Because you need another game to play...
...and I have advice on how to play it better.
I've been playing The Lacuna Expanse ( https://us1.lacunaexpanse.com ) for about a month now, and I'm enjoying it quite a bit. The premise is competing races in a closely-crowded chunk of a galaxy, with hundreds or thousands of sentient species (players) scattered throughout.
One of the parts that I think is most interesting is the transitions. After you complete the excellent tutorial, there's a few days of growth before you're ready to launch a colony ship and settle another world. When you do that, your species stops being "isolationist", and is now vulnerable to spying, bombardment, sabotage, etc. You can also join an alliance at that point for mutual defense.
The second transition comes when you have somewhere between four and six planets under your control. It's not strictly necessary, but at this point you notice that different planets have different resources (especially if your species can survive at a wide range of orbits) and to use those resources most effectively, planets should specialize in different aspects of the game. Some archetypes to consider:
- Colonizer/Happy Farm -- Since the amount of happiness required to launch a colony ship increases with each successful colonization, and you can't ship happiness between colonies, it makes sense to set up one planet to launch all expansion efforts from. (Because it already has all the infrastructure for generating lots of happiness.) The key building here is Luxury Housing, which provides the most happiness per level per building.
- University -- The University is essential to all growth, but its effects are empire-wide. You only need one, and as it gets larger and consumes more resources, dedicating a planet to it can make sense. Consider using a smaller planet.
- Shipyard/Observatory -- Rather than have each planet building their own cargo ships or freighters, it might make sense to only build a Trade Ministry up to that level on one planet, and build all ships there. This is also a good place for a large observatory to control probes.
- Exporter -- Sometimes a planet just hits on that lucky combination and starts producing a whole lot of resources. When that happens consider making it an exporter. Keep lots of transport there (Dories, then Cargo Ships, then Freighters) and use its production to help other planets build their specialties.
-- Recycler -- Good use for a planet that doesn't have a lot of mineral resources. Set it up with huge waste sequestration wells, and a negative waste consumption rate, and have other planets send excess waste (like from large building upgrades) to it. You'll want some cargo ships there to return the results of the recycling to other planets for more building, but probably not as many as on an Exporter.
And that's my advice, hopefully worth more than what you paid for it.
(Next time maybe I'll include the spreadsheet I use for planning. :)
I've been playing The Lacuna Expanse ( https://us1.lacunaexpanse.com ) for about a month now, and I'm enjoying it quite a bit. The premise is competing races in a closely-crowded chunk of a galaxy, with hundreds or thousands of sentient species (players) scattered throughout.
One of the parts that I think is most interesting is the transitions. After you complete the excellent tutorial, there's a few days of growth before you're ready to launch a colony ship and settle another world. When you do that, your species stops being "isolationist", and is now vulnerable to spying, bombardment, sabotage, etc. You can also join an alliance at that point for mutual defense.
The second transition comes when you have somewhere between four and six planets under your control. It's not strictly necessary, but at this point you notice that different planets have different resources (especially if your species can survive at a wide range of orbits) and to use those resources most effectively, planets should specialize in different aspects of the game. Some archetypes to consider:
- Colonizer/Happy Farm -- Since the amount of happiness required to launch a colony ship increases with each successful colonization, and you can't ship happiness between colonies, it makes sense to set up one planet to launch all expansion efforts from. (Because it already has all the infrastructure for generating lots of happiness.) The key building here is Luxury Housing, which provides the most happiness per level per building.
- University -- The University is essential to all growth, but its effects are empire-wide. You only need one, and as it gets larger and consumes more resources, dedicating a planet to it can make sense. Consider using a smaller planet.
- Shipyard/Observatory -- Rather than have each planet building their own cargo ships or freighters, it might make sense to only build a Trade Ministry up to that level on one planet, and build all ships there. This is also a good place for a large observatory to control probes.
- Exporter -- Sometimes a planet just hits on that lucky combination and starts producing a whole lot of resources. When that happens consider making it an exporter. Keep lots of transport there (Dories, then Cargo Ships, then Freighters) and use its production to help other planets build their specialties.
-- Recycler -- Good use for a planet that doesn't have a lot of mineral resources. Set it up with huge waste sequestration wells, and a negative waste consumption rate, and have other planets send excess waste (like from large building upgrades) to it. You'll want some cargo ships there to return the results of the recycling to other planets for more building, but probably not as many as on an Exporter.
And that's my advice, hopefully worth more than what you paid for it.
(Next time maybe I'll include the spreadsheet I use for planning. :)