Getting Started

Under Construction

JP LeBreton (the project lead of Spacebase DF-9) has made a wonderful guide on how to build your first base.

This guide is currently under construction, as requested by the Community portal. Please do not alter it until it is finished. Draconarach (talk) 16:18, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

This guide will help you set up a small and running base. Many things here can be found on specific sites of the wiki, but as they are needed for getting started, they will be explained here too. It is a step to step tutorial to the game so you can follow it as you play the game or you can read it in advance.

Detailed Guide

Objective

The objective of Spacebase DF-9 is to resettle the Milky Way as there is no longer any intelligent life after the collapse. Your task as a base administrator is to set up a running space station in the Milky Way. Therefore you will need to build a station for your inhabitants and you have to keep their morale up, because life in space can be both, deserted and dangerous at the same time. This is done by fulfilling their needs, but we will talk about this later.

Hands on

Finding a place to stay

For your base, you first have to decide where you want to settle in space. There are 4 parameters that have influence on your later gameplay: stellar density, warpgate proximity, threat factor and magnetic interference. They are explained after you decide where to go, don't worry, you can reconsider you decision before deployment. For your first base, you want a high stellar density, a neutral to average warpgate proximity, a threat factor as low as possible and a low magnatic interference as well. The location depicted in the picture (added later) is not that bad, you might have problems finding a good location as they usually do not combine all positive influences. Once you made up your decision, hit confirm and deploy.

Userinterface

The interface generally has an area for base management on the left side and shows stats in the top-right corner. Right beneath, you can switch to different speeds. Bottom right corner is for visual controls. You will learn to use the base management tools later in this tutorial. Matter is the main resource in Spacebase DF-9, it is used for every construction task. Next to it is the capacity displaying your current crew and the maximum crew size, that you can provide oxygen for.

Building your base

By hovering one of your astronauts, you will see that they only have 8 minutes of oxygen left. So you should better be fast with the construction of your base.

Essentials

The first thing you need is an airlock tat can be used for entering and exiting your base from and to space. Move your mouse to the right corner and click Construction or just press c. Now make a room by choosing that option from the menu and simply clicking and dragging it over space. Dont exaggerate here! Your airlock needs a minimum size of 2x3 but i recommend 3x3 as it is a little more practicable later on. Confirm this. The next thing you have to do is to assign all your astronauts to the builder duty. Wait for the room to be completed, then click the room (it will say Unzoned Area). Change it to airlock at the left. Now go to the construction menu again. You will need two airlock doors and a space suit locker as you can see in this picture. These are found at objects - doors and objects - airlock.

Once this is done build a second room adjacent to the airlock so your astronauts could use the airlock to get from the outside to the inside of the base. It is important that this room and the airlock share walls, otherwise there is no way to get in. Make this second room at least 5x5 big to ensure it is big enough for your starting phase. Once it is finished, zone it as life support like you did before with the airlock and build an oxygen recycler in it. Hit the O₂ button in the bottom right corner and watch your oxygen level rise. Congratulations, you started your base and your new citizens are no longer in immediate danger of suffocation! You may want to build a second air recycler, because one is providing just enough oxygen for 3 citizens, so the oxygen level will not be rising with all of them inside.

You might want to build a food replicator, too, as starvation is the other big danger in the game. It will provide for the Hunger need on the cost of 1 Matter per meal.

As you got some machines now, you have to go to your rooster and set one of your residents to the mechanics duty. Preferably one with three stars in it, as others are an immediate danger to the integrity of your base.

Expansion

Let us recap your situation. You got until now:

1. A space base that keeps space out (or air in)
2. Air recyclers
3. Food for your inhabitants

Next, you will need to expand your base, so further needs of your citizens can be fulfilled. Therefore you will need a refinery. Add it as you did with the life support room before, just that you use a normal door between your life support room and the refinery. Make it at least 4x4 tiles big. Do not worry if the door is built before the room is finished. It is locked airtight until the oxygen level in the other room is habitable. Reassign the room to a refinery and build a refinery object in it. If you run out of matter, you can demolish the seed-pot by simply clicking on it and choosing demolish. Give one of your two builders the task to mine. Now choose mine from the menu an click and drag over some asteroids near your base. They will turn red and your miner will start working if you set up everything correctly. Now you have an almost indefinite source of matter (of course it is definite, but it will be enough to support your base for a long time).

The next target you have is to get a residential zone for your inhabitants, as they require sleep. They can sleep on the ground of course, but this will let their morale go done and leads to bad performance of duties. Add one rather large room to your base and make it a residential zone. Place as many space beds as you have crew members to allow them to sleep simultaneously. By now you got some sort of stable base. Theoretically all needs can be fulfilled by now, but some ways are inefficient. Your residents (at least some) will still drop sad after some time. To prevent this add plants and monitors to every room and expand your base to include a pub and a garden zone. Refer to these pages as you should know by now, how the game works. Everything relevant will be explained there.

Anomalies

New crew members

After some time, you will be told there is a space ship incoming. Some times later, a communication interface will pop up with foreigners asking to enter your base. Read carefully what they want, as they could also be attacking you! If you think you have space for them and their request sounds reasonable, you can accept their offer. Sometimes they will come aboard even if you deny them. Everything that arrives in a ship is currently a new crew member, so do not fear them. Remember that you might want to get a new air recycler and a new bed for every new crew member. Also give them a duty, if you feel you got surplus members it is safest in the beginning to put them on the security duty.

Base is under attack

If your base is under attack by a parasite or some raiders, the most important thing is not to panic. Hit spacebar to stop time and get an overview of the situation. If you do not have any security-personnel assigned, do it now. Afterwards, click the beacon from your menu and use it to send your security guards to a specific area. One click assigns one security officer to that position, so you have to click multiple times to send enough officers to make a safe kill. If everyone dropped deeply sad, consider to build a new space, as it is really hard to get them out of this state.

Base is on fire

If your base is on fire, this can be cause by a defective device or an unskilled mechanic (less then 3 stars) trying to repair something. In both cases, your inhabitants will rush to trample out the fire. If you have fire extinguishers that is way more successful but it should also work like this. Security guards do always carry fire extinguishers. Consider assigning more skilled citizens to the mechanics duty.

Short Guide

Step 1: Not instantly dying

Make everyone a builder

Your initial base should have at least 3 rooms, including

• 1 functioning airlock
• 1 Life Support zone, equipped with at least 1 or 2 Oxygen Recyclers
• 1 Refinery zone, equipped with 1 Matter Refinery

You will also need a Food Replicator which may be placed on the wall of any room.

This much will be enough to keep your guys alive and allow you to start mining more matter.

Step 2: Stabilizing Morale

This step is less urgent and will often require more matter than you start with. So set 1 or 2 citizens as miners immediately after your initial base is constructed.

For this step all you need to do is:

• construct a proper Residence for your citizens to sleep. Your initial 3 astronauts will likely get tired at around the same time so building at least 3 Space Beds is a good idea. Sleeping on the floor has a severe negative effect on morale and leaves citizens more likely to cause accidents.
• begin sprinkling cosmetic objects such as monitors, Ordinary Plants, and Space Rugs around your base to keep up morale.
• remember to put some Fire Extinguishers in your refinery room and life support room

Step 3: A Growing Population

Additional room types are generally not going to be very useful until you have extra citizens to serve as botanists or bartenders. But once you do, good food and alcohol will be essential to help get over the inevitable deaths your base will experience.

• Start with a Garden, citizens will be able to eat raw meals from Hydroponics Cultures even if you do not have a pub yet. You likely will not need many plants or botanists right away.
• The Pub is next. It requires a bar, a refrigerator, a stove, and at least 1 Standing Table (do not make too many of these until you have more bartenders).

Don't forget to continue building beds and oxygen recyclers as your population expands.