Habitats could use some work. It's great people have found ways to make them work, but it still doesn't remove the fact that the concept needs better refining. There's also the issue of AI spamming them, thus crippling itself, while also causing crippling late game lag. Not to mention it's rather tedious to deal with, if you're trying conquer the galaxy and the AIs remaining system have 2-4 inhabited habitats you have to take.
A big issue with habitats is most of the workarounds, that make them work, are really efforts to justify picking up the perk because small crappy planets would still do a superior job. Fortress habitats strike me as the only real setup where the players is getting a superior result over the alternative (being able to make a good choke point and get naval capacity out of it, wile free up a starbase for something else or not even having to bother have it in the first place, given they cost upkeep).
A good setup might be to force the player to choice what they are going to do with a habitat either upon construction start or when they settle it. The habitat types could be orbital factory (alloy & consumer good production focus), orbital refinery (focus on mote, crystal and gas production, could even let ones in nebulas build the nebula refinery structure), orbital university (research focus), orbital fortress (focus on being a defensive structure), orbital generator (not sure it would be needed by the time habitats become an option, but more options aren't bad) and orbital farms. Having to pick a focus, would make it easier to justify giving habitats a setup that would make them a solid choice as a perk and giving them special structures. An orbital factory could be setup to be a superior option when factory in worker numbers and raw resources for generating alloys compared to a foundry world. Voidborn should also have the added benefit where the player can renovate habitats for a new focus. That way, those that don't invest in voidborn, but manage to come into possession of habitats are stuck with what ever format the original owner chose if focus is determined at construction or what ever occupied ones had before getting conquered.
An obvious concern would be to ensure the tweak wouldn't make voidborn too good to pass up. Obviously, the first thing would be to put some sort of cap on the number of habitats an empire can support. Could be kind of soft like the starbase cap. You can make it work, but chances you're going to find some way to move the population and decommission the habitat. Not sure if this should scale based on systems owned (Voidborn gives an empire an extra 5 total to the cap) or a set amount. Upside is this would greatly limit the number of habitats that the AI can spam, thus having some impact on end game performance. The other question is, do habitats need to have 16 building slots and require 5 populations for each builiding, given that players have to find ways to unlock the remaining buildings. Normally dropping it to 12 building slots would make it inferior, but if the habitat is getting special structures that make it more efficient at what it produces (aka an alloy focused orbital factory could be efficient enough that it's a good investment, without it being required).
Hell, the ability to spam habitats is probably holding them back. If I the option to build an unlimited number of alloy focused habitats, that were only say 120 alloy produced behind the best dedicated foundry world, that isn't an ecumenopoli, despite having say 12 building slots, while also needing less workers & raw materials. Like why wouldn't I spam the hell out of that until I hit a point of not needing to, assuming everything else lined up to support those habitat numbers? If I have a set number of habitats I can operate and each orbital factory comes at the expense of being able to build one less habitat of another focus. I'm going to be more circumspect on how I go about building them.
I would be remiss, since I'm mentioning the idea of habitat unique structures, if I didn't mention how I wouldn't mind seeing ringworlds get a tiny bit of love. Namely let them crib off ecumenopoli and have housing district that also provide amenities. It's such a waste to build so many maintenance depos on them. Also feel like both the ringworld and ecumenopoli should be allowed to upgrade their basic non-military security structures since they can support larger population. Also seems kind of a waste that the rignworlds don't get a structure or two that are unique to them.
A big issue with habitats is most of the workarounds, that make them work, are really efforts to justify picking up the perk because small crappy planets would still do a superior job. Fortress habitats strike me as the only real setup where the players is getting a superior result over the alternative (being able to make a good choke point and get naval capacity out of it, wile free up a starbase for something else or not even having to bother have it in the first place, given they cost upkeep).
A good setup might be to force the player to choice what they are going to do with a habitat either upon construction start or when they settle it. The habitat types could be orbital factory (alloy & consumer good production focus), orbital refinery (focus on mote, crystal and gas production, could even let ones in nebulas build the nebula refinery structure), orbital university (research focus), orbital fortress (focus on being a defensive structure), orbital generator (not sure it would be needed by the time habitats become an option, but more options aren't bad) and orbital farms. Having to pick a focus, would make it easier to justify giving habitats a setup that would make them a solid choice as a perk and giving them special structures. An orbital factory could be setup to be a superior option when factory in worker numbers and raw resources for generating alloys compared to a foundry world. Voidborn should also have the added benefit where the player can renovate habitats for a new focus. That way, those that don't invest in voidborn, but manage to come into possession of habitats are stuck with what ever format the original owner chose if focus is determined at construction or what ever occupied ones had before getting conquered.
An obvious concern would be to ensure the tweak wouldn't make voidborn too good to pass up. Obviously, the first thing would be to put some sort of cap on the number of habitats an empire can support. Could be kind of soft like the starbase cap. You can make it work, but chances you're going to find some way to move the population and decommission the habitat. Not sure if this should scale based on systems owned (Voidborn gives an empire an extra 5 total to the cap) or a set amount. Upside is this would greatly limit the number of habitats that the AI can spam, thus having some impact on end game performance. The other question is, do habitats need to have 16 building slots and require 5 populations for each builiding, given that players have to find ways to unlock the remaining buildings. Normally dropping it to 12 building slots would make it inferior, but if the habitat is getting special structures that make it more efficient at what it produces (aka an alloy focused orbital factory could be efficient enough that it's a good investment, without it being required).
Hell, the ability to spam habitats is probably holding them back. If I the option to build an unlimited number of alloy focused habitats, that were only say 120 alloy produced behind the best dedicated foundry world, that isn't an ecumenopoli, despite having say 12 building slots, while also needing less workers & raw materials. Like why wouldn't I spam the hell out of that until I hit a point of not needing to, assuming everything else lined up to support those habitat numbers? If I have a set number of habitats I can operate and each orbital factory comes at the expense of being able to build one less habitat of another focus. I'm going to be more circumspect on how I go about building them.
I would be remiss, since I'm mentioning the idea of habitat unique structures, if I didn't mention how I wouldn't mind seeing ringworlds get a tiny bit of love. Namely let them crib off ecumenopoli and have housing district that also provide amenities. It's such a waste to build so many maintenance depos on them. Also feel like both the ringworld and ecumenopoli should be allowed to upgrade their basic non-military security structures since they can support larger population. Also seems kind of a waste that the rignworlds don't get a structure or two that are unique to them.