I just picked up this game a few days ago in the steam sale and have been having quite a bit of fun with it. My first few games were with some of the more easily understandable affinities, but as soon as I read how the Automaton Affinity worked on the wiki, I knew this would be a very strong affinity that would allow extremely rapid expansion, capped realistically by Morale instead of growth or production.



Production



First let's start with the way production normally works as I understand it for non-Automaton affinity races in a single system:



When you press end turn, all the production is applied to the top item in the queue. If this completes an item, any leftover is applied to the next item and so on down until you run out of things to build or production. Any leftover production after running out of things to build is lost forever to time and space (as far as I can tell). Easy to work around by keeping a queue that is longer than 1 turn going at all times.



Now let's examine the way production works with Automaton affinity races in a single system:



When you press end turn, everything works the same until you reach the leftover production. That, instead of being lost, is instead applied to a stack of stored production. At the start of each turn that production is increased by 5% (15% later with the right building in system) but is capped at 5x the systems base production. In addition to being a nice little production boost (say average around 15% of your system's production each turn), it allows you to minimize the growth blocking that you normally suffer while producing colony ships and pods and thus accounts for a nice food boost for your systems as well. It also allows you to burst build new improvements and ships quickly after they become available.



Some basic tips



If you are needing to build something that will take more than 1 turn, stack your production up on a blank queue until at least one of the following is true:



1. Your current stack + your current production >= the stack cap. Note: always queue your item once it reaches this point



2. Your current stack + your current production >= item cost (will show as 1 turn to complete once you place it in queue). This is dependent on how immediately you need the build. If it is somewhat low priority, you can afford to wait until 1 holds as well.



(Almost) Never Ind-Sci or Ind-Dust on an empty stack. Stacks of around 3-4 x your system production value are great for Ind-Sci as you will accumulate towards your stack cap slowly while Ind-Sci



If you know you will be building a colony ship or pod in a system, prep the production for it on your stack before you hit your population cap in the system (time spent not growing wastes 100% of your surplus food each turn) so you want to minimize turns where growth is halted.





Other Notes



You can grow and expand insanely quickly if you micromanage your stacks well. Morale will be your primary limiting factor so don't be afraid to spend some time doing Ind-Sci (with decent sized stacks) to allow your tech to catch up with your expansion.



The custom race build I use is:



Automaton Affinity - see above for explanation why

Optimistic 2 - Morale is a HUGE issue for me even with this. I can't imagine REXing without this trait.

Naive 2 - For the exact same reason as Optimistic 2.

Legendary Heroes 2 - For the turn 1 10 production administrator into my home system

Dust Archaeology 2 - I guess technically I only need 1 level but in addition to allowing the turn 1 hero, this speeds up the second hero.

Dust Impaired 2

Feeble Warriors 2

Sloppy Sawbones 2

Deep Roots 2

Mineral Rich - Production is king for this affinity and this makes the homeworld an early game powerhouse

Crowded Planets 2 - to take more advantage of the almost always growing state.

N-way Fusion plants

Spenthrifts 3 - running at a low tax rate for the majority of the game means this drawback is nearly non-existent. Ind-Dust will be your primary source of income.



I mentioned it already but take care to watch your Morale carefully. A system jumping down in Morale can be accompanied by a significant loss in per turn production capacity and thus can stack cap you unexpectedly! This can generate a huge loss of production. If a system is likely to lose happiness soon, don't skate on the edge of the stack cap.



This build is 100% designed with the intention that outside of the very early game, you will be running 0% tax rate for the entire game. Basically the speed with which you can expand is going to far outpace the speed with which you can fix your morale so Ind-Dust is going to be your dust production for the majority of the game. NEVER planet exploitation for dust. Ignore dust when deciding on planets to colonize. For all intents and purposes FIDS is just FIS for you.



In most of your outposts, you will get your Heavy Isotope Refineries and exploitation down (I recommend the matching exploitation for most non-arid or desert planets, usually food exploitation for arid and desert planets although occasionally industry) before stacking 2-3 turns of production and switching to Ind-Sci or Ind-Dust. As pop caps you can colonize further planets in the system or build a colony ship if you like.

Automatons is a race I haven't tried yet. Your post makes them sound interesting. Thanks for sharing!

Nice guide... I don't think I could brave them with 0% tax though! I like to have a fair few fleets!

HandKing wrote:
Nice guide... I don't think I could brave them with 0% tax though! I like to have a fair few fleets!

That's what the IND -> Dust is for, since they are so very powerful at pumping industry anyways. You will have enough to build your ships, improve systems, and pay for them still.

steelstiletto wrote:
That's what the IND -> Dust is for, since they are so very powerful at pumping industry anyways. You will have enough to build your ships, improve systems, and pay for them still.

If you do that you aren't stacking production though :P



@OP: Minor correction. Last I checked you "store" remaining industry at the end of a turn for exactly 1 turn for all faction.



Example:



You produce 100 I per turn

You put a 50I item in queue



Next turn you have 50I that will be applied to your queue that turn and 100I that will be applied from normal production.

If you don't put 150I in queue you retain up to 100I (1 turn production) that rolls over to next turn



That's what I remember form mechanics anyway.

And one more question about combat. Some weapon modules has critic multiplier value. What the critic multiplier is, how often critical hits occurs, and how it affects damage formula?

Cookar wrote:
I just picked up this game a few days ago in the steam sale and have been having quite a bit of fun with it. My first few games were with some of the more easily understandable affinities, but as soon as I read how the Automaton The custom race build I use is:



Automaton Affinity - see above for explanation why

Optimistic 2 - Morale is a HUGE issue for me even with this. I can't imagine REXing without this trait.

Naive 2 - For the exact same reason as Optimistic 2.

Legendary Heroes 2 - For the turn 1 10 production administrator into my home system

Dust Archaeology 2 - I guess technically I only need 1 level but in addition to allowing the turn 1 hero, this speeds up the second hero.

Dust Impaired 2

Feeble Warriors 2

Sloppy Sawbones 2

Deep Roots 2

Mineral Rich - Production is king for this affinity and this makes the homeworld an early game powerhouse

Crowded Planets 2 - to take more advantage of the almost always growing state.

N-way Fusion plants

Spenthrifts 3 - running at a low tax rate for the majority of the game means this drawback is nearly non-existent. Ind-Dust will be your primary source of income.

I do like the Automaton affinity a lot! I don't think the settings here are very practical if you are in an environment with the races that will go to war more willingly. You need to keep pace with them in military might right the start. Here is a custom race I find very good to play as...