Discovery and Colonization
Discovery Of A New Star System
One turn later, our first scout ship was built and since our PDS didn't uncover any space debris it will be forced to explore on it's own. It's up to you, if you want to guide the scout ship for each turn and that might be a good idea in the beginning, but I am just going to click on "Explore Automated" and trust that the pilot knows what he is doing. At the same time, I pressed and held the control key and clicked on the colony ship (while in the management screen) to move it up in the build order and it is a good thing I did, because one turn later our PDS discovered a new star system to the north! Not only that, but a couple turns later, our Scout ship found another star system and it's first Space Debris(goody hut), near the Radiation Cloud!
The Space wreckage provided experience for our Scout Ship, so I gave him two promotions, specifically, two stars worth of space defense. I chose space defense as the promotion because the scout ship is pretty weak and if it runs into any Pirates it won't stand a chance without it, but you can play around with the other promotions if you want. I would have chosen "City Defense" and "First Strike" for the PDS, by the way.
Colony Ship Complete
One or two turns later our PDS discovered another star system to the west of the one he found earlier. At this time I think his exploring days are over, so I sent him back to garrison the home base. We don't want the pirates to catch us with our pants down, now do we?
On the same turn , we finished researching and founding the value "Survivalism", which gives a bonus to health in each star system that it spreads to (must build a "Survival Dome" to receive the health bonus) and I adopted it for one turn of anarchy during the revolution. I chose "Planetary Construction" to research next instead of "Orbital Engineering", because you can't build a warp lane without a construction ship and "Planetary Construction" also allows you to build the "Mag-Lev Network", which provides a boost to economy.
A couple of turns later our scout ship was awarded another scout ship in the debris and I sent him out on automated exploration, as well. Then our first "Colony Ship" was built so I sent him north west, because the planet quality and number was superior in that star system.
After the completion of our first Colony Ship, I let our second scout ship finish building, and our star system grew to size 3. I am not sure if we need three scouts for such a small map, but they can be upgraded later for good stealth ship busters, if they survive their exploration mission.
After we completed our second scout ship, we had the choice of either "Survival Dome" or "Interplanetary Beacon" to build next, because fast influence growth is very important in the early game. The former, offers up +1 health and +3 influence growth and since "New Earth" is the Final Frontier version of a holy city it will receive an additional influence growth bonus. In other words, since we converted to to our newly founded value, our influence growth rate is bumped up to a +4 when this building is constructed in our capitol. On the other hand, the latter only provides +2 influence growth and an additional +15% influence growth on top of that. Clearly, the "Survival Dome" is the better deal, since 15% of our 3 population system is less than half a point or 2.45 influence growth, total. I know I am just nitpicking, but in a fast game like this, it might make a difference.
Colonizing The New Star System
Our Colony Ship arrived at the chosen star system and I decided to keep the default naming convention, rather than complicate things with something so trivial as renaming it. Since, the "Survival Dome" can only be built in a star system that has it's respective value present, the only other influence growth choice for a first build order was the "Interplanetary Beacon", so that's what I decided to do. It won't be long before the Pirates show up, so the next build after the beacon should be a PDS for "New Tokyo". Also, it is a good practice to let your new system reach size 3, before you build a colony ship, because it will stop growing during it's construction, just like the regular civ game when building a settler. I know, I know. I didn't wait for "New Earth" to grow to size 3, but that's different.
Management Screen
With the star system management screen open, you'll notice that all of these initial buildings are being constructed on one planet. You can decide which planet you want the buildings to be placed on by clicking any planet on the right, then checking the "New Buildings Will Be Constructed On This Planet" box. PieceOfMind, from the CivFantatic forum, was kind enough to supply us with an image that details planetary yields, which you should use to plan out your construction projects. You will notice that if you click on one of the outer planets, you will not be able to build on them until your influence encompasses them, which is one of the reasons to go for influence growth buildings and research in the beginning. Another thing of note, is that our economy is struggling (upper left corner), as we are losing 2 credits per turn and we only have 10 credits in holding. Not to worry, you can be fairly confident that our scout ships will earn some credits during their exploration soon. However, if they do not find something very soon, we will be forced to drop our research down a notch or two, until we can get a "Mag-Lev Network" built on each of our star systems.
<Continue on, to see how a competent scout crew is the saving grace of our empire>