¶
SSP's Questions and Answers
This is a chronological list of my questions and paraphrased answers; a record of my journey through learning the game, with regular updates. -Slutty Space Pirate
For the living doc, that may or may not be more up to date and is almost certainly less well formatted, click here
¶ 1. Hour 1, I have no money and life is shit?
The very first useful sources of credits are A: to focus on mining gold and selling it on the market. Also, the market in general is extremely necessary through all stages of the game, so it's worth learning. Source B: the money printer, present in the bank tab. The paper generates automatically over time and upgrading the printer will also give you a free refill. Hitting a normal jackpot can be worth a whole lot when you are starting out, and a better jackpot at level 30 can be worth like 50 quadrillion, a vast fortune at the beginning. But don't dump too much gold into it, it's a slot machine basically and gold is worth too much to waste it all on that.
¶ 2. Market, shiny things to buy?
Buy things as you need them for the growth cycle (talked about later), which really just means you'll be buying a lot of iron, a lot of slaves, some tritium, and a few professors.
¶ 3. Professors? Buying nerds?
Yes, but they can be untrained into teachers, which can be untrained into… untrained. This is a (pretty expensive) but useful way to basically buy units, great for instances where you have a lot of credits to burn compared to your untrained generation or have an emergency need for untrained and can't wait for them to populate.
¶ 4. In the unit training window, it shows the 'gain' effect from a number of trained units, does that factor in all bonuses like facilities? or is it just the base effect?
Yes, this takes into account all current bonuses and math and shows a “true effect” of the additional units INCLUDING the diminishing returns calculation. Very useful for comparing different uses of arbitrary amounts of untrained. See below
¶ 5. Feeling unsure about my composition, any recommendations? kind of going for credits to get enough astronomy to... literally see anything outside my star system. lvl 34 gold mine going and lvl 184 food factories as well 'screenshot of unit distribution'
The overwhelming feedback I received here is that, until about 100k untrained per tick where things slow down a bit and you can spread your focus, the general growth strategy is to cycle through farmers(base untrained per second) > food factory/coal generator(multiplicative towards untrained per second) > engineers (to fulfill the various facility requirements) > scientists (to add additional multipliers from research) and tick generator (for a functional global speed boost).. Resources/credits and factory/ships/space mining are both separate from the growth cycle but important for actually funding the costs of the growth cycle.
¶ 6. Are factory workers a waste of untrained? seems like they would be better off as engineers.
It seems that way at first, because engineers are used in multiple areas and have higher base production power, but no, they are a separate method of boosting factory production that, due to a separate diminishing returns equation, means they will be a more effective way to boost factories at a certain ratio. Just use the gain checking method in question 4 to be sure.
¶ 7. Just a quick sanity check to make sure I dont blow way too much money on astronomy, i've got astronomy 203 and i still cant see another star system, i've seen the map on the Ilenium wiki but i'm not sure how to get the info from there, what kind of astronomy level am I looking for to see the next system?
This question is one I was stuck on for a while and the reason is that it's not very simple. The stretching methods to see more on the galaxy map being dependent on your hardware, in combination with the general sight advantage for horizontally aligned systems, mean there are no real hard numbers for this. It will also heavily depend on RNG for how close your nearest system is. VERY generally, 220 galaxy astro and 2 or 3 research astro SHOULD allow most anyone to see the next nearest system. If those both seem like huge costs, that's likely by design because the requirements for colonization are higher anyway (you will need the first colony research to make the first colony, as well as a good amount of factory production to make the first colony ship).
¶ 8. Just to be clear, when you can 'see' a system it will show up in the right drop down alongside the home system, right?
Yes, you do not need to visually identify the next system or anything shitty like that, it will show up like this:
¶ 9. Iron just do be costing a lot out here.
Yeah buying a lot of iron early on is super normal, as well as selling gold to fund that. Also, even with a crap factory, if you are in a system with iron, getting a carrier and dozen mining ships out and mining whatever lava planets are available(if there are any in your system) can pretty easily triple your iron intake, saving you a lot of credits.
¶ 10. I started 6 days ago, I literally don't know how even your progress is possible Arjun. how did you have enough credits for the like 200m iron alone in costs for food factory and coal power? And like 200 quintillion in gold?
This other player had an absolutely meteoric growth explosion very early on. It was almost entirely fueled by raiding inactive players in the home system. Depending on your luck, this will PROBABLY not be possible for you, as new players tend to start in systems together. If you are like me and have zero inactives in your home system, you’ll need to get on the astro grind to have this option 
¶ 11. Wow I didn’t know raiding could be so profitable.
Feast your eyes:
¶ 12. I don't think there are any real downsides to a bunch of slaves right?
Very minor ones. Some spaghetti math messes up the wealth change calculation and therefore happiness, but it goes away quickly. It will also clog the shit out of your barracks with the training time but it's totally worth the turbo-boost to your gold/iron mining. Buy many slaves early on and train them, it's okay, they are potatoes not people :)
¶ 13. Tritium? Gas giants? I don't see any in my home system?
Yeah gas giants are not found in every system, which means you will very likely not be able to do space mining for tritium until the astro grind is far progressed. That means you buy it on the marking while making a sour face, unfortunately.
¶ 14. I think on engineers im like 120M short, but that's not accounting for all the ones i'll need on power gen which is significant.
With a credit infusion from a few sources(later I swear) I was and continue to be engineer blocked, meaning I had plenty of credits to enhance food factories and other facilities but couldn't actually run them without engineers. It'll smooth out eventually. Barracks have a weird cost curve, meaning you will probably want barracks level 100 fairly early and then barely touch it after that.
¶ 15. How the heck does the unemployment debuff work? i've got like .000003% unemployed {and also} wow holy shit my wealth change and happiness is crashing, halp.
Okay look, basically all 3 things in the happiness tab (productivity, sickness, and wealth) are quite buggy and hard to predict but generally very easy to mitigate with the work mode dropdowns. Pollution is the only thing that requires some work or strategy.
¶ 16. But the work modes hurt my income a lot.
It's okay, even in max work mode those potato boys are going to be running hard negative income for a very long time, you’ll be making plenty of credits in other ways.
¶ 17. Any loose calculations with the metallurgy upgrade, or other diminishing return calculations? Literally no clue how to mentally model a reduction in diminishing returns lol.
No, I'm sure eventually Sharky and other excel bros will create calculators (and some may have personal spreadsheets for it already) for this but at the moment it's just :shrug: feel it out as you go.
¶ 18. How can you tell if someone is inactive? When do I raid someone?
The galaxy view page is wonky, it will show people with the same style (all white names) if you are viewing the system at a broad level, but if you zoom in the names will format into a helpful way: see below image: Grey names are inactive. If they are inactive, EVEN IF THEY HAVE PVP DISABLED, they can be raided. White names are active, but don't have pvp enabled. Red names are active, with PVP enabled. What if you can't zoom in? Then you'll have to click each planet and then check the names: see second below image: inactive will say so, specifically. Read your alliance rules about attacking before you do anything. If you're not in an alliance…. Probably join one TBH.
¶ 19. About how many untrained/tick is a good time to look towards the first colony? and what kind of defensive power should I hold when I flip the pvp switch to actually colonize? and do you need the first colonization research for your first colony, or is the research for colony 2+?
I didn't get any explicit answers for this, but I've inferred most of the info: colonizing will require pvp to be enabled so prepare accordingly. Your first colony will require the first research for colonization, which is quite a large barrier. You’ll need a shit ton of science and then a half shit ton of factory production to make the colony ship. For general reference, I am about to colonize on my 14th day of playing. How much defensive power? Depends entirely on your alliance’s influence and how close you are to shitters/ thick allies. Probably dont be completely defenseless and spyless and maidenless while holding a lot of resources.
¶ 20. Okay but actually now, credits? The gold trickle is not cutting it and more gold mining facilities will take 10 days to pay for themselves…
I didn't ask this question in chat because I was a bit embarrassed; I had already received like 10 diamonds worth of gifts and didn't want to get more gifts or anything, I was just financially unsure about credits and feeling like progress was very slow without raiding targets. This might happen to you. If you cant or dont want to rely on a cash injection/gift/loan from alliance members (which is totally fair) there will be a progress dip here for a lot of you. Option 1 is slower but steadily useful: focus on mining iron/gold and the researches that boost those, and you'll fairly quickly reach 30 gold per minute which will be able to fund quite a lot. Option 2, to be perfectly honestly is what I did, i got out of it by swiping the card and giving the developer $25 in exchange for 1200 diamonds (1.4 sextillion worth of credits at time of writing) then using the staking system to lock 1000 of those diamonds away to create a 14 day generation of 12.2 diamonds (15 quint, 30 quint monthly free passive income) and use the rest for credit injection in the early game.
¶ 21. Pay 2 win, credit card?
Honestly, yes, it sure seems that way to my 10 days of playtime(at time of writing). Credits do not trivialize literally everything, or mitigate strategy entirely, but you can very much just swipe your way to dominance theoretically. I don't love this for many reasons, HOWEVER, the USD to credit conversion rate does seem really generous to my newb eyes and I PERSONALLY don't have a problem with giving $25 to a dev for a game I've put a lot of hours into. There are other systems for gamba besides diamonds including some kind of crypto integration. I am a certified crypto hater so I don't engage with or know anything about it.
¶ 22. GAMBA?
I personally do not have an issue with addiction or gambling, do not struggle with these kinds of systems, and have a strong conviction of principle for these kinds of things. If you DO struggle with gambling, addiction, or any similar systems to these PLEASE do not engage with it. If you have to quit the game to avoid the temptation, DO NOT hesitate. Gambling and other addictions will ruin your life so fucking fast its not funny. I've seen it in my personal life, I see it in my professional life, and I am not just shit talking on the internet here: **know thyself**, and avoid these problems. It's a fun game but decide how much money you are willing to spend and stick with it.
¶ 23. Hmmm, hypothetically and for absolutely no specific reason, can you move widow mines from planet to planet? ~ was hoping for some 'claymore on a dead body' style trapping for inactive planets that people would be farming.
No, you can only keep them on the planet that makes them, and they will NOT target discriminate, meaning they will blow up YOUR ships or YOUR ALLIANCE ships. Although I personally maintain that the ability to move them into positions claymore style is a fun idea that should be implemented in some one for the sheer chaos.
¶ 24. How do I even check pollution?
It's actually in a weird spot, click the number on the nations page, shown below:
¶ 25. Oh god oh fuck my pollution oh god my potatoes are sick.
Smog stonks:
Pollution definitely becomes an issue at some point, with all of the wood cutters and coal power you will be leaning on for powering the food factories and tick generators. All of the advice I got was that the explosive growth from this process is totally worth it and you can mitigate it with a lot of doctors/health research/forestry research, but at the end of the day you're going to have some explosions of pollution UNTIL you can start up a few tritium generators to ease off the coal power. Now at time of writing I only have 2 tritium generators, and they have completely allowed me to zero out my pollution, HOWEVER, it appears diminishing returns and other facilities will mean pollution again in my future, but that seems okay as the reduction in health can be mitigated with work modes.
¶ 26. Spaceships, factory units, these descriptions and numbers are a bit vague, what are each of these actually good for?
Probe lets you spy and scout other planets
Carriers best for adding to mining runs and attacking planets in same system
Invaders good for transport between systems and also attacking other systems
Fighters good for defense and mathematically combat efficient as far as resource costs
Colony ship is good for literally just colonizing
Widow mine: …dont
For more details check out the Factory page