The Elder

[Darth Pedro]

The past several turns have been maintenance mainly.

Now, this turn, The Elder have focused on simplifying things and consolidating, while attempting to figure out how to transition from stage 1 of existence to the level stage. Namely, how the hell do I smoothly shut down all of these FCT-1 groups and light up a new round of FCT-5 while also simultaneously lighting up 21M LAB-4? GAH!

I have switch all but one of my FCT-1 groups to 'nothing' and will try to pump out what is left inside each queue, but there will be a turn or two of lag where I need to temporarily shut down the FCT-1 groups (or Farms, or MINs, etc) so as to make room for all of the new FCT-5 coming off production as well as a massive LAB-4 infusion each next turn. I have similarly issued 'nothing' orders up in the OBC, which has been expanding nicely each turn. I expect to replace the FCT-1 groups up there with FCT-5 in turn where possible. Main thing will be PRO-unavailability. PROs really are the limiting factor. I have 16M AUT-3 coming offline next turn which means I can effectively get rid of all USK as I turn them on. I have 2.5M LFS-2 coming off production next turn which will go straight in to the OBC. Two or three groups switching production to LFS-3 as well.

I am consolidating my navy significantly. All scouts out in the field are heading home. I am merging a bunch that are still in system, and will use them as small cargo ships, or the basis on which to add on to make a colonization ship to use to drop an OPC on the HAB10 world in system. I find exploring, at this stage, not important. I may regret the decision down the road, but I need to focus on the home front for now. Mainly how to keep POP growing through OBC LFS upgrades and getting a colony on that HAB10 world. I expect to be down to 3 or 4 ships of at least some decent size in 2 turns. That is all I want for now, plus colony ship #1.

Research. This turn I expended some finally, having spent some two turns ago for MIN3. I got LFS-3, LAB-5 and BEAM-2. LFS was obvious since I need to expand life support capabilities of the OBC, but also the alien colony. LAB seemed obvious since research and tech seems the way to get ahead of the curve on things. BEAM-2 made a lot of sense because I expect to transfer expansion stuff to the alien colony and the HAB10 world regularly. Plus it will make getting raw materials back to my home colony and OBC much easier.

I decided to also embark on a PRO expansion track as well. This means getting as many pop as possible in to becoming Trainees. One spot to do this is to replace soldiers with MRB. So I started a small FCT group making these and will eliminate all SLD over time with MRBs. The more trainees I have, the more that become PROs every turn.

Does anyone know how to use ROBOT PROBES? I have no idea how.

SURVEYS, is the only way to Survey a planet to have a ship or colony there with TPT capacity to do so?

Has anyone built a colony ship yet? I am kind of at a loss. Need to figure that out and quick.

You can simply disassemble the FCT-1's and assemble higher TL FCT's to the same group during the same turn, The WIP will remain WIP. If you want to change production to higher TL Items or Item Types, simply do a Build Change order. I always set the TL to 200 on my Factory Groups so that the WIP automatically starts building the higher TL Item when you do the research.

The best way to get more Trainees is to use Automation and Draft as many Unskilled as are not being utilized in your Stats. Be conservative and leave a margin for error. Assembling AUT will reduce the utilized USK because of the Turn Sequence. So if you Assemble 1,000,000 AUT-3 you will replace 9,000,000 USK which can be added to the Draft order, etc.