The 2005 players' advice still holds: “refineries to build robots to build refineries”. Here is an opening that follows it, hour by hour.
Hour 0 — the first refinery
You have 1,000 vitarium. Start a refinery (400). On the Population page, put 100% of your humans and robots on construction. With what is left, build about twenty soldiers: they cost only 20 vitarium each and will keep you from being too easy a target when the protection ends.
Hour 12 — production starts
The refinery is ready: +25 vitarium per hour. Start a solar plant (300 vitarium, 10 h): every building uses energy, and you produce none yet. As soon as you can, a second refinery.
Hour 24 — robots
Once you have 1,500 vitarium, start the robot factory (20 h). This is the turning point: robots are units that build. Then switch 50% of your population to army manufacturing and build robots non-stop.
Hour 48 — the loop is closed
Three refineries, a plant, a robot factory and your first robots speeding everything up. Next, in order: the research building, housing (population caps at 1,000 without it) and a farm (people eat).
What to watch
- Energy. If consumption exceeds production, the most recently built structures shut down. One plant for every three or four buildings is the rule of thumb.
- Food. Each inhabitant eats 0.1 food per hour, and so does each soldier — a soldier is a human, and eats even while away with a squadron. Without food, population shrinks 2% per hour and soldiers desert at the same rate; with it, population grows 1%.
- Storage caps. Anything above storage capacity is lost. Build a warehouse before vitarium overflows.
- The 72 hours. When protection ends, have robots at the base and a shelter under construction.