Own your own Planet!

After many, many long testing and debug sessions, planet ownership is in!

The help files will be updated shortly with full tutorial on planet ownership, but for now, here is a summary of what, and how.

First, and foremost: colonizing a planet is not CHEAP! And them pesky little colonists require a lot of support before they are able to get off the ground. Not enough food, water, and medical support? They rebel, leave the planet or die from starvation!

In the planet list, locate an uninhabited planet, capable of supporting life. The more natural resources it has, the better, the full sweep is a planet that has Water, Agriculture, Organics, and Metals.

The planet cannot be in the central cluster, you must find one out on the fringes.
Using the planet list again, set the search to planets capable of trade, and the farthest right columns will tell you the status of it’s population: how many wish to leave (refugees) and how many a populated planet can/will accept. Not enough of the basics to sustain life? They look for a new home. Booming economy on a planet? It needs more people to man its economic engine, and sends out a call for more.

You are not paid, nor do you have to pay for loading up refugees, colonists. Same goes for dropping them off.

So, now that you’ve loaded up on colonists, take them to the uninhabited planet. With the ship containing colonists selected, and in orbit, right click on the planet, and choose “drop off colonists”. Your cargo holds of crammed in, in stasis, colonists are now to free to roam the planet, make it on their own, and most likely die of starvation, that is unless you help out…..

After you drop off colonists, the planet management window appears. You can always access this window by right clicking on the planet, or from the manage planet button in the planets list. Your planets will appear green in the list.

Your colony is tech level 4, barely capable of trade, incapable of building ships, and can only build the most basic facilities.

Until the colony is self-supporting, you must drop off supplies for them, if the planet has water available, they can use the supply with no problems. Food, and medical supplies must be imported.

For them to buy things from traders that visit them, and build facilities, the planet must have credits. The planet keeps a separate account from yours. For them to build anything, or buy anything, they must have credits. On the first tab of the window, is the transfer credits tab. be sure to give them plenty of operating capital!
In order to build facilities on the planet, the colonists must have organic compounds and metals. You’ll need to drop these off in large quantities, to meet the demands of the population, and build new facilities.'

Under planet management, there is a facilities tab. This is where you build facilities. Select one to build, and build away, notice that these take time!
You’ll also notice a few other tabs, ship construction and Population Management. When you planet reaches tech level 5, one of the things you can build is a shipyard, capable of building your own ships.. Eventually, you may also have to assign populations to tasks, if there is not enough to go around.

Basic thumbnails rules:

You cannot colonize a central cluster planet

The planet must have a habitable atmosphere (for now)

Planets cannot attack ships, and ships, cannot attack planets. You will (eventually) be able to land military units on the planet, and take over a planet.

Until the population can build facilities to produce food, and medical supplies, they will die off, unless you supply them.

Planets need credits to build things. Unless you give them credits, they cannot build anything.

Transfer credits from you to the planet from the planet management window.

When your ships drop off goods from you, your ship is not paid. Likewise, when your planet starts producing, and you wish to sell off the surplus, it’s free for the pickup!

Other Changes for this update:

Many minor issues and bugs have been addressed. Thanks for all your help and input!

Planets can no longer repair ships of any tech level. The ship must be at or below the tech level of the planet in order to make repairs.

Future changes
Building and repairing ships: Owned planets building ships, still needs just a touch of work, if you progress to this point (a few days at least!) Before the ship is complete, you may have to repair it. Repairs, for all but a Deocron 50 will take time, ship construction still needs a bit of a change, and should be out in a few days.

Stations are going to get an overhaul they will not be able to build ships, but repair them. Along with that, you can order them to claim/repair ships they find abandoned. Other ships, when damaged, will have an additional setting: “go somewhere (a planet or a station) for repair.

Colonizing ships

Colony in a box, suitable for planets of a given class, without atmosphere. Bio dome, and basic facilities will be included in the ship. They’re one shot, that is, you deploy them on a planet, and they convert to the facilities.

Military units.

This, was omitted from this update to give everyone a feel for planet ownership before attacking each other, but the gist is this: planets will be able to train and convert the general population into troops, with military training facilities. These Military units defend the planet, retain law and order, and more importantly can be loaded up on troop transports to do a number on someone else’s planet! In time of needs, colonists will form militia units capable of assisting in a planet’s defense.

Law, Order, Rebellion, and overthrow.

If you’re planet’s population is starving, and, the military is not present. . They will rebel, production will suffer, and credits belonging to the planet will disappear as corruption takes over. Eventually, you may loose control of the planet.

There’s more, much more in the works, but that’s the features that will be showing up next in The Far Reaches of Space….

Dan

aka Sideovs