Colony Ships take forever to build!

[Grovemann]

Hi!

I started a new game of Distant Worlds: Legends yesterday (the new spheres of influence make this game f***ing brilliant!!), and I had a serious problem with building colony ships.

They took foreeeever to build, so I wanted to ask here how I could increase that rate and what generally a good strategy is to get your potential colonies settled as fast as possible.

Is there some sort of production limit a planet has, because in this game a technology base built on my homeplanet wasn't finished after ages aswell.

I had a queue of at least 6 colony ships, a research station and several construction ships to be built on that planet, but every colony ship took at least 30-45 minutes on speedlevel 4 to get built.

I think I don't have to mention that the AI arrived on most of those good planets first...

I'm sure I was doing something wrong, but I thought I had at least enough steal mines in place, and the empire needs list for building mines didn't really show steal planets aswell. (if you click on ressources on that list does that show you the ressources on it's importance for the empire?)

Have you encountered a simmilar problem at one point? I thought I'd just ask quick before I start a new session tonight.

Schöne Grüße! [:)]

[Lorini]

nvm

[ASHBERY76]

It is by design stop fast colony spamming.

[Grovemann]

ok, so I only have to make sure to have caslon? I allways thought that was just fuel for the hyperdrive.. :p

Are ther any other ressources that are crucial for building stuff?

And is it possible to increase a planets production speed somehow?

And does a large spaceport have any effect on that? Does it produce ships faster?

Do small colonies produce slower (is it worth it building a colony ship in a 30million colony to avoid queue time, or does this take even longer?)



Thanks!

[Lorini]

I'm no expert.nvm

[aprezto]

ORIGINAL: Lorini

You need Caslon to build stuff. You clearly don't have much. Either start over and look for nearby planets with Caslon or keep going in this game and be sure to build mining stations on nearby planets with Caslon.

Are you sure on this? I thought Caslon wasn't used for anything other than being a fuel?

[Lorini]

ORIGINAL: aprezto

ORIGINAL: Lorini

You need Caslon to build stuff. You clearly don't have much. Either start over and look for nearby planets with Caslon or keep going in this game and be sure to build mining stations on nearby planets with Caslon.

Are you sure on this? I thought Caslon wasn't used for anything other than being a fuel?

Like I said, I'm no expert. On the other hand, everything seems to work better if I have several sources of Caslon. Perhaps freighters use Caslon? So I take what I said about Caslon back.

[Awaras]

ORIGINAL: Lorini

I'm no expert. And a colony ship taking 30+ minutes to build is not colony spamming. The first thing I do in game is retrofit my medium space port to a large space port. Small colonies won't have the resources to build stuff, so try not to build stuff on small colonies. What difficulty are you playing on? It sounds like easy, as I don't have this problem simply because my economy won't support all this. Are you playing vanilla or have you modded the game? If you've modded the game then ignore me.

Colony ships are not built at space ports but at colonies, so space port size has nothing to do with it.

[Lorini]

OK then help him out. Why are his colony ships taking 30+ minutes to build? I upgrade my space port and I have access to Caslon. My colony ships take about 15 minutes or so to build. I'm just saying what's happening in my game.

[Lorini]

Alright, let's start over now that I've had a chance to think about this. What you need to do is to go to your expansion planner and look at the demand for resources. If you see a demand over 1.0 in a strategic resource that means that you will see slowdown in the construction of whatever it is that needs that resource. You need to correct the demand by building mining stations on planets that have the resource you need. This is facilitated by using the Resource expansion planner.

I just tested my game and building a colony ship with demand satisfied took about 20 minutes.

Better?

[Awaras]

You need a lot of materials to build colony ships. One of the resources that frequently causes a shortage is steel. You can see the materials needed to build a ship if you go to the Construction Yards screen (F10), find the planet building the colony ship on the list in the upper left corner, select Construction Yards below and then click on "Show Construction Summary". Then you check the "Cargo" tab on the same screen and see if you have all of those materials. If you don't have just one of the resources, the construction will stop. To fix that, build more mines at resource locations...

[WoodMan]

I think the more population on a planet, the faster the ship builds. So, if you are using building colonyships at your new colonies it will take an age.

[Howard Mitchell]

Caslon is a fuel so you won't need it to build a colony ship - but you will to make it go anywhere once built.

The expansion planner is the place to go to see if you are short of resources which can cause a build to stall. Look at the 'your demand' column and see what you are short of. As Awaras says steel is needed, but you may be short of other resources to.

The Bakuras Highspeed Shipyards wonder will dramatically increase your build rate if you can get it.

Look at your leader and colony govenors. They often have a colony ship rating which can increase (or decrease) the build speed.

Smaller colonies usually have much slower build rates, so though you can build colony ships at those with 500m+ populations they will be slower than those built at your homewold.

Spaceports don't build colony ships so won't affect the build rate.

As mentioned by ASHBERY76 the build speed has been deliberately slowed down over the course of DW's life to make a more interesting game, so don't expect colony ships to build very fast.

Good luck!

[morelyn]

Excellent guide to early game resources here:

Guide to Early Game Resources

[Grovemann]

Thank you very much guys!

I've started a new game and it's running great so far! I've also started building colony ships ahead of time, so it would be ready once I discover a new good planet.

I think last game I've built far to few strategy ressource mines. No wonder why nothing ever got finished.

Cheers!

[2ndACR]

I manually control the building of my colony ships. That way I can be 100% sure they are built at the colony I want them built at. IE the fasted one. My home world.

The AI has a habit of building a colony ship at a small just big enough colony that is closest.

[gameplayer2012]

Yeah I noticed that too, plus they are usually the colony that barely have enough colonists to fill the ship in the first instance.

I have a homeworld with a population of 15,000mil vs a colony with 100mil... Where would you build the colony ship?

[Harry2]

If my homeworld system is not too busy I often order it to build colony ships before I need them for a specific planet.

Helps with the issues discussed here plus gets them to an available planet sooner after its discovered. Sometimes I even send them out to newer "frontier" colonies in anticipation of more planets to be found in that general direction. Colony ships can refuel at colonies without bases so no concerns for fuel.

[Grovemann]

ok, my current Empire is running excellent. With your tips I realized the importance of production on planets and available ressources.
This time my colony ships got produced smoothly, and I've allready got some nice little planets.

But now my last 2 Colony ships that got produced don't have any fuel and shields on them, and I can't colonise planets with them in my expansion planner?!!?? [&:]
What is goin on?

I've allready clicked 'refuel' on them, so they would make a stop at a gas station, but they aren't fueling...

[Awaras]

ORIGINAL: Grovemann

ok, my current Empire is running excellent. With your tips I realized the importance of production on planets and available ressources.
This time my colony ships got produced smoothly, and I've allready got some nice little planets.

But now my last 2 Colony ships that got produced don't have any fuel and shields on them, and I can't colonise planets with them in my expansion planner?!!?? [&:]
What is goin on?

I've allready clicked 'refuel' on them, so they would make a stop at a gas station, but they aren't fueling...

Sounds like you might have a fuel shortage. Check the amount of Caslon of Hydrogen (depending on what reactor your colony ships use) you have at your bases.