Habitats (Void Dwellers mostly) being left behind?

[Drakonn]

With the introduction of Orbital Rings on the way, Habitats are looking less and less useful. This is mostly an issue for Void Dweller empires who are being significantly left behind by this. Or am I missing something? Especially since they are exclusive to getting Habitats.

 

[HFY]

Trade habitats might be okay. The ring shown in the preview did very little for trade.

Basic resource habitats seem okay (mining and energy) -- the value of alloys is so high that these new ring structures push planets even more into having industrial district slots ONLY.

Refinery Habitats are among the few places you can get a +% production bonus for those resources, so that might be a decent thing to have (and to Ascend). Haven't done the math though, and Ascending an Ecu is very effective in terms of reducing your need for those refined resources.

I don't like research habitats with the current sprawl cost for each colony, but maybe they're actually good? Haven't done the math, and Masterful Crafters gives me enough slots on my secondary Forge worlds for plenty of labs.

 

[Dragatus]

Only above colonizable planets (because that is the only place where you can build them) and even then not necessarily. A ring can give you 4 districts on the planet, a habitat can have 8 districts eventually. If you want more trade the habitat is still better than an orbital ring.

 

[Lorenerd11]

Not to mention that the alloy investment aside, you can still build only so many orbital rings, since they can be built around colonized planets only, whereas habitats can be built around any planet.

Barring the usage of jump drives of or quantum catapult, fortress habitats in chokepoint systems (or even important core systems) definitely retain their value.

 

[Verx90]

they have very different "role" . habitats create economic power with pops, like planets .

the orbital rings create economy without pops, or more correctly, by empowering the pops there are.

in a sense ,for a normal empire, habitats and orbital rings have 2 very different scope. if you are closed up and want to "tall up" orbital rings will give youa push on existing planets , but actual economical expansion will still come from habitats .

for the origin , orbital rings are useless.



so i would say that the orging is getting nerfed, more than the habitats themself.

 

[Lorenerd11]

for the origin , orbital rings are useless.

Origin?

Ah, right, Void Dwellers. Yeah, they might suffer a little bit from their inability to utilize rings, unless they have been growing a lot of imported pops on the planets.

 

[Bankipriel]

This seems like it will unfortunately reward "migratory construction populations" again, where (because population is the delimiting factor in power build-up) it will be worth it to build up one planet for the capital building & Planetary Ring, and then move those pops from world to world to get all the capitals built, then resettle pops where most useful, leaving most planets at 1 or 2 pops (w/ maxed capital & Planetary Ring potential) and feeding pops into Ecu's or Ring segements.

I don't see how this will really impact Void Dwellers. They only need enough pops (their own or xenos) to upgrade 1 planetary capital + 1. Those pops can then be a "building core" that moves around habitable planets, while Habitats can still be built over the myriad of uninhabitable planets.


This all would be a bunch of tedious micro . . . but pretty much the whole game is tedious micro now, so this doesn't seem like too titanic of a shift.

 

[The Shacks]

Eh not really. A habbitat still makes a population center where before there wasent one and for cheap, without needing an ascension perk. All you need is a non habbitable planet to plonk it over. Still powerful. Rings dont make pops (which Is why I dont quite get why they seem to look so visually large but hey minor nitpick)

 

[ZomgK3tchup]

Habitats shouldn't be the go-to construction for anyone except Void Dwellers.

I like where habitats are right now and doubt the update will change them too much. They currently have niche purposes and interesting specializations that make them useful in certain contexts but not so useful that you want to blanket your empire in them.

Orbital rings might be an indirect nerf to Void Dwellers, but that's a stronger argument for buffing Void Dwellers than it is for buffing habitats themselves.

 

[HFY]

Habitats shouldn't be the go-to construction for anyone except Void Dwellers.

Mmm, not sure about that.

Fortress Habitats are useful as FTL-roadblocks in systems where you might never find a planet (e.g. Shield Nullification stars).

Strategic resource habitats can be solid if you find a 3+ deposit of something, or if you find 2 + basic (e.g. 2 gas + 2 energy) and you can make a Mining or Generator Habitat with 2 extractor buildings.

A few Trade Habitats are useful on any trade build.

They're never your favorite nor where you put most of your pops, but non-Dwellers can use them in several niches.

 

[MathyM]

Habitats shouldn't be the go-to construction for anyone except Void Dwellers.

And Pacifists, once they run out of space to colonize.

Ring Worlds eventually supplant that role, at least in part.

 

[The Shacks]

Habbitats still great on a choke with FTL inhibitor if its a fortress world. Or as extra research or trade moons. I often use habbitats cant say I often play games enough where I get to ringworld and find it useful.

 

[Incompetent]

The main thing Habitats produce is pops, and I don't see anything in the announced DLC/patch content that will challenge them in this role.

If you're a Void Dweller, it's a bit different, sure, but even then you're tying one hand behind your back if you don't also have a plan to exploit the habitable planets around you in addition to building habitats. Orbital rings will only increase the rewards of what is already the right move. For instance we can see that mining Habitats will be pretty low-value colonies in the next patch, because you could get your minerals much more efficiently from a planet with double bonus buildings (one on the ground and one on the ring). So as a Void Dweller empire, you go ahead and set up a mining world staffed by robots, like you were probably planning to do anyway.

If you really wanted to make concessions to Void Dweller with this feature, you could make it so that building habitation modules on an orbital ring lets a certain number of Void Dweller pops live there as if they are on a Habitat (i.e. they get the usual bonuses and habitability, and don't get the planetary growth penalty). It could be quite tricky to implement in a balanced way, though.

 

[Ikael]

The problem of habitats doesn't lie on ringworlds, which are a quite welcomed addition to tall gameplay. The problem is that pops and living space are extremely easy to obtain in this game. Why expend alloys and influence on a habitat in order to get extra pops, when you have repeatable, low-tier building that does the same just by employing minerals? (housing). The economic system is entirely geared to "the more planets the more pops and the better", especially due to the housing mechanic. In such a system, the value of habitats and everything that increases planet pop count (see "Mastery of nature") is questionable, to say the least.

 

[Dragatus]

Why expend alloys and influence on a habitat in order to get extra pops, when you have repeatable, low-tier building that does the same just by employing minerals? (housing).

 

[Incompetent]

The problem is that pops and living space are extremely easy to obtain in this game.

It doesn't really matter if both are equally easy to obtain, you just scale everything up (and so do your rivals if they are competent; AI skill level is a whole other issue); what matters is the relative ease of increasing these numbers. The reality is that since the pop growth rework, we have a situation where if you expand out normally (i.e. you're not playing an artificially constrained "tall" game), your ability to build infrastructure far outscales your ability to grow pops, culminating in a mid-game when the majority of your planets sit mostly empty and there's just no point developing them past a certain point: better to let the pops move to a small number of "core worlds" with special planet-specific bonuses.

The opposite extreme would be frustrating too: a galaxy of mass unemployment and overcrowding, where getting more space is everything and special slave/purge roles that give production without jobs would be overpowered. But either way, the balance between number of pops in the galaxy and the amount of jobs/housing that can be produced is very important for understanding the relative value of different kinds of colony.

 

[Ikael]

It doesn't really matter if both are equally easy to obtain, you just scale everything up (and so do your rivals if they are competent; AI skill level is a whole other issue); what matters is the relative ease of increasing these numbers. The reality is that since the pop growth rework, we have a situation where if you expand out normally (i.e. you're not playing an artificially constrained "tall" game), your ability to build infrastructure far outscales your ability to grow pops, culminating in a mid-game when the majority of your planets sit mostly empty and there's just no point developing them past a certain point: better to let the pops move to a small number of "core worlds" with special planet-specific bonuses.

The opposite extreme would be frustrating too: a galaxy of mass unemployment and overcrowding, where getting more space is everything and special slave/purge roles that give production without jobs would be overpowered. But either way, the balance between number of pops in the galaxy and the amount of jobs/housing that can be produced is very important for understanding the relative value of different kinds of colony.

That's a very good analysis, yes. Since pops are the hard part to obtain, living space is... not that great to have, since it is going to take a while to fill it. It all comes down to how the economic system works, and its "the more pops you acquire the better" dynamic. I really do hope that devs get a look at the economic system at some point in the future. Having pop growth be more closely related to infrastructure development (rather than having infrastructure sit empty) would certainly help habitats.

 

[Verx90]

It doesn't really matter if both are equally easy to obtain, you just scale everything up (and so do your rivals if they are competent; AI skill level is a whole other issue); what matters is the relative ease of increasing these numbers. The reality is that since the pop growth rework, we have a situation where if you expand out normally (i.e. you're not playing an artificially constrained "tall" game), your ability to build infrastructure far outscales your ability to grow pops, culminating in a mid-game when the majority of your planets sit mostly empty and there's just no point developing them past a certain point: better to let the pops move to a small number of "core worlds" with special planet-specific bonuses.

The opposite extreme would be frustrating too: a galaxy of mass unemployment and overcrowding, where getting more space is everything and special slave/purge roles that give production without jobs would be overpowered. But either way, the balance between number of pops in the galaxy and the amount of jobs/housing that can be produced is very important for understanding the relative value of different kinds of colony.

eh... the system of the pops worked ( not fine , but at least filling a planet that was not your capital was a possibility before end-game ) and so ringworlds and habitats were usefull ....

nowdays if you have enought space, you ignore habitats , as it would take around 150 years to fill them , and ringworlds are just decorations as without your direct imput ( resetlement) it can take up to 200-300 years of pop growth to fill them depending on the number of pops you have .

atm, once you reach around 300-500 pops, the best way to increase your economy is to conquer other empires, as it would add to your pops directly with no wait for the pops to grow .




but we all know why we reached this place , its because pops are the main reason the game lose performance in mid-lategame .

i would approve a rework of the pop system where we remove the idea of pop entity and embrace statistical pops.

 

[DeanTheDull]

Honestly, one of my bigger frustrations of using Habitats is just how unreliable the special deposit system is due to the requirement that special deposits be based on the planet, not the moons, a Habitat is built over.

Specialized habitats are great when you can get them, no joke. Special resource deposits getting multiplied make for great refinery habitats. Science habitats are exceptionally efficient. Even just being able to build more worker districts is a nice expansion to your economic base if you're role-playing a non-expansionist build.

But these resources have to be over the planet to be accessed, not asteroids and moons. That's frustrting, as there's been many a time I finally unlock habitats and the resources to spare and look to build one and... there just isn't a good place. At which point it's still good- habitats let you take industry off your planets and specialize gravity worlds for raw resources- but not as good as would be easy to justify.

While by no means a fix, I do wish habitats could get deposits not just from the planet, but a planet's moons, and that you could build them over starts (the source of most science deposits).

 

[DrFranknfurter]

Honestly, one of my bigger frustrations of using Habitats is just how unreliable the special deposit system is due to the requirement that special deposits be based on the planet, not the moons, a Habitat is built over.

Specialized habitats are great when you can get them, no joke. Special resource deposits getting multiplied make for great refinery habitats. Science habitats are exceptionally efficient. Even just being able to build more worker districts is a nice expansion to your economic base if you're role-playing a non-expansionist build.

But these resources have to be over the planet to be accessed, not asteroids and moons. That's frustrting, as there's been many a time I finally unlock habitats and the resources to spare and look to build one and... there just isn't a good place. At which point it's still good- habitats let you take industry off your planets and specialize gravity worlds for raw resources- but not as good as would be easy to justify.

While by no means a fix, I do wish habitats could get deposits not just from the planet, but a planet's moons, and that you could build them over starts (the source of most science deposits).

Habitats could rather easily be improved to be far more interesting, and for moons of planets to contribute rather than being ignored as they are at the moment.

I always play with "Guilli's Planet Modifiers and Features", at least after it's been updated to the newest version. The way habitats work in that mod is that it adds a set of decisions to unlock extra stuff on habitats, some generic ones conditional on things like system trade value but most of the powerful special things are unlocked by either modifiers on the planet it is orbiting OR modifiers on any moon around that planet.

Here's a fun habitat:

Ignore the other stuff in the picture, I was roleplaying a relaxed isolationist game relying on defences and never invading but getting attacked from both sides from the very start... and I was actually a fair bit behind the AIs with a slow-growing lithoid that avoided building any CGs at all (we all make our own fun). Anyway...

The habitat is getting the option enact decisions costing alloys and unity to unlock special planet features. These features add 1 extra max district, which is great, and a couple of jobs, which are also great but can be a bit OP (but balanced around those jobs also being given for free on special planets anyway, the precursor jobs give minor relics for example, but the minor relic costs are all higher to compensate).

The habitat is getting bonuses not just from the gas giant alone but from things like the Hiveworld Fossils anomaly effect on the moon of the gas giant as well, though it's still limited to only getting one type of special district (the hive world on the moon has unlocked the decision which has unlocked research districts on this habitat for example).

It means that building a habitat around a gas giant with a dozen moons is almost as powerful as it would be in reality, or in good fiction (like the Expanse series). The only downside is there's no expansion planner for habitats (or branch offices) so if you build a lot of habitats you do have to manually check systems for good locations or perhaps leave a construction ship as a bookmark for where to build later. I'm always a bit annoyed if I see crystals on the map only to zoom in to find they are in an asteroid field (the mod doesn't change that annoying feature).

I'd love a developer to play with the mod and be inspired to make some fun updates to habitats for the vanilla game. I do worry that with planets getting significantly better that habitats will be relatively weaker in future. Ideally you'd update things at the same time to avoid leaving anything behind... it'd be odd to upgrade lasers for example before kinetics. So I do find it a bit strange that planets will get lots of very cool new toys but there's been no mention of habitats yet (other than to say that you can't have both around a planet). Fingers crossed they haven't forgotten about habitats.