OK, I started several sims over the last 24 hours, learning as I went and then starting over when I realized what horrible mistakes I had made. This was a good learning experience.
I did settle on a Builder level Normal difficulty ship with 4 crew. After 52 days in space, I have come to these conclusions:
1) the single plane is best, i could not have kept track of stuff on 2 levels.
2) Really need a few more crew.
3) There are some building tech items that are choke points. If you don't get it right, you can't build the things you need to make the things you need to build with. It would be fantastic if there were different ways to make the same thing, so you don't get stalled.
4) Not enough trade ships. I only encountered two and they ran out of the things I needed. I sat stalled in a system (so far, 14 days) without a trade ship entering the system. If one doesn't come, or have hyper fuel to buy, then I'm dead. They need to be more frequent and they need to always offer hyper fuel.
5) taking over derelict ships? is that a thing? I can hardly build the systems I need on my own ship let alone outfit another to make it spaceworthy. I sure can't give up any of my 4 crew to man the derelict if I took it over.
6) Maybe trade ships should sell crew members? like colonists?
7) never saw a need for hyper chambers
8) Built items outside power grids and they seemed to work. Built a food maker and it constantly flashed that it needed power, but it seemed to grow food and the crew serviced it. Maybe it operated on a lower efficiency without power? or is this a bug that allows systems to work without power?
