How to get through the early game as a new player

Part 1

I’ve got a lot of time with ISG, it’s a complex game, and while many will pick up its concepts quickly, many more will struggle. So at the risk of sounding like a know-it-all, I thought I would put this together and try to help out the first time player.

My first suggestion is to start with an easy or normal setting, but what I’m going to show you below applies even at the harder settings. My second suggestion is to relax and take it easy during the early game, there’s no rush and you will be quiet busy anyway.

Turn one

Three main choices await you on turn one, these are what to research, what to explore, and what to build (if anything)

My own choices below are partially based on where I spawned. As you see, apart from my homeworld, there is nothing else in my home system, normally that means I would start remote exploration in a different sector, but as there is a second system in the same sector, (Ugantu), that contains a gas giant, I want to see if Helium 3 is present. The only way to do that is to finish the final level of remote exploration. (at the start, the first two levels are completed in your home sector). I am also sending out my starting Frigates to nearby systems in range. The Frigates will only reveal if there are planets there but won’t reveal the Gravity, Richness, or specials, (if any). Still, by doing this, I have a better understanding of where to focus exploration once I’m done with the current sector

As I haven’t discovered any other planets on turn one, my research starts with Vaults, but you can pick something else. I’m not researching colonization techs until after I know what type of planets are around, This allows me to not scatter my efforts

The big issue is what to build, and I can guarantee that the vast majority of first time players will go for a colony ship as their first project… not a good idea. First of all you will be scared when you see the completion time as reported on turn one, but more importantly, you already have a colony ship waiting to be used. Don’t rush, we won’t be colonizing anything for a few turns. In this game I decided to go with an outpost.

I went to the colony screen, made a slight adjustment to my production allocation from evenly split to 30% infra, 30% planetary engineering and 40% construction. I did this by switching from the triangle that allocates production on the colony screen to the bars instead (you did know you could do that yes?)

Now I could have decided to build nothing in the early turns and min maxed my production allocation instead, for example I could have set it all to infrastructure and gained a new level quickly thereby increasing production overall, but I want to show you something. See the screenshot? According to that it will take 65 turns to build that outpost. If you’re thinking WTF? Don’t. Watch as I bring that number down while also giving you some hints on how to expand quickly in the early game.

Oh, by the way, the tax sliders, research and culture, I haven’t touched them, leave them be for now, when you increase one, something else suffers, wait till you’re more familiar with the game before you start screwing around with these.


Turn 5

By turn five, I’ve already completed one research project, and selected a second, in this case asteroid mines and my Frigates have revealed some information on the nearby systems, I now know where to focus exploration and that I will soon need to research Swamp colonization based on their efforts.

More importantly, I have reached the first level-up in space culture. Here I was faced with some serious choices. I could choose between two advancements to aid exploration, (one giving extra range and the other allowing me to explore two sectors at once), but I decided this can wait. Another choice could have given me a second colony ship and also set a new colony’s starting population at 2 versus the default 1. This choice is extremely valuable… but I skipped it for now as I still have more exploring to do before I decide where to colonize (Your first colonies should be the best choices you can make, remember when I said not to rush things?) The other choice was between two free outpost ships or overmining which gives you a permanent plus 1 to construction per pop everywhere. 2 free outpost ships is nothing to sneeze at…but I have one under construction and if I take the two free ships I will exceed my support limits and possibly watch my treasury run dry as a result (nasty stuff happens if you run out of money)

So I chose over-mining which increased my base production. That means that the completion time for my outpost came down as well as the ETA of when my infrastructure level will rise…nice! All the while, I’ve been busy with decisions, researching, exploring, etc. This game isn’t just about clicking end turn and waiting for something to be built.



So I continued along these lines until my second cultural advancement, here I chose the free colony ship and immediately set down two colonies at the best two worlds I had discovered. On one I set trade goods for extra cash and to allow the colony time to develop, and on the other I started constructing vaults for increasing the max population of the planet. Still, think of both of these colonies as dirt farms right now, they are giving me extra cash and research points, using them for big construction products is out of the question for the time being. My homeworld population has grown and I have also assigned a colony leader. Both of these events helped increase the base production of the planet and that outpost ship now needs fewer turns to be completed while Infrastructure is close to being increased. That Gas giant at Ugabtu? It does contain Helium 3, so I not only had to decide which research path to follow but I also know where my outpost ship will be sent once it’s completed.




Ten Turns later my Infrastructure level on my HW has increased, This seemed like a good time to adjust my production again, I set construction to 50% and split the rest. So while on turn one it appeared that I needed 65 turn to construct the first outpost, now it looks like it will be ready by turn 47… but wait, my population will be increasing soon, that means the outpost will be ready even quicker! I also reached another cultural advancement and chose the free survey ship, this allows me to instantly explore any system (not sector) that I visit.



Now take a look at the final shot.

I have researched 11 technologies, advanced culture three times, fully explored 6 star systems and a few sectors, built an outpost to mine Helium three, founded 2 new colonies and started production of a second outpost… which now only needs 18 turns to complete.

At This point I have a stable nation, I can increase my production further with robotic mines or by mining Asteroids, I can increase my research by establishing scientific outposts, I can begin construction of colony ships, or even design and build new warships…I’ve gotten through the early game and the possibilities and choices in front of me are now endless. The best part? You don’t have to follow this exact recipe to succeed. I like to balance things out, others like to min max, eventually you will make choices different than the ones I took here, it doesn’t matter, there are many roads to victory in ISG

 

Part 2

Today I want to focus on the role that support ships can play in getting the early game off to an accelerated start. These ships are so important, that I felt I needed to give them some special attention.

As you saw, yesterday I stopped at turn 44. This is right around the time I would research the off-world support technology. Doing so, grants your first support ship for free and the impact is dramatic. The main reason why I hold off a bit before researching this tech and acquiring my first support ship, is the 3 SSP maintenance cost, I like to insure that I can cover that.

However, in order to truly illustrate just how impactful these ships are, I will reload an earlier save and research them right after I set down my two new colonies(around turn 25) just to show you what can happen. Tonight when I get home, I will take a few screenshots so you can draw your own conclusions, and edit this entry accordingly

 

Edit

I didn’t have a manual save at turn 24, the earliest I had was 34. So I went back to that and started my research on off world support. By the time the research was completed and I received the free ship my base production had increased further. See the shot below and compare it with the same shot from yesterday, notice that not only do I have a higher base production, but the time to construct a second outpost has decreased by a third! Now I could send that support ship to one of my newer colonies and get them going faster, but for this exercise I chose to keep it at my HW which is my early driver to prosperity.




I played it out a little bit more so you can see the final shot below. Remember when I started the game? 65 turns to build an outpost ship, well now it’s turn 87 and I have built 2 outposts, a freighter fleet, a marine barracks, a vault, a space elevator and my own colony ship (which is already deployed at Lena). This production is just at my HW by the way, other projects have completed in my colonies and I’ve assigned new ones, the completion times on those colonies has also decreased due to infrastructure improvements population and leaders. The second outpost I constructed is now an asteroid mine at Acriu and that is boosting my home world further, I've gone from a base production of 104 to 557! See that Destroyer under Construction? It requires more production than an outpost ship, yet I now only need 6 turns to complete one, and that will come down as the game advances.

As you play, you can start mixing and matching all the different options available to you to get your game going and expand, there are more ways than those I’ve described here, but let me leave you to discover them yourself. The main lesson here is that the production times you see on turn one are meaningless, just think a bit ahead, plan out, and you’ll be thriving in no time.

 

Apart from personal taste? I think there may be. It seems that having room to grow your pop will increase it faster. For example if you're almost at max pop, it takes a while to grow, seems to be less so when you have lots of room to grow.
I don't use cloning facilities unless I capture them, but with my vaults, I build them as a permanent construction (where needed). A cloning center on a world with max pop would get scrapped by me... so for my own tastes, especially early, I prefer not to build "temporary" buildings

 

Just keep in mind that some objects will only show after you conclude maximum scan. So while during the early game, partial scans are helpful, after you've established a viable empire, it is a good idea to go back and finish those scans. This is even more important if those scans are inside your borders, as you may find new places to colonize (or set outposts on) without fear of the AI trying to snatch them.

 

The beauty of ISG, many approaches work, it isn't a puzzle with a single solution.
I play a custom race that has average growth and capacity, on any planet that has greater population capacity than 15 I skip the vaults. I also play with with 6-7 races total, at the upper end of difficulty (which influences how I build) . The vaults work for me and I want them quickly as they give my HW (the main driver of my production) a maximum capacity of 14 instead of 12. However, that said, playing a different race, or settling large and huge worlds, or even worlds with caves, means I don't build Vaults.

 

Yes you can, there are many ways to do it.

 

Yes, though the decision is ultimately up to the individual player, overcrowding penalties. For every pop over 16, you incur a -4% penalty to simulate the effects of overcrowding. (bureaucracy, waste, pollution etc.)
Some races, like the Sulak for example are subterranean, meaning their max population per planet is quite high. Large and huge ideal worlds also mean a max population that is quite high. (Caves planet special also gives a higher max pop)
Therefore for me, vaults go anywhere where I won't exceed the threshold to incur overcrowding penalties, at least not by a significant amount. As I prefer my own setting at Emperor, meaning I find few ideal worlds early on, it isn't an issue. My advice is to look at the maximum population on a planet that you colonize, if the maximum exceeds 16, consider not putting vaults there.

 

I'm pretty certain it is a morale penalty. Going over that threshold by one or two pops is no big deal, go over it by ten pops and it's 40%