Starting as Cosmos CHAP 2 [2.96] (Semi-role-play)

Overview

CHAPTER 2 – Starting as Cosmos.Following 2.95, this “Captain’s Log” style narrative mostly just illustrates the thinking that goes into various early-on decisions. You really should complete all the tutorials before trying to follow this (or related) guides. If you know how to play, then I hope you enjoy getting inside my head.

Growth

(If you didn’t read Chapter 1 well.. read it!)

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Ad-Minister, request immediate update on progress towards Directive Prime. Cosmos facilities still offline, please advise.
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The colony is up-and-running, but we need to really get moving towards Cosmos’ goals, and corporate HQ setup immediately. Will need quite a bit of manufacturing capacity for this: Metal Refining, Plastics and Prefabs, and Heavy Assembly.

Inspecting facility designs, plans for the Electro-refinery require Beta-quality prefabs which are not sold on any marketplace we have access to.

However, we CAN manufacture them if we get plastics up and running. Let’s get to work on that.

Plastic Processing facilities are up, with an eager new Director hired. Blueprints for the facility needed. Now that we have SciTech, there’s no sense not using the Generic Blueprints on-hand from Cosmos, so we’ll get Plastic Sorting up and running right away and start sending out extraction missions.

Plastic Processing has put a strain on energy generation. We’re right at the edge. Additional complication, multi-tasking so many different extraction missions via one flight hangar has created a slow-down in overall resource production.

Flight is constantly asking for more energy diverted there way, which I’m happy to do to increase their output; but I have to watch it carefully because batteries drain fast.

Electronics production is slow, and plastics are severely understaffed. Something else is nagging me. With energy capacity right at the edge, even adding one more facility is going to slow all operations down dramatically. Going to try a new strategy and stock up on all required materials before building new facilities.

Food supplies are good, plastics not currently being utilized. All Flight now dedicated strictly to Metal for electronics production.

Tactical Error. Having originally located Plastic Processing next to SciTech, it finally dawned on me: I can’t reduce energy output to plastic WITHOUT affecting SciTech. Relocation efforts are underway to relocate Plastics and Prefab to the same connected platforms, right next to each other. That way I can increase and decrease plastic and prefab energy consumption as a single unit.

Lost some iron in the move, but we can buy that back with remaining credits.

First Expansion

Plastic and Prefab are up and running. Targeting Electro-Refinery next, since I’ll need both Beta-Prefabs and Steel to do Heavy Assembly. Of course the main question: where will be build all these extra buildings?

Expansion to one of the outer rings is necessary, but it will require access to equipment that I can’t purchase. NeoIndustrial would sell me the equipment if I had enough influence with them, which I don’t. So we have two options.

OPTION 1 – Call in a few favors with Cosmos: purchase (Wildcard) Influence with NeoIndustrial so I can gain access to their electronics markets.

OPTION 2 – Get Heavy Assembly up and running and just manufacture the equipment myself.

Which do I have more of? Money or time?

Screw Neo, we have plenty of time, let’s go with Option #2. Stay focused on our refining capabilities for now, with the goal of having enough materials to build an Assembly Tunnel.

The Waiting Game

Ran out of living space. More waiting, more queues. These Residential Blocks are great, and the colonists work much faster because of their quality of life, but we need better materials to build them as well.

The long wait is over. Enough materials exist to begin construction on the Assembly Tunnel, but there’s one obvious and glaring problem: there’s no place to put it. How do you handle placing a building that is required to generate components which are needed to allow us to expand so we can place more buildings?

We’ll need to tear an existing building down.

After studying the materials needed to produce the Electric Transformer and Reinforced Wiring needed to expand, it’s apparent that I won’t be needing that Prefab Factory to make anything, prior to the expansion. So we’ll knock it down, save as much materials as we can from the demolition and get Heavy Assembly up and running.

(Using F2 is a tremendously valuable tool. In the screenshot above, I dragged Electric Transformer from the NeoIndustrial market (can’t purchase it, but I CAN see it) to produced goods to figure out what its inputs are. In the SS you can see me dragging Reinforced Wiring to inspect its inputs as well. This is a powerful tool in the planning process.)

Manufacturing coming along well enough, a bit slow for my liking. Manufacturing Queue Roster received from all Heavy Industry Sectors:

Those specific blueprint queue / duty rosters are keeping things moving at a decent pace. Reinforced Wiring spooled out relatively slowly, making use of Beta Plastic Composites

Corporate Take-over

Maybe I shoulda gone the purchase route. Just now beginning production on that Electric Transformer.

FINALLY, all components are ready. Need to charge up the batteries a bit before platform activation, but it will be nice to have the room to stretch out.

(I was confused forever about how to expand until I realized that all the “black squares” need both platform AND Hub Station to be constructed, but the outer “ring” platforms — the ones just outside of your starter platforms — those platforms are already built. You just need to build the hub station and have enough energy to activate it.)

New platform built! Will spend some time increasing dome energy capacity first, before expanding. More work for the Assembly Tunnel, building Amplifiers and Accumulators.

During that long haul, waiting for the transformer to be built, SciTech produced several Invention Docs and were able to research production techniques for the electrical goodies.

With energy production improved a bit, following manufacture of increased generation devices, I could finally rebuild that old Prefab Factory on the brand new platform.

(The expanded platforms have larger, more interesting configurations, you can really tweak your building templates to form Tetris-like interlocking buildings, try to maximize the space you use!)

Prefab complete, and we barely needed to produce any more materials to build Corporate HQ. Cosmos HQ has been constructed, and we’re ready to resume Directive Prime. Let’s get off this wet ball of mud. I hope I’m in for a promotion.

At this point, you have a growing and thriving colony where:
– the first expansion platform has been opened
– the first corporate HQ is in place, allowing for colony expansion and significant research
– all major production lines are in place (except Ship Manufacturing)

Chapter 3 begins next, during which we will level up the colony and place a major focus on Colony Morale.