
An atmosphere converter
Improves conditions.<hr></blockquote>

Except a Climate Control Facility does that. How 'bout something like...

Conditions less than
Pleasant? Build a Climate Con-
trol Facility!

Can't breathe the air there?
Atmosphere Modifying
Plant will do the trick.

OK, I never said they were good!

Quikngruvn

Re: Building Colonies???HELP!
 

(You know you're on the forums too much when you start trying to introduce thread crossovers)

How about doing the faq in Haiku? Examples:

Your new colony,
Yields nothing. Population
Must be sent to it.

Sphereworlds and Ringworlds:
Build starbases near the sun,
With a space yard ship.

Your murderous friend
And brotherly enemy
Are normal. Accept.

By deploying troops,
A world may be taken whole.
Move them as cargo.

Research point defence,
If missiles are dominant.
They kill fighters, too.

Ok...maybe just use the Haiku as heading s or something... I'm still struggling with "atmosphere converter."

Re: Building Colonies???HELP!
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr> Except a Climate Control Facility does that. <hr></blockquote>Yeah, I realized that, several hours after I posted.

You know you've been on the Forums too much when you wake up thinking about recent Posts.

Re: Building Colonies???HELP!
 

I recently started a game and just got helped after asking a question in this forum "My colony doesn't build anything", Guess you've heard that before...
But. As this is my first game I thought that Gas giants are as frequently found as rocks and thought that atmosphere wasn't such a big deal, I chose "Gas Giants with Methane".
I now found my first gas giant with methane, the first planet with a green dot. When I build my colony ther ( A large world with mild conditions" it's domed and can only have 4 facilites. Am I doomed to have domed colonies forever????


<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by PDF:
I bet you colonized "red dot" worlds, having compatible planet type but incompatible atmosphere ...
These ones only have domed colonies, and space is restricted accordingly, but you should still have from 1 (tiny planet) to 15 (huge) spaces for facilities. Else you have a strange bug http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Try to colonize "green dots" and large planets to have more room http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif (I've read that having a gas race can help here, as gas planets are fewer but larger).<hr></blockquote>

[ 06 May 2002: Message edited by: Ruatha ]</p>

Re: Building Colonies???HELP!
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr> I thought that Gas giants are as frequently found as rocks <hr></blockquote> There are fewer Gas Giants, but none of them are smaller than Medium.

People have worked out the distribution of the type/atmosphere combos before; lemme see if I can find an old thread...

[ Edit ]
Here we go:

In the thread How many people set their OWN planet type to Ice??

wilcoxon wrote: <blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr> Here's a quick breakdown based off the SectType.txt file. This does not take into account any limitations in SystemTypes.txt.
Sector probabilities:
............Type........Atmosphere.Facil.Num....Av g..Size
.......Gas Giant....Carbon Dioxide....52..12..4.333..0/0/2/4/6
.......Gas Giant..........Hydrogen....52..12..4.333..0/0/2/4/6
.......Gas Giant...........Methane....52..12..4.333..0/0/2/4/6
.......Gas Giant............Oxygen....52..12..4.333..0/0/2/4/6
.............Ice....Carbon Dioxide....36..14..2.571..4/4/2/2/2
.............Ice..........Hydrogen....36..14..2.57 1..4/4/2/2/2
.............Ice...........Methane....34..13..2.61 5..4/3/2/2/2
.............Ice..............None....30..10...... 3..2/2/2/2/2
.............Ice............Oxygen....36..14..2.57 1..4/4/2/2/2
............Rock....Carbon Dioxide....62..24..2.583..6/6/6/4/2
............Rock..........Hydrogen....62..24..2.58 3..6/6/6/4/2
............Rock...........Methane....64..25...2.5 6..6/7/6/4/2
............Rock..............None....45..15...... 3..3/3/3/3/3
............Rock............Oxygen....62..24..2.58 3..6/6/6/4/2

Facil is the # of facilities you can fit onto the planets.
Num is the actual number.
Avg is the average # of facilities per planet.
Size is a breakdown of # found by size (tiny, small, medium, large, huge). <hr></blockquote>
...and Spyder broke that down further: <blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr> Gas Giants 48
Ice Planets 65
Rock Planets 112

Carbon Dioxide 50
Hydrogen 50
Methane 50
Oxygen 50
None 25

Huge 45
Large 45
Medium 45
Small 45
Tiny 45 <hr></blockquote>

[ 07 May 2002: Message edited by: capnq ]

[ 07 May 2002: Message edited by: capnq ]</p>