Master of Orion/How to begin

The player begins the game with 2 scout ships and 1 colony ship and no knowledge of any outside systems.

The scouts should unquestionably sent out to survey the surrounding worlds first turn. In efficient play this will always happen first turn. It is hard to argue that any other course of action has any merit whatsoever.

The use of the colony ship, though, is more complex. It can either remain in the home system until the scouts find it a suitable place to colonize or it can be used as a scout ship itself.

To better understand how to proceed it is helpful to discuss the cost of letting it sit in the home system and do nothing. It is not readily apparent, but there is a cost.

For a normal race like the Humans, on the impossible difficulty setting, the maintenance cost for the 3 starting ships is 23.5%. This means that nearly 1/4 of the entire production of the planet is being used to support the 3 ships that are currently in space.

If the player deleted all these ships, that would reduce right away to give the player productive use of the production base that is being wasted. The difference between an effective production of 76.5% (100% - 23.5%) and 100% is a gain of 30.7% (23.5% / 76.5% = ~30.7%).

These resources are not used equally by each of the 3 ships in the sky. Maintenance costs depend on the cost to put a ship in space. The cost to build one of these scout ships is 10 BC. The cost to build a Colony Ship is 590 BCs. That means 96.7% of the production wasted on ship maintenance is being used to support the colony ship (590 / (590 + 10 + 10) = ~96.7%).

Deleting the colony ship right away results in the support cost being reduced from 23.5% straight to 0.0% (because the cost becomes so small it rounds down rather than even rounding up to 0.1%).

The cost for letting the ship sit around and do nothing is then letting the 23.5% of resources it is consuming remain present, reducing the productivity of your entire empire by that much until something happens with it.

If you dismantle it right away you can only get back 1/4 of the cost to produce it, and eventually you do want to have more of these so you can expand your empire so you are 75% of the cost behind if you dismantle this one and build another one later.

The best use of the colony ship is generally to use it to colonize a second world as quickly as possible.

The question is then how it can be used as quickly as possible.

The two options are, again, (1) leaving it in space over the main colony until the scouts have sent in survey reports, or (2) to use it as an additional scout.

The way to decide is to guess what will happen in the future doing both options and then decide which is the most likely to have the best outcome.

The colony ship begins with a distance of 3 which means it can only go a distance of 3 away from the main colony. The map is generated randomly, but it is very likely that there will be only 1 or 2 planets within a range of 3 from the home world. There is a significant chance to be zero within that range and a very very slim chance to have 3 or more within range.

If there are none, it is almost unquestionably a good idea just to dismantle it and use the money from selling it for scrap metal to increase the rate of production of factories.

Note: In the higher difficulties, pro players will probably always quit the game and restart in a new galaxy with better prospects. The likelihood to win any game where there is zero planets within a range of 3 from the home world on Impossible difficulty is very very small for even expert players.

If there is only one colony ship within a range of 3 from the home planet there is essentially zero cost to sending the colony ship directly to it and using it as a scout for that system. If the information comes back that it is a habitable world, the colony ship can colonize it right away.

If the planet is a range of 3 away and you are using the plan to keep the colony ship in orbit over the colony and scout the planet with a regular scout and then send the colony ship later if it is habitable the time it takes for the scout to get there is 3 turns and then the colony ship is launched and another 3 turn wait is required.

Contrast that with 3 turns total if the colony ship scouts itself and then lands right away for a total of 3 turns.

The difference in costs between these 2 courses of action is 23.5% of planetary resources over 3 turns under the 6 turn strategy and not paying those costs in the 3 turn strategy.

That is a lot of resources to waste in the 6 turn strategy. The starting production of the home planet is between (impossible) 40 people x 0.5 BC = 20 BC + 30 factories x 1 = 30 = 50 BCs total and (simple) 10 extra people = 5 extra BCs = 55 BCs total.

Three turns of 23.5% worth of that total being wasted is 70.5% of one whole turn's production or a waste of 38.775 BCs = 38 BCs.

You gain 38 BCs worth of production by landing the colony ship 3 turns sooner. Since factories can be built for 10 BCs, that is 3.8 extra factories you are behind the 3 turn strategy if you use the 6 turn strategy and you will be producing 3.8 factories x 1 BC per turn = 3.8 BCs a turn less than them every turn until the 3 turn strategy maxes its total production. That could take dozens of turns amounting to hundreds of lost BCs in total production.

The price, then, to use the 6 turn strategy is hundreds of BCs you don't have that game and the loss of everything those BCs would have gotten you.

There is, however, a possibility where it is better to use the 6 turn strategy. If there are 2 planets within a range of 3 from your home world that are greater than a distance of 3 from each other AND you pick wrong about which world to send your colony ship to.

If this happens, your colony ship gets to the wrong system and then must depart from there to head to the right system. If the 2 colonies were on exactly opposite sides of the home world, the potential additional distance could be 6 turns, 3 to get back home and 3 to get to the other colony. That would result in keeping the ship in space 9 turns instead of 6 in the worst case.

If the 2 new planets are exactly a distance of 3 apart from each other there is no benefit to waiting and still a drawback for waiting if you would have picked right, so there is no reason not to send the colony ship right away to the most likely to be successful choice.

That narrow situation where there are 2 and they are at least a distance of 4 apart is the only case where it might make sense not to send the colony ship out as a scout on turn 1.

Note also, using it as a scout also lets you use the scout that would have scouted that world to scout something else instead, allowing you to scout more worlds faster. This can be an advantage.

Note: It is entirely possible to skip this decision making process entirely, and most pros probably will. To do this, just save the game before you do anything, then use the colony ship as a scout, and if you were wrong then reload the save and send it to the right colony instead. There is absolutely no downside to doing this if it is within the realm of what you consider "ethical" play. Pros mostly play on the hardest difficulty setting and there is no room for getting a bad start. The penalty in an impossible game for getting a less than optimal start is having much less likelihood to win. This is not based on skill, just on a wrong guess. Many pros want the game to be decided by actual skill rather than a wrong guess on turn 1, so they will not have problems reloading the save in this manner.

Note also: The way that would bring the most skill into the game and take the most luck out of it would be if the designers had pre-scouted everything within a range of 3 for you before the game starts, but they didn't.