Multiple Colonizers

[Fii]

So, in an attempt to improve the startup phase of my colonies by shipping more people initially, I tried to put a passenger module on my colonizers. This didn't work.

Thus I tried 3 colonization modules, just enough for a police + factory to get started. (my initial factories often bottleneck on population)

What I got was 3k population AND 3 Colonial Module buildings on the planet! Complete with food production!

!!!

So I tried a beast of a colony ship with 7 colonization modules, resulting in a colony with 7 Colonial Module buildings!

I colonized a nearby empty planet to test:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1260731206
Note the stacking food income. That said, each colonial module is obviously more expensive than a farm so using this for food is terrible.

The base production does not increase. And in a domed planet, you only get +1k population cap per additional colonial module, so it's not 2k per colonial module but more 1k base + 1k per colonial module.

Essentially, this is basically a way to get more "farms" onto your planet as well as kickstart any planet that requires dome or platforms. If you put >1 colonial modules, not having to build 2 domes at the start reduces the production cost to get the first factory from 150 to 100.

[Dray Prescot]

It still reduces the cost for every early dome or platform that a new colony needs and no longer needs to build, plus the population is there and you do not need to wait for them to grow.

I have been away from Polaris Sector for a long time (and recently have been playing it again), and I seem to remember that more Colony Modules USED to give more starting production, i.e. EACH Colony Module had a production value ( I think it might have been 0.5 production per colony module). When did this change?

[Dray Prescot]

I just tried out the Advanced Colony Module out and it look like we only get production from ONLY ONE of them as well !

I used to depend on getting more production from more Colonial Modules in a new colony, now that seems to be GONE.

[Mr.Kill]

They nerfed stacking production a while ago to prevent this tactic from dominating the game but kept the increased pop and food bonus to keep it somewhat relevant.

[Dray Prescot]

But it really slows down the opening stages of the game. I think that a Colony Module should be at least equivalent to ONE Factory with the population, mining, agriculture, and housing to support/run it.

But you could make it a LOT larger in size and mass, and somewhat larger in power required, to fit on a ship. It would need a lot more power on the surface to operate its various production facilities, but that would be supplied by the power reactors that formerly supplied the colony ship's engines.

I thought I remembered Colony Modules being a lot more effective when the game first started (I have been playing other games for a long time).

I find the size of the power plants to be too small for the total amount of space they are taking up on board ships. There should be at least some much larger but more efficient power plants (I am talking about 15 by 15 or even 20 by 20). We still need the smaller plants as well. I often end up with about half of the space devoted to power and fuel.

[Fii]

Perhaps like this:
You can build up to 5 Colonial Modules (as a building), and their food/production incomes stack. Plus their acting like a dome on domed planets.

Using more than 5 colony components in a colony ship has no benefit beyond the extra initial population. (which you should be using passenger modules more)
However, landing more people than your colony can support (if it's not an Earth-like or Gaia) means you lose all the extra people.


So this would give you the option to build cheap and fast colonizers (due to lower component count) to claim territory but also delay getting the colonies to be useful as they will first have to build the colonial modules up to the max.

Or you could "fill" in your territory / colonize secondary targets with more expensive and slower colony ships with multiple colony components.

Essentially a more dynamic outpost/colony type system that MoO3 used.