hmmm
1

spaceport; when, what?

@gjm
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-21Y

Unless you’re talking about some very new feature, there isn’t anything called exactly a “spaceport”. I’m going to guess you mean “when should I start doing space things and in what order?”; if I’m wrong about that, then everything I say may be useless to you.

I think you should head for space more or less as soon as you can (enough catpower, enough starcharts, a decent rate of oil generation); the main tradeoff is about starcharts, which you also want for (1) ships and hence titanium and (2) geodesy, but once you’re in space you can build satellites which bring a substantial increase in starchart generation rate.

Obviously the first thing you do (because it’s the only thing you can do before you’ve done other space things) is an Orbital Launch. This opens up (1) satellites, (2) space stations, (3) space elevators, and (4) a mission to the moon.

Depending on your exact energy situation, you may want to leave launching satellites until after you have Solar Satellites, and you may want to leave launching space stations until you have plenty of energy. I suggest getting Solar Satellites as quickly as you easily can and then getting as many satellites as you can; they will pay for their own cost in starcharts quickly (and hence, via getting more ships, for their cost in titanium).

You can’t build space elevators until you have unobtainium. You can’t get unobtainium until you have reached the moon. So, moon launch pretty early: I would say as soon after reaching space as you are able to do it.

Once you’re on the moon you will want to get making unobtainium. That means making lunar outposts. Unobtainium is very useful and initially you will be making it at a painfully slow rate. You should probably prioritize things that help with that. Space Manufacturing is a big one. More lunar outposts. Space elevators, but note that they cost unobtainium as well as helping you make it. Your first space elevator will cost you 50 unob and make unob generation 1% faster, which means it pays for itself on a timescale of 5000 unobtainium. If you’re expecting this run to get as far as making 5000 unobtainium (which it might or might not – if this is your first time in space, you might e.g. want to get as far as unobtainium huts, then build all the housing you can and reset) and if you aren’t impatient to get unob huts or something as quickly as possible, then it’s probably worth it.

Unless you’re expecting to reset pretty soon, then soon after your moon mission launch you will also want to set off for Dune. Lunar outposts eat uranium, and you can make quite a lot of uranium with the planet crackers you can build on Dune. You probably want to go to Piscine too to build research vessels for more starcharts.

If you expect this run to continue for a good long time then launch for T-minus too to build cryostations there for more storage (especially of unobtainium). First cryostation costs 25 eludium so 25k unob, but actually it should probably be a lower priority than e.g. microwarp reactors and eludium huts.

Other destinations are relevant if you want to start doing relic / time crystal things, which you almost certainly don’t on your first visit to space. Helios gets you sunlifters -> antimatter generation. Kairo gets you space beacons which (with the addition of a lot of antimatter) get you relic generation. Yarn gets you terraforming stations, which means that once you can make a lot of antimatter you can increase your population somewhat. Umbra gets you “HR Harvesters” which are useful energy sources once you’re many thousands of years into the game. Charon gets you “entanglement stations” which improve relic generation and let you build more AI cores safely (which in turn lets you make moon bases store more). Centaurus gets you another energy source. All of these things are only relevant once you’re substantially further on than your first trip to space.

@cpy1
creator
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11Y

I see a spaceport.Sweet.

@gjm
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11Y

Ah, looks like it is in fact very new – the changelog says it’s in 1.4.9.3, and I’m using 1.4.9.2.r1254 right now. So none of what I said above is likely to be relevant :-).

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