Hello everyone!
Found the old copy of this game in my stuff and I am trying to at least figure out how to play it before getting rid of it on Ebay or somewhere. I am playing using Windows 1.5 version off of the original CD.
Today I am trying to figure out manual trucking. I want to figure out how to play without relying on automated trucks, from what little I've read on here it is possible?
I was going to build a colony to take pictures from, but without trucking I cannot get it up and running fast enough to play with, so I'll type it out for now and hope someone can show me what I am doing wrong.
Start a basic colony, get the Seed smelter, CHAP, Agrodome, Storage Tanks down, followed by a Warehouse, Robo-Command, etc. I start building trucks to see what I can do with them. Get two mines running at lv-1 for now.
So with manual trucking from what I understand, I need to left-click on the mine and establish a route for trucks to take. At the simplest, I take that to mean either A) Mine to Smelter or B) Mine to Smelter to Mine (neither seem to be getting things going). I can add points for the trucks to travel in case I build a road/bulldozed path, otherwise I assume they travel in a straight path - driving around buildings/tubes in their path.
I need to assign trucks to said route, which the game seems to give 4 by default. I can't seem to increase this even with trucks in storage, but maybe with trucks + robo command? If not I am assuming produced trucks are there to replace those which die off due to accident or lack of repairbot+fuel cell (however those work).
Step 3 from what I can tell is to select the mine and order it to transfer materials (assuming they goto the smelter since there is no option). I can only order transfer of one material at a time, but after ordering them to move one it seems all of the stored ore at the mine disappeared (assuming into the truck). It takes trucks a few turns to reach the smelter depending on terrain & distance. I can't tell if telling it to move OreA then selecting it again to move FusB will overide OreA or just stack it in a "movement Que"... it seems moving one ore moves everything... somehow.
Problem is, the ores don't seem to make it to the smelter. No ore stored at smelter appears, and nothing ever shows up at the storage tanks. Colony dies from lack of Precious A for the CHAP.
What am I doing wrong here? Why do the materials never make it to the smelter?
How much ore does one truck hold, and how do you order the truck to move some of the ore types as opposed to all? Does ordering one ore moved automatically move all ore?
I know one has to check each building to manually list how many resources are needed each turn. Is the way to tell how many you are producing: Find how many of each material is entering the storage tanks each turn + the ones used each turn (disregarding SPEW/Nano) = ore refined per turn? I understand all ores are refined on a 2-ore to 1-mineral basis, but which ores create PreA, PreB and other ore/mineral types?
Is there any way to have more than 4 trucks in use? Does this limit us to a max of 4 operational mines per turn?
Any help would be GREATLY appreciated.
:find: (thumbsup)
