Habitats are nerfed to irrelevance?

[westamastaflash]

I'd say habitats are excellent for manufacturing, freeing up building slots on your other planets for more important things.
I tend to go with a 4 house - 4 trade district split on them most of the time. If M income isn't an issue, 5-3 works as well - that allows you to fill all building slots, but you'll need several maxed out alloy or CG factories to employ pops.

They are also pretty decent for science. Each district equals a T2 lab, so the initial alloy upkeep is compensated for rather quickly, but I actually haven't used them much in that capacity, since my planets are usually used for science and I tend to get more than enough from them.

A thing I am currently experimenting with is using them for naval capacity. Strongholds are a bit weak as a building, but building slots is what Habitats are all about. Problem is, you'll either need some other buildings to employ the leftovers OR use less housing (3-5 or even 2-5 split).

This thing costs 5 alloys + 1 mote and provides 11 soldier jobs for a total of +44 naval capacity and a ton of trade value to pay for its upkeep. It also comes with an FTL inhibitor and 50 defence armies, a formidable bulwark. I'd say it is actually more effective at denying enemy fleets passage than a citadel, particularly once jumpdrives enter the field. During war you can just swap out the Stock Exchange for a Shield Generator to make it even more annoying to deal with (also great synegy with the 25% bombing damage reduction from Adaptability!). You can, of course, make the whole thing even more insane if you use more housing districts and either accept the unemployment or put down a few alloy plants.

I did something similar but staffed the station with battle thralls to double as a recruitment center. Can the military academy be built on a habitat?

 

[Thallori]

Each district equals a T2 lab

Habitats currently provide 3 researcher jobs per district, which is 1 better than T1, but 2 worse than T2. Are they buffed in an internal build somewhere?

 

[GAGA Extrem]

I did something similar but staffed the station with battle thralls to double as a recruitment center. Can the military academy be built on a habitat?

Yes, you can build it.

Habitats currently provide 3 researcher jobs, which is 1 better than T1, but 2 worse than T2. Are they buffed in an internal build somewhere?

Oh yeah, I had the old numbers in mind. Goes to show how long it has been since I built them.

 

[Thallori]

Actually, I've gotta wonder what the point of science districts are now. I tried using them but.. They've kinda been so low on the power curve that I'm actually replacing them with more housing and trade. No more space science these days.

 

[Alastor]

They never were, you could always build as many as you wanted.

Really? I was even using a mod that removes the limits on megastructures because I thought it was limited also. Now if only dyson spheres and extractors were also unlimited.

 

[IshmaelAdams]

Is it just me or are habitats nerfed incredibly in the Le Guin update? Before the update they could provide energy, minerals, research, food, and unity; and each one could give insane amount of bonuses, and be specialized.
Now with the new update we have more basic type resources and needs. Now a habitat can only (for non gestalt) can only provide housing, research,trade value, unity, and amenities.

Housing and amenities can't be transfered between planets, so it's worthless if you wanted to use these to support your growing home planets. Research is good, but dyson sphere is so much better. Unity is good, but not enough reason to build habitats. Now, I know trade value is a mixed bag, you can have trade value do straight energy, or half energy with half consumer goods, or half energy with small unity boost. The problem is that trade value is an empire wide policy, so you can't specialize individual habitats like you could before. Also there is no way to use habitats to build minerals or food.

Now I now with the new expansion, it is possible to buy everything using energy, but having to rely on imports for most of your food/minerals is a bad way to run an empire or a country. Especially with the game's system of supply and demand. The more your need for a resource grows as a proportion of the market, the more energy you will have to pay through the nose. It's not an efficient system and with the new megastructures that can create unity or minerals, habitats just aren't all that useful anymore.

Habitats are basically worthless now, they don't bring you anything but homeless pop's and people who cant get jobs since you cant build residents or commerce zones except for districts. And now the only thing they can produce is basically food without having to convert resources from one to anther. I don't understand why they cant have solar panels or asteroid mining again. It makes me be forced to go into wars with my neighbors to gain resources instead of building tall and having a small peaceful empire.

 

[IshmaelAdams]

Really? I was even using a mod that removes the limits on megastructures because I thought it was limited also. Now if only dyson spheres and extractors were also unlimited.

Agreed thousands of stars in the galaxy, build one dyson sphere. hmmmmmm

 

[scaper12123]

they are better if you don't have resources ... ervry building for special resources cost 10 minerals, research labs cost 4 energy and use 1 building slot for 2 scentist, and need 5 pops for evry building slot .

habitats have a better economy , but if you have access to resources , you are better off spamming upgraded building and pops .

OK, so i've just been using them wrong. Thank you.

 

[westamastaflash]

Habitats are basically worthless now, they don't bring you anything but homeless pop's and people who cant get jobs since you cant build residents or commerce zones except for districts. And now the only thing they can produce is basically food without having to convert resources from one to anther. I don't understand why they cant have solar panels or asteroid mining again. It makes me be forced to go into wars with my neighbors to gain resources instead of building tall and having a small peaceful empire.

Only for certain playstyles. They synergize very well with +unity builds and tall empires. If you go aggressive military with lots of planets to expand to you will not need the extra build spaces. But even then a fortress Habitat can hold off massive enemy invasions for a long time.

The only resource tall empires are significantly constrained by is minerals. And even then you have the market.

 

[Yaskaleh]

Habitats in their current version does feel like a waste of time and alloys unless you're bloody forced to it as Life-seeded. The districts barely give any jobs and you cannot build the most important buildings that would make habitats worthwhile. Right now they only serve as rare resource plants and for pops to pop into colonies that can actually make the good stuff for you like science, unity, trade value and alloys.

 

[Verx90]

Habitats in their current version does feel like a waste of time and alloys unless you're bloody forced to it as Life-seeded. The districts barely give any jobs and you cannot build the most important buildings that would make habitats worthwhile. Right now they only serve as rare resource plants and for pops to pop into colonies that can actually make the good stuff for you like science, unity, trade value and alloys.

If you didnt realy follow the new economic sistem , and you have tons of minerals to waste , yes , habitats are not realy for you . If you dont want to spend hundred of minerals to produce special resources , you are better using habitats for the extra buildslot and spam lvl 1 building . Any habitats with full housing can unluck all buildings (even not full housig districts) and both scienze distr and trade distr are the better form of the lvl 1 build that you can make on planets .

You are using them as planets , thinking that building a planet should cost only 3k alloys and 200 influence ,in a patch where planets are the strongest stff you can get on a economic level ; thats why you fell them underwelming. Hab are not supposed to work as a full fledge planet , they are space , economical space .

 

[FiddleSticks96]

If you didnt realy follow the new economic sistem , and you have tons of minerals to waste , yes , habitats are not realy for you . If you dont want to spend hundred of minerals to produce special resources , you are better using habitats for the extra buildslot and spam lvl 1 building . Any habitats with full housing can unluck all buildings (even not full housig districts) and both scienze distr and trade distr are the better form of the lvl 1 build that you can make on planets .

You are using them as planets , thinking that building a planet should cost only 3k alloys and 200 influence ,in a patch where planets are the strongest stff you can get on a economic level ; thats why you fell them underwelming. Hab are not supposed to work as a full fledge planet , they are space , economical space .

For the moment, I'm not necessarily against how Habitats function as they are since I'm still experimenting with them in the new economic system myself. My problem with Habs is that they cost one whole Ascension Perk. The real problem lies in AP balance, which is a tricky problem. The illusion of choice is broken when a handful of APs are vastly superior to other APs. Not all "choices" are equal.

 

[Objulen]

Habitats seem like mid to late game research stations for Machine Empires. They only produce power or research districts, and there are better ways to get power as a Machine Empire.

They can still be used to store bio-trophies for Rogue Servitors, since you can build Organic Sanctuaries/Paradise Domes on them, but that seems to serve the purpose of getting more pops on a Habitat than you normally could with the 6/8 districts you get for the extra building slots - a Paradise Dome adds 20 pop, which is a net gain of 3 special buildings.

It's a niche use, but I'm thinking of taking the Habitat I built to test out and turning it into a foundry if I can manage the housing/amenities. It may not be worth it if I have to waste too many special building slots on Drone Storage, so I may need to ignore it's intended research station function and use all the districts for Housing/Amenities jobs.

 

[Verx90]

For the moment, I'm not necessarily against how Habitats function as they are since I'm still experimenting with them in the new economic system myself. My problem with Habs is that they cost one whole Ascension Perk. The real problem lies in AP balance, which is a tricky problem. The illusion of choice is broken when a handful of APs are vastly superior to other APs. Not all "choices" are equal.

i can't go into that .. i'm not that confident in saying it is worth a ascension perk , or not . but you should considerate some things .

1. you can pick hab as first AP , all other AP that you can pick as 1° are not realy that "special" .
2. if you move it to the research , it is not exatly wrong, i mean, building hab its the natural result of researching cittadels tech in my opinion ( i know, for the perk you need fortress).
3. habitats are in all aspetcts a habitable space, more pops = more starbases , more trade value ( for regular empires ) \ more energy for gestal ; meaning that hab are a way to increase your economic power , "infinitely" .
4. you should not compare AP with prerequisite of picking other AP .
5. if you pick hab , and build them for scence while you are a tall empire , if you compare with the "tech ascension" , hab actualy can give you even double your scence production with 1 hab ( if you didn't realy build more than 1\2 scence lab for planet or were a technocracy ) , the only difference its the "time " and "price" you have to put into them .

i think moving hab to tech would mean putting them behind the cittadel tech , or another tech that need "fortress" tech ( same tech lvl of cittadel) ; making them late-midgame tech .. atm you can rush them in early midgame as a AP .

but i'm not sure giving evryone the chance to pick them , its not the best , wide empire that keep expanding with war and have acces to many planets have no use for them , but giving them the chance to use them anyway its a bit on the "umbalanced" side , since they can increase more and more they economic power while not sacrify an AP that they would have used for more usefull stuff for them .

i think hab are on the " investiment" AP side , like theyr natural evolution of "galatic wonders" ; and its a AP for tall focus ( so, you can find them underwelming if you are not playing tall ) .
but i think that they are perfectly movable to tech , with a little nerf to the fortress tech again . maybe with a perk like masterbuilders to buff them to AP level .

 

[FiddleSticks96]

@Verx90 I only play tall, and I find them underwhelming, especially now in 2.2 when I can colonize any planet and even on higher difficulties I have no issue outpacing the AI in, well, everything (another issue 2.2 needs to look at). A ringworld is better than Habs in every way. I know ringworlds don't come until way later, but Habs don't come immediately either. You need the Star Fortress tech (the tier 3 star base), which you can expect to have somewhere between cruisers and battleships, depending on what techs you've focused. Habs aren't even better at science then planets, and unless you're playing as a pacifist IP build (which I will admit, is immensely satisfying) it is easier, quicker, and better to just take a few planets from your neighbors.

By the time I could have access to Habs I'm already putting APs into ascending anyway, which gives a lot of bang for your buck. This puts Habs are no early than the 4th AP, at least for me, and by then I have better things to use APs on, or at the very least, to be saving those APs for.

 

[Pragmatic]

Habitats currently provide 3 researcher jobs per district, which is 1 better than T1, but 2 worse than T2. Are they buffed in an internal build somewhere?

T2 research, don't they require rare resources to build/maintain?

Think of each 2 habitat science district as a T2 research you didn't have to build.

 

[Verx90]

@Verx90 I only play tall, and I find them underwhelming, especially now in 2.2 when I can colonize any planet and even on higher difficulties I have no issue outpacing the AI in, well, everything (another issue 2.2 needs to look at). A ringworld is better than Habs in every way. I know ringworlds don't come until way later, but Habs don't come immediately either. You need the Star Fortress tech (the tier 3 star base), which you can expect to have somewhere between cruisers and battleships, depending on what techs you've focused. Habs aren't even better at science then planets, and unless you're playing as a pacifist IP build (which I will admit, is immensely satisfying) it is easier, quicker, and better to just take a few planets from your neighbors.

By the time I could have access to Habs I'm already putting APs into ascending anyway, which gives a lot of bang for your buck. This puts Habs are no early than the 4th AP, at least for me, and by then I have better things to use APs on, or at the very least, to be saving those APs for.

i unluck hab by the 2° AP , and my build is spiritualist - unity focus :\ .

they are so usefull at demoting lvl 2-3 buildings and destroy some rare resources building ( that use alot of minerals , 1 building space for 1 job) . .

they are not planet, they are not supposed to do a planet job ( basic resources) you use them for building and living space , and theyr reserach cost are more economical than any other form .

ringword have theyr reason and "good reason to build" as planets and habitats ; if you think ringword can just sobstitute hab , you are using hab for the wrong reason .

 

[Objulen]

The problem with habs is comparing them with any other small planet that you can use for research.

If you get, say, a 9 tile planet, and focus it on research, you will have the building slots to pay for Gas fabricators and 4+ research buildings. As far as I've noticed, there's no difference in the cost of the research jobs of a habitat's research districts, so using research buildings on a planet essentially costs you some extra power and a couple of extra pops for 40+ research jobs, instead of a Habitats' max of 25.

Habitats can be set up more quickly, but the lack of being able to build research buildings makes them less effective at research in the long run.

 

[yerm]

Habitats also make rather handy breeding centers. When settling a new world, I can just rip 9 people from my filling habs and as long as I am expanding and/or ringworlding and ecumenoing, I have plenty of avenues for dumping excess pop once they fill past useful and into clerkdom.

Ringworlds are cool and all but thats literal centuries to actually populate unless you ship people in. Habitats give you that. They do it while being incredibly admin cap and special resource friendly.

 

[DeathSheep]

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned the thing I've used habitats for the most in my longest-running game of 2.2.2: gaming the automatic sector generation system. I'm playing in a 600-system galaxy with Habitable Worlds set to 1.5x and two guaranteed habitables, and after the initial wave of colonization, I've used strategic deployment of habitats to maximize the number of habitable worlds in my sectors.