Outpost - Player’s Guide

Construction In The Early Stages
There is a fine balance between getting your initial construction ‘just right’ and 
watching it fail miserably. Therefore to get the most out of the chosen terrain and 
your colonists you should build your structures in the following order: 
Agricultural Dome, CHAP, Power Facility, Storage Tanks, Residential Units. 
Remember to keep an eye on your morale factor; if it is falling dramatically, build 
one or two residential units before you construct the power facility, as the Seed 
Factory will sustain power for a short time. This should hold the situation. 
Once you have your basic units up and running it is best to invest in a SPEW 
facility, as this generates useful resources from residential waste. The SPEW also 
generates MPG, which will maintain flailing resources until you can compensate. 
It is also beneficial to construct a Warehouse and a Robot Command facility so 
that you can put the robots created by the Seed Factory to good use. Next 
excavate a couple more mines to keep your resources steady.
The best thing to remember, however, is not to rush things - build slowly but 
steadily. If you build too quickly, you will deplete your resources and as a result 
construction will cease altogether. Also, the Seed Factories collapse after 150 
turns, so you must try and compensate for the resources they generate before this 
happens.

Seed Factory
The Seed Factory plays a vital part of the initial construction and well being of 
your colony. From here you can begin to explore the possibilities of developing 
underground facilities by placing a Robodigger at the end of a tube emerging 
from the Seed Factory construction site - the Robodigger will proceed to tunnel an 
air shaft. During your later turns you can begin construction on an underground 
site by placing a Robodigger at the end of any service tube as long as it connects 
to the main colony.
The Seed Factory is a vital facility because it generates power, smelter and the 
Robot Factory. When the Seed Factory collapses after 150 turns you must be 
prepared to take this loss in your stride by compensating with other units. Make 
sure, therefore, that you have these facilities constructed before this time, and at 
this point all tubes carrying power and air should now bypass the dying factory. 
Get your Seed Factory producing numerous types of robots early on, enabling you 
to get on with numerous different tasks. Access the text entry area on the robot 
report and pull down the production menu by clicking on the small arrow to the 
right of the report. Select a robot type and close the report. This then 
automatically selects which robots will be constructed - one is built after every 
five turns. Try to build at least one of each, then look into building more of a 
specific type when needed. 
Once your Seed Factory dies you will have to build another robot manufacturer, 
and this is where a surface factory comes into the equation. You must also store 
your robots in a warehouse; one will usually suffice due to the continual turnover 
of the goods. Once you start gaining a surplice robot supply build a Robot 
Command Centre to activate those stored in the warehouse - one Centre can 
control up to ten robots in the field.

Structures And Tubes
You may not be getting the most out of your buildings, and your facilities are 
becoming idle. If this is the case, check your resources, power or people.
The CHAP facilities are a priority and cannot be left to rot. If resources are scarce 
and you have a SPEW structure, try bulldozing redundant buildings so that you 
can recycle the materials. If you take this approach, make sure you also have 
operating Mines, Smelter and vacant Storage Tanks to handle the recycled 
materials (only build a new tank when the others are almost full). 
An idle Lab, on the other hand, can be caused by one of three things:
1) You don’t have sufficient resources - check what you need from the lab report.
2) You don’t have sufficient scientists - train more.
3) You don’t have a research topic allocated - call up a topic from the lab report.
If your problems are simply due to a lacking workforce, for quick results bulldoze 
redundant structures and then re-allocate the unemployed workforce.
Also, remember to build DIRT facilities within a few spaces of your Tokamaks, 
Nanotechnology Facilities and Hot Labs as these have an unnerving tendency to
explode from time to time. The DIRT facility can aid against other disasters 
within the immediate vicinity.
As soon as your scientists have discovered Nanotechnology build at least one 
facility on each of your colonies. This will reduce the emphasis placed on 
resources and in turn will no longer limit the expansion of your colony. 

Transport And Infrastructure
To move resources quicker and more efficiently you will need to employ the use 
of trucks, which can be built in your surface factories. Each mine has one truck 
automatically assigned to the carriage of resources, however, any extras that you 
have created will make absolutely sure that there is no lapse in the transportation 
of your resource
should a truck break down. You do not need to build roads or any other kind of 
infrastructure for transportation.

Man Management
Initially, leave your colonists in orbit during the first 20 turns to enable your Seed 
Factory to get established. After this, your colonists may well die due to accidents 
on the surface or through old age - don’t panic, that’s life! However, when you get 
a death message it may be due to starvation or lack of air, so keep a continual 
check of your Agricultural Domes (one unit feeds ten people) and that each 
structure has air tubes going to it.
If you find that you are not getting enough skilled workers, such as scientists, 
construct a University to increase the general educational level of your student 
populace and general workers. 
Morale is all important and is obviously remedied by constructing more 
Residential Units - morale is best when there are no more than 25 colonists per 
unit. Other aspects which can alter morale is the construction of recreational 
centres, parks, police stations, agricultural domes and luxury goods (created in 
underground facilities). Also, research laboratories studying humanities or 
psychology can help. Be careful with Red Light districts, as this can have a 
beneficial and negative effect depending where it’s built.

Rebel Alliance
A Rebel Colony can rejoin yours, at which point it will come under your 
command. Simply click on the Command Centre of that colony to gain access to 
all their structures and resources - you can now manage it as your own. If the 
Rebel Colony has not rejoined you and you wish to locate it, you will have needed 
to pack an Orbital Observer Satellite before you left Earth. If you did, it needs to 
be launched as soon as you arrive at the outpost - this will let you view all surface 
activity in the colony. If you didn’t pack the Satellite, then it’s down to a manual 
search of the planet, inch by inch.

Anything We Can’t Categorise...
If you’re wondering where you’re going with all of this, try setting yourself this 
aim: Lead up to the creation of a space research project which could lead to the 
generation of another colonisation starship. This is going to require success in a 
number of different areas, which is a mammoth task in itself. You will need a 
good morale, a healthy and well-sustained colony, and research facilities into a 
wide range of diverse topics. As soon as you launch your new starship you 
effectively ‘win’.
Don’t rush things. The most effective route to growth is being cautious about 
construction and resources, your so-called money spinner. It will take time to 
achieve a healthy and efficient colony, Rome wasn’t built in a day you know! 
Also, remember there’s a moral injected into Outpost and it’s one that should be 
imprinted on your brain for both every day life as well as this escape - recycle, 
recycle, recycle...

Cheat!
Yep, there are cheat keys in Outpost and if you’re really stuck (or just downright 
impatient), here they are:
CONTROL and F8 together - Activate cheering and applause mode.
CONTROL and F9 together - Inflict a Mass Driver disaster on the Rebel Colony. 
CONTROL and F10 together (will work on CD version only) - Inflict a choice of 
disasters on your colony.
CONTROL and F11 together - Gives infinite supply of resources.
CONTROL and F12 together - Increases the morale, educational level or crime 
level to the maximum or minimum.

Further Reading...
Outpost programmer Bruce Balfour has written a comprehensive strategy guide to 
accompany the game and can be found in all good book shops. Its ISBN number 
is 1-55958-508-0 and it’s published through Prima Publishing, retailing for 
£18.49.