Colonize

[Technomage]

Tezzezar and Atrocities have some good advice for you. I would add that if you're moving into a possible war zone with your colony ship:

1. Be careful how many colonists you load. Use the manual load command to control exactly how many millions of people you are willing to risk.

2. Send escorts with your ship! Pretty obvious, but easy to miss in the heat of battle.

3. Don't hit the automatic colonize button if your ship will be traveling across most of a system to get to the planet you want to colonize. It will plow ahead, no matter what, and may well end up in a combat situation. Control the movement manually, in short command steps.

[Baron Munchausen]

And one final hint: Anything in the cargo storage of your colonizer will be deposited in the cargo of the planet when it is colonized. So if you build larger colonizers out of transports later on, you can build a WP or two and include it in the colonizer to give your new colony 'built in' defenses when it lands.

[Baron Grazic]

I'm still learning, Thanks Baron M.

[Tezzezar]

Another couple of neat design ideas:

1. Use light cruisers for colony ship hulls when you research them. They allow more components and six engines. The added speed is worth the cost in the mad rush to gain territory.

2. Stealth armor is cheap and gives you the ability to cloak. A great addition for a CL colony ship that allows you to enter many war zones unescorted.

3. Extend the range with solar collectors.

4. Beware of mines. The bane of all ships.

T-

[Atrocities]

Later on when you can afford it, make ships with all three colony components. This will save you a lot of time, as you can send this ship to colonize any world.

[Elowan]

Originally posted by Atrocities:
Later on when you can afford it, make ships with all three colony components. This will save you a lot of time, as you can send this ship to colonize any world.

Hmmm. This may not be a bad idea since - I believe - each colony component has space to store population - you get 2 extra pop regardless of planet type. That's assuming that you're using the Colonize button which loads population automagically. In which case it should fill each colony module.

The only downside is that extra population 'storage' is a helluva lot more expensive than one storage crate.

This is almost as good as the Universal Colony Module (component) I devised to colonize 'any'.

[ September 12, 2002, 07:40: Message edited by: Elowan ]

[Wardad]

Time is one of the most important resources of the game.
I always consider build time and travel time when choosing from my colony designs. I also consider my shipyards build time to be valuable.
I end up building very simple colony ships until later in the game when I might build a few specialty ones that are faster, longer ranged, or stealth.
In the early game I want to crank out colcony ships fast. Typically I can build a colony ship with 4 engines in 2 shipyard turns.
I will even build them without engines if it saves shipyard time. BUT... beware, an engine retrofit does not add fuel. A supply storage retrofit does have fuel. So do this at or near a planet with a resupply base.