How to be First to the Moon/Mars

[Cygnetsong]

Looking for tips and best practices. My last run I got Kazakstan first, then worked on EU. At 180 days, quit Russia to keep all that sweet boost, and also about that time consolidate the bigger countries in the EU that I didn't have to abandon/fight over. I can't consistently win all the Global research, so eventually mission to the moon happens, and everyone plays their cards. Two or three of the other factions could make the trip and settle before me. :(

[CaptainSpacetime]

Why were they able to settle before?

If because you didn't have enough boost then get more boost. You can coup Kazakhstan to avoid the 180 cooldown and get the full boost faster. Grab boost orgs if available.

If you had enough boost but their probes got there first then next time pump all your research into Mission to the Moon so your probes get there first.

Can also check where the AI factions are getting their boost from and sabotage their efforts.

[gimmethegepgun]

Also make sure to research High-Thrust Probes to double the travel speed of your probes.

[Ericus1]

Have high thrust probes.

Be the highest contributor to the Mission to X tech.

You will always get there first and have first choice of sites. The former increase probe speed for a shorter transit time, the latter speeds up the rate you scan.

[Pappus]

Why do you even care to be the first to the moon. If Khazastan is not enough for you fully set to boost, then look for rocketry orgs. There is many that give more boost than khazastan will for a long while. Other than that you can also add I think singapore, which is also a mini khazastan.

Either way the moon has pitiful resources and while I do get there first on brutal the real kicker is mars and even there you don't need a lot to get going.

Maybe I do it wrong, but the Moon rarely helps me get to mars much faster.

You can also just send your council to take over their assets. Whats more important than the moon is to get nice admin boosting things going for all your members and get an early boost to nation capacity.

[Ericus1]

You are doing it wrong.

To set up a full mining hab on Mars - with nuclear freighters - using only boost costs around 70 boost. Without nuclear freighters it costs closer to 200 boost. If you can defray the metal cost from a Lunar mine you can reduce that number to less than 20. Luna will usually roll either Shackleton or Peary with decent metal (10+) and water incomes (2+), which will get it down to ~15, and if you get lucky they can actually be positive for volatiles too (1.5+), which reduces the total boost cost per Mars site to around 6 boost. Even if they aren't volatile or water positive, any amount will help defray maintenance cost which come out of your boost income, so you will still have more boost for Mars.

The point was never that Luna was going to be a great source for resources (although in rare cases that can happen, especially with fissiles). The reason it is so important to be first to Luna is because you want to grab that single ideal spot that will provide enough of the right kind of resources, since it will massively springboard you getting multiple sites and mines up and running on Mars.

In my latest run I got my Luna mine up and running in mid 2023, and already have 9 claimed sites on Mars with 5 of them already having their mines and fission piles under construction and ready to come online as soon as the core arrives, purely from Lunar resources, as of April 2024.

[Pappus]

Originally posted by Ericus1:

You are doing it wrong.

To set up a full mining hab on Mars - with nuclear freighters - using only boost costs around 70 boost. Without nuclear freighters it costs closer to 200 boost. If you can defray the metal cost from a Lunar mine you can reduce that number to less than 20. Luna will usually roll either Shackleton or Peary with decent metal (10+) and water incomes (2+), which will get it down to ~15, and if you get lucky they can actually be positive for volatiles too (1.5+), which reduces the total boost cost per Mars site to around 6 boost. Even if they aren't volatile or water positive, any amount will help defray maintenance cost which come out of your boost income, so you will still have more boost for Mars.

The point was never that Luna was going to be a great source for resources (although in rare cases that can happen, especially with fissiles). The reason it is so important to be first to Luna is because you want to grab that single ideal spot that will provide enough of the right kind of resources, since it will massively springboard you getting multiple sites and mines up and running on Mars.

In my latest run I got my Luna mine up and running in mid 2023, and already have 9 claimed sites on Mars with 5 of them already having their mines and fission piles under construction and ready to come online as soon as the core arrives, purely from Lunar resources, as of April 2024.

I went in an double checked why being first to the moon didn't seem to help me and I took shackle which had everything except rare metals, but in too low quantities. The spacedock I put on there also made sure that I ended up without water. Still paid 60 per outpost on Mars, but that wasn't a problem. Just claiming a few and then sending the mining station later. Even on higher difficulty there isn't really a rush.

I did leave a lot of spaces open on mars for the AI since I want to see if they will start building ships. No luck so far, but they are better with LEO stations than before

[Ericus1]

Yeah, building any other habs before you have Mars mines up and running will just eat into your boost from upkeep costs. And there's only a single site on Luna that can potentially have nobles, which is the Sea of Tranquility - but it also has zero chance of having water, so it is physically impossible to get all 5 resources from one Lunar site. That being said, the amount of nobles you need for Mars is virtually nil, so it is almost always worth going for the water/volatile sites, which make up a much larger portion of your build costs on Mars.

[Pawleus]

Actually, the strongest way, currently, is to treat Mars the same as Moon: a stepping stone.

Accordingly, you choose your single best site on each of them and focus on Jovian moons - they usually have much better mining sites than Mars to choose from (which is important with the current implementation of the Extended Mining Network) and you can get there before the Aliens in 2024 even while playing standard Brutal. You can send a colonizer before you have a mine on Mars online and the mine is only needed for building mines on Jovian moons without Boost and for repairing/refitting the colonizer.

Apart from the colonizer costs building habs on Jovian moons is Boost-free so to really jumpstart your space infrastructure Boost is only needed for 1 mining hab on Moon (for Basic Metals and Rads), 1 mining hab on Mars (to have all resources in sufficient quantity for a first mine on a Jovian moon) and 1 Fission Frag colonizer (Rads from Moon are needed to make it cheaper in Boost).

[Pappus]

Originally posted by Pawleus:

Actually, the strongest way, currently, is to treat Mars the same as Moon: a stepping stone.

Accordingly, you choose your single best site on each of them and focus on Jovian moons - they usually have much better mining sites than Mars to choose from (which is important with the current implementation of the Extended Mining Network) and you can get there before the Aliens in 2024 even while playing standard Brutal. You can send a colonizer before you have a mine on Mars online and the mine is only needed for building mines on Jovian moons without Boost and for repairing/refitting the colonizer.

Apart from the colonizer costs building habs on Jovian moons is Boost-free so to really jumpstart your space infrastructure Boost is only needed for 1 mining hab on Moon (for Basic Metals and Rads), 1 mining hab on Mars (to have all resources in sufficient quantity for a first mine on a Jovian moon) and 1 Fission Frag colonizer (Rads from Moon are needed to make it cheaper in Boost).

What techs do you need to unlock the module for the ship? And how do you have all that tech by 2024 :D

[Ericus1]

Follow this https://discord.com/channels/462769550841348126/1034484752964661378. It's the current metastrats for a Jupiter Rush.

However, it is a massive gamble that requires significant micromanagement and quite a bit of luck. The timing windows are so tight that losing control of even one global tech slot due to an AI getting an ill-timed RP burst or something will ruin the run. And even then, the aliens can get there before you do even if you do everything right.

I would never recommend a Jupiter Rush to anything but an expert player. Luna -> Mars is the standard, safe, reliable open.

[Pawleus]

As with any rush you obviously need experience and yes, it requires significant micromanagement so it might not be for everybody (with 0.4.42 changes to how AI researches on lower difficulties it will be much less of a problem there). However, you need only a bit of luck to be at Jupiter before the Aliens (basically, you can't be unlucky in how fast the Fission Platform Kit is made available to you - all techs needed can be unlocked with 100% probability so it's not a problem) and it's certainly not a massive gamble because timing windows are not so tight as Ericus1 claims (you can afford to loose control of global tech 1 or 2 times in this timeframe) when you well manage your USA-Kazakhstan start and do a lot of Hostile Takeovers (they are very powerful in this period).

You don't even have to be at Jupiter before the Aliens arrive - you just have to be there not long after them. If you are very unlucky you can alternatively go for the prolonged Jupiter Rush (it's easy to change from early to prolonged one) in which you establish several mines on Mars first (keeping in mind their secondary importance), build a Grid combat fleet with Artemis torps and go for Jupiter in 2026/27 (even 2028 is not too late - dates are from Brutal so on other difficulties it's probably even more relaxed).

Jupiter Rush is generally very safe and reliable when you know how to handle adversities and the wide timeframe of its ending point (2024-2028 on Brutal) makes it very flexible so it's suitable for quite a wide range of skills but I agree that trying it in a first campaign players would most probably fail.

Early Jupiter Rush (the one in which you get to Jupiter in 2024/25) is easiest to do with the Academy - you can have USA earlier so you are earlier ahead of competitors.

Originally posted by Pappus:

What techs do you need to unlock the module for the ship?

You probably ask about the Fission Platform Kit - you need the Construction Module for it and it needs the Industralization of Space which is very expensive in this period (15000 RP) so research has to be planned around it.

[Maddin]

I gotta say, that may be the optimal meta strat. But it really doesn't sound like fun?
Like maybe it can be fun if it means being in active war with the aliens by 2025.

[Ericus1]

If you read through that discord link I posted, you can see the obstacles real players face doing the rush. It is far from the meta strat and something only a tiny handful of players try as more of a challenge run, since yes it is very hard to successfully pull off and means you will be at war with the aliens by 2024, as Jupiter is a red line for the AI. It does cripple them however to not have the resources from Jupiter or springboard into the inner system, so if you do pull it off you've essentially already won the game.

Personally I think that's just a tedious way to play since it reduces the game down to getting lucky and then having no real reason to continue playing, but to each their own. I suspect 0.4.42 will see changes that make it nigh impossible to pull off with changes to the alien's AI behavior or starting position, because it is very much not an intended outcome.

[Maddin]

I do hope that at some point ressources will be based on planetary systems, needing you to spend fuel to transport them elsewhere. It would make a Mars base a lot more important. Maybe something like techs/stations that allow you for better logistics.

[Asuzu]

Originally posted by Cygnetsong:

Looking for tips and best practices. My last run I got Kazakstan first, then worked on EU. At 180 days, quit Russia to keep all that sweet boost, and also about that time consolidate the bigger countries in the EU that I didn't have to abandon/fight over. I can't consistently win all the Global research, so eventually mission to the moon happens, and everyone plays their cards. Two or three of the other factions could make the trip and settle before me. :(

The absolute best way is to savescum if the AI picks techs that you are not ready for.

These space exploration techs are working as a major gateway - e.g. nobody can survey/visit Moon, Mars, Mercury or Jupiter if corresponding tech hasn't been researched.

Another major component is science output. Whoever finishes the tech gets to pick the next tech. So if you are stronger in research than AIs, you will finish first, and pick next ones. This way you can effectively gate the AIs from sending probes and colonizing stuff you don't want to share.

Just watch out for AIs shifting their research to outpace you and finish before you - very often I catch AI canceling all their projects just to push one tech hard to finish before you. They are tricky ones.

A perfect example would be colonizing entire Mars. You take over the research, and don't research the Mars tech until you stored about 300+ boost and got 100% faster probes. So when you do finish the tech, you probe it all immediately, and when the probes land, you just spam colonize the entire plan, all 30ish spots all for yourself, including Phobos and Deimos. And that puts you so far ahead on mining and space game the AIs will never, ever catch up.

And once your first defensive fleets are up and running in the orbit of every major mining planet (Earth, Mars, Ceres, Mercury) - you go nuts and delete all space stations of all factions from the orbits. And once you lose your space shipyards with hostile fleet around - there's no chance to ever get back into space.

So the only thing left to AI is to waste their boost and colonize gazillion trashy asteroids in the Belt.

It's major powergaming, aimed to cripple both aliens and Earth factions, reducing their threat level to nothing, but is very fun to pull off.