Man I really love habitats.

[-Marauder-]

Habitats are as if space stations and planets came together and had a baby, that on the first look seems quite bad but then you remember they had dozens of them and you can put them all over the place.

That horrible star system with the single large planet and a dozen useless planets? It's not a system with that single planet and a dozen 12 tile planets with oberbudgeted buildings.

 

[General Retreat]

In your experience, how do habitats affect system count and tech penalties?

I'm assuming if you build a habitat in an otherwise empty system, that will count towards your core count? Do they also incur the 10% research penalty?

What you've described has been pretty much why I've been making a beeline for them though. Pesky work getting between me and my marathon Stellaris session!

 

[-Marauder-]

They seem to count as regular planet for research etc. They still "break even" and likely more so because of their specialized buildings. Their tech building for example gives 3/3/3 and does not have to be upgraded. Their energy generation is 10 right away per building etc. They aren't particularly good for growing food though.

Haven't tried building them in empty systems yet. I'd assume they would count towards the system cap seeing how the game treats them as planets who cant build Starports otherwise. But they do allow one to massively increase the "planet" count within ones space and relatively early on. At 5k they aren't that expensive either and the construction time is reasonable seeing how one can build several at the same time.

 

[Torr Nomad]

Habitats are treated just like other 'planets/colonies'

 

[AdamantineFist]

They come with reeeaaaally good science buildings (no upgrades, base +3 to all sciences), which is a huge plus. And good energy buildings(+10 energy, no upgrades). You shouldn't have to worry about them affecting your science output at all once they're developed.

 

[-Marauder-]

They come with reeeaaaally good science buildings (no upgrades, base +3 to all sciences), which is a huge plus. And good energy buildings(+10 energy, no upgrades). You shouldn't have to worry about them affecting your science output at all once they're developed.

Which they are fairly quickly. They are relatively small but not too small which means the pops fill up fairly quickly. I honestly am considering to rush for them in the future and basically ship quite a bit of my energy and science production off world. Given that appears to be where their strenghts lie.