The issue with habitats in 2.2 and some proposed tweaks.

[Spectra Twilight]

For gestalt empires habitats are fair as energy producers since they offer 3job/distric and CAN host gestalt housing buildings like hive warrens or drone depot. This is at least as good as planetary district, but you don't need to claim new systems to build them. For MEs they are probably better as energy producers then planets since they host more jobs per district with same maintenance as planetary districts.

Slightly incorrect. Only Hive Minds receive 3 jobs per district. Machine Intelligence empires receive the same amount of jobs per district as non-Gestalt empires.

Additionally, Generator districts on planets have 1 energy upkeep and provide 2 housing, whereas Reactor districts on habitats have 2 energy upkeep and provide no housing, which makes Reactor districts slightly worse than Generator districts.

 

[permeakra]

Slightly incorrect. Only Hive Minds receive 3 jobs per district. Machine Intelligence empires receive the same amount of jobs per district as non-Gestalt empires.

*quickly loads the save*
Wow.
2 techdrone job / habitat district but 3 calculator job / habitat district? Something weird is going on.

 

[Vanhal]

Well, habitats are a bit of crap comparing to the previous versions, but it's actually good, as very tedious and cluttering habitat spam seemed to be the answer i had read way too many times in all gameplay threads before, so maybe we don't need such apparently universal and thus too good thing?

 

[Spectra Twilight]

*quickly loads the save*
Wow.
2 techdrone job / habitat district but 3 calculator job / habitat district? Something weird is going on.

In case you didn't know, this applies to all standard planet districts as well. Machine Empires don't ever get more jobs per rural district than non-Gestalt empires (though the 2.2.2 update did provide them with a Tech-Drone job per Nexus (Housing) district, but still). This contradicts the statement written in the 2.2 Dev Diaries about Gestalts, stating that Machine Empires would be the empire type to receive 3 jobs per district, which is why I imagine many people mistakenly think that all Gestalts get the bonus. A look into the files in the Stellaris/common/districts folder is really the only correct source for this information at this time.

It is rather disappointing to me that the Reactor district is actually worse than its planetary counterpart. I cannot speak for the efficiency of organic-exclusive Habitat districts versus planetary buildings and districts, as I only play Machine Empires, but in terms of Gestalt Habitat districts this is rather inconsistent.

• Gestalt Housing districts on Habitats provide 10 housing and 2 maintenance jobs for 2 energy upkeep, whereas planetary housing districts provide 5 to 8 housing for Machines (depending on technologies and traditions), or 6 to 9 for Hive Minds (they get 1 bonus housing as a standard) for the same 2 energy upkeep. Now, I would be remiss to not mention the maintenance job and Tech-Drone job that Machines also receive from their planetary housing district, but that makes direct comparison a bit messy. Ultimately, I think that the Habitat housing district is rather good, as it will always provide more housing than a planetary housing district.
• The research district provides 3 research jobs (this is consistent regardless of empire type, even Hive Minds only get the 3 jobs here) for 2 energy upkeep, whereas planetary research buildings (before upgrades) provide 2 research jobs for 4 energy upkeep. This makes habitat research significantly more efficient than planetary research until utilization of rare resources for building upkeep becomes viable later in the game.

With the Habitat's housing district and research district serving to be more efficient than what can be achieved on a planet (barring use of rare resources, which will make the research district relatively less useful, but not completely useless, over time), why are Reactor districts worse?

...Sorry for the rant there, I may be a bit too passionate on this issue.

 

[Eled the Worm Tamer]

Well, game-wise you may be right, but talking exclusively off-game, building on a planet and on an habitat it's extremely different. You can't use the same solutions here and there. The planet foundry doesn't have to generate breathable air, for instance, and may occupy as much surface as it want.

Think about the size of Ecu's districts: you are dividing an ENTIRE planet's surface into 10 to 20 portions. It's immense. Habitats are way smaller.

Only in universe the size of a habbitat is determined by how much volume you want to encapsulate. But ok. Why cannot a ringworld segment the biggest inhabitable thing we have not support Ecu foundary districts? Those are if anything harder to get and even less restricted than planetary bodies. Again theres a solid Doylist reason or two, but no wastosnian justifiaction.