OUTPOST 
ANSWERS TO MOST FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS 
AND ADDITIONAL STRATEGY TIPS 
 
 
(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 dots (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 dot.  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 unnecessary 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 unnecessary 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. 
 
 
 
 
revision  7/13/94
