Simplify Habitats.

[Hecateus]

""If you can get your ship into orbit, you're halfway to anywhere." "

-R. Heinlein.

So why do I have to micromanage all these Habitats?

Merge all of the buildings and districts on them into one system wide management view. At the very the Pops amongst them should be merged.

 

[Rodmar18]

Wouldn't you say that habitats are like cherries on top of the cake in this game; don't they deserve some micromanagement?
I mean, you are given the power to create mini planets... Be ready to manage those additional (and not mandatory) worlds. Be happy to going on managing worlds when normal ones are all fully grown!

 

[Hecateus]

Wouldn't you say that habitats are like cherries on top of the cake in this game; don't they deserve some micromanagement?
I mean, you are given the power to create mini planets... Be ready to manage those additional (and not mandatory) worlds. Be happy to going on managing worlds when normal ones are all fully grown!

no...I can't see the cherries on the cake because the cake is in the way. Until Sector AI is up to the task, and all we have to do is manage the frosting on that cake, they should merge the management of a system's habitats into one...if I was being greedy in this regard, I would have alll the habitats in the entire sector in one management view.

 

[ghostbirdofprey]

Honestly, the problem isn't habitats.
The problem is there is no useful automation.
Habitats themselves aren't really any more or less annoying than managing the same number of regular planets.

What we need is per planet automation (until you have a massive empire with several sectors, sector specialization isn't fine grained enough, and regardless you benefit more playing to the bonuses and districts most planets have.) Though the automation being braindead is also needed or we'll just have planets getting automated to uselessness in finer detail.

What I'd REALLY love is the ability to set some sort of build order, tell the planet at X pops build Y, and have proper priorities for jobs not just disabling some and setting one as fill to max.

 

[EXCAT]

I am yet to figure out why one needs habitats at all.
Planets are plentiful - unoccupied or occupied.

 

[Hecateus]

I am yet to figure out why one needs habitats at all.
Planets are plentiful - unoccupied or occupied.

IF one starts as a Voidborne Origin, then yeah...NEEDED. Otherwise, when you run out of minerals from planets, Mining Stations won't be enough. Fortress Habitats are needed for choke point systems which have no planets.

 

[Pancakelord]

There's two problems with habs
Observations:

1. They're a chore to manage/build up - and this increases with the total number of habs
2. They're a massive pain to assault in war. If you enter a system with say 5 habitats, on top of any colonies, it takes ages to conquer them.

Causes:

1. Automation for habitat development (that you can actually trust) is non-existent.
2. Army invasions are also effectively placeholders, they're also so damn dull, and become worse as the number of colonies in a system rises and you have to wait for each invasion.
   • This is because those mechanics have been around since before habitats, and weren't really designed with us being able to build/have 20 colonies in a solar system let alone 20 fortress colones (aka a "Buttplug" system).

Simplifying habitats only treats the symptoms, not the underlying issues they're rubbing up against.

PDX needs to sit down and finally give us non-placeholder army mechanics and automation that won't lead to dead-weight colonies.

Doing anything else is just spitting in the wind.

Edit:

There is a 3rd issue with habitat spam: Performance.

• You can create an ungodly amount of worlds and tank performance late game like this because there's no real upper limit on the number of habitats you can build,provided you still have free gravity wells.
• A stop-gap to fix this is to cap the number of habitats in a system to the same tier as the system's starbase (e.g. 0 in an outpost, 1 in a tier 1 station, upto 4 on a citadel system etc)
• and give voidbourne an option to build their habitats sooner (so they could have 2 on a tier 0 outpost system, 3 habs on a tier 1 starbase, ... , upto 6 on a citadel system)

 

[Bankipriel]

There is a 3rd issue with habitat spam: Performance.

• You can create an ungodly amount of worlds and tank performance late game like this because there's no real upper limit on the number of habitats you can build,provided you still have free gravity wells.
• A stop-gap to fix this is to cap the number of habitats in a system to the same tier as the system's starbase (e.g. 0 in an outpost, 1 in a tier 1 station, upto 4 on a citadel system etc)
• and give voidbourne an option to build their habitats sooner (so they could have 2 on a tier 0 outpost system, 3 habs on a tier 1 starbase, ... , upto 6 on a citadel system)

[/QUOTE]


I agree almost all of your post, and I like your idea of tying habitats to starbase level ... but I'm not sure it would be enough. AI empires would still spam 40+ habitats, and players could still easily build 100 habitats by late game.

 

[Hecateus]

A sudden thought based on what has been said so far. Limiting the number of habitats based on the quantity/quality of Starbases in the sector would be a fair limiter...I would still have a planet like management on the system level though, again not as individual planets.

 

[EXCAT]

If the only reason to spam habitats is to make them into fortresses
- make them destroyable by Titan weapons.

How come I can kill 100K Citadel, but not a defenseless Habitat?