Genesis Alpha One: Learning the Ropes (2/?)

Welcome back, captains of Genesis Alpha One. Congratulations on surviving this far. 

In the previous lesson, you absorbed a lot of information, and you put them to use very quickly. And your priority orders should be as follows:

Priority Orders

Understand your bridge navigation interface. Scan your surroundings. 

Avoid jumping into red sectors. You don't have the shields to survive there. 

Avoid any "rogue captains" (they appear with pirate or skull symbols). If you see warning of one, run for the bridge, then command a jump away from the sector immediately. Then repeat the jump 2-3 more times until you can't see them anymore. They will beam boarding parties onto your ship if you stay still long enough, and you are not yet ready to handle them.  

Do NOT land on dangerous planets until you are ready (and you are not ready yet). 

Add reactors as needed to handle the energy load (but remember, there is a reactor limit)

Keep the basic ammo, turrets, and barriers stocked, assign crew to workshop or use yourself to make them as needed. 

Keep tractor and refinery running (you can always dump storage later) for experience (unless you truly can't fit anything else or all your crew are commander rank)

Keep defensibility in mind as you expand the ship, remember the different defensive zones. 

Now, we are going to cover a couple other things, and we will be amending the priority orders as well. New priority orders:

Grab plants on planets that generate the right air for the crew you want (initially, that's be human and arachnid, as they are oxygen breathers, you can change that later).  Keep an eye out for them.

Leave the least experienced crew at the most utilized modules to train them, and that usually means refinery or tractor beam.   

How "air" and "crew quarters" work

To expand your crew, you have to make sure you have the right amount of air to breath, and a sleeping quarter for the crew as well. That is, except the captain (your avatar). He doesn't need quarters. 

So if your greenhouse is only producing 8 units of air (let's assume Oxygen for now) you cannot expand beyond crew of 8 (plus you, so 9), even if you have the quarters for them. 

Some plants are better at producing air than others, but only if you assign a full crew to the greenhouse. Else, they'd fall to their default producing of 1 unit of air. 

There are all sorts of breathable air in GAO, and different plants produce different ones. You can engineer new crew to breath other types of air, which may be necessary if you cannot find a genesis planet that is of the right type. For now, let's assume you're going for oxygen plants and so on. 

You will also need to build crew quarters to house the new crew. Really, that's it. 

How XP works (and rank)

In GAO, crew get experience (XP) by doing things: fighting, making things, scanning, and so on. Since you always need more materials, the best way to train the crew is to rotate them through the refinery, the tractor beam, and so on, where they will stay busy. When they get enough XP, they will be promoted in rank. (Private // Sergeant // Lieutenant // Commander)   

Crewing the greenhouse

Grab plants that generate the right air for your crew then I have to go to the greenhouse terminal to deploy it to a planter, then wait for it to go to fully functional). 

Assign at least one crew to the greenhouse to make sure it grows nicely. Add crew to greenhouse later to make sure they produce the full amount of "air" as possible. 

Your max crew onboard the ship is constrained by amount of air you can produce from the greenhouse. 

Adding Crew

When you have enough air and crew quarters, build a cloning lab to create new members of the crew. Whether they are male or female does not matter, as long as they are the right specie to breath the air you have available. 

Once new crew was cloned, they will go to their quarters, unless you assign them to other modules. You should do so as they start at no EXP, so you need to get them to rank up and give them better weapons, by assigning them to jobs. Remember "training by doing" earlier? Always do that. 

Explore the Area 

By this time, you should have just about exhausted the local area. It's time to move around to look for more resources. Try to prioritize resources you need. 

Tip: Build "Robot Store" if you can

If you can, consider building some robot store closer to hangar / tractor so the robots will NOT have to run all the way to the bridge to rest. Some modules have built-in "robot store" (like workshop) but again, decrease transit time to the hangar, or where the robots are needed, is better. 

Tip: Other things to build if you can

Medical research: you need it to cure your crew of illnesses, probably need it soon

Alien containment: if you managed to catch any live aliens, optional

Hyperdrive: increases both jump and scan range, optional, wait for rank 3 expansion

Shield: improves shielding so you can survive against rogue captain attack and sometimes, red sectors, can wait for rank 3 expansion.  

How do you capture aliens?

Use the "grabber" function (right click) which is normally used to grab ores, bio matter, fragments, DNA, etc. It can be used to grab aliens, which is also a stun beam. If the alien is weak enough, it can be "captured" that way, then it'll show up in alien containment (if you built one). This is extremely hazardous, and I personally find it best left to the "endgame" (rank 3 or higher). 

Tip: Upgrade the weapons for the crew

Your crew, if you kept them busy, should be lieutenant or commander rank by now. That means you can walk up to them and give them different weapons instead of the starter pistol. Your crew will need them for the tough fighters ahead. 

Don't forget to give different weapons to different folks. Some get shotgun, some get minigun. You get the idea, right? When you take a crew down to planetfall, you want a crew with different weapons so you can handle different types of threats. 

If you meet the merchant, feel free to trade

The merchant may have something useful, like blueprint for another module, or some resources you may need. 

Updated Ship Layout Guide

With more modules to play with, this is the update 4 zone system. 

Zone 1: Bridge, quarters, reactors, lounge, leave enough room for more quarters and more recreational facilities, such as bar or cantina. Consider going 3D by using lounge's upper level exits for corridor and more quarters, but may be a bit harder to reach in case you want to patrol it. 

Zone 1.5 (?): medical research, cloning lab (I to III), and biotanks, these can go in Z1 or Z2

Zone 2: Greenhouse(s), maybe reactors, maybe shields, leave enough room for additional greenhouses later

Zone 3: Tractor beam / storage / workshop (note: leave enough room for expansion of storage and replacement of workshop later)

Zone 4: Hangar // deposit // refinery, maybe alien containment and ship assault, MAYBE extra deposit if you build up a serious stockpile

Separate each zone with a corridor, add robot station when available. They can hold regular or combat robots. Block both regular and crawlspace with barrier forcefields, and put a turret in the middle of the module (both upper and lower) as a blocker. 

WHAT I DO NOT USE: I personally don't use panic room, security gate, spawning chamber, beaming station, or turbolift. I don't usually build ship with vertical levels. I generally run out of power from the reactor limit before I need to build upwards or downwards. 

Conclusion

By the end of this, your ship should be decently powerful. Not quite powerful enough to take on a rogue captain yet (but we're working on that), but you're no longer worried about an attack, as you can get away, and you can handle all planets except the dangerous or extreme ones. You have enough modules and a large enough crew, that you can almost handle a genesis candidate planet if you find a small one. You can handle infection of your crew, and you can handle an infestation on your own ship, and clear it by yourself, with or without robot support. 

Good job. You are now ready for rank 3, captain.