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What good is an Outpost?

Posted: Mon Oct 30, 2017 1:40 am
by Jodet
It doesn't repair your ships. You can't build anything there.

Why would you build one?

Re: What good is an Outpost?

Posted: Mon Oct 30, 2017 2:18 am
by silverkitty23
it's significantly cheaper than a colony, so you can use it to claim planets until you can afford colony ships (or to claim planets you can't colonize yet because you need technology to settle there, such as barren worlds)

it extends your 'range', so you can put an outpost in a system with no viable planets (all gas giants or tiny planets) and still get the expansion of your range as if you had a colony in that system

Re: What good is an Outpost?

Posted: Mon Oct 30, 2017 2:22 am
by bjg
It can expand your ship's range. I personally don't find it useful. Haven't played with the "sparse" map option though.

Re: What good is an Outpost?

Posted: Mon Oct 30, 2017 2:57 am
by Chasm
Adds to max trade potential (+3 per), and are usable in orbital slots around gas giants and tiny worlds. With improved solar panels can mount a science station in place of the reactor, giving each deployed outpost + 3 trade potential and + 2 science per turn. Good for light colonization of unusable systems and worlds.

Re: What good is an Outpost?

Posted: Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:33 pm
by nathanebht
Chasm wrote:Adds to max trade potential (+3 per), and are usable in orbital slots around gas giants and tiny worlds. With improved solar panels can mount a science station in place of the reactor, giving each deployed outpost + 3 trade potential and + 2 science per turn. Good for light colonization of unusable systems and worlds.


Thats clever! A use for the solar panels.

I just use them to extend ship range which is really critical sometimes.

Re: What good is an Outpost?

Posted: Tue Oct 31, 2017 8:31 am
by zolobolo
Nice,

I have only been using them to expand range of my exploration and colonization ships in early game

Didn't think about using them as science+trade stations + placeholders for plants - great ideas
Will not be using it though until the AI starts to do the same as all of these would give an unfair advantage over them :(

Re: What good is an Outpost?

Posted: Tue Oct 31, 2017 4:10 pm
by Nerdchieftain
I think it is a good tip to "claim" a solar system.

AI won't settle where you have control of the system. Unless you are at war, or have Alliance. Alliance is a free license to colonize wherever you want.

Re: What good is an Outpost?

Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2017 12:02 am
by akkamaddi
Hopefully, outposts will be able to use the population module in the future. This ccould be used to seed a star system without terrestrial planets with a working population unit, and then utilize the Artificial Planet tech.

Re: What good is an Outpost?

Posted: Tue Nov 07, 2017 10:02 am
by Hans_Lemurson
They add Trade Potential?!! They're even better than I thought!
I like to use them to expand my range when I'm too impatient to wait for propulsion or colonization techs to let me expand it normally. They're a little bit metal-hungry in the beginning, but it's a lot cheaper than a colony ship!

Re: What good is an Outpost?

Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2017 12:40 pm
by fonzosh
How can you see what they add?

Also, I have a problem getting people into my module. I have built some differnt types of space stations with habitat modules and I really cant get people inte them.

Re: What good is an Outpost?

Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2017 1:15 pm
by Chasm
You see trade potential by looking at your trade potential (top mid of screen). You will see a yellow rocket (at the start of a game it is 0 / 0, if you set your 1st freighter to trading it will jump to 5/0). The number on the right of the slash is how much trade potential you have (it effectively caps your freighter income). Deploy an outpost and you it jump by 3.

Re: What good is an Outpost?

Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2017 7:28 pm
by Arioch
fonzosh wrote:Also, I have a problem getting people into my module. I have built some differnt types of space stations with habitat modules and I really cant get people inte them.

If you bring up the ship information screen for a station with a habitat module (click the "?" icon on the unit in the fleet panel), there is a button to "Load Habitat." Click this button and then select the planet to draw population from.

Re: What good is an Outpost?

Posted: Tue Nov 14, 2017 2:56 pm
by wminsing
I'm a long-time player and some of these tricks are new to me! I will be trying them out in my next game.

I do hope that for future expansion we'll see more modules or variants for outposts. A repair outpost would be a handy thing to have in a war, as would a module that gave the outpost wider-than-normal sensor coverage (a 'listening post').

-Will