Food Orbitals?

[Frostwood]

Now that we have global food, I envision that it's now possible to have agricultural stations around planets. Theoretically, you could have all of your food produced from resources you've discovered while surveying.

The question is whether or not we will have to mod it in, or will planets have a chance of producing food.

 

[Darkov]

This would be nice. But I think that it should be rare.

 

[AndragonLea]

"Your highness, our probes found an asteroid full of space shrooms. Our scientists determined them to be category 4 'delish'."

 

[smjjames]

Pretty sure you won't even get those orbitals until midgame, so, you can't do it from the start if you mean that.

However, using them to boost food supplies is certainly a viable idea, even if it does have it's vulnerabilities. Whether it's practical and worth it is another thing entirely though.

 

[samz812]

thh i wouldn't mind some sort of upgrades to the existing food and energy production modules on spaceports with tech or something or even just moving them to dedicated aggricultureal orbitals or something along those lines

 

[Xoatl]

Unless I'm mistaken I am pretty sure I read somewhere (in a dev diary or from Wiz) that orbitals take a penalty to food and mineral output.

 

[Stromko]

I don't think the OP is talking about orbital habitats, what they're talking about is space resources found by surveying with science ships, and adding food production to the list of things you can get from mining outposts.

I could see a lot of explanations for this game mechanic. You might find minerals that are essential to farming like phosphorous in an asteroid belt, or you might find an easily accessible food source on a planet that has a biosphere. It could simply be in a good spot for free, natural sunlight ideal for growing plants, so what you're essentially doing is building an orbital hydroponic farm without a starbase.

From a game mechanic perspective I don't see a problem with it, unless you're playing a synthetic empire or otherwise don't care about food and you don't want your sector governors building food mining stations. But even then, you could just trade it away to other empires so it's not a total waste.

 

[AndragonLea]

You might find an asteroid that contains little in the way of minerals but has a nice big cavern suitable to be converted into a dark and dank shroom farm.

 

[Frostwood]

Yah, I was talking about the a mining or research type station.

 

[henzington]

There is already the bonus to food resource but having a chance to have food instead of another resource like mineral or research would be a welcome change.

 

[Secret Master]

Now that we have global food, I envision that it's now possible to have agricultural stations around planets.

Isn't that what primitives are going to be when we discover them?

"Soylent Green is made from primitives and pre-sentients!"