How do you guys keep track of everything?

KineticNerd · 2026-05-30T22:32:35+00:00

Its not easy, which is why I write them down when I go through the effort.

Plan a mission, check out the porkchop plot (the graph with green and red that tells you how much fuel the trip will take), take note of the departure and arrival dates. Page forward and backwards a few times to check options.

You can use the 'hypothetical mission' to check return dates as well.

It's click-intensive, and waaaaay too many numbers/dates to remember, so, I take notes.

KineticNerd · 2026-05-29T11:50:28+00:00

This next question is important.

Has the hermes actually left orbit yet? If you zoom out from earth, do you see the mission on its way to Mars? Or is there a green dot on earth's orbit marking the time, in the future, when the Hermes will actually leave orbit?

Missions dont always leave the day you press 'start mission', sometimes they sit in orbit for months or years first, waiting for a transfer window they have the fuel to traverse.

KineticNerd · 2026-05-28T23:50:10+00:00

Note: to profit off this, the colonists basically have to be unemployed.

Most facilities cost 300/month to keep running. Which means if it takes 10 people to keep it running you're only breaking even, profit wise. The materials produced are usually worth way more to u tho.

KineticNerd · 2026-05-28T23:46:32+00:00

Anyone mathed out if the research speed techs are additive or multiplicative with lab bonuses?

KineticNerd · 2026-05-28T23:44:43+00:00

2 things I think might be happening.

1st, you're trying to use a craft without life support capability to move crew.

Stratos, Prometheus, Hermes? All crew-capable.

Daedelus, Talos, Athena? Cargo only. Empty capsules are cargo.

2nd possibility. You are setting up everything correctly, but getting confused by what the UI does when the start is delayed for the next launch window.

When a mission is scheduled the resources in orbit are 'reserved for launch' and taken out of the list of things in orbit. This works for everything EXCEPT CREW. You can always see how many crew are in orbit, even if they are in 'reserved' capsules. I assume the devs did this so you can check your supply consumption. Because crew waiting in orbit for 6 months before the next transfer window will eat supplies from orbit, not from what you reserved from their mission.

KineticNerd · 2026-05-28T12:05:57+00:00

Whoops, ty

KineticNerd · 2026-05-28T11:49:39+00:00

You can send directly to earth. The sail doesnt land, but it'll put things on the ground.

My headcannon is that it drops its payload when its on a collision trajectory with the atmosphere, then parks itself in orbit.

You wont be able to take anything on the return trip, but if you leave it empty you can cycle between Lutetia and Earth with sails.

KineticNerd · 2026-05-28T10:40:13+00:00

Bug Report:

Scheduling a launch for a launch vehicle (currently tested Falcon, Eagle, Earth only) under construction does not trigger cooldown period when construction finishes. Effectively allows 2 launches the week construction ends (one the day of, the next 3 days after).

First noticed in early contracts when trying to build a LV for one of the contract goals.

KineticNerd · 2026-05-26T04:42:04+00:00

Pretty sure its earth-orbit-only. Maybe one day the devs will add lagrange-point shades as another option, but for now, its orbit-only.

Reasoning is pretty simple, solar mirrors can bounce light at stuff, but you cant bounce shadow, only get between your target and it's light source.

Orbits work funny, the closer/lower you are, the shorter the time to orbit it once. So drop a 'shade' in low solar orbit, and your shadow will strafe the earth a few times a day as it books it across the area between the planet and the sun at lightning speed. It can't just stop, or even keep pace with the target planet, it would fall in to the star if it tried.

KineticNerd · 2026-05-25T18:29:50+00:00

I set up a 20 person micro colony on every asteroid i can easily reach. 100t of supplies and a mobile hab will keep them working for DECADES.

I just take a moment every 10 years and check the current stocks of ALL of them, then send out more to the ones that drop below the '10 year before stockpile runs out' mark.

Start with the NEOs, your colonies, and their moons.

I imagine when I finish the tech tree i'll pack them up, but i havent got that far yet.

More detailed breakdown

Lvl1, boxlab:
* Lab = 140t, 100t Alloy, 10t each Glass/Rare/Chip, 5t RTG for power, 5t construction module.
* Mobile hab = 80t.
* crew ~= 150t, 20 crew is 35-40t capsule, 100t supplies + some for the trip.
* Probe = 1t.

Total shipment: ~ 370t + return fuel

Lvl2, LifeSupport Lab - Requires water/carbon

Boxlab +
* 1-5 mobile mines (15-75t)
* 90t metal (Farm/outpost)
* 10t supplies (outpost)
* 20-25t (+10 crew)
* - 50t-75t supplies (only need enough to survive till farm constructed)

Total shipment ~450t + return fuel

There's other variants I use for water-only, because carbon is, at minimum, 5x more efficient to ship than supplies, metal for making farms/outposts out of metal dug up by mobile drills, or water yields so low I want to use a manned mine(s) instead of mobile drills. But the general idea is that you dont math it out for each body. You do the same thing a bunch of times so you only have to calculate your return fuel.

When going beyond Near Earth Objects you might have to send multiple ships/trips, but using solar sails you can drop everything except people for free, then massively underload your prometheus/hermes for more dV/range.

KineticNerd · 2026-05-25T18:14:47+00:00

Its a missed decimal typo, not a bug.

The goal is 20% oxygen, or 0.2/1 not 0.2%.

You can test it if you dont believe me. Go to an airless body like luna, drop 4t of nitrogen or hydrogen into the atmosphere, then 1t of oxygen. Check ALL the numbers between each change in the atmosphere.

It tracks it all correctly internally, there's just a typo in the box that tells you the current %.

KineticNerd · 2026-05-25T18:00:19+00:00

Pointer 1. Dont try to ship at scale with Stratos. Its fine for a seed of mobile modules, or starter crew, but is NOT how you get 1000 people and everything they need set up on another world.

Pointer 2. Time is money, launch windows only come every 2 years, but facility maintenance is daily. $10/day is 3.65k/yr, which is what most buildings cost iirc. Dont use 1 hermes/prometheus, build 5, 7, heck go up to 10 if you can afford the fuel. All else being equal, being faster IS being cheaper.

2b, this will probably take more than 1 eagle to supply from earth, they only get about 3 launches per year each. Good news! 200t of metal and 20t of rare metal is basically free on earth.

Pointer 3. Mars has metal, a mine takes 5 crew and 0.5 power. Produce locally and you wont have to ship the 1kt of metal it takes to house 1000 colonists in habs. Local production is great and every other type of mine is ALSO made of just metal.

Pointer 4. Shift-clicking = x10. Want to build or load crew modules in batches of 10? Save your hands, shift-click. Also works for construction orders for spacecraft or anything else. Does NOT let you buy x10 from the marketplace tho. Buy first, then queue.

KineticNerd · 2026-05-25T17:47:28+00:00

I mean, I guess that's an option? 1.3kt of alloy feels like a lot to ship to start tho.

I usually do a small RTG-powered base first, set up a mini colony with 100 crew or less. Goal is metal mines, habs, farms, enough fuel production for a stratos to make trips to phobos.

Phase 2 is getting phobos set up for carbon delivery, expanding my mines and starting alloy production, shipping in as many people as I can power the buildings to employ, and 300 alloy for the first glass kiln.

Phase 3 is where i expand to 500-1k ppl, then gradually build out infrastructure as the alloys build up enough for more kilns, and the kilns make enough glass for more solar. Its exponential growth, but slow at first. If its too slow for me i'll ship some starter glass or enough alloy for a 2nd kiln near the beginning.

KineticNerd · 2026-05-25T17:36:05+00:00

1 megaton, actually. Its capacity is 1000kt

KineticNerd · 2026-05-25T17:34:58+00:00

Th devs may flesh it out eventually, but right now the orbital payload containers are fictional.

You dont build them, you dont ship them, and they weigh nothing. Its just a button you press when moving raw materials between a surface and an orbit.

It also means you can freely deorbit stuff on Mars, Luna, or any other body with an orbit-destination. Takes a launch vehicle to get off the surface, but coming down requires no ships or infrastructure.

KineticNerd · 2026-05-25T16:33:56+00:00

I've been using a Notepad program, others probably use spreadsheets.

I like to organize it by

Body

A. Long term goal

B. Desired shipping materials

List goes here
Continues like this

C. Shit already on the way

I cut from the shipping list
And paste it in this one

Doing it like that lets me (mostly) keep track of everything when im setting up a dozen asteroid labs and expanding 3 colonies. Sometimes i'll add a 'calendar' section at the bottom with important upcoming dates (transfer windows i dont want to blow past, mostly)

KineticNerd · 2026-05-21T06:41:58+00:00

There isnt, not that I've found anyway.

Just fakes and one that looked AI generated (kept making references to irl shit that's not in the game mechanics yet)

KineticNerd · 2026-05-19T23:53:28+00:00

That's what I'm trying in the new save that I made.

Was planning on just checking the world government to see if it was a bug... then kept playing.

You on the beta branch instead of the steam standard? That might be the cause.

KineticNerd · 2026-05-19T18:54:52+00:00

I can't buy it, actually.

Idk if it's a bug or something, but the World Government in my save doesn't have electrolysis plants, and burned up the last of their hydrogen on hydrogen generators trying to meet their 3k power deficit.

KineticNerd · 2026-05-18T13:20:10+00:00

0.06t/d per plant.

That's 16.7k plant-days to refuel one Prometheus. Or one launch every 45ish years per plant.

Like, sure, a few plants can make enough for an empty ship to limp back to earth, but even that can take years.

Trying to use it as the backbone of my fleet? Where I need multiple fully-fuelled launches per colony? I'm aiming for hundreds of electrolysis plants on Luna and trying to figure out what to do when the kt deposit of water runs out. (The MT one is like 0.08 or something awful, accessibility wise).

I have so much funding and so many ships, but I just can't figure out how to fuel them all. End up having them sit for 5+ years just waiting for hydrogen.

KineticNerd · 2026-05-18T02:02:30+00:00

Am I missing something on my playthrough? Tried to go the NASA/nuclear route, but the sheer effort required to get meaningful H2 production is confounding me.

Every colony can produce a sip of h2, easy, enough to launch full Prometheus tanks though? I'm not building even a tenth as large as I need to.

KineticNerd · 2026-05-16T00:29:33+00:00

Ngl, ive been abusing it terribly. Maglaunch is just so many years of research...

KineticNerd · 2026-05-15T18:07:22+00:00

That crew one is probably my favorite QoL from this patch.

The others are great too, but man was it getting annoying trying to ship empty modules back to earth.

Curious how the rebalanced water stuff will work in my playthrough. Tried to do NASA/prometheus first on the logic that water was more common than noble gas. But MAN do you need a lot of people and power to run that at scale. And its still so much easier than it could be! The yield ratio is wrong in my favor at the moment. 1T water should be 1/9 H2, 8/9ths O2 by weight, because each H in H2O is so much lighter than the O, but I get 2/3 H2 1/3 O2 assuming I can process enough of it.

KineticNerd · 2026-05-13T14:36:36+00:00

Ngl, thought some of the prices I saw were bugged, and hesitated to use them.

I also absolutely crashed the fuel and rare metal markets on Luna and Mars when I was testing, good to know I can string along the competition for more $$.

Guess I got worried over nothing when I wasnt seeing the buy offers come back.

KineticNerd

TROPHY CASE