ok, this is embarrassing but....

[BooDro82]

i have no idea what im doing, LOL.
i watched the tutorials but not understanding too much.
I have set up an outpost and built a probe and harvester.
I have started building a shipyard.
I have sent a harvester to a nearby planet....it just says its in transit.
I am relatively new to this type of game.
I am completely lost on what to do.
Any help would be appreciated :)

[ChickenHawk07]

Phew, definitely read the forums. There are some great posts on early strategies and how to trade, harvest and build. Too much to type in one post. It'll take you some time to learn how to play, and even more to play well. But once you do, I think you'll be as hooked as I am.

[BooDro82]

is this correct? My common ore on my home planet is 21Ku/+1Ku...that means it currently has 21 and makes 1 per hour?

[Velucritus]

That is correct.

[BooDro82]

and the population is 400mu....this increases automatically?
also...there are 4 planets in my sector...i send harvesters to these four to collect resources?
and when i have an outpost ship...do i send it to one of these 4 planets? or to another sector?

[Velucritus]

400mu is the population. It will stay at 400mu if your homeworld's terraform level is 80% unless you do a few skills in the science tree, sorry I don't remember the exact names but one lets population increase per rank and then the one that lets you build terraformers.

Yes the 4 planets in your starting sector with your home world are already outposted just make a harvesting route, third button when you select a harvestor, and select the planet you want to harvest as the source and your homeworld as the destination.

When you create an outpost ship you want to send it to another sector, as the ones in your starting area are already under your control.

[BooDro82]

ok i have them harvesting and have sent the outpost ship to a nearby sector. how long does it normally take for it to arrive?
the sector next to my home sector has a green flashing light with some bars next to it...what does that mean?
all of the other blocks dont have anything...

edit: my outpost ship arrived and i placed it on a planet in a new sector when i open that planet menu it says pop 0u
and at the bottom it says ore mining available...what do i do now?

[Velucritus]

The time it takes depends on the distance, also the speed of the ship but for an outpost ship i'd say if it's a few sectors away maybe a few minutes.
The flashing light is the star, the bars next to it are how many planets in that sector. The bars will fill up brightly if you own a planet(s) in that sector, and darkly if someone else owns a planet(s) in that sector.
There are a lot of empty sectors, the vast nothingness of space. Also you won't see outside of your one sector grid around your home sector until you send probes out to explore.

[BooDro82]

so i send probes to those empty sectors?

[Leedot]

The other planets in your solar system are already outposts. The next steps for you would be to send out probes to start exploring galaxy. Once your probes find some new planets in nearby star systems you'll want to start creating new outposts (or colonies) so you can start building up the amount of CO / RO you're collecting.

In case you haven't see this thread Raven gives a pretty good overview of how to approach the game. (people's play styles may vary but it's a good starting point over all.)

http://www.zarksoft.com/cms/showthread.php?649-Raven-s-Guide-to-Winning-Empire-of-the-Eclipse

[BooDro82]

thanks for all of your help guys. sorry for all the dumb questions.
so i just send probes out to sectors around me? some may have planets and some may be empty?

[Leedot]

Boo - Generally you want to send your probes out far, far away or at least to the edge of the 25x25 sector map that your system is in. As it moves toward it's destination it'll uncover new star systems.

[Leedot]

No worries Boo, it's definitely not the easiest game to get into.

[BooDro82]

oh ok.... so as the probe passes up those unexplored sectors it will uncover whats in them even though its not the dest?

[Leedot]

Correct! :)

[BooDro82]

ok awesome...i am def starting to get into this with explanation. one last major question...i started an outpost on another sector...how do i start to build its pop? or can i just have harvesters deliver resources to it?

[AntiHaze]

ok awesome...i am def starting to get into this with explanation. one last major question...i started an outpost on another sector...how do i start to build its pop? or can i just have harvesters deliver resources to it?

Outposts don't have populations, only colonies do.

[BooDro82]

alright...so should i have harvesters deliver resources to the outposts?

[ChickenHawk07]

ok awesome...i am def starting to get into this with explanation. one last major question...i started an outpost on another sector...how do i start to build its pop? or can i just have harvesters deliver resources to it?

You'll need to build an Orbital Shipyard before you can build a Colony Ship. The Shipyard takes 24 hours to build, so start building it at your Homeworld as soon as you can. Again, Colonies have Population, and for every 100Mu Pop, you get a Factory. All your building of
Ships, Shipyards, Orbital Defenses are all built in factories. Stuff you can't build yet is orange and if you scroll down it will tell you what you are required to have to build it, be it Tech or Shipyard

[BooDro82]

ok, i started building a shipyard yesterday :) am i getting the basics down?

[ChickenHawk07]

alright...so should i have harvesters deliver resources to the outposts?

Negative. Think of outposts as Planetary Mines. All they do is produce Ore (rare or ordinary). Deliver all your ore to your Homeworld for now, it's where the Factories are located.

[ChickenHawk07]

ok, i started building a shipyard yesterday :) am i getting the basics down?

Sounds like it. Just remember, Outposts support
The colony worlds, (the production facilities), not the other way around.

[BooDro82]

ooooh...ok so all of these "mines" produce ore and it increases my "total ore"?

[ChickenHawk07]

And when you do make your first
Colony Ship, make sure you send it to a world which is at least 60-80% Terraformed. You'll see that in the planet's stats. And it takes like 6 hours till your colony world traces 100Mu population, so don't set up your first new cony near Someone you know to be hostile. A new Colony has 120k Common Ore on it, so its ripe
For the picking.

[ChickenHawk07]

ooooh...ok so all of these "mines" produce ore and it increases my "total ore"?

Mines produce ore and start stockpiling it on the planet itself. You use harvesters to remove
The stockpiled ore from the outpost to the Colony, where it is utilized to produce more harvesters, probes, ships, ect... Don't forget to set your Technology Specialty and queue up some research, which is in the top icon that looks like a flow chart or "Tree"

[BooDro82]

thanks for all of the help guys...im really starting to understand.
my probe came across a sector with a red glowing light and planets it says 0/0/2...?

[ChickenHawk07]

The video tutorials are an extremely basic guide to helping you begin your game, and in no way cover all the beginning basics. When it comes to trading, start reading some of the threads that are
Titled "Trade" and such. It's a lot of information, do the more you read and te more
Questions you answer, either by reading or asking, the better prepared you'll be. Only a small handful of
People here know what to expect in the weeks and months ahead into a game.

[ChickenHawk07]

thanks for all of the help guys...im really starting to understand.
my probe came across a sector with a red glowing light and planets it says 0/0/2...?

The lights don't matter, that's just the color of the Sun, which as far as I know has no significant meaning. The 0/0/2 goes like this: Forat Number is how many planets you have in that sector second is how many other players have in the sector and the Last is how many total planets
Are on the sector.

[Leedot]

Starting out you want harvesters to take resources from your outposts and bring them back to your homeworld since that's the only place you have factories that can build more ships. The economies are localized so you need resources at the location that you want to build things.

[BooDro82]

alright. another question...so if a sector says 1/0/5 it means i control one of the 5 planets..and if i build a colony on one of those then i will own them all...but if i just put an outpost then i only control that one?

[VanderLegion]

No, a colony only gives you control of the planet you put the colony on. The difference between a colony and an outpost is that an outpost only generates resources but can't do anything with them, while the colony will generate resources, but also gets population and once the pop is high enough, gets factories to build stuff with said resources. It's only in your starting system that you get control of every planet automatically, after that you can build a colony in another system but will still need to create outposts on all the other planets if you want them as well.

[BooDro82]

so is it good practice to occupy all planets in a sector?

[VanderLegion]

Yah, the more planets you have the better, since it means more income. For the most part you only need outposts on most planets with harvesters bringing the resources back to your colonies. Definitely shouldn't need more than 1 colony per system (sector? whatever you wanna call the view with the star and planets visible), you shouldn't need a colony in every single system, but I have no idea yet how many colonies you want vs outposts etc.

[BooDro82]

ok sounds good....just waiting for my shipyard to finish so i can build new ships.
i noticed alot of things i cannot build because i do not meet requirements.
are they mostly structures (shipyards, etc), tech, or ore?
do you use ore to build ships?

[VanderLegion]

You use ore to build everything. Everything (I believe) requires some amount of common ore (CO), some also require rare ore (RO). Some things simply require the shipyard for you to build them - like the colony ship. Most require you to research something before you build them- if you look through various research options they'll tell you what they allow you to build. Looking at items in the factory they list requirements as well, but I'm not certain they're all correct (I believe battleship fails to list the research required to build it for example).

[BooDro82]

Ok I have my shipyard built but I don't have enough CO to build a colony ship. I have some small harvesters going but only like 4...I just realized that they don't count toward your object count...true? Should I build hundreds of these?

[BooDro82]

I saw that because I built my shipyard it allows for more objects, so do the small harvesters take up an object.
Also, I have been harvesting planets in my sector. They show to have 1Ku of CO...but when I open the planet menu it says 0u....does that mean I have harvested all of the CO and need to wait for it to regenerate?

[TheWhiteLights]

They do count to your object count. So far the only way to refresh the object count is by logging out and logging back in. :(

[AntiHaze]

Hey, whoever was asking for a manual... I think we should just turn this thread into the manual lol

[VanderLegion]

Also, I have been harvesting planets in my sector. They show to have 1Ku of CO...but when I open the planet menu it says 0u....does that mean I have harvested all of the CO and need to wait for it to regenerate?

Yah, small harvesters can drain a planet in the same system faster than it can regenerate. They'll keep running the harvest routes and whenever it's generated more resources the harvester will grab it and take it back to the destination.

[BooDro82]

So I need to keep an eye on the planets..and when they are drained move the harvesters to a new place?

Yeah this could be a manual lol.
It has helped me tremendously!

[VanderLegion]

I just leave the harvesters set to the planets. Like I said, they'll keep harvesting as the planet keeps generating resources.

[ChickenHawk07]

So I need to keep an eye on the planets..and when they are drained move the harvesters to a new place?

Yeah this could be a manual lol.
It has helped me tremendously!

If you're hurting on your Object count you can use one harvester per colony system, but that requires ALOT of micromanaging. And believe me, I mean a lot! But if you can spare it, and I suspect you can, as the 'ole RTS "Rush" doesn't really work in this game, you should keep one Harvester per outpost. It makes your life a lot easier.

[BooDro82]

If i build a colony, but it doesnt have the population for a factory yet....can i deliver ore to it or do i need to wait for my first factory?

[Royce]

If i build a colony, but it doesnt have the population for a factory yet....can i deliver ore to it or do i need to wait for my first factory?

You can star transporting ore there right away.

[BooDro82]

ok, thanks!

[Eslosh]

Hope you don't mind, I might tack on a few questions to this thread:

- One of my planets shows 0u / +0u. Is it possible for a planet to never replenish anything and be completely out of resources?
(Update: Validated with Leedots information: It is Jovian, and I have no skills to harvest)
- Can small harvesters deliver to resource harvesters as their destination (I suppose this is something I should test but I havent yet had time to build a larger one yet)? Even more so, is a small harvester capable of doing everything a resource harvester can but is just a lot slower and carries a lot less or is there things that it cant do?
-Since I haven't been in combat yet, do my ships have to be near a planet to defend or will they defend the entire sector if an enemy enters that sector?


Thanks again to everyone on these forums. I've gone from completely bewildered to only slightly bewildered ;)

[Leedot]

Hi Eslosh -

- Umm.. no, it shouldn't be. Planets won't produce RO unless you have advanced materials collection and not every planet produces both RO / CO but they all produce something. If your planet isn't producing anything at all let us know and we'll take a look at it on the server. My guess though is you have a gas dwarf / jovian planet which only produce RO and you haven't researched advanced materials collection.

- No, you can only set planets as your source / destination. Small harvesters can do everything regular harvesters (or cargo ships or freighters) can do. The two main differences between all trade related ships is their speed and how much cargo they can carry.

- Your ships will only defend the planet they're located at.

[BooDro82]

is the max population for a planet 400?

[BooDro82]

@Eslosh not at all!! i hope this forum helps others as much as it has helped me. ask as many questions as you like.
welcome and good luck. this thread has helped me tremendously. this is the first time i have played a game of this type and had NO clue what to do.

[dbresson]

What a great thread! I appreciate all the great answers on here! I've learned a whole lot!

I have two more newbie questions to add:

First: I've read here about the harvesters draining the ore from a planet faster than the planet can churn it out. Does anyone actually know the actual rate in time that these harvesters take ore from a planet (and if you do, does it differ with the different harvester ships)? Just curious.

Second: I've been working on stuff in my tech tree. What are the different ranks for for each tech? For example, if I just trained a specific tech, and it's now Rank 1/9 - if I train in again it'll be 2/9 and so on, all the way to 9/9. Does the "special ability" this tech gives me get better with each rank or something? What does the rank mean?

Thanks for the help all! And thanks to Zarksoft for a great game!

[BooDro82]

When researching new tech....do you have to have at least one researched in each tier in order to move to the next?
like you have to have a tier 1 completed in order to research a tier 2? and a tier 2 completed in order to start a 3?

[Wrath]

To answer BooDro82's question - yes, I finally realized recently you do have to complete tier 1 research before you can do tier 2 or for example you have to complete a tier 4 before you can research a tier 5 research, etc.

(I would click on a tier 5 or 6 research item and at the bottom of the screen text would pop up saying that it was adding to my queue and researching, but when I would go to the queue, it would be empty. Kinda confusing or misleading.)

[ChickenHawk07]

is the max population for a planet 400?

No, I believe it is 900Mu, or at least that's where you cap out on Factories. So each colony planet, with the proper terraforming level can give you 9 factories. However, you have to research your Planetary Tech to the Max to reach that on a high terraform level planet. You can raise your terraform level by using a terraformer, and I believe the percentage gained from each Terraformer is increased by your terraformer Tech Level.

So that should also answer the other question someone had. Each increase in your Tech level for a particular skill increases its "efficiency", if you will. Most of the skills tell you what you get out of each increase in level. Take Advanced Material Collection: As a trader, you get a bump of 10% of the planet's total RO ability per level. So as a Trader, you are able to get a planet to produce 100% of its RO capability. And that capability is seen when you click on a scouted planet before you put a mining outpost or colony on it.

[ChickenHawk07]

What a great thread! I appreciate all the great answers on here! I've learned a whole lot!

I have two more newbie questions to add:

First: I've read here about the harvesters draining the ore from a planet faster than the planet can churn it out. Does anyone actually know the actual rate in time that these harvesters take ore from a planet (and if you do, does it differ with the different harvester ships)? Just curious.

Second: I've been working on stuff in my tech tree. What are the different ranks for for each tech? For example, if I just trained a specific tech, and it's now Rank 1/9 - if I train in again it'll be 2/9 and so on, all the way to 9/9. Does the "special ability" this tech gives me get better with each rank or something? What does the rank mean?

Thanks for the help all! And thanks to Zarksoft for a great game!

The time it takes a harvester to harvest the available ore on a planet is dependent on a few factors, 1) How far away from the destination planet the Harvester is, ie: Length of round trip route. 2) How much ore the Harvester can take in a single load, and 3) How much ore that planet makes per hour, which is the +# you see in the planet info or when clicking on a planet that you own.

If an outpost is in the same sector as the destination planet, one small harvester can pretty much clean out a mining outpost and keep up with the hourly rate at which the planet is producing. At that point, you can just assume you are receiving the full amount per hour the planet is capable of producing. Hope that helps.

And for your second question, see my post above this one.