Early game alloy production question.

[Sedmeister]

Just wondering how everyone else does it?

I normally try to specialise one of my first two planets as an alloy planet, building 6 industrial sectors on my Homeworld in the interim to cover my alloy and consumer goods needs. This strategy doesn't seem to work anymore since 3.6, ie: AI seem to outpace me all the time now.

So how do others get ahead of the alloy production curve in the early game?

[HappySack]

Use your homeworld as your main source of alloys, switch to militarized economy if you have a surplus of consumer goods or if you're at war and have enough in the bank to last you long enough.

[Ryika]

Setup a monthly purchase order for 12 Alloys on the market and you're half-way there.

[Sedmeister]

Originally posted by HappySack:

Use your homeworld as your main source of alloys, switch to militarized economy if you have a surplus of consumer goods or if you're at war and have enough in the bank to last you long enough.

Do you build a foundry? If so doesn't that take a valuable research facility slot?

[Sedmeister]

Originally posted by Ryika:

Setup a monthly purchase order for 12 Alloys on the market and you're half-way there.

I recall there's a reason for the number 12 but cannot recall why. Do you know?

[G-Man]

Originally posted by Sedmeister:

I recall there's a reason for the number 12 but cannot recall why. Do you know?

At 12-13 alloys the price will drop back down by the end of the month. Any more than that will cause a steep increase in price (just the way the price algorithm works.) You can theoretically do better once the galactic market is founded but you also have to deal with other empires influencing the price.

[Kapika96]

I build industrial districts everywhere. Typically when settling a new planet the build order will be 1 industrial district then the Autochton monument, then wait for the pops to increase before adding other stuff. I love taking the masterful crafters civic too so I'm building them everywhere just to unlock extra building slots anyway.

[HappySack]

Originally posted by Sedmeister:

Do you build a foundry? If so doesn't that take a valuable research facility slot?

While it's true that your homeworld is the best place for research from early to midgame, it's also the perfect place for alloy production as well since it's already a large size ans thus can stack industrial districts, since you can't dedicate it to only alloys you can thus make other worlds forge worlds to compensate.

Originally posted by Sedmeister:

I recall there's a reason for the number 12 but cannot recall why. Do you know?

That's the minimum for prices to not go higher but personally I just stick with 20 which looks nicer and doesn't cause prices to skyrocket.

[Sedmeister]

Thanks for the tips. Gonna give them all a red hot shot after dinner.

[Sedmeister]

Originally posted by Kapika96:

I build industrial districts everywhere. Typically when settling a new planet the build order will be 1 industrial district then the Autochton monument, then wait for the pops to increase before adding other stuff. I love taking the masterful crafters civic too so I'm building them everywhere just to unlock extra building slots anyway.

Would you mind continuing to describe your process for the first two planets? It's a bit different from mine.

[G-Man]

I'm also curious how other people play the early game. Keep in mind that I usually play with guaranteed habitable worlds turned off. By the time I settle my first colony my homeworld is almost fully converted to city/industrial districts with maybe a single farm or generator. No mines: with prosperity I can get all the minerals I need from mining platforms and the market. I sacrifice early population growth but short-term my pops are more efficient working on my capital instead of immigrating to a new colony that'll take a while to spool up. I can usually have a superior fleet power to the commodore AI this way.

[CertsVA]

I aim for 20 corvettes by early-mid 2010s, with another 20 by/before 2020. For early conquests after First Contact, or just to ward off an adjacent genocidal empires or federation origin.

The capital gets an alloy foundry, mining zone, then 3 pairs of industrial zone and research lab. I also replace the commercial zone with a luxury residence once that's empty.

For my first two planets, one gets two mining zones, the mining designation. The other gets a mining zone then two industrial zones and the forge designation. Any additional colonies get a mining zone first.

I typically never bother with further specialization, I just build whatever resource needs boosting next, wherever jobs are needed. But my common colony template often works out to be 2 industrial, 1 generator, 2 mining, 1 farm, a luxury residence, and an autochthon monument or research lab. Aside from the odd factory job, if a colony comes with/gains extra specialist jobs, such as gas producers from feral or a portal researcher, I made sure to immediately disable their job slots before occupied for a later time.

To conserve alloy, I also limit expansion only towards nearby worthwhile planets and I also try to get both the tech and supremacy perk which reduce corvette build cost before it's time to start building my fleet. If a neighbor wants to spend the resources to claim up all of the dead space, the I'm grateful for that when I subjugate and integrate them afterwards.

[yuzhonglu]

1. Play as Megacorp and use Private Prospectors. That civic changes colony ship cost to only 500 gold. This means an extra 300 alloys (2 consumer goods = 1 alloy) per colony ship you build. This is a big deal early on.

2. Build industrial districts on new colonies ASAP and eliminate the colonist jobs. They don't do anything until the colony reaches 5 pop (when you need the amenities).

3. Buy 40 minerals/month to support the industrial districts.
4. Buy alloys only if you have excess cash like from archeology projects or vents.
5. Use overtuned for incubators and preplanned growth. This gives +60% growth on newly colonized planets so you can quickly get the pops to run the industrial districts.

6. The other start option is clones. LOL.

[albavar]

How do amenities get handled? If I don't have at least a gene clinic it seems like by planet popularity score crashes to the 20s.

[Elitewrecker PT]

Gene clinic and amenities are unrelated.

[Kapika96]

Originally posted by Sedmeister:

Originally posted by Kapika96:

I build industrial districts everywhere. Typically when settling a new planet the build order will be 1 industrial district then the Autochton monument, then wait for the pops to increase before adding other stuff. I love taking the masterful crafters civic too so I'm building them everywhere just to unlock extra building slots anyway.

Would you mind continuing to describe your process for the first two planets? It's a bit different from mine.

I don't have a set strategy beyond that. Depends what the planets are good at and how many I have. I never play with the guaranteed planets on, so the number and quality I have is entirely luck dependent.

I only really start to specialise them when I've got a decent number of planets/pops later in the game.