Why Build habitats?

[MCMartel]

So I'm playing a tall inward perfection build and I've started building habitats, and they're a huge sink of minerals to make them, why should I make them and not just terraform or colonize planets? What exactly is the advantage of them? I thought maybe they didn't count as planets for system or tech count, but it looks like they do, so I'm not sure what the point in spending 10k minerals is?

 

[Mavkiel]

If you are land locked in a small region of space. Or if you don't want to defend a large number of systems. Simply find a single system with a large number of planets and presto. Personally I hate having to defend a large number of systems in 2.0. I'd much rather go tall and cough up extra minerals to avoid the inconvenience.

Of course using that logic I normally skip habitats all-together and focus on ring worlds. (Go big or go home)

 

[MCMartel]

If you are land locked in a small region of space. Or if you don't want to defend a large number of systems. Simply find a single system with a large number of planets and presto. Personally I hate having to defend a large number of systems in 2.0. I'd much rather go tall and cough up extra minerals to avoid the inconvenience.

Of course using that logic I normally skip habitats all-together and focus on ring worlds. (Go big or go home)

Can you build more than one habitat per system?

 

[Calor]

Can you build more than one habitat per system?

One per celestial body (exept suns)

 

[Oscot]

So I'm playing a tall inward perfection build and I've started building habitats, and they're a huge sink of minerals to make them, why should I make them and not just terraform or colonize planets? What exactly is the advantage of them? I thought maybe they didn't count as planets for system or tech count, but it looks like they do, so I'm not sure what the point in spending 10k minerals is?

When they were first introduced in 1.5, habitats used to cost half as much (in both influence and minerals), and have better buildings. And this was in a version where influence was much less important.

So the answer to "Why should I ever build habitats" is "If you're still playing v1.9".
Here in 2.1 they have indeed been nerfed into uselessness.

 

[Marconius]

Basically because eventually you run out of planets.

 

[Olterin]

Because despite having been nerfed a whole lot, they are still worthwhile to improve your research output and energy supply (and naval cap by virtue of starbase cap through pop count). I only build them in systems I won't be able to build ringworlds in, though.

 

[Teldaril]

Mostly because as inward perfectionist you are unable to gain territory through war or subjugation. Thus you will reach a point where you can't expand wide but need to expand tall. Most times i play as inward perfectionist i reach a point where i get so much mineral income that i need to dump it into habitats. But as long as i don't have to and there are valuable planets left (for me that is till planet cap) i colonize the planets.

 

[QuakeIV]

I honestly think the devs just didn't like the idea of people spamming habitats everywhere. I tend to feel the exact opposite. At some point there should be downsides to making infinity habitats, (or just better tools for mass spamming them) but voidborne civilization is basically the future. Engineering wise its the best way to go, what with the huge amounts of easily accessed shit floating in space, and the relative low mass cost of habitats once you have strong enough materials to make them. I think the game should embrace the goodness of habitats instead of rejecting them. The game should have distinct phases. The planetbound phase of small fleets and terraforming, the voidbourne phase where you learn to harness the resources of the void and gain access to an order of magnitude more resources and power, and then a phase of darkness as the galaxy is devoured by dyson spheres, mass synthesizers, and massive fleets beyond the comprehension of us mere mortals.

I personally dont think there should be any real regard for allowing very low tech empires to compete directly in any meaningful way with later stage empires, and that aspect of truly asymmetric survival (if it ever even happens in MP) is a very sci-fi concept and potentially pretty fun if you can find various political and cultural ways to convince your far more advanced peers to leave you alone.

Heck, it would be cool as hell if the galaxy map slowly went black to reflect the dyson spheres eating everything.

 

[Oscot]

I honestly think the devs just didn't like the idea of people spamming habitats everywhere. I tend to feel the exact opposite. At some point there should be downsides to making infinity habitats, (or just better tools for mass spamming them) but voidborne civilization is basically the future. Engineering wise its the best way to go, what with the huge amounts of easily accessed shit floating in space, and the relative low mass cost of habitats once you have strong enough materials to make them. I think the game should embrace the goodness of habitats instead of rejecting them. The game should have distinct phases. The planetbound phase of small fleets and terraforming, the voidbourne phase where you learn to harness the resources of the void and gain access to an order of magnitude more resources and power, and then a phase of darkness as the galaxy is devoured by dyson spheres, mass synthesizers, and massive fleets beyond the comprehension of us mere mortals.

I am conflicted, because on the one hand I have to excoriate you for making a realism argument in a game with psychic black hole time worms...

But on the other hand you're completely right from a gameplay perspective, Stellaris needs to have Civ-5-esque step-change time eras when you can feel and see yourself go up a gear. It's a farce that the System View of your core sector worlds look identical in 2220, 2420, and 2620. Carpeting everywhere with habitats - making not just an ecumenopolis of the planet but a COSMOpolis of the system - is an already-implemented way to solve both the tepid economics and the tepid visuals, you just gotta cheapen them so habitats become the norm rather than the exception in gameplay.

 

[evilcat]

You could fallow the flow. If you have too much minerals and influence habitats allow you to trade it for something you lack, or just more of minerals without wasting due to cap.
Maybe your bottleneck is navy cap. Or technology. Or your fleet is just very slowly moving to next target. Or you are on timer with wars, and all other neighbours are allies.
If you have planet, terraforming is generally better than habiat. Cheaper (5k energy, no influence) and with better yield.
But maybe you habe run out of planets.
You can think of it as late game mineral sink.
COuld conquere half halaxy without single habitat.

 

[The Kombinator]

You can spam them. You can build multiple habitats at the same time in different systems. As a super wide warmonger i use them for fun mostly. Boosting my research by having dozens of habitats at home while using the colossus CB to conquer everyone.

 

[redomer]

I personally wonder why we build habitas in space instead of on worlds. Should be easy and cheap to plop on a barren and frozen worlds since space to surface transit appears to be a non issue.

 

[Oscot]

I personally wonder why we build habitas in space instead of on worlds. Should be easy and cheap to plop on a barren and frozen worlds since space to surface transit appears to be a non issue.

Yeah, I wondered this too, although my objection is more in terms of gameplay and theme than gravity-well physics.
It just seems a bit convoluted that you have all these planets just sitting around, and habitats are tied to them one-to-one... but land ON the Barren planet? No no no, that won't do at all!
As violations of the principle of parsimony go, it's fairly egregious.

 

[redomer]

I mean gravity well is the only downside I could think of.

 

[Jorrhast]

Can you build more than one habitat per system?

You can build simultaneously only one per system but other than that, they are only limited by your minerals/influence income - you can build as many of them in different systems as you want. Oh, and also they can only be built on "main" planets, not moons. In case of gas giants it may lead to strange things like you can build it over gas giant but not over its moon even if it is a habitable planet.
Also, maybe someone already said that but after you take Master Builders, your habs from that points onward(only new ones, sadly) will be size 15.

 

[redomer]

Also, maybe someone already said that but after you take Master Builders, your habs from that points onward(only new ones, sadly) will be size 15.

I am fairly certain that I got 15 tiles on all my habits in my current game. Might be mods tho.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

I mean gravity well is the only downside I could think of.

I mean, building on a planetary surface and building in space have different challenges and advantages.

At the point you can cram an entire small planet's worth of population into an artificial can-in-the-sky, perhaps it simply makes more sense to build freely in three dimensions and with the freedoms afforded by zero-gravity environments than to worry about building more clumsily and with concerns like stable foundations or hostile climates on barren/toxic/magma worlds.

 

[semaphore]

Also, maybe someone already said that but after you take Master Builders, your habs from that points onward(only new ones, sadly) will be size 15.

Nope, taking Master Builders upgrades all of your habitats to size 15. If you conquer someone else's habitat, that gets upgraded to 15 too.

edit: oops, sorry @redomer

 

[WandererRTF]

They also count as worlds for the victory conditions so if you are playing the game just to win it then the habitat spam is a one way to accomplish for the pacifists.