Did you remove Khazakstan from its federation? It has a great boost income, but most of it goes to Russia, and some of it to the other smaller nations in the federation.

Similarily you won't get that much out of France as it shares its boost with the whole EU. With only two countries under your control most of it goes to other factions.

Also, other factions do tend to build up boost early on as much as possible. You should do the same. With that they can actually compete. I would also not set up a station in LEO orbit yet, as the constant boost loss adds up quite a lot.

The AI doesn't cheat, they probably got their extra boost income from orgs. They could also have stations that are less resource intensive, since before you've got a space mine any station upkeep eats your boost resources.

You can check the intelligence screen (or whatever it's called) to see the other factions boost income too.

It takes very little boost to put a station in orbit or an outpost on the moon, it is also cheaper to fill out a station over earth (at T1 anyway) than to build a mine on the moon. Also the Academy and Project Exodus start with a station each and the ISS starts with all it's slots filled.

If there is no base metal deposits available on the moon still you should save up for Mars which will get you far more resources anyway.

Originally posted by Khan Boyzitbig of Mercia:

it is also cheaper to fill out a station over earth (at T1 anyway) than to build a mine on the moon.

Yes, but it will still cause a significant delay in being able to afford a mine if you do it first, because Boost income is really bad at the start of the game.

Also the Academy and Project Exodus start with a station each and the ISS starts with all it's slots filled.

ISS starts with 3 filled, not all 4 (also, immediately disable one of the solar collectors, there's literally no reason for it to have that and it's a completely pointless expense).

It's good if your first luna mine has as many different resources as possible. But even if it has only base metals, it's worth it, because this will make following mines cost a lot less boost.

If the problem was a lack of boost: Even if you can't afford the mine yet, it is often worth claiming the good spot on the moon with a base. You'll slow down putting a mine down with the upkeep costs, but you'll get the spot.

As others mentioned, keep an eye out for orgs with good boost generation. I've seen ones with 1.5/month pop up. Those are amazing early game.

If the problem was that AI factions built the bases before you even could build a base: They must have put more research into the mission to the moon tech than you. Or really close to you & they had high thrust probes while you did not. 4/6 USA + France & Germany should give you enough research to win that research race.

Unless it has bunch of fissiles, most moon bases are temporary. I wouldn't worry about noble metals too much. The main costs for building bases are in metals, with volatiles coming in a distant second. Water is third, & noble metals & fissiles are minimal. Your boost should cover for the last two without much issue. I would recommend putting a hydroponics facility into the moon outpost as soon as possible so you don't bleed boost paying for the water & volatiles it does not mine.

Yea, the list of things I could see puting you behind.

1. Orgs help, look out for them
2 you got France and khaz and US but how much are you investing in boost with IP, early on I'll invest like 70% or more IP if the nation has a working space program or is close to it, worry about welfare, unity, funding and everything else after you have a few Martian bases secured.
2.5 also removing khaz from federation also makes a significant increase as well
3. If they become available, projects which increase probe speed and boost IP help.
4. Scoring you first moon base is more important than a orbital station, also that orbital station has a water and volities cost which you will pay with boost since you dont have your first mines running yet, that is boost income you are losing and could be saving to get a mine up and running.

Thanks for all your answers

"If the problem was that AI factions built the bases before you even could build a base: They must have put more research into the mission to the moon tech than you. Or really close to you & they had high thrust probes while you did not. 4/6 USA + France & Germany should give you enough research to win that research race."

You mean contributing to researsh gives boost bonus ?

Alas I did not see any boost org.
I should have removed khazakstan, good idea.
As soon as I merged germany and France I became UE. Does it mean I no longer share boost with anyone ?

Thanks !

Originally posted by EstebanT:

"If the problem was that AI factions built the bases before you even could build a base: They must have put more research into the mission to the moon tech than you. Or really close to you & they had high thrust probes while you did not. 4/6 USA + France & Germany should give you enough research to win that research race."

You mean contributing to researsh gives boost bonus ?

No, you do not get more boost that way. But your prospector probes arrive faster, therefore you can claim sites faster.

Originally posted by EstebanT:

As soon as I merged germany and France I became UE. Does it mean I no longer share boost with anyone ?

Everyone inside the federation shares boost even if you formed the UE by joining Germany and France together. All the other European nations will remain inside the federation just the same. (You can see this when a nation has a smaller UE flag beside their own flag.)

Originally posted by EstebanT:

Thanks for all your answers

"If the problem was that AI factions built the bases before you even could build a base: They must have put more research into the mission to the moon tech than you. Or really close to you & they had high thrust probes while you did not. 4/6 USA + France & Germany should give you enough research to win that research race."

You mean contributing to researsh gives boost bonus ?

The amount of mission to x research you contribute does affect prob arrival times, it does not affect the boost cost of building a base.

It's important to contribute some research to the mission to moon and Mars but in my opinion it's not vital to be 1st place, for the moon I must get a metal mine up and running peferably with water and or volities, I only need metal to bootstrap other mines so I don't worry about getting first. For Mars there are so many sites that it's not important to get the first, it is important to be boost rich enough to get most of the sites.

There are projects which multiply the effect of IP invested to boost such as reusable rockets, also some of the chemical rocket projects also in the fine print will also state +10% to boost IP.

It can be hard to keep up with the AI for early game goals even on low difficulties unless you really, really micro-manage all aspects of your engine, which the AI is a lot better at regardless of difficulty.
Generally speaking you should use absolutely 0 boost until you have a mine on Luna so you can frogleap onto Mars from there with the new resources available to you, but missing out on the early mines isn't the end of the world. If you can direct research into Marines, you could easily build a few ships to take those mines for yourself

Thanks all. I had a lot of saves. I reloaded when I got my first USA point. Left russia federation with kazakstan and invested a lot in boost.
This time I managed to get 2 luna bases with a bit of everything.

Thanks again !

What you want to aim for is you take a single Luna site that is net positive for at least 2 of metals, water, or volatiles. For water/volatiles, that means an output of 2 or more. The metal output itself doesn't matter as much other than producing enough between when the mine starts running and you actually get to Mars to cover the cost of the mines, usually an output of 8 to 10 is more than enough. If your Luna rolls really lucky you might get a great site that is positive for water, volatiles, has decent metal, and produces nobles or fissiles, but you don't need that.

The entire point of the Luna site is to cover as much of the building cost of sites on Mars with space resources rather than boost so you can spend the boost to take more sites on Mars. To that end, more than one site on Luna is generally not worth the boost. The priority isn't the Luna site that produces the most metal if there is another that has water, volatiles, but only 7 metal - that is the one you want.

U didn´t "encounter" science yoinking right?
This game is hard even on "normal"....

And no it´s not "stacked" against you. You don´t just uderstand it properly. (Most likely)
Yeah you gotta start it up several times until you get a grip. But then it fires you up like nothing out there ( cus it´s two in one).