Alpha Test #5 - Intermediate Status

Hello everyone!

Thanks for participating in the current alpha test!

We would love to get some feedback on the current test. For example:

  • Are you struggling somewhere?
  • Too difficult this time?
  • Have you sold anything to the market makers?
  • Did you run out of money? Are you totally broke?

So far I’ve heard from a few players that ran out of money, because they spent too much money on structural elements for buildings and forgot about the upkeep for their population. Since the markets aren’t very active yet, we decided to add a few more NPC market makers buying Iron Ore, Iron and Grains. That way the recovery should be a bit faster.

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I set up a PP1 and smelter at start and bond with another player, who will do the extraction of raw materials for me.
But i forgot to check food consumption at start and to not get eaten alive by food costs, i planned to sell my fuel to set up a farm and a FP, which i did (only 100 FF left), worked out very well, because i don’t plan to go anywhere soon.

With SS sales over the past weekend i bought more MCG to set up a second farm and FP, so i’m doing good i think, can provide my buddy with food, too and even got surplus to sell.

The only problem i see right now is, that no one is extracting SIO, which means, MCG will be pricey for weeks.

It’s not too difficult, if you know what you’re doing, i think it makes this test more interesting, because careful planning is a must. If you aim too high, you will fail.

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Started out buying too many supplies, as I found in the end that I only required 1 extractor for my copper and aluminum…left myself a bit short with only 150 ICA. However, I just sold a batch of copper ore, have more copper ore and some smelted aluminum bars up for sale.

The ICA I got from the copper ore sales will keep my colonists fed/watered for another 10 days or so…by which time I’m hoping I’ve sold some aluminum and can look at branching out into my primary endeavors…fuel synthesis.

A bit of a hard start — but not overly so with a bit of planning IMO…at least, I’ve not starved my poor pioneers out yet!

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I wanted to get in and get started right away. Did a quick survey of planets, but I wish I had done a much more thorough one. If so, I’d be on LH-370A pulling SIO and FEO.
But my FEO and STL production with some surplus O is doing ok so far. I’m keeping my head above water, at least. Not broke yet, but not rolling in it either.

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This is my first run at it so yes, I made a few mistakes. Sticking to the a commodity exchange planet as per the Tutorial Transmission and not going to another planet with different resources are definitely one of them which I will not repeat (but I have to learn somehow :smiley: ) . That being said, I now have resources that’s already surplus in the market but a deal has been struck so I’m at least selling stuff. Money is tight but I’m definitely not broke yet

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not much going on the market for me right now. having gone with food production on Promitor, I face no demand on promitor and the fact that agricultural products can be produced on any starting planet (and that it is fairly easy to set up a basic food production yourself), demand isn’t really high on montem and vallis either.
while I was hoping for some extra profit by shipping my products over there, anyhow, the additional makers now make it econimically unwise to do so. actually, they even make me stop trading publicly at all, at this time. I make more money selling everything directly to the markers rather than having to transport it anywhere.
so for now, what I do is gather some money. it’s happening slowly, but steadily, at least.

regarding the experts, I like the idea, however, I am not too happy with the implementation. you guys already commented on it on the chat, so let’s see what changes you implement, but I already have 7 experts, and has been pointed out, the wa they grant bonuses rather benefits those spreading out.

generally speaking, I really like the idea of experts, but would like to see a way lower base production and a WAY more signifant impact of experts. It should be costly to venture into any field you haven’t chosen for your starting profile or it won’t stop anyone for going for self-sufficency (+/- 10% don’t really cause a burden). so right now, only thing that might “protect” an industry from being done by everyone is the smaller plot sizes for the base, however, that only affects those industries with high space consumption (basically agroculture, only).

just a thought but maybe rather than trying to push people into specialisation via experts, there should be some sort of licensing. something like: you get the first license with your profile that allows you to construct a certain type of industry. you can obtain a second license, but it’s costly (either absolute price or percentage on weekly income), a third license would be even more expensive, and so on (if the "ok-number of specialisations per company is two, three, four… is obviously up for debate). it should, however, cost you more to build everything yourself than you can make off it at average.

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