Church of the Ark advice?

[Harris]

They seem to be the most "risk - reward" sponsor as they give you potentially unlimited supply of workers who are superior because of being martianborn and superior because of being religious (they work better, are less likely to become renegades, never suicide, can be boosted by Saint character for even higher morale etc).

However, I struggle with the "risk" part. How do you survive early game with them? Like the starting loadout, commander and build order. I tried to get around hydroponic farms debuff by importing food, but that didn't last and the people starved. The founders kinda must be assigned to a research lab, otherwise all my research is limited to a random anomaly analyzed with the explorer (that's if I brought one). Seeing how making money from science is not an option early on, it probably means finding and exploiting rare metals deposit is essential to survive in the beginning?

[Emmote]

Originally posted by Harris:

it probably means finding and exploiting rare metals deposit is essential to survive in the beginning?

This is pretty much essential no matter who you choose, except maybe the really easy mode sponsor. Without money, you can't hope to eventually become self-sufficient.

[jussr]

Originally posted by Emmote:

Originally posted by Harris:

it probably means finding and exploiting rare metals deposit is essential to survive in the beginning?

This is pretty much essential no matter who you choose, except maybe the really easy mode sponsor. Without money, you can't hope to eventually become self-sufficient.

I mean, you can get by without selling rare metals back to earth by spending your initial funds on the essentials to become self-sufficient and getting people in quickly, but yeah, you're still going to need rare metals quickly to make your own electronics.

[Emmote]

Originally posted by sparklecatty:

Originally posted by Emmote:

This is pretty much essential no matter who you choose, except maybe the really easy mode sponsor. Without money, you can't hope to eventually become self-sufficient.

I mean, you can get by without selling rare metals back to earth by spending your initial funds on the essentials to become self-sufficient and getting people in quickly, but yeah, you're still going to need rare metals quickly to make your own electronics.

If you tried that with Russian or Paradox, or even some of the medium sponsors, you will realise you simply don't start with enough to do that. Rare metals are crucial.

[jussr]

I'm doing it right now with Paradox, actually; I did sell one rocketload of rare metals back to earth, but that was just to speed things up a bit because I was sitting on a 100+ surplus of them with over 50 electronics stored.

[Emmote]

So how are you managing to keep on top of the maintenance materials as well as getting at least 1 of each factory prefab while also having enough fuel refineries, drone hubs and life support.
Or are you waiting until you've researched the factories before making them? Because it'd be tedious to have to wait til Sol40+ to get them.

[jussr]

Needed one each of the factory prefabs, yes; I think I brought them on my second rocket, and the third was when I brought people, around Sol 30 or so. Here are the key points of how I made it work:

1) I had two vaporators and got lucky on the tech to upgrade them for a total of 3 water; without that, I'd have needed to bring in a third to manage enough water for crops too.
2) I brought only five polymers and scavenged the rest of what I needed for my first dome; used the extra money from that for more machine parts. My plan was basically to just ignore the leak if my dome got hit and produce more air, since I wouldn't have the polymers for repairing it.
3) Only one fuel refinery, run constantly until I needed the water for crops (wheat), then down to one shift per day.
4) No drone hubs for awhile; I had a second rocket from leader type, so usually there'd be at least one on the planet to act as a base, and even when there wasn't, that only meant two orphaned drones for a bit. That also meant that I had very little need of my five electronics, since no maintenance costs there. You could probably get by with not bringing any, but I wanted sensor towers for faster scanning and thus teching up, especially since I brought no probes.
5) I avoided wind turbines and stuck with solar panels to avoid the machine parts maintenance, then just ran a lot of things during the day only at the beginning; I also brought one stirling generator in my initial rocket to let me run the refinery and a vaporator at night. It stayed permanently closed. Once I had my machine parts factory going, I switched over to turbines.
6) Factories were run with one shift until they hit their point of needing maintenance, then turned off and the people switched over. The polymer factory didn't actually end up built until I was ready for a second dome, in the end.

Basically what I tried to do was keep my early maintenance restricted to metal alone as much as possible.


The most difficult part by far was water, really; I got lucky with a landing spot that had one metal and two rare metal, plus 600-odd concrete, but no water deposits. With only three water, and my rockets needing 80 fuel to take off (which would've been 100 if I hadn't gotten lucky on the tech there too), my ability to send them dropped off drastically as soon as I brought people in (but bringing people fast wasn't optional since I needed them to run my factories) - 0.4 spare water per shift, then one used to make 4 fuel per Sol meant I was making a surplus of under 5 water per Sol for my tanks, which was barely enough to keep ahead of pipe leaks and dust storms. But once I had a decent food surplus I could make some progress by turning the farm off for a bit, and then about halfway down the tree I unlocked making my own vaporators.

I think if I was trying it again I'd go for 4 vaporators (or 3 upgraded) and bring an RC Transport earlier to make scavenging metals and polymers from farther away easier.

[rightfn]

Originally posted by Emmote:

If you tried that with Russian or Paradox, or even some of the medium sponsors, you will realise you simply don't start with enough to do that. Rare metals are crucial.

This point is critical. I believe that under the hardest starting conditions, it is actually more important to secure rare metals than regular metals

[jussr]

Originally posted by rightfn:

Originally posted by Emmote:

If you tried that with Russian or Paradox, or even some of the medium sponsors, you will realise you simply don't start with enough to do that. Rare metals are crucial.

This point is critical. I believe that under the hardest starting conditions, it is actually more important to secure rare metals than regular metals

Yeah, you can definitely get by on scavenging regular for quite some time. But one way or another, you're going to need a supply of rare metals soon; putting your first dome next to a deposit is essential, I think.

[Emmote]

I have a feeling then that the only way you managed that was because of the Rocket Engineer commander and quite a bit of luck.
That extra rocket is a god send for Paradox, because otherwise, one fuel refinery simply wouldn't be enough to get anything done in a decent timeframe.

Sounds like a viable plan, but very niche to that singular commander.
So I think the point of getting rare metals first is still crucial.

[jussr]

I think it *could* have been done, with a few modifications - I'd definitely have wanted an RC transport to start - but it would have been incredibly tedious and not all that fun. But absolutely luck was involved, yeah; the colony was in a very precarious position for the first 100 Sols or so.

edit: Also, honestly, just because it *can* be done the way I did it doesn't mean it should be; next time I'm just going to sell the bloody rare metals and save myself the hassle.

[jussr]

Oh, I'll also mention that I think it's nearly as important to focus on getting research coming in quickly, for making the harder starts work out well; get an explorer down there and start scanning anomalies asap. If you get the techs that make the explorer or your sponsor give you extra research, drop whatever you're working on and do those first. So many of the possible techs will make a huge difference in an early colony where you're just balancing on the edge of survival.

[L37]

I've started paradox with futurist now, already brought in first colonists. Had both Russia and church games before. IMO every sponsor has enough starting money to become self-sufficient without waiting for research.
After a couple of games i actually stopped bringing optional prefabs like vaporators and generators at all, i usually bring all 3 rovers on first rocket, couple additional drones, fuel refinery prefab and minimal amount of resources. Second one brings factories, drone hub and some more resources, spending all the money. Third one - colonists. If crowdfunding pops up early i research it, as it allows to bring some additional resources, making things easier.
With water - vaporators are nice, but they require more power, cost a lot of money and have issues with dust storms (requiring heater on map with max dust storms and cold waves, as otherwise every now and then colonists will sit without water for few sols). In the beginning water extractors are easier and cheaper.
Power - IMO stirling generators are not worth it at all. For their price it is better to bring machine parts and use wind generators. Especially if there is a place with some elevation boost and upgrade pops up early. Other than that solar panels maintained using surface metal.
I usually avoid building drone hub as long as possible - rover is just fine and is maintenance free.

As for church... combine it with doctor commander profile and you will have unlimited workforce and quiet a few issues with building homes faster then they reproduce (first time ever i had issues with concrete to the point when i started shipping it from earth). Also in the very beginning research labs are not that critical, it is still possible to get 100 sponsor research + 100 from exploration rover + anomalies... it is better to start with farm as usual IMO.

[jussr]

Water extractors are great, but relying on a water deposit means that you need a starting position that has that as well as the concrete and rare metals. I think it's basically just a choice of which risk you want to take - bring vaporators and hope you get heaters quickly enough, or leave them and hope you manage to find a good enough start, possibly also hedging your bets by spending more of your paltry starting funds on probes.

I don't think bringing lots of stirling generators is cost-effective early on, no, but I like to have just one for an emergency backup that never needs maintenance.

[Emmote]

Yeah, I can't imagine starting without vaporators. Trying to get a start that has concrete, rare metals and water nearby is incredibly difficult unless you really cheese the game with your starting probes by using them and restarting the map.

Originally posted by sparklecatty:

I don't think bringing lots of stirling generators is cost-effective early on, no, but I like to have just one for an emergency backup that never needs maintenance.

In every game I bring 2-3 at the start, and every rocket from then on has 1-2 in.
I think they're too underrated. While closed they don't use any maintenance at all, and once you've got a Polymer factory up, you can open them for double power. 10/20 power per tile is too good to pass up for me.

Yeah, they cost, but with rare metals export, money becomes a non-issue.

[jussr]

Oh, I absolutely love stirling generators in general; the only reason I'm not spamming them in my current game is that I got breakthrough techs to double the outputs of both my solar panels and my turbines.