How to Grow Colonists in Starmancer

In the game Starmancer, many players have found that some of the earliest tasks aren't very intuitive. In fact, many of us are stuck trying to figure out how to grow colonists. The guide below provides a simple explanation for using the Incubation Tank to get colonists and manage your ship.

The first thing you need to do is select the Incubation Tank, which is shown in the image above. If you're just now starting the game, the Tutorial AI will place a green arrow above the Incubation Tank. When you select it, you will see a menu open up on the left of the screen. From this menu, the first thing you'll have to do (before you grow a colonist), is select the Unlock More Colonists option.

When you select Unlock More Colonists, you will see a new menu populated with three colonists (or as they're called in the game: Egos). You can choose any of these Egos to grow your first colonist. However, before you do, it's strongly recommended that you look at the traits and cost for each one.

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• The Traits are highlighted in the yellow boxes above. These define characteristics that this colonist has. Red is a negative trait, green is a positive trait, and purple/blue is a neutral trait.
• The cost is highlighted in the red boxes above. You pay for each Ego with DNA Fragments, of which you have a finite amount. You will find that Egos with more positive traits cost more to unlock and Egos with more negative traits cost less to unlock.

As you see in the image above, you also have the option to refresh the options for your colonists (also called Egos in the game). If you don't see any Egos that you want, you can press the refresh option. Usually this costs DNA Fragments, but at the start of the game it is free.

After you have purchased and unlocked an Ego, it's time to grow the colonist. You can use the image above to see how to do this. Return to the menu that opens up when you select the Incubation Tank and you will see a new option enabled that says Grow Colonist. Select this option, then select the colonist you'd like to grow. After a short period (which can be sped up using the time controls), the colonist will become fully grown in the Incubation Tank. On the Incubation Tank menu, select Harvest Colonist to release them.

Once you have completed the steps above, you're ready to order your new colonist around!

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