Greetings to the void-dwellers and planet-bound alike!

This week we’ll be talking about some changes we’re planning on making to the engineering marvels that are Orbital Habitats. These are currently slated for the May update that grekulf mentioned two weeks ago.

Introduced in Utopia, Orbital Habitats provide a way to continue some form of limited expansion after colonizing all of the habitable planets within your empire. In the 2.3 “Wolfe” update, we added some specialized districts to them based on the celestial body they orbited, opening up the possibility for things like building dedicated astro-mining facilities, and recently in Federations, we added a Void Dwellers origin which let you start your empire among the stars in three habitats.

This May, we’ll be introducing multiple tiers of habitats. These will be accessible to anyone with the Utopia expansion or using the Void Dwellers origin from Federations.

The first tier of Orbital Habitats now comes a bit earlier in the tech tree and require fewer alloys to build. The basic Orbital Habitat is smaller than the old version, starting with 4 district slots. They also have a simpler appearance than the ones currently in the game, a core of a station to build upon later.

Fungoid Orbital Habitat

The Habitat Expansion engineering technology is placed around where the Habitat technology used to be in the tech tree, and will allow you to upgrade an Orbital Habitat that has filled all of its districts to an Advanced Habitat using a planetary decision that costs some time and alloys.

Upgrading to an Advanced Habitat provides 2 additional district slots and allows basic housing buildings to be built even for normal empires.

The Advanced Habitat upgrade adds a ring of modules around the central core.

Avian Advanced Habitat

A third technology permits upgrading a fully developed Advanced Habitat that has a Habitat Central Control into a Habitat World.

Habitat Worlds have 8 districts, shown as another ring of modules around the habitat.

Humanoid Habitat World

The Voidborne Ascension Perk has undergone a few changes as well.

The perk now gives each of your habitats 2 additional building slots and automatically grants access to the Habitat upgrade technologies. Regular empires with the perk can also build advanced housing buildings on their Advanced Habitats and Habitat Worlds instead of being limited to only basic structures.

Void Dwellers will automatically start with the Habitat Expansion tech option available for them to research, and their primary habitat will begin as an Advanced Habitat while the other two will begin as somewhat cramped regular Orbital Habitats. In our internal playtests, we’ve found that Voidborne is exceptionally valuable for them to pick up early for the extra building slots, and the reduced alloy cost of building new habitats should relieve some of the additional pressure caused by the smaller starting size of their secondary habitats.

During this pass we’ve taken care of a handful of other habitat related issues, such as those built above nanite deposits now retain the nanite production, and habitats built above Zro, Dark Matter, Living Metal, or Nanite deposits are now treated as research habitats. As a quality of life improvement, you no longer need to remove orbital mining or research stations to build a habitat, the construction process will automatically disassemble them upon habitat completion.

Here are the full tiers of a few of the habitat types:

Humanoid Habitats

Plantoid Habitats

Lithoid Habitats

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Next week we’ll have another sneak peek at the May update, see you then!

 

[szefo]

Everything looks really fine, this change will weaken this origin in super early game but boosts in mid and late game Overall i like it.
BUT! We really need to have reduced micromanagement of pops in late game, because right now ending each run is really pain on the back
I'd love to see some proposals about resettlement, many players would appreciate it so much.
(edict behind Galactic community decision doesn't do much)

Keep goin.

 

[brantodb01]

I feel this isn't going to help with the AI's habitat spam, cheaper habitats means they're just gonna push out more

 

[Pale Blue]

I'm surprised Marauders aren't void dwellers. Despite being, void dwellers.

It would make sense. Having habitats and economy in its home systems would also help khanate successor states to not struggle that much. Also it would be a nice reward for the player to get some habitats if you conquer a marauder.

With these changes voidborne is now only useful for void dwellers, who critically need to upgrade their habitats early. Except for paradise domes you gain access to everything this ascension perk offers eventually, even the two additional buildings when you reach the 75 pop mark. It needs something that makes it useful in the mid and late game, or it's just a wasted ascension perk. It could be special buildings, another capital tier, a single additional district, special buildable habitat feautures, something.

It still gives +2 districts to habitats. You can't upgrade to tier 3 habitats without the voidborn ascension perk.

 

[Kayden_II]

So, just like starbases, habitats are now upgradeable as well. Put them finally under the starbase-cap and counter this ****** habitat-spam.

 

[MN121MN]

Just a minor suggestion, but perhaps Void Dwellers could have a reduced influence cost in establishing new habitats compared to other empires? Since habitats now take time to be properly upgraded to what it has been before this update hits, I can see void dwellers getting crowded fast.

 

[Elfwind]

I wouldn't mind if void dwellers got ringworld habitation, but a habitat is a basically just a space station, a giant metal box in space, while a ringworld is a completely (enormous) artificial planet with soil and climate and weather and an ecosystem. They're really not the same.

Then have void dwellers build Rung Worlds instead. They are a ring of O'Neil cylinders which are habitats.

 

[Methone]

BUT! We really need to have reduced micromanagement of pops in late game

Just turn on pop controls, dude.

 

[jmxd]

As a quality of life improvement, you no longer need to remove orbital mining or research stations to build a habitat, the construction process will automatically disassemble them upon habitat completion.

Please also implement this for constructing other megastructures, if not already the case!

 

[Amorenkaire]

Awesome, glad to see the different graphical tiers and voidborn changes. I also like the QoL I included in my mod being base game now too now!

Will there be any addresses to how poorly habitats scale in the mid to late game compared to planets, though? Habitat districts start as '50% better' than their planet cousins (discounting ecus, hives, and machines obviously), but their housing districts don't provide clerk jobs and don't provide increases from technology and traditions. Which is terrible, because for non-basic resources the t3 buildings with full habitat districts becomes the only way to grow, and by that point your 'efficient' habitats are less efficient than standard planets. This is particularly concerning since most empires start 'developing' with habitats at the point they're not as efficient normally.

Likewise the capital buildings are quite lackluster, leaving to even more shortage of jobs and housing compared to a mid-game empire's planets. I get that habitats aren't meant to be as efficient as ecus (there's ring worlds for that), but them falling behind planets is a huge issue, even with the allowing of housing. Apparently the gestalt empires are particularly hard hit, as they're reliant upon their capital buildings for a good chunk of their colony's stability early.

A further QoL, will there be any interaction with habitats and the resources of on the moon of the planet they're built on? Such as if a planet has a 2 mineral moon, you can't build it above the moon, but it won't be able to be a mineral habitat than if the resource had spawned on the planet itself.

 

[Shadowstrike]

I'd like to echo the others suggesting turning the maurader stations into habitats as well. It would make Khanate states more viable, and give some benefit to conquering them.

The other consideration is that sizes 4-6-8 are still quite small compared to normal worlds. Would you consider putting the old voidborne bonus of +2 size back in addition to the extra building slots (to make voidborne a better AP pick), or at least giving some bonus to habitat size (or perhaps a housing reduction to the void dwellers trait)?

 

[Spaceception]

The other consideration is that sizes 4-6-8 are still quite small compared to normal worlds. Would you consider putting the old voidborne bonus of +2 size back in addition to the extra building slots (to make voidborne a better AP pick), or at least giving some bonus to habitat size (or perhaps a housing reduction to the void dwellers trait)?

Yeah, +1/2 districts, +1/2 building slots. Use any combination of that, and I'd be fine with it (Maybe +1 of each? Given the size of habitat districts that's slightly bigger than a size 13 planet). But the ability to build advanced housing buildings is still nice, and could make it worthwhile in the late game/players who want to only use habitats.

 

[Lorenerd11]

Another question regarding habitats, will we be able to designate habitats built on rare resource deposits as Mining Stations? Also, how does Voidborne unlocking extra building slots work? Does the building slot grid look different? Are there slots that aren't made available based on the amount of pops?

 

[Pale Blue]

Now that habitats have 3 tiers can they get an additional capital level and unlock them by the same tech that unlocks it's planetary equivalent? The techs that let you upgrade the capital building are otherwise also a useless tech for void dwellers.

Also can all empires upgrade to tier 3 eventually or does it require voidborn? My personal guess is it requires voidborn, because the text says it unlocks the tech for it, but it is not explicitly mentioned.

 

[Hastet]

The two free building slots and the ability to build basic/advanced housing structures are pretty solid buffs. They'll help reduce how habitats feel so cramped, which in turn will make resource habitats far more useful. Looking forward to see what else will come with the may patch

 

[LystAP]

Any thoughts about adding orbital rings around planets or other forms of voidborne existence?

 

[monkeypunch87]

The techs that let you upgrade the capital building are otherwise also a useless tech for void dwellers.

How can they be "useless"?
I never had a Void dweller game without some other species colonizing planets for me. I even used my Void species for colonizing planets and changing the habititon preference every couple years with a short gene project.

 

[FoolManChoo]

Oh man, the Lithoids version! Please geode me!

 

[OnyxAbussos]

I LOVE THIS ENTIRELY.

 

[Granty]

@Eladrin How about having an option to dissassemble captured orbital habitats for minerals and alloys?

 

[Incompetent]

Interesting changes in this update. Right now, the Voidborne perk is extremely lackluster. Habitability is usually easy to pick up thanks to 4 times 5% technology bonuses any empire will most likely end up with 100% habitability on Habitats eventually. Before this update, we still get +2 maximum districts from voidborne, which is now added to the advanced habitats baseline.

Do I understand this correctly, are these buildings slots additional maximum building slots? Or do these building slots simply get unlocked earlier, just like how Hiveminds have a tradition to unlock an additional building slot earlier on planets?

Because if this does not add maximum building slots and you also removed the +2 district effect, then I don't see myself ever using this Ascension perk.

I think the logic here is that it can be difficult to get to 75 pops on a Habitat, while also making good use of resource districts and without suffering severe overcrowding. Now it's true, at present you can have your cake and eat it when it comes to building/housing by using livestock, Bio-Trophies, servant droids and so on. But maybe the devs have a plan to close that loophole and make housing requirements more balanced across different pop types. On the other hand, on a Habitat where building slots open 10 pops earlier and with the ability to put down advanced housing, it becomes very easy to unlock a bunch of building slots while skipping habitation districts.

The main problem to be honest is that even upgraded housing buildings are barely big enough to be viable unless you have Shared Burdens, and some of the specialist habitat districts aren't very good either. For example, while you could build the habitat on a science deposit, get a lab district and then a habitation building, you're much better off doing it the other way around (i.e. habitation district + lab building) because the numbers are simply better and you don't need the science deposit any more. Perhaps it would be better if the perk gave some additional housing directly (or via buffing districts), rather than simply unlocking advanced housing buildings.