OUTPOST
ANSWERS TO MOST FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
AND ADDITIONAL STRATEGY TIPS
7/5/94
(This document summarizes the hints and tips from various sources.)
* SEED FACTORY AND ROBOMINER PLACEMENT
Use the Elevation Map on the site map window to choose a landing area.
The clear terrain is marked in black, so the best locations are black
with red diamonds (which mark potential mines identified from orbit).
When you place the Seed factory, a red "X" will appear on the diamond-
shaped tile map. Run a turn by left clicking on the small planet in
the lower right hand corner of the screen, then the turn number will
appear below the planet. When you see the Seed lander on the map (in
place of the red "X"), you can start running turns to get the Seed
factory started. Construction tiles and pre-fabricated tubes will
appear.
While the Seed factory is building itself, place a robominer from the
tile selector window on one of the red mining beacons nearby. If you
don't see a mining beacon, scroll to that position on the map by
clicking on the tile map arrows and watch the box on the site map to
line it up with a red diamond. When you place a robominer on the red
mining beacon, you will see the robot replace the beacon. It will
take several turns for the first level of the mine to be dug, after
which it will automatically move resources to the Seed factory.
As you run your first turns, keep using the robodozer to clear
terrain around your Seed factory. Also place a robodigger at the
end of one of the tubes at the Seed factory construction site so
that it can start digging your first underground level. When the
robodigger is finished digging, the robodigger on the map will be
replaced with the top of an air shaft.
* BUILDING WITH TUBES
Tubes carry air and power from your CHAP and power facilities.
For most structures, a tube connection is required to physically
connect them to your existing network of buildings and tubes.
Since construction also requires a tube connection on a tile
adjacent to your intended building site, you may find that
nothing is available in your tile selector window except for
robots and tubes.
After placing a tube on a bulldozed section of the diamond-
shaped tile map, structures will then appear in the tile selector
window if resources are available to build new structures.
When your colony is just starting, tubes will not be available in
the tile selector window until you have brought down your first
colonist lander.
* IF THE TILE SELECTOR WINDOW IS EMPTY
During construction of your colony, there may be times when
the tile selector window is empty. This means that all the
robots are actively assigned to tasks on the tile map, and that
no resources are currently available to construct new buildings.
Running a few turns will remedy this situation.
* EARLY CONSTRUCTION
In the Construction section of the manual, it is suggested that you
build your first few structures in this order: Agricultural Dome,
CHAP, power facility, storage tanks, residential units. If your
morale is falling fast, you may want to build a residential unit or
two to slow the fall of morale before you build a power facility
(since the Seed provides power for about 150 turns).
During the first 50 turns or so, you should build SLOWLY---allow
each of your first structures to finish building before starting a new
one. While structures are building, you can always bulldoze, mine,
and tunnel horizontally or vertically with your robodiggers (assuming
you have these robots available when you want them).
Because a SPEW facility provides resources from the sewage
generated by residential units, this is also a good structure to build
early on, along with a warehouse and a robot command facility to
make use of robots built by your Seed factory. Gradually add more
mines to keep your resources flowing.
Remember that an operating SPEW will generate MPG, which will take
the place of any resources you may temporarily be missing. MPG is
stored at the SPEW facility and used automatically when necessary to
maintain existing structures. You can check the amount of MPG you
have in storage by left-clicking on the SPEW facility to get its report.
* SEED FACTORY COLLAPSE
Remember also that you will lose your Seed factory units (power,
smelter, robot factory) after 150 turns, so you must build structures
to account for this loss if you want to maintain those functions.
Before the Seed factory units collapse, make sure that your tube
connections will be maintained between structures. Tubes are required
to carry power and air, both for construction of new buildings and
maintenance of those buildings. You need a constant physical
connection of buildings and tubes to keep supplying power and air to
all of your structures, so there must be tubes that bypass your seed
factory units by the time the Seed factory units collapse.
* SAVE GAMES
Note that games can only be saved from the main game screen where you
see the diamond-shaped map. If you encounter a problem saving a game,
try running another turn before you select the Save Game option. This
will complete the internal processing steps required so that you can
save the current state of the game. Running a single turn is
accomplished by left-clicking on the small planet icon in the lower
right-hand corner of the main game screen. This screen is the only
place where games can be saved.
* USING THE ROBOTS THAT LANDED WITH YOUR SEED FACTORY
Your seed factory landed with three robots on board: a robodozer, a
robominer, and a robodigger. While the seed factory is building itself,
these three robots can be assigned to tasks on the diamond-shaped
tile map that dominates your screen. When available, these robots
are visible in the tile selector window at the top center of your screen.
When you first place your robots, it's wise to place a robodigger
adjacent to one of the tube openings that are part of the seed factory
complex. The robodigger will then start digging a shaft to create
your first underground level.
Place a robodozer beside one of the other tube openings to prepare a
building site. Place the robominer on a red mining beacon (described
in the Seed Factory and Robominer Placement section). When you
have placed all of these robots, the tile selector window will be empty.
You must run turns to complete the current activity by those robots.
As each robot completes an activity, it will reappear in the tile selector
window for reassignment to a new task.
Explorer robots perform their function automatically. Each explorer
is capable of finding new mines, assuming they have not all been
discovered yet. The starship locates a large portion of a planet's
potential mine sites; the geological penetrator probes discover more
potential mine sites; and the hardest mine sites to locate can be
discovered by explorer robots. On the easy difficulty level, ten
explorers are sufficient to discover the remaining mine sites.
* BUILDING ROBOTS WITH YOUR SEED FACTORY
Once the construction of your seed factory is completed, you can
use it to build additional basic robots. Familiarize yourself with
each unit of the seed factory by left-clicking on each of the finished
units to read the report that identifies its individual function.
When you select the robot factory portion of the seed factory, you
can start building additional robots. There is a text entry area on
the robot factory report which has a small arrow to its right.
Clicking on the arrow button will pull down the robot production
menu. The seed factory can only produce these types of robots.
By selecting one of these robot types and closing the report, you
have set the factory to produce one of those robots every five
turns. After you've built one or more of a single robot type, you
can go back to this same report and reset production to build a
new robot type.
New robots must be stored in a warehouse. Usually, one
warehouse is sufficient to handle robot storage for a long time,
since active robots in the field require no storage. Active robots
will last for 200 turns, which is the limit of their fuel cell power
capacity. You must have at least one warehouse to store the
robots that your seed factory is building, otherwise nothing will
happen. Then, to activate the robots from your warehouse,
you must also build a robot command center (described below).
Each robot command center can operate ten robots in the field.
* BUILDING NEW ROBOTS WITHOUT THE SEED FACTORY
The seed factory can keep producing robots right up to the end
of its lifetime, which occurs around turn 151. For this first
phase of the game, seed factory robot production will often be
sufficient for your robot needs. However, at some point you
may decide to build more. A surface factory is required to
build more robots. After turn 151, this is your only option for
building new robots. Active robots have a life of 200 turns
before their fuel cells die, so you'll start losing them after turn
200, if you haven't already lost any due to accidents.
* ACTIVATING NEW ROBOTS WITH ROBOT COMMAND
However they are produced, new robots need to be stored in
a warehouse, from which they are available to robot command
units. Each robot command facility can operate ten robots. If
you want to operate 11 robots, you will need to build a second
robot command facility.
If a robot factory has produced robots, and a warehouse exists
to store the robots, and at least one robot command facility
exists to operate ten of the robots, they will appear in your
tile selector window so that you can place them on the tile
map. If all of the currently available robots are active, no
robots of that type will appear in the tile selector window.
The radius of a robot command area is unlimited if you have a
communications satellite in orbit (assuming you packed one
when you left Earth). If you have no communications
satellite, communications towers must be built to extend the
range of your robominers and other robots. Each robot
command facility and each communication tower have a
communications radius of 30 tiles.
* ROBODIGGERS AND ROBOMINERS
To extend a mine shaft to a deeper level on planets where this is
possible, place a robominer directly on an existing underground mine
shaft. This will not affect the functioning of the existing mine.
To extend an air shaft to a deeper level on planets where this is
possible, place a robodigger directly on an existing underground air
shaft.
* WHEN ROBODIGGERS DIG
On the surface of the planet, a robodigger can only dig a new level
when it starts next to a surface tube connecting it to its home
colony. Because the robodigger constructs the air shaft for the
underground levels, the tube connection is required to carry air and
power to underground structures.
* WHEN PEOPLE ARE DYING TOO FAST AFTER LANDING
It is often wise to leave your colonists in orbit for the first 20
turns while your Seed factory and its robots are doing their jobs to
get the colony started. This number will vary somewhat depending on
how much life support and food you brought with you on the starship
(you packed it at the Ship Configuration screen before leaving on the
trip to the new planet).
After you bring your first colonist lander down to the surface of the
planet, you have about 20 more turns in which to make sure that a
CHAP facility is built. Some people may die in the meantime due to
accidents or old age, depending on the hostility level of the planet
you've chosen.
* WHEN BUILDINGS GO IDLE
Buildings go idle due to lack of resources, power, or people. In
the case of laboratories, they can also go idle if they are not
assigned a specific line of research.
If a particular structure's report shows its status as "idle," you can
find out what resources it needs by clicking on the "Needs" button
at the bottom of the report. (In the case of the CHAP facility, the
CHAP facility report is reached through the Executive Summary
Report buttons).
CHAP facilities and power facilities are at the top of the priority
list when resources are scarce, allowing you time to react to the
resource shortage. Bulldoze unecessary structures, particularly
if you have an operational SPEW facility to recycle the bulldozed
building materials. Make sure you have operating mines, an
operating smelter, and sufficient space in your storage tanks to
handle the processed resources coming into your colony.
If buildings are only idle due to a lack of people to operate them,
you can bulldoze unecessary structures to free up employed
workers, or wait for your population to grow and age so that
you have a larger available workforce. They will all age as you
run each turn.
* POPULATION DISTRIBUTION
In the Executive Summary Report, you'll find a "Details" button in
the population section. Clicking on this button shows you the
current breakdown of your population by category: infant, student,
worker, scientist, or retired.
You will witness population explosions on occasion. This will be
apparent when you see more infants and/or students than workers
or scientists. Workers and scientists are required to operate your
facilities, so this is a limiting factor to your colony expansion. Only
time will age your young people to the point where they become
workers and scientists. Universities help to shift the student and
worker groups into the scientist group by bringing up the general
educational level of the population.
It is not possible to assign the adult population to specific tasks.
One of the limits on building new structures is whether or not
enough colonists are available to build them and staff them. If
they are available, they will be assigned to those structures
automatically when you build them.
* WHY PEOPLE DIE
People die naturally from old age or by accident. These deaths
will occur no matter what you do. Deaths also occur due to
starvation or lack of air, and these are the deaths you can do
something about.
When you receive a death message after running a turn, it may
not mean you're doing anything wrong. Check to make sure that
you have enough food being produced by your agricultural
domes (one unit feeds ten people), and that your structures are
getting enough air. If you have handled those requirements,
then you know they're dying due to old age or accident.
After turn 60, deaths by old age or accident are reduced because
the first part of the colony has been built, the weakest people
who survived the trip have already died in the hostile
environment, and construction accidents are fewer because the
workers have learned safer techniques.
* RESOURCE MOVEMENT FROM MINES TO COLONY SMELTERS
Mined ores are stored at each mine shaft until a full load is ready
to be moved by the truck assigned to that mine. When built, each
mine has one truck to automatically move ores to the Seed factory
smelter or to the high-capacity smelter you can build yourself.
Storage tanks are also required to receive the smelted resources
and make them available to the colony. You won't see these
trucks operating, but they're on the job.
* TRUCKS
Trucks can be produced by your surface factories. These trucks will
make a slight difference in the speed of your resource movements
between the mines and the smelters and the storage tanks. These
trucks are not affected by the robot command facility limit of ten
robots each. Internally, a truck is created to serve each mine when
new mines are built. Any trucks you build will remain in your
warehouses unless one of these mine trucks breaks down, at which
time your trucks will be used automatically. On the easy difficulty
setting, it is possible to get through most or all of a game without
using these trucks.
* ROADS AND MONORAILS
Although there are no roads or monorails in this version of Outpost,
resources are moved automatically from place to place as necessary.
Each mine has a truck assigned to it when built, which will move a
new load after enough ore has stacked up at the mine.
* SOUND CARDS
Any sound card supported by Windows will work with Outpost. During
the Installation process, the question regarding the Roland sound
cards (MT-32, etc.) is asked so that the special music file for those
sound cards can be loaded instead of the standard music file.
