Suggestion: Space-Metro-Port / Midway Station / Hub

[MasterOfGrey]

Inspired by this thread: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/habitable-space-stations.920189/

A more specific suggestion for a non-planet-based option to hosting pop's and exerting control.

Suggested Mechanics:
- A space-port inspired structure which can only be built in a system with no possible habitable planets.
- Counts as a planet for administrative limits.
- Consists of a 'primary module' and 'adjunct modules'.
- Supports pops, possibly requires some kind of combined action between a colony ship and a construction ship.
- Creates territorial influence like a colony.
- Potentially costs influence to begin with and provides a return on influence at higher levels.
- Adjunct modules could be shown visually tiling around the primary module in some sort of pattern.
- Capabilities divided between 'pop upgrades' and 'automated upgrades'.
- - Pop upgrades: subset of planet structures (excluding mines).
- - Automated upgrades: spaceport upgrades like solar panels, weapons, observatories etc. (excluding ship construction perhaps).

Primary Module:
- Supports a maximum of 5 pops.
- Supports 5 'pop upgrades'.
- Supports 3 'automated upgrades'.
- Costs a chunk of influence to maintain.
- Unlocks construction of an adjunct module when it has 5 complete pops.
- Once a new adjunct module is complete a pop moves to the module and a new one must grow before another adjunct can be built.

Adjunct module:
- Supports 1 pop and associated upgrade.
- Supports 3 'automated upgrades'.
- Provides back 1 influence point when all upgrades are built.

Ideally each successive adjunct module increases in cost linearly, and this cost is multiplied by the number of un-utilised upgrade spaces on existing modules.

E.g. So if the adjuncts cost say 100+50*n (Where n=number of existing adjuncts) then if you get to the third adjunct but you still have 1 automated upgrade on the primary, first, and 3 on the second, then your cost would be (100+50*3)*5 = 1250 minerals. This way the cost structure encourages them to build inwards rather than outwards until they run out of space first.

Eventually the station would break even on influence; and then if it survives long enough, provide a return. Realistically the pop upgrades are going to primarily occupied with hydroponic food production, energy production and science - presenting a balancing challenge. Energy requirements would be able to be mitigated somewhat with solar panels etc like with spaceports. A large one might be able to host a combat arena like we saw on the Blorg stream, providing the benefits like a planet. Minerals obviously can't be mined in a space station.

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In terms of war it should be 'disabled' after a fight with a fleet, and *then* the attacker has the option of scuttling it or boarding it with assault armies. An aggressive attacker will still destroy it but it then at least has the option of being capturable rather than completely destructible like spaceports and other space-based infrastructure.

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Thoughts?

 

[CocoCincinnati]

How many people does one POP represent? I did some checking and the largest estimate I could find on the number of people on the Death Star was about 31 million and that was by far the highest, most other estimates are quite a bit smaller than that. But for arguments sake, let's take that number and run with it. We all know that the Death Star was the size of a small moon, so what would the material cost and energy upkeep be for a station of that size? As to how many POP's it could hold, we have to go back to my initial questions. Certainly what a POP represents can change during the course of a game....the first POP on a new colony realistically represents fewer people than one POP on your maxed out home world. Still if a station of that size can hold 30 million people, I think at most that should have room for just one POP, MAYBE two (and that's a big maybe). Just my thoughts.

 

[EvilTom]

Sounds good. I can imagine these ceding from your empire sometimes, or even some independent trading stations settings up here and there.

 

[Dr_Creeptor]

How many people does one POP represent? I did some checking and the largest estimate I could find on the number of people on the Death Star was about 31 million and that was by far the highest, most other estimates are quite a bit smaller than that. But for arguments sake, let's take that number and run with it. We all know that the Death Star was the size of a small moon, so what would the material cost and energy upkeep be for a station of that size? As to how many POP's it could hold, we have to go back to my initial questions. Certainly what a POP represents can change during the course of a game....the first POP on a new colony realistically represents fewer people than one POP on your maxed out home world. Still if a station of that size can hold 30 million people, I think at most that should have room for just one POP, MAYBE two (and that's a big maybe). Just my thoughts.

Good point, but one thing: The Death Star was made to kill, not to live on. However, a station made to live on could easily hold more people that a large Destroyer.

 

[EvilTom]

How many people does one POP represent? I did some checking and the largest estimate I could find on the number of people on the Death Star was about 31 million and that was by far the highest, most other estimates are quite a bit smaller than that. But for arguments sake, let's take that number and run with it. We all know that the Death Star was the size of a small moon, so what would the material cost and energy upkeep be for a station of that size? As to how many POP's it could hold, we have to go back to my initial questions. Certainly what a POP represents can change during the course of a game....the first POP on a new colony realistically represents fewer people than one POP on your maxed out home world. Still if a station of that size can hold 30 million people, I think at most that should have room for just one POP, MAYBE two (and that's a big maybe). Just my thoughts.

Wait... are you telling me that the destruction of the Death Star by the rebellion killed up to 31 million people (I'm not sure how many escaped)? Wow. I know the Empire murdered entire planets, but 31 people in just one blow is a bit... mad.

I could see in the game that if such a space station were to exist as the OP has proposed it would take significant time and investment but would lead to some interesting effects. I could imagine there being some interesting science outputs in the microgravity environment. I had heard something recently on a BBC documentary that the CERN particle accelerator is something like 27km long and that produces small collisions, but we'd need an accelerator the size of the orbit of Pluto to come up with the energies required to smash up the smallest constituents and see into the moments of the big bang. Having a space station not limited by a planet (at least in science terms) could be awesome.

 

[Botox]

10 billion people living on a space station?
That would be a small sized planet!

Only if it is damn expensive and only one structure per empire, if you conquer one you'd have to abbandon or destroy it.

And anyways, there are outposts for the purpose of expanding your sphere of influence that do cost a bit and need some upkeep.

 

[TheBeautifulVoid2]

Wait... are you telling me that the destruction of the Death Star by the rebellion killed up to 31 million people (I'm not sure how many escaped)? Wow. I know the Empire murdered entire planets, but 31 people in just one blow is a bit... mad.

This sounds like a good time to mention the Endor Holocaust.

 

[S.C. Watson]

How many people does one POP represent? .

This, right here, is one of the reasons that I'm an advocate for numbers - I want to know how many people/aliens I have in a given place - not an abstract. I want hard numbers. The more you have, the issues / things you'll have access to (for example, a colony with 100k will be able to do more than a colony with 100, but you'll have larger resource needs, etc.

“Data!data!data!" he cried impatiently. "I can't make bricks without clay.” - Sherlock Holmes.

 

[TallTroll]

As a late game tech, and requiring LOTS of resources to build and maintain (planets don't break down), it might be a good way to let empires squeeze a little more value out of whatever territory they have without war, but I really can't see it supporting 5 POPs. I think 2 would be too many, in fact, except possibly as a unique end game upgrade.

Civilians have much greater space / comfort needs than warship crew. They wouldn't accept hotbunking in dorms as a permanent living arrangement for instance, they would need schools, recreational spaces, proper hospitals instead of military grade sickbays and so on. Even New York, one of the most densely populated cities in the world is only about 30k people / sq. mile

 

[uplift17]

I'm in support of being able to build large populated stations that aren't your average spaceports if for no other reason than I am a big fan of Babylon 5 and DS9

That said -- I think that it needs another reason to exist than to be just a pop center; even in a system with no habitable worlds, it would be generally easier from an engineering standpoint to build a settlement on a planet under domes - gravity has a ton of benefits for cities/hives/spiritual communes/whatever you want to call your pop centers.

There are a ton of specific purposes for which we might want to build a city in space, however, and that's where your mechanics would come in handy.

Just using sci-fi tropes --

1) Diplomatic station -- in addition to being a pop center, get a diplomatic bonus with your neighbors, get positive modifiers if you have a federation
2) Trade station -- this would likely have to be integrated with a more fully fleshed out trade DLC, but it should provide a bonus to your income and act as a center for trade routes in your empire
3) Hospital station/research station - a shining research or medical campus in space where all sorts of crazy experiments give your empire hefty science output
4) Battle school - for militaristic empires, train your finest star admirals here in addition to some state-of-the-art shipyards accomodating your empire's latest designs

etc, etc -- I think you see the point.

 

[TheBeautifulVoid2]

I can see the virtue to building these as Europa Universalis-style Centres of Trade.

 

[kreissig]

The problem with this idea is that it goes against Henrik's personal idea for this game. He has said on more than one occasion that he "hates it" when games make it possible to colonize the entire playable galaxy. So this is just another way to "fill in" the non-colony systems. I think it goes against his intent for Stellaris.

 

[Chyll]

Wait... are you telling me that the destruction of the Death Star by the rebellion killed up to 31 million people (I'm not sure how many escaped)? Wow. I know the Empire murdered entire planets, but 31 people in just one blow is a bit... mad.

There is a reason there is an entire meme about the terrorist Luke Skywalker.

(Myself, I think 31 million seems more than a little high.)

 

[T.S.Gracchus]

What about making the existing frontier outposts more upgradable? I'm not a huge fan of the no habitable planets restriction personally, it feels artificial, better to set the mechanics up so that it's not profitable to build outposts where you could colonize by making them cost tons of energy (which I think makes sense, it's not easy to live in space). I do basically support Henrik's objection to terraform painting the galaxy good planets should feel special. But the frontier outpost mechanic is a good compromise that let's you hold territory where you can't colonize and could be expanded.

They could work the same way as space ports but maybe an extra upgrade slot and eventually (maybe every 4 or 5 levels) a pop.

That frontier outpost pops should have super high ethics divergence modifiers though, after all they don't even live on a planet, so why should they listen to what those far away dirt crawlers have to say about how they live their lives.

 

[MasterOfGrey]

How many people does one POP represent? I did some checking and the largest estimate I could find on the number of people on the Death Star was about 31 million and that was by far the highest, most other estimates are quite a bit smaller than that. But for arguments sake, let's take that number and run with it. We all know that the Death Star was the size of a small moon, so what would the material cost and energy upkeep be for a station of that size? As to how many POP's it could hold, we have to go back to my initial questions. Certainly what a POP represents can change during the course of a game....the first POP on a new colony realistically represents fewer people than one POP on your maxed out home world. Still if a station of that size can hold 30 million people, I think at most that should have room for just one POP, MAYBE two (and that's a big maybe). Just my thoughts.

I generally see a Pop as a 'productive unit' since they way they produce resources off a building or tile seems to be independent of the size or development of the planet. Essentially making a POP "as many people as it takes to operate this module of the economy".

As a late game tech, and requiring LOTS of resources to build and maintain (planets don't break down), it might be a good way to let empires squeeze a little more value out of whatever territory they have without war, but I really can't see it supporting 5 POPs. I think 2 would be too many, in fact, except possibly as a unique end game upgrade.
<snip>

The idea was that it'd cost a fairly hefty amount of energy and influence to begin with, so even as a mid-game tech it'd have an easy soft limit on your ability to build them. However, I could see limiting the number of adjuncts by technology so that it can't make a return on influence until relatively late-game making a lot of sense.

I'm in support of being able to build large populated stations that aren't your average spaceports if for no other reason than I am a big fan of Babylon 5 and DS9

That said -- I think that it needs another reason to exist than to be just a pop center; even in a system with no habitable worlds, it would be generally easier from an engineering standpoint to build a settlement on a planet under domes - gravity has a ton of benefits for cities/hives/spiritual communes/whatever you want to call your pop centers.

There are a ton of specific purposes for which we might want to build a city in space, however, and that's where your mechanics would come in handy.

Just using sci-fi tropes --

1) Diplomatic station -- in addition to being a pop center, get a diplomatic bonus with your neighbors, get positive modifiers if you have a federation
2) Trade station -- this would likely have to be integrated with a more fully fleshed out trade DLC, but it should provide a bonus to your income and act as a center for trade routes in your empire
3) Hospital station/research station - a shining research or medical campus in space where all sorts of crazy experiments give your empire hefty science output
4) Battle school - for militaristic empires, train your finest star admirals here in addition to some state-of-the-art shipyards accomodating your empire's latest designs

etc, etc -- I think you see the point.

Assuming trade as a non-abstracted concept gets implemented then yes that'd be an obvious one. It's already built into the design in the first post that it would essentially function as a very large science station once it gets going, and a diplomatic station (bonus influence) once it gets large.

The problem with this idea is that it goes against Henrik's personal idea for this game. He has said on more than one occasion that he "hates it" when games make it possible to colonize the entire playable galaxy. So this is just another way to "fill in" the non-colony systems. I think it goes against his intent for Stellaris.

I strongly suspect that the resource costs and comparative fragility of one of these stations compared to a planet would be capable of balancing that quite adequately. From the Blorg stream, for example, I could see a mid-late game Blorg empire gradually getting around to setting up two (maybe) to exert control over the arm on the other side of dark space due to its lack of inhabitable planets (even if they incorporate their vassal and the penguin birds), but that would still be a pretty hefty effort to do over the long-term without wiping out their ability to engage in diplomacy.

What about making the existing frontier outposts more upgradable? I'm not a huge fan of the no habitable planets restriction personally, it feels artificial, better to set the mechanics up so that it's not profitable to build outposts where you could colonize by making them cost tons of energy (which I think makes sense, it's not easy to live in space). I do basically support Henrik's objection to terraform painting the galaxy good planets should feel special. But the frontier outpost mechanic is a good compromise that let's you hold territory where you can't colonize and could be expanded.

They could work the same way as space ports but maybe an extra upgrade slot and eventually (maybe every 4 or 5 levels) a pop.

That frontier outpost pops should have super high ethics divergence modifiers though, after all they don't even live on a planet, so why should they listen to what those far away dirt crawlers have to say about how they live their lives.

I think the frontier outposts serve an altogether too obvious military purpose to be reasonably converted in this manner. The no habitable planets restriction is purely because there's no natural reason you'd set up a hub like this anywhere that there's already a planet you can exploit. I totally agree with one thing though, they should be a hotbed for ethics divergence.

 

[Fonz]

Wait... are you telling me that the destruction of the Death Star by the rebellion killed up to 31 million people

So Luke is actually 5 times as bad as Hitler was?

 

[SgtSmuckers]

So Luke is actually 5 times as bad as Hitler was?

Please, I think if anyone from the Star Wars universe is Hitler its this

Spoiler

It ruined countless peoples lives and will continue to do so

 

[EvilTom]

The problem with this idea is that it goes against Henrik's personal idea for this game. He has said on more than one occasion that he "hates it" when games make it possible to colonize the entire playable galaxy. So this is just another way to "fill in" the non-colony systems. I think it goes against his intent for Stellaris.

I can half understand this. I quite like the idea of some planets being prohibitively expensive or impractical to colonise.

Saying that though, it would be impractical to colonise the moon using this methods, but we could feasibly do it with current technology (just a lot of expense). It wouldn't have much space for population as everyone would have to live indoors.

 

[MasterOfGrey]

I can half understand this. I quite like the idea of some planets being prohibitively expensive or impractical to colonise.

Saying that though, it would be impractical to colonise the moon using this methods, but we could feasibly do it with current technology (just a lot of expense). It wouldn't have much space for population as everyone would have to live indoors.

I believe this degree of colonisation is essentially abstracted into the 'Mining Station' concept.

 

[Alexander Seil]

How many people does one POP represent? I did some checking and the largest estimate I could find on the number of people on the Death Star was about 31 million and that was by far the highest, most other estimates are quite a bit smaller than that. But for arguments sake, let's take that number and run with it. We all know that the Death Star was the size of a small moon, so what would the material cost and energy upkeep be for a station of that size? As to how many POP's it could hold, we have to go back to my initial questions. Certainly what a POP represents can change during the course of a game....the first POP on a new colony realistically represents fewer people than one POP on your maxed out home world. Still if a station of that size can hold 30 million people, I think at most that should have room for just one POP, MAYBE two (and that's a big maybe). Just my thoughts.

Utterly absurd. The Death Star is said to be the size of a moon, perhaps big enough to fit Tokyo on its surface 5 times over.

The whole of humanity can fit in an area the size of New York City. Add some fancy minituarized life support technology, and you can fit a billion easily in a relatively compact station.

The POPs in Stellaris are heavily implied to be 1 billion each, given how many tiles Earth could have.