The most amazing starting system ever!!!

So I used ctrl-n once or twice to try and get a decent start to replace a gigantic game that I was unable to submit while playing as the Korx.

Lo and behold I got this beauty of a starting planet. If this isn't the best start ever it's awfully darn close.



A precursor library for a 700% research bonus *plus* two 300% research bonus tiles. Looks like a good time to give the All-Labs strategy a try.

But wait, there's more!

I usually don't even bother with my home system's secondary planet until much later in the game, but the Korx get a PQ8 secondary and the next closest system was a fair distance away so I decided to colonize it immediately. Plus it was only two parsecs from my colony ship so I was able to colonize it instantly. All I did was fill up my colony ship and set it down on my new colony. I haven't even pressed end turn yet and besides the above amazing home planet I have the following first colony.



A precursor mine for a 700% manufacturing bonus and *three* 100% manufacturing bonus tiles!!!

I can’t imagine there has ever been a better start than this. Of course this means that all 9 of my opponents probably have a precursor something or other on their home planet but with a start like this who the heck cares. This truly is the most amazing starting system ever!!!

It was clearly a blessing in disguise that I couldn't submit my previous game as the Korx. ;)
24,337 views 37 replies
Reply #1 Top
That's something, alright.
I do not ever recall having the two home planets so well suited to manufacturing and research capitals.

But be careful. They are going to be very expensive to max out.
Better get stock exchanges pretty quick.
Reply #2 Top
That is awesome! I probably would on create buildings on the precursor tiles and wait till mid game for the other bonus tiles, otherwise your economy will most likely go deep in red.
Reply #3 Top
But be careful. They are going to be very expensive to max out.
End of quote

Forget about maxing out. Even supporting a basic lab and basic factory is a killer.

I'm almost at a loss as to how to proceed. I went for Impulse drive and Sensors so that I can get multiple survey ships looking for anomalies toot sweet.

Then the basics of planetary improvements, advanced computing and xeno industrial theory. Tech cap with a xeno lab on the precusor library on my home planet and Manu cap with a factory on the precusor mine on my secondary.

But from that point there's like a million ways to go. This should be the strongest game ever, however there's no bigger burden than a great potential, at least that's what my mother always told me. ;p
Reply #4 Top
It's just a shame (I think) that it's in DL, where colony ships (all ships, really, but colony ships in general), due to engines, are substantially cheaper.

Probably the biggest thing that annoyed me back when I switched to DA from DL was that Impulse Drive has a base cost of 400 now instead of 100. Makes it substantially harder to get in the first month or two.

I've been seriously considering the Korx system as my home system for DA, though-having two planets that can support a decent population (or rather, have a decent pop growth) as well as actually build ships early in the early game would seem to be a gift from above.

Probably the closest I've ever gotten to this is a 700% research AND a 700% manufacturing tile on my home planet...along with a pathetic 100% food bonus tile. That wasn't a -bad- game by any means, but it would have worked out better if the 700% tiles had been on different planets, as in your game, being of different types.

With all of that said, I think I speak for all of us when I say I'm drooling.
Reply #5 Top
Wow. That's....impressive, Mumblefratz. I freely admit I'm rather jealous at the moment.  :p 
Reply #6 Top
Probably the closest I've ever gotten to this is a 700% research AND a 700% manufacturing tile on my home planet
End of quote

Actually I've long considered this to be the "holy grail" of starting planets and have never heard of anyone ever having one. Do you happen to have an endgame.sav or other save that you could post a screenshot from?

I actually think that both tiles being on the same planet and specifically on your home planet is better than having them split like I do here. The reason I say this is that regardless of the fact that they are on separate planets you only have one set of sliders and focus really doesn't shift all that much production from one thing to the other. So the way I typically operate is to go back and forth between bursts of research to get a specific tech followed by a burst of production to build something related to the tech I just acquired.

All in all, the only use I have for explicit research buildings, as opposed to all factory using focus to provide research, is during the very early part of the colony rush. Actually it's not so much that the research and production is split between two planets, it's that the production bonus is better to have on the higher PQ planet since it's natural that you would want to build all your wonders where you have the most production. Also the production is best on your home planet since that's the source of your pop but being only two parsecs away mitigates this issue.

Certainly it would have been better to have the tiles swapped between the two planets but let's just say beggars can't be choosers. While I'm at it I guess I could have wished for the production bonuses on a nearby PQ32 instead.  :d 
Reply #7 Top

Probably the closest I've ever gotten to this is a 700% research AND a 700% manufacturing tile on my home planet

Actually I've long considered this to be the "holy grail" of starting planets and have never heard of anyone ever having one. Do you happen to have an endgame.sav or other save that you could post a screenshot from?
End of quote


I wish...I had the savegame, but, long story short, I lost the data on that drive, and it -was- my backup.

I can look around and see if maybe just maybe it was in the files I recovered off of my old drive, which I was forced to attempt after losing everything, but I'm fairly positive it happened in the timespan after that drive, so I doubt it's there.

Higher PQ would be a good thing, certainly, but the difference between a 10 and an 8, even after terraforming, isn't that much. IMHO it's more about the fact that you can have ridiculous amounts of research and/or manufacturing early game, so long as you can fund them, then about having a planet that will let you research BHEs in one turn or build a huge hull suicide attack ship in 3 turns.

I would say, unless it were a small-ish game, I probably wouldn't put my tech capital on the research planet, and I most certainly wouldn't put my manufacturing capital on the manufacturing planet-though the latter has more to do with the intense nerfage that DA put the manu cap through than much else. But that's just me.

Reply #8 Top
The trouble with both being on the same planet is, there are not enough tiles to include both the Omega Research with the Tech Capital, and the Manufacturing Capital on the same planet.

Best is to get 2 700% tiles (of the same type) on a single planet.
But a 700% and 2 300% gives the same bonus - it just uses one more tile.

No, I think your current system is ideal. You still have room for econ buildings with this setup, and you wouldn't with both on the same planet.
Reply #9 Top
Hey Mumble send me a save game :D I know you save it i want to play with it !!


BTW I got a Purple Star today with two 26 PQ planets with it !!!

That is one of the Best we seen yet!! but like you said it kills your economy
Reply #10 Top
It only kills it if you are not careful enough.
Keeping the production sliders optimized for what you want to do 'this week' can make a big difference, as can not researching more advanced buildings too quickly.
Reply #11 Top
The trouble with both being on the same planet is, there are not enough tiles to include both the Omega Research with the Tech Capital, and the Manufacturing Capital on the same planet.
End of quote

I don't bother with these anymore. There is no real long term benefit to a true uber research planet. I view these buildings as waste of a tile because I can't later build a stockmarket on top of my tech cap, etc. By the end of the second game year I can gaurantee you that I will have stockmarkets built over all these bonus tiles including both precursor tiles.

The only benefit these have to me is early on in the colony rush and the only purpose of an early production planet like this is to be able to quickly build early wonders like the MCC, ASC and SCC and to be able to build a colony ship per turn. I have no need of any research buildings anywhere after the first two years of the game and my need for production probably doesn't last even that long.

Usually I consider my home planet a throw away planet that simply gets clogged up with early wonders. Late game wonders I simply buy and place on PQ4's. If I won't waste a tile on global research wonders like hyper computers or nano recorders I certainly won't waste a tile on a tech cap or omega research center that only gives a benefit to the planet its on. I will use the manu cap on my home planet if I have a poor starting planet that needs the boost to be able to produce a colony ship per turn, but like I said I consider my home planet a throw away planet most games.

I get my research more from the initial colony buildings on 400 planets than from any combination of research buildings, bonus tiles and research bonus buildings. I get my production by directly buying ships from an income of 1.3+ million bc's per week as opposed to actually producing them with industry.

By the time I conquer 100 AI planets (this is a gigantic galaxy game) all I will be building is stockmarkets on every tile of every planet. And I will have probably conquered 100 AI planets before the end of year 0, certainly by April of year 1. I may not get around to over building the factories and labs on my two starting planets until the end of year 1 but they certainly won't see new years day of year 2.

Hey Mumble send me a save game I know you save it i want to play with it !!
End of quote

Sure Nasty. :) I'll PM you at the Core.
Reply #12 Top
not researching more advanced buildings too quickly.
End of quote

Very true. I never build Industrial Sectors. In small to medium games I'll build Manufacturing Centers and sooner or later I need Industrial Sectors for resource mining starbases but I kill the upgrade on all my planets because the buildings cost and maintenance doesn't justify the buildings existence.

In my gigantic games I never build anything beyond factory, since I get my production from income.

In all games from tiny to gigantic I seldom if ever build a research building higher than a xeno lab and only build any research building on a 300% tile or better and then only for during the colony rush before I can do all factory. In small games I get my research from focused production and in gigantic games I get my research just from the shear number of planets that I own rather early.
Reply #13 Top
and in gigantic games I get my research just from the shear number of planets that I own rather early.
End of quote


I'm not sure I understand... if your research slider is set to zero (because you are doing all factory) then it shouldn't matter how many planets you have--your research should still be zero, right?

Clearly I'm missing something... please enlighten me! :)

KD
Reply #14 Top


I'm not sure I understand... if your research slider is set to zero (because you are doing all factory) then it shouldn't matter how many planets you have--your research should still be zero, right?

Clearly I'm missing something... please enlighten me! 
End of quote



All factory -> focus research.

Although I think it got nerfed a bit in TA?
Reply #16 Top


Hey Mumble send me a save game I know you save it i want to play with it !!

Sure Nasty. I'll PM you at the Core.
End of quote


Oh... Me too, please!

[email protected]
Reply #17 Top
I would love to see the numbers for your research and manufacturing if you constructed as many economic SBs as you could to include both planets at once. Since they are right next to one another, you would get the research bonuses on the one, and the factory bonuses on the other. I think I drooled a little...
Reply #18 Top
Oh... Me too, please!
End of quote

I just want to make sure everyone realizes this is an active metaverse game that I'm intending to submit to the metaverse once it's complete. My understanding is that it's registered to my character and would require someone to know my password to even attempt to submit the game and even if they did the only thing anyone could do would be to submit the game under my character. However I just finished a similar gigantic game that took me over a month to play that I couldn't submit to the Metaverse because I had uninstalled SDC and that had deleted my serial number from my registry. I've since recovered from this by restoring my registry and I'm playing this game as the Korx to replace the previous game I couldn't submit where I also played the Korx on my path to my racial medal.

Needless to say I will be extremely pissed if for whatever reason I am unable to submit this game when I finish it in the next month or two. Like I said no one should really be able to mess this up for me but I'm really not all that interested in testing the boundries of metaverse submission software. Anyone is certainly welcome to play the game if they wish but please don't attempt to submit the game to the metaverse. I'm doing folks a favor by providing this and no one better mess this up for me.

Another caveat emptor is that this game is DL version v1.4x which from experience people with DA should be able to load and play with no problems using the DL v1.5 version that's part of DA. However I've never done this myself so I only have the word of others that this can be done.

With all the above said, I downloaded the sav file from 1 Jan 2225 to the How's this for a home planet thread at the Core. Actually nothing has been done in this save file so you would need to colonize Korx II yourself to get the same start I have. Don't forget to fill up the colony ship with 500 colonists before doing so. The save file is in a zip file (a0.zip) that's attached to the OP of the above link. I am also going to be doing a running commentary about the game in that thread if anyone is interested. A lot of folks are familiar with the Core but in case you aren't you don't have to register to just to be able to read. If you want to post you have to register which only requires an email address and perhaps a day delay before an admin approves your registration. I'll try to post an update every game quarter and I'll also try to answer any questions that people ask.

Like I mentioned this will probably take me at least a month or more to finish and I will need to take a break or two during the game to play my Metaverse League (MVL) game. Also some game quarters may take me 15 minutes of real time whereas others could easily take a week. In any case any and all are welcome to kibitz.
Reply #19 Top
I would love to see the numbers for your research and manufacturing if you constructed as many economic SBs as you could to include both planets at once. Since they are right next to one another, you would get the research bonuses on the one, and the factory bonuses on the other. I think I drooled a little...
End of quote

That is an interesting thought but no I won't be doing that. I'm going to play the game out in my normal manner and see if I can crack that elusive 1 million point barrier.

However, as I mentioned above you could take this same start and see what you can do with it. At the moment I'm at work and I'm not positive the placement of the system in the sector allows the 16 SB's to cover both planets but like I said you can play the game out for yourself, I think that would be an interesting thing regardless of outcome.

Actually it might be interesting if we could get a bunch of people to play the same game out to completion and see how well different folks fare. It could be an interesting form of "tournament".

But like I said, please, please, no one better mess up my being able to submit this game.
Reply #20 Top
I'm not sure I understand... if your research slider is set to zero (because you are doing all factory) then it shouldn't matter how many planets you have--your research should still be zero, right?

Clearly I'm missing something... please enlighten me!
End of quote

All factory -> focus research.

Although I think it got nerfed a bit in TA?
End of quote

Um...

Actually there are three different cases. In the small to medium galaxy case (which is actually not the case here) I use factories with the slider set to 100% military (or 100% social, or sometimes 99% social/1% military) production and then have the focus of all my planets set to research which (in DL/DA, no clue how this has changed for TA) takes 25% of your military (or social) production and converts it into research. This is the All Factory strategy that pndrev makes reference to.

However, this actually is a gigantic galaxy where I do one of two different things. Starting out in the game in the early colony rush is the only time I build and use research buildings. However once I get a year or so into the game I transition from an old fashioned mix of research and production into a 100% economic strategy.

This transition period is a rather awkward time where I'm doing a bit of everything based on a whole bunch of variables that make it pretty difficult to describe. However at some point I have most of my planets converted into 100% stockmarkets and no longer have any need for military or social production and merely buy everything.

Once I reach a weekly income of on the order of 100K per week this is a reasonable and very possible thing to do and can usually be achieved fairly early in the game even before you own the bulk of the planets and resources in the galaxy. Once this occurs then all planets get converted to 100% economic worlds as soon as you acquire them and there is no need for any slider setting other than 100% research since all social and military production is simply purchased. This is the case where my only research is from the initial colony buildings of a 100 (or more) planets, since everything else is either a stockmarket or a starport.

Note that using this strategy my end game income is usually in the range of 1.3 to 1.6 million bc's per week so in that light 100K per week can happen as early as the end of year 0 (assuming an early and successful planet acquisition strategy).
Reply #21 Top
Now someone get a start like this for TA and post it please :)
Reply #22 Top
Don't worry, Mumble. I don't really play Metaverse.
Reply #23 Top
hey mumble, i don't supposed you have a turn 1 save you could perchance share? not to post to MV, i just think it'd be fun to play that start.
Reply #24 Top
don't supposed you have a turn 1 save you could perchance share?
End of quote


Read Mumble's Reply #18, he put a link there to it.

Also didn't see it mentioned that it is on suicidal, so folks used to playing at lower levels may get an eye opener :)
Reply #25 Top
sweet!