Colonizing other systems

[wingte]

Ok,, I have the Demo and so far I am intrigued. I went through the tutorial and that looked good. I started a game and found myself stumbling arround in the racial modifiers and characteristics but finally got it to accept my settings and start a game.
I picked start with 3 planets and as a result I had colonies in 2 systems.
I rather quickly explored other systems and found more supposedly colonizable planets. Designed a colonizer ship, built it, sent it and it gave me a message that I had established the new colony.. BUT,,,, in the facilities build page it says NEVER for a completion date for the things I have in the que. What gives?? Is this a bug in the demo,, or is there some special order I have to do the building in? Do I need transports ships to move population??

Wingte

[Richard]

You need to transfer some population there initially. What I do is put a cargo hold in the ship and then before load some population for the colony.

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Sarge is coming...

Richard Arnesen
Director of Covert Ops
Shrapnel Games
http://www.shrapnelgames.com

[wingte]

Hmnnn,
Why didn't I have to move population arround when I started new colonies in the original systems??
Can I just add cargo modules to the colony ship??

[Richard]

Huh? You mean you started a colony, with a colony ship, and didn't have to move population there? This should always be the case.

Yep just redeisgn the ship. Take an extra engine or weapon off and slap in a crago module and your done...

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Sarge is coming...

Richard Arnesen
Director of Covert Ops
Shrapnel Games
http://www.shrapnelgames.com

[Grumbling Grognard]

Sorry, but I don't think so Richard.

You don't need any cargo containers on a colony ship at all. It has a 'built in' capacity to carry 4 mil colonists (I think this comes with the colony module). I had never thought of adding more cargo space though to boost initial size....a damn good idea, thanks!

The way the colonize order works is best explained from the Malfador site IN THE Q&A Section #23 and #24:

quote:

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23. I colonized a planet, but it says that it has zero population. How come?

Colonization has changed a bit from SE3. There are two things you need to colonize a planet, a colonizing component and population. When you build a colonizing ship, it has a colonization module on it. But before you send it off to colonize a planet, you need to load it up with population first. If the colony ship doesn't have any population on it, then you can still colonize the planet, but it will have zero population.

When you have a newly built colony ship, the best way to send it off is to give it the Colonize order. This order will automatically load population first, then send the ship to the target planet, then colonize that planet. If you use the MoveTo order on your colony ship, it will move towards its destination, without loading population first.

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quote:

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24. I colonized a planet, but its build time says "Never". How come?

Same reason as number 23.

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The Grumbling Grognard

[Richard]

Hmm then I need to stop adding those darn cargo containers then .

------------------
Sarge is coming...

Richard Arnesen
Director of Covert Ops
Shrapnel Games
http://www.shrapnelgames.com