Best PHQ setup for Terraforming?

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grapedog
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Best PHQ setup for Terraforming?

Post by grapedog » Sun, 11. Apr 21, 16:04

I'm back playing my original 1.0 save now with CoH out, and im running into a slight issue... the PHQ and terraforming... i feel like my original setup is suboptimal.

This was before terraforming and teleporting the PHQ, i built onto it a 10x self sustaining claytronics complex. Then for terraforming, it has turned into a claytronics fab/wharf...

Im wondering if there is a better setup. Claytronics is certainly useful... but how many terraforming missions need CoH wares? I was thinking about breaking some of it down and turning it into a true terraforming hub. Rebuilding it into a more useful setup.

Also, for the terraforming drones, what wares are actually needed to build them at the wharf. Id like to minimize wastes storage... i have a good chunk of storage set up for a genetic wharf. This wharf will never sell ships... so cutting out what I dont need would be a space saver.... for the 6 mullion microlattice i do need.

Hasenpfote
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Re: Best PHQ setup for Terraforming?

Post by Hasenpfote » Sun, 11. Apr 21, 16:38

Drones are S and M size.
About HQ, i have only docking and storaged build there, i have build certain factories built. You can easily transfer resources from your factory with repeat order.
Im using my HQ as giant mining outpost to sell mined stuff to generate credits to buy the goods, needed for terraforming and it works pretty well.

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Re: Best PHQ setup for Terraforming?

Post by Raptor34 » Sun, 11. Apr 21, 16:48

Terraforming drones don't need wares, they are built with the resources you send down to put it simply.
You can check what resources are common by checking the terraforming pages in the encyclopedia. Off hand Medical supplies is popular, along with COH wares for COH advanced terraforming but those are optional.
Claytronics, Hull parts, drone parts, most are needed here and there iirc.
You'll need a lot of L Container storage and at least 5 S/M fabs for the BTF mission. Liquid/Solid storage too. You need a lot of storage basically. But more Containers than L/S storage for me. Then again mine is also a shipyard/wharf.
Personally I just take advantage of the simplified Terran economy and put all Terran production modules on it, 4 each of building wares fabs and 3 each of food/medical fabs along with L/XL cradles and S/M fabs.

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Re: Best PHQ setup for Terraforming?

Post by grapedog » Sun, 11. Apr 21, 21:00

Ok, so i can drop the storage of pretty much all the shipbuilding wares to 1 manually, except those that are also used for phq teleport research.

Maybe ill ditch 5 of my claytronics modules, and whatever supporting modules i dont need anymore, and turn em into CoH wares construction modules. Add a few hull parts, and it should be a good bit more streamlined for terraforming.

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Re: Best PHQ setup for Terraforming?

Post by Raevyan » Mon, 12. Apr 21, 00:48

Do it like I do and don’t build any production onto the hq, only the needed storage and the s/m module and bring everything else in via traders :)

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Re: Best PHQ setup for Terraforming?

Post by grapedog » Mon, 12. Apr 21, 01:32

rene6740 wrote:
Mon, 12. Apr 21, 00:48
Do it like I do and don’t build any production onto the hq, only the needed storage and the s/m module and bring everything else in via traders :)
well i did that back in the 1.0 days, before terraforming was a thing, lol

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Re: Best PHQ setup for Terraforming?

Post by Sam L.R. Griffiths » Sun, 18. Apr 21, 23:31

My view of an optimal HQ - a place with lots of storage that can produce at least a little of everything, not focused on any single activity. Doing this means that regardless of where you have it located or the state of local supply lines you at least have a chance of completing any given activity.

The one exception to HQ production/trading - illegal wares of any given faction.
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Re: Best PHQ setup for Terraforming?

Post by grapedog » Wed, 21. Apr 21, 09:40

Well, i deconstructed 5 of my claytronics modules, and the now not needed extra mid tier products. 5x claytronics is still a decent amount... the workforce required was a LOT less, but i kept them on hand.

So now i already have a high workforce, and i just use the deconstructed hull parts and claytronics to temp build what I need for each terraforming project... and then deconstruct, and rebuild, but always keeping my full workforce.

Gathering 6.3 million microlattice took a while, so i ended up building a 20x microlattice wing unti l dont need it anymore.

A tip i would say for others, is to overbuild a self sustaining food/meds wing... and keep your workforce full, so you can much easier change to full production of other resources as needed. Amd going forward I'll probably make all my PHQs from now on, a barebones Food/Med complex to begin with so no matter what else I do, ill have a workforce pre-built in.

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Re: Best PHQ setup for Terraforming?

Post by strask412 » Tue, 22. Jun 21, 21:04

grapedog wrote:
Wed, 21. Apr 21, 09:40
A tip i would say for others, is to overbuild a self sustaining food/meds wing... and keep your workforce full, so you can much easier change to full production of other resources as needed. Amd going forward I'll probably make all my PHQs from now on, a barebones Food/Med complex to begin with so no matter what else I do, ill have a workforce pre-built in.
Thanks for the tip! Does it matter what kind of food? All kinds? Or could I simplify with only one kind of population/food?
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Re: Best PHQ setup for Terraforming?

Post by Ezarkal » Tue, 22. Jun 21, 22:57

strask412 wrote:
Tue, 22. Jun 21, 21:04
grapedog wrote:
Wed, 21. Apr 21, 09:40
A tip i would say for others, is to overbuild a self sustaining food/meds wing... and keep your workforce full, so you can much easier change to full production of other resources as needed. Amd going forward I'll probably make all my PHQs from now on, a barebones Food/Med complex to begin with so no matter what else I do, ill have a workforce pre-built in.
Thanks for the tip! Does it matter what kind of food? All kinds? Or could I simplify with only one kind of population/food?
Prior to 4.00, having multiple types of population would help your workforce grow faster.
With the new changes to workforce, I actually have no idea if having different population types will affect growth rate.

That's pretty much the only factor I can think of that would favor having multiple population, versus having a single population and a simpler food chain.

Unless of course you come up with a reeeeaaaally cool station design with either multiple or single population type, but that's really up to you! :wink:
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Re: Best PHQ setup for Terraforming?

Post by grapedog » Wed, 23. Jun 21, 03:51

strask412 wrote:
Tue, 22. Jun 21, 21:04
grapedog wrote:
Wed, 21. Apr 21, 09:40
A tip i would say for others, is to overbuild a self sustaining food/meds wing... and keep your workforce full, so you can much easier change to full production of other resources as needed. Amd going forward I'll probably make all my PHQs from now on, a barebones Food/Med complex to begin with so no matter what else I do, ill have a workforce pre-built in.
Thanks for the tip! Does it matter what kind of food? All kinds? Or could I simplify with only one kind of population/food?
A number of terraforming projects are for ARG/ANT, and call specifically for the wheat fields project to be completed which requires aroumd 370,000 wheat. I'd recommend in that case using argon workers just to streamline your workforce needs with project needs.

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Re: Best PHQ setup for Terraforming?

Post by strask412 » Wed, 23. Jun 21, 15:54

grapedog wrote:
Wed, 23. Jun 21, 03:51
A number of terraforming projects are for ARG/ANT, and call specifically for the wheat fields project to be completed which requires aroumd 370,000 wheat. I'd recommend in that case using argon workers just to streamline your workforce needs with project needs.
Sweet, that was EXACTLY the kind of intel I was wondering about. :)
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Re: Best PHQ setup for Terraforming?

Post by dark7np » Thu, 1. Jul 21, 22:47

I'd also say that lots of storage is most important, and multiple S/M ship production modules if you like projects to be quick-ish. Only one planet requires multiple as far as I know, but it's convenient. You need lots of ice and methane, so I added a huge mining fleet for that. Think I had storage for at least 3M ice and 1M methane. More for container. Energy cells is also somewhat important depending on the planet, and whether or not one does the power project early. Think I had 20+ by the 4th Mission since I ran out of energy cells and had trouble sourcing them. The ship building material storage allocation went down to 20k ish for most things, and I manually upped what was needed for the projects. Often I tried to plan ahead, so while the Import Water project was running I checked the next projects and set the storage requirements (adding trade wares where needed) so that I had the resources on hand for the next project (and further missions). That obviously doesn't really work out for the first planet, but by the third I had most of the things on hand and things went way quicker.

I also ended up building a couple of Graphene production modules since it gets used a lot and takes up lots of volume in freighters. You also need a lot of Methane so I already had the gas miners and so on. Refined metals was something else I thought about, but I already had Ice miners and did not want to run into issues with multiple solid mining resources. Since they apparently improved that in the current beta that may be an idea for the future.

Another tip is to push for a Bubble City early to enable Aerial Maze, Bank and so on. Doesn't work on all planets though, think the maze needs toxicity gone or so for example. Aerial Maze to train Pilots is very handy obviously and you can use the down time when you're out of resources for other projects to train pilots and marines. Those projects are cheap and have some cool down so mixing them in is a good idea anyway.

Not really needed for terraforming, but I also added an L ship production and maintenance module, would've added XL too if I had the BP. Since you have the resource demand for the S/M bay anyway I found it convenient to have my Terraforming HQ do double duty as a shipyard as well.

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Re: Best PHQ setup for Terraforming?

Post by grapedog » Fri, 2. Jul 21, 00:59

When I finished the last project, I was at 29 L Container Storage, 8 L Liquid Storage, 24 L Solid Storage, and 6 S/M wharf. I only had like 2 wharfs for memory of profit, upped it to 8 for Messner, and 6 for everything else. I also timed how long it took my drones to reach the surface for Messner, and was able to complete everything between quakes with 8 wharfs.

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Re: Best PHQ setup for Terraforming?

Post by waynetarlton » Thu, 19. Aug 21, 01:27

Basically, mines simply a massive storage facility with six s/m ship production facilities, and a couple of L and XL maintenance modules.

Additionally, I have the Defence administration module attached so I can jump into any sector and immediately contest the sector and with stacks of resources for fast building defences, repairs and mining operations, etc...

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Re: Best PHQ setup for Terraforming?

Post by Tempest » Tue, 24. Aug 21, 12:55

i've only just completed Scale Plate Green 1 project, with a very minimalistic "storage only" , import/buy EVERYTHING approach.

been tinkering w. the setup since i moved out.

180 S/M ship production modules (1440 drones in theory)
still expanding storage.
Container 461,000,000 m3
Solid 125,000,000 m3
Liquid 119,000,000 m3
a single module of nearly every production available (i'm hoping it'll fill up due to the large storage, and automatic high-priced buy orders)

moved into Memory of Profit 9 , and completed a "deliver 2M units of water" project in a single swarm of drones.

might have to " hop" the station around to gather the materials for the Atiya's Misfortune mission (thanks for the other thread/recap Grapedog) been stockpiling TER building materials since i stopped building Asgards a while ago.
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Re: Best PHQ setup for Terraforming?

Post by grapedog » Tue, 24. Aug 21, 16:12

Tempest wrote:
Tue, 24. Aug 21, 12:55
i've only just completed Scale Plate Green 1 project, with a very minimalistic "storage only" , import/buy EVERYTHING approach.

been tinkering w. the setup since i moved out.

180 S/M ship production modules (1440 drones in theory)
still expanding storage.
Container 461,000,000 m3
Solid 125,000,000 m3
Liquid 119,000,000 m3
a single module of nearly every production available (i'm hoping it'll fill up due to the large storage, and automatic high-priced buy orders)

moved into Memory of Profit 9 , and completed a "deliver 2M units of water" project in a single swarm of drones.

might have to " hop" the station around to gather the materials for the Atiya's Misfortune mission (thanks for the other thread/recap Grapedog) been stockpiling TER building materials since i stopped building Asgards a while ago.
Mars, Jupiter, Asteroid Belt, and Segaris, can all reach Atiya's Misfortune...so you can get some deliveries. What can also help is building a small raw resource trading post in like saturn, and all it does is feed TER/PIO factories raw resources. Saturn is 5 jumps from all of TER/PIO space, so it can feed all the factories. The idea is that feeding them, helps them produce plenty of stuff you'll need to buy from them. I think just for the tehctonic scaffolding alone I needed like 6.1 million microlattice, which is ridiculous... and that was after doing the first two easy factory projects. But yeah, it is a LOT of Terran materials needed, a lot of materials in general are needs for Atiya's... it's not a fun terraforming project.

Good luck with that one!

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Re: Best PHQ setup for Terraforming?

Post by Tempest » Wed, 25. Aug 21, 10:04

thanks, it's nice to have goals. :)

yeah, i've already seen a lot of TER traffic moving towards me now that i'm in range of terran space (seeing serious traffic jams @ the build storage, huge bottleneck there)

have about 8M Metallic Microlattice sitting in a warehouse (Matrix#9), getting it to Atiya's is gonna be a pain though.

i wish the vanilla game could facilitate this.. "create trade route: select ware: 6.1M M.Microlattice, select source, select destination, assign ships 0/256, confirm"
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