About frontier outposts and colonies.

[Zawarudo]

Hello!

I think one should build a frontier outpost based on the ammount of systems around... I mean, the more stars it reaches, the more planets and more resources right?

But Im afraid of building them too far away and creating a gap ... or building them too close and not making the best use of its range, totally wasting it!

So how do you guys do it? Is there a way to calculate the best positioning? Doesnt gaps matter at all?

Now about colonies, why start a new colony when your homeplanet surface isnt fully ocupied? Is there any point in spending a ton to have a planet with one pop instead of building a frontier outpost and geting lots of resources right away?!?

[B5R]

Is there a way to calculate the best positioning? Doesnt gaps matter at all?

Well personally im not paying so much attention and just put them in center of system which i needed . Anyway your borders be increased after some time and you can remove it / place somewhere else /

@why start a new colony when your homeplanet surface isnt fully ocupied? Is there any point in spending a ton to have a planet with one pop instead of building a frontier outpost and geting lots of resources right away?!?@

It depends from your tactics - playing wide or tall . Tall - outpost better bc no penalties , Wide - colony. And in new colony pops growing faster if you noticed - bc no penalties due to high population. And you can have another space port btw

[Yorkie]

Use Outposts for grabing teritory and for blocking the AI's expansion. If you had a choice between securing a colonisable planet and another are without always go for the planets.

The reasons are twofold, it secures that area for you for future exapnsion as the AI boarders will not over take it. For instance if there were two planets in the sphere of infulence of your outpost near the AI, the AI's boarders will superseed your outpost as boader growth is increased by population. [and other factors] and you will lose those planets and the AI will gain.

Outposts are cheaper to produce than colonies, making that land grab mentioned above easier. Then you can colonise your planets and destroy the outpost.

As for colonising, if you are not playing as a OPS [One Planet System] start then you wont need to colonise, but you will still need to grab as much territory as possible with outposts.

However if you are playing "normaly" then you need to colonise every planet you can as quickly as possible, of course you will need to balance your economy with the expansion but the benifits out strip the cons of doing this. As more planets increase your fleet capacity via space ports and a large fleet goes a long way to fend off the AI. You will also find your econmony as a whole will be healthier if over all.

However there are pro's and cons related to each playstyle, it just a matter of perference :)

[Apeironic_Entelechy]

Currently I just wing it and estimate the radius of the new borders, thankfully in 2.0 this will be replaced with a system that makes far more sense (build outposts in systems to individually claim them).