What to do first in space?

[keithb63]

I'm a little unsure what i should be doing first in space? Build something in earth orbit? The moon? Mars? Asteroids? Thanks.

[Eltoron]

You need every type of resources first. If you have good deposits of fissels and gold on Moon - grab it first. But usually Moon is pretty scare so Mars is a main option for a lot of players. After you get stable positive income of every resource you can start to build orbitals on interface orbits around Earth. It's very important to claim res first. If you are not - you are forced to launch resources from Earth at the cost of money and boost. Do not build any orbital platforms until you can maintain it with your mines.

[ulzgoroth]

Yeah, resources are the only thing that you should even think about at first. Where really isn't the point, the point is getting a space economy in operation.

[Fairin the Drakitty]

step one

Get a station in LEO, solar + space dock (to launch probes) you need like 11 boost to do this.

know that each station or hab at t1 costs 1 MC to maintain, and the mine on the hab also costs 1 MC, going over MC means the AI will punish you immidately by stealing all your stations in LEO. (as of this writing) - that is why there is a mod to prevent the job from even happening, it is impossible to take back with councilors, you need ships to take them over if you lose them.

(there is a roundabout way of getting them back via making the computer lose MC and go overcap by taking their main areas covertly, just send a ship its less painful)

step two

send a probe to luna, this gets researched rather quick generally.

step three.

it is in my experience... build a warship with marines and take the best spots on the moon, unless you're somehow lucky enough to have gotten first pick and its not 100% filled with AI habs. otherwise i would boost a colony to luna instead of waiting for the construction thing.

you're looking for a colony with all the things, or two colonies combined with all the things.

step four,

when you can, send a probe to mars immediately and this time you can generally build those habs first instead of finding a luna already taken.

you only need to boost 1 station into orbit - or land a colony on mars to build a construction thing, then boost is worthless after that, colony ships.

probes are useful for up to jupiter, after jupiter its technically quicker to send a ship to investigate it, in my experience you'll get all the materials you need off a select asteroid or two, mars, murcury and one or two sites on luna.

noble metals are what you really need - i found i kept running out making ships at the end of the game... fissiles are a requirement for mars/roid bases and fuel for some ship types and making antimatter, which is the primary use of it.


people will have a strat to skip luna (because the AI floods it) and just goto mars.

i personally feel the AI doesn't deserve free resources so i don't let them have nice things, you do you though.

once you get a construction station / hab up and running it no longer costs boost to build things in space around it, and colony ships can handle the rest faster than boost ever can.
so,

[uskayaw]

Try to get to 100 MC usage ASAP, you unlock some neat mechanics after hitting that threshold

[DarkestOnion]

Establish a Low Earth Orbit Station for future shipbuilding. Put a Outpost on the Moon on the best Fissile or Gold location. Put a Station over Mars and two Mining Settlements on best sites for Water, Volatiles, Gold, and Fissiles. Build a Station over Ceres and Mining Settlements on every site. Then you can head for Mercury and put down a station for future Mission Control usage and Mining Settlements on every site to prevent the AI from ever coming to Mercury. That makes a good space mining effort. From there, expand into the asteroid belt and the outer planets

[=(FGR)=Sentinel]

My checklist for space is usually the following:
1. Get boost to send a probe to the moon. You don't need to build a hab in orbit of Earth to do this and it's the stepping stone to everything else.
2. Once the probe is done surveying, pick out a site with good metal, noble metal, and (if possible) fissile production to put a hab on. This hab should have no more than a solar panel and T1 mining module on it. The cost of this setup will be pretty high in boost cost, so make sure you only build one hab on the moon for this unless you have several mining sites that can collectively at least break even.
3. Once your mining sites have created enough of their available resources to get at least a mine to Mars, shut off or decommission all mining modules. This is counterproductive, but doing so means you don't have to pay the module's maintenance cost, which frees the boost being spent on upkeep and lets you get ready for the next stage quicker.
4. Try to get fission piles (Nuclear Fission in Space), Nuclear Tugs (Solid Core Fission Reactors), and Construction Modules (Industrialization of Space) before you get the MIssion to Mars tech researched. The second and third aren't 100% needed, but speed the process up. The first, however, is absolutely necessary for anything past Earth.
5. Once Mission to Mars is finished, immediately send a probe to Mars. If you have Construction Modules unlocked, also send a hab with a fission pile and construction module to Low Mars Orbit. This hab, once completed, will serve as the origin point for any hab and module construction using purely space resources on or around Mars.
6. Once the survey is done, pick out the best mining site on Mars and send a hab, fission pile, and mining complex there. You want to try and make your Martian operations as self sufficient as possible, which means you want the 2-3 best fission sites, good water and volatiles, and decent metal/noble sites. As you get the resources to do so, start expanding your ground-based Martian assets as best you can.
7. For nobles, push out into the asteroid field for those and start prepping for full self-sufficiency. For this you'll need Nanofactories, Operations Centers, tier two habs, and the Mission to the Inner Planets tech.

[Heir of the Void]

You don't really need to have a station in LEO to start. It can be useful for giving bonuses to your Investment Points priorities, but each station you have has an upkeep cost in Space Resources, and until you have space mines active you will have to pay those costs in Boost. That loss of Boost income can very easily cut into your ability to quickly grab the best sites on the Moon and Mars.

While ultimately you will do 99% of your construction with Space Resources, boost is very important for the early phase of space industrialization when you are racing for the best mining spots. This is VERY IMPORTANT for the Moon and relatively important for Mars, both of which become available (from the Mission to X global techs) early enough for Boost to matter.

After that, you can settle Mercury mostly at your leisure, as the AI isn't good enough at managing Space Development to start laying down bases by the time it opens up. However, this may change in the future as the AI is improved.

The one thing to consider is that almost as soon as you have mines producing all five Space Resources, your major limiting factor switches from Boost to Mission Control. What that means is that you want to get boost income by controlling countries with Boost, then investing at least some IP into Mission Control from the start, or from near the start.

[keithb63]

Are there techs that give boost?

[corisai]

Originally posted by Fairin the Drakitty:

step one

Get a station in LEO, solar + space dock (to launch probes) you need like 11 boost to do this.

Wrong move! Without mines - all costs of such station are paid in cash AND BOOST.

Plus you don't need a space dock to lauch probes - Earth could do it alone (and you winning nothing from a dock on LEO).

[martyr]

Originally posted by Fairin the Drakitty:

step one

Get a station in LEO, solar + space dock (to launch probes) you need like 11 boost to do this.

know that each station or hab at t1 costs 1 MC to maintain, and the mine on the hab also costs 1 MC, going over MC means the AI will punish you immidately by stealing all your stations in LEO. (as of this writing) - that is why there is a mod to prevent the job from even happening, it is impossible to take back with councilors, you need ships to take them over if you lose them.

(there is a roundabout way of getting them back via making the computer lose MC and go overcap by taking their main areas covertly, just send a ship its less painful)

step two

send a probe to luna, this gets researched rather quick generally.

step three.

it is in my experience... build a warship with marines and take the best spots on the moon, unless you're somehow lucky enough to have gotten first pick and its not 100% filled with AI habs. otherwise i would boost a colony to luna instead of waiting for the construction thing.

you're looking for a colony with all the things, or two colonies combined with all the things.

step four,

when you can, send a probe to mars immediately and this time you can generally build those habs first instead of finding a luna already taken.

you only need to boost 1 station into orbit - or land a colony on mars to build a construction thing, then boost is worthless after that, colony ships.

probes are useful for up to jupiter, after jupiter its technically quicker to send a ship to investigate it, in my experience you'll get all the materials you need off a select asteroid or two, mars, murcury and one or two sites on luna.

noble metals are what you really need - i found i kept running out making ships at the end of the game... fissiles are a requirement for mars/roid bases and fuel for some ship types and making antimatter, which is the primary use of it.


people will have a strat to skip luna (because the AI floods it) and just goto mars.

i personally feel the AI doesn't deserve free resources so i don't let them have nice things, you do you though.

once you get a construction station / hab up and running it no longer costs boost to build things in space around it, and colony ships can handle the rest faster than boost ever can.
so,

No. You can send probes from Earth for 0.5 Boost. So I can probe 22 bodies for the cost of what you're proposing. In addition you are paying the maintenance cost and losing additional boost.

If there's a great spot on Luna, take it.

If not take a spot or two on Mars. Luna normally sucks.

[wei270]

Originally posted by keithb63:

Are there techs that give boost?

there are tech that increase your boost investment but not directly increase your boost. but you could trade tech for boost with other factions

[wei270]

oh also there is a bit of spoiler, you need fission resource late game, lots and lots of it and there is actually not many place in the solar system that has lots of except juptier, and that one spot on the Moon lol.