• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
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.

upload_2020-4-9_9-16-6.png

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.

upload_2020-4-9_9-13-8.png


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.

upload_2020-4-9_9-13-24.png

Avian Advanced Habitat

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

upload_2020-4-9_9-13-51.png


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

upload_2020-4-9_9-14-4.png

Humanoid Habitat World

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

upload_2020-4-9_9-14-21.png


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:

upload_2020-4-9_9-14-44.png

Humanoid Habitats


upload_2020-4-9_9-14-55.png

Plantoid Habitats


upload_2020-4-9_9-15-8.png

Lithoid Habitats

---

Next week we’ll have another sneak peek at the May update, see you then!
 
I'm torn on this update mainly because it seems to only slightly improve Habitats and there is too little info on details.

Before you could get 8 Districts with the Void Perk on a Habitat. Now it sounds like you don't need the perk it just makes the tech appear sooner. The extra building slots I'm skeptical on as I've seen mods which add "extra spots" via a Tradition and it doesn't really add more slots it just lets them unlock sooner. But your max number of slots remains the same. Granted this is the Devs and not some Mod so they could do more but I'm waiting to see.

Much of the rest is hard to know without any hard numbers. A size 4 colony is tiny and the question is how much does it cost to setup? It's supposedly cheaper but how much cheaper at that? Also Alloys were never really an issue, once your economy gets going a Habitat is the cost of like 2 BS and I field dozens of those mid game, and hundreds late game. It is the influence cost that really hurts and when it comes to Void Dwellers no other race has to spend influence to setup new colonies which really hinders anyone going for a pure Habitat run.

The main limiter on getting Habitats is Influence cost. And because of this it's often more economical to build Ring Worlds once I get the tech. I can only easily drop the like 50K Alloys per 300 Influence by late game in vanilla to build a ring world and often times even with the 3 Mega structure building at same time limit I still have excess alloys to burn.

When it comes to Habitats they often become available only a short period before other Megastructures like Ring Worlds. So knowing how much earlier would be helpful to know if it's going to matter? Will be get them around Destroyer or Cruiser techs? Or will it only be slightly earlier than it is now?

The main thing I do have high hopes for with this update is something I've been saying should have been there form the start, the ability to make housing buildings. Back when districts only gave jobs this was a huge issue that really hindered Habitats. But now with districts working like planet districts in giving jobs and housing the issue is not as bad, though they still need housing to help them grow more.
 
Before you could get 8 Districts with the Void Perk on a Habitat. Now it sounds like you don't need the perk it just makes the tech appear sooner. The extra building slots I'm skeptical on as I've seen mods which add "extra spots" via a Tradition and it doesn't really add more slots it just lets them unlock sooner. But your max number of slots remains the same. Granted this is the Devs and not some Mod so they could do more but I'm waiting to see.

Much of the rest is hard to know without any hard numbers. A size 4 colony is tiny and the question is how much does it cost to setup? It's supposedly cheaper but how much cheaper at that? Also Alloys were never really an issue, once your economy gets going a Habitat is the cost of like 2 BS and I field dozens of those mid game, and hundreds late game. It is the influence cost that really hurts and when it comes to Void Dwellers no other race has to spend influence to setup new colonies which really hinders anyone going for a pure Habitat run.
The reason why pops is power is because of building slots. Resources is really easy to come by but getting more building slots needs more pops and more pops is more drain on resources. If my 10 pop habitat already makes more alloys than your 20 pop world, I'm in a stronger position than you.
 
The reason why pops is power is because of building slots. Resources is really easy to come by but getting more building slots needs more pops and more pops is more drain on resources. If my 10 pop habitat already makes more alloys than your 20 pop world, I'm in a stronger position than you.
That and passive trade value per pop.
 
I am a bit late to the party but...
Imo:
1) Void dwellers should get a special, high-tier habitat capital building.
2) Habitats should have their own design.
 
Very happy to read this. I swapped one of my go-to empires over to Void Dwellers when Federations came out, and was disappointed by how flat the experience was. Having tiers to work through will be a big improvement.
 
Naval capacity came from pops in the 1.0 release and that's all the AI knows.
Don't spread misinformation.

My bad, I thought they looked almost the same as space stations.
They use the same core but have unique "modules" and will have even further distinction in their architecture as they're upgraded when this change rolls out.
 
Mostly, I'm just holding out for better capital buildings, and districts that actually improve over time. I think their idea is that you're supposed to be using the building slots for housing and the districts for jobs, but that seems rather against how the game has been designed thus far. The housing buildings have always sucked as long as they've existed.
Much of the rest is hard to know without any hard numbers. A size 4 colony is tiny and the question is how much does it cost to setup? It's supposedly cheaper but how much cheaper at that? Also Alloys were never really an issue, once your economy gets going a Habitat is the cost of like 2 BS and I field dozens of those mid game, and hundreds late game. It is the influence cost that really hurts and when it comes to Void Dwellers no other race has to spend influence to setup new colonies which really hinders anyone going for a pure Habitat run.
I think you're misunderstanding the goal here, which is to enable more habitats in the early to mid game.

If anyone wants a pure habitat run, then the devs should probably add that in to the void-dweller origin. But such an arbitrary restriction is never going to be an optimal strategy.
Before you could get 8 Districts with the Void Perk on a Habitat. Now it sounds like you don't need the perk it just makes the tech appear sooner. The extra building slots I'm skeptical on as I've seen mods which add "extra spots" via a Tradition and it doesn't really add more slots it just lets them unlock sooner. But your max number of slots remains the same. Granted this is the Devs and not some Mod so they could do more but I'm waiting to see.
I'm pretty sure that this is similar to the adaptation bonus where you get an early unlock. But that by itself makes habitats a lot easier to use which is, after all, a big goal here.
 
Voidborne without extra 2 districts seems so useless. 2 extra building slots dont do much, basicly that means you build one housing building and one researchlab on tech habitat and each of them still cost rare resource to maintain. Maybe this makes refinery habitats betters, i suppose that was aim of this "upgrade".
Ignore voidborne and take any other perk. Almost all of them except maybe mastery over nature is better if you are void dweller.
 
Voidborne without extra 2 districts seems so useless. 2 extra building slots dont do much, basicly that means you build one housing building and one researchlab on tech habitat and each of them still cost rare resource to maintain. Maybe this makes refinery habitats betters, i suppose that was aim of this "upgrade".
Ignore voidborne and take any other perk. Almost all of them except maybe mastery over nature is better if you are void dweller.

You're missing the point where it also gives you advanced housing buildings that don't require rares. Housing is very much the crunch point for habitats so getting a housing boost is a big deal. It means you can actually use the research/trade districts in the mid game, and it increases the potential of 8-districts habs in the late game.

EDIT: other big thing is that your first AP usually isn't anything too fancy anway.
 
Last edited:
  • 1Like
Reactions:
Advanced housing who dont cost rare resources? Hmm then this is not so terrible. I understood that advanced house buildings is like those who costs one crystal