Havihng problems getting anything built in demo version

[Esme]

Hello!

I've downloaded and been trying the demo version today. After some initial struggling getting used to the design editor, I finally came up with a design that appeared to be workable (a cylinder 500m diameter, 500m length, endcaps -16, spin giving about 0.6g, mirror below colony; docking ports, comm antenna, nuclear power station, radiator and solar panel onthe top part of a tube with a bearing in teh middle.

looks OK, so I press build, and select L5. I'm asked to name my colony, but there's something about a budget, and it reckons I have negatiove 3,000 billion and change. It ALWAYS says this no matter the size or simplicity/complexity.

What am I doing wrong, please? :-}

[JoeStrout]

Welcome!  Sorry for the slow response — I'm at the NewWorlds 2015 conference right now, and just got back to my hotel room.

The cost of the colony is not always the same (I guess unless you've discovered some interesting new bug I haven't seen!).  It depends mainly on the mass of the colony, and where you're trying to build it.  The size of the grant depends on the population your colony can support, as well as the orbit and the difficulty level you've selected.

So, some tips to get you started:

• Check all the tabs in the Analysis palette before you exit design mode.  Make sure there are no warnings (except sometimes a "minimum gravity" warning; it's normal to have some zero-G areas, and fine as long as your main habitat section has a reasonable gravity).
• Spin faster.  Your first colony should have 1G of gravity.
• Shorten that cylinder, as it's unstable and could lead to your residents having a very bad day.
• For your first colony, ditch the mirror and use artificial light; it's much simpler.
• You don't need both a nuclear power plant and solar panels.  Pick one.
• Don't be shy about setting the difficulty to Easy until you get the hang of it.
  

If that doesn't solve it for you (or even if it does!), please post a screen shot of your colony, as well as the Build dialog's budget, and we'll see if we can give more specific help.

Cheers,
- Joe