Frontier Clinics

[Losttruppen]

I recently had a game in which I built a ringworld, and noticed it is not possible to build a frontier clinic on them. In the tooltip for the research it states "Frontier Clinics improve the quality of life of colonists on alien worlds" (emphasis mine). Now I suppose this means it excludes habitats, which includes ringworlds.

Perhaps this is intended, as habitats have 100% habitability and most planets do not until you acquire specific research or unity bonuses. However late game, once you can either populate with specialized species/sub-species or terraform to your will this bonus is nullified.

I recognize the implication of habitability equating to an environment well suited to a species physiology, but the more you make environment suitable to a species, you also make it suitable for the parasites and germs that thrive on these species (hospitals are hosts to some of the worst parasites for humans). These habitats may be "sterile" but the populations on board are not.

I would like to see this changed to allow for building on habitats, though perhaps with a name change to remove the "frontier" portion to just be standard clinics/hospitals (logically they should also provide society research, but that may be imbalanced. Maybe a third tier of research/teaching hospital?).

Thoughts?

 

[Sirbab]

Keep in mind that frontier clinics are rather bad in comparison to what they used to be honestly. It's something like -5/-10 growth speed on the planet instead of habitibility.

 

[terrycloth]

Keep in mind that frontier clinics are rather bad in comparison to what they used to be honestly. It's something like -5/-10 growth speed on the planet instead of habitibility.

It's the same effect if (a) you weren't already hitting your happiness cap and (b) you could already colonize the planet without them, but it's a major nerf if you were using them to close the gap. It also seems like a half-done band-aid fix for... something? Since it still won't let you build them in places with 100% habitability.

 

[CocoCincinnati]

Yeah, it made sense before with the habitability bonus but it should be changed now with growth speed instead. I suspect that will be changed in a patch pretty quickly.

 

[Losttruppen]

Keep in mind that frontier clinics are rather bad in comparison to what they used to be honestly. It's something like -5/-10 growth speed on the planet instead of habitibility.

I disagree, they are not objectively worse, merely suited to a different purpose. They are now significantly better than a hydroponics of any level with the changes to food and growth, up until that individual planet is full and migration has slowed down.

Thinking further on my suggestion for a third tier of this structure, I actually would like to see two separate options, one being a teaching hospital with society research and one with either a bonus to happiness or perhaps leader lifespan by ~1year per hospital. These bonuses would replace the +10% growth, giving these buildings a use on a fully populated planet.